Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I present two ministerial statements relating to the global economy and import conditions for apples from New Zealand.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion relating to the statement by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in relation to the import conditions for apples from New Zealand.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the statement.

Needless to say, there is significant concern in agricultural sectors, particularly the apple and pear growing sectors, about the import of apples—especially given that, even though this process included the opportunity for industry to comment on the revised draft import risk assessment released by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry some time ago, the sum effect of that was that nothing the industry said had any impact on the decision. While there is a perception that industry has had the opportunity to have some input into and a say in this process, the net impact is that the government has effectively gone with the draft import risk assessment that was released by the government two or three months ago. Effectively the government has gone with the decision of the Prime Minister when she made a statement to the New Zealand parliament while she was there, I think in April, that we would of course accept the WTO decision. Certainly she gave the impression that it did not really matter what industry here in Australia was going to say; we were just going to let New Zealand apples in.

There is sincere and significant concern here in Australia that we will end up with fire blight. The New Zealanders say they do not worry about fire blight anymore; they have learned to live with it. Of course they have—they have had it since the 1920s or so, so of course they have learned to manage it. We are one of the few places that does not have fire blight, and we do not have the expense of dealing with it. Industry is understandably more than concerned about this decision, and particularly the pear growing sector. One of the reasons New Zealand does not have a pear industry is that they have fire blight, and fire blight is completely and utterly devastating for the pear industry. If anyone has seen a photograph of the impact of fire blight on a pear tree, they will know that growers effectively forget about growing pears. That is what has happened in New Zealand. I have had correspondence from someone in New Zealand saying: 'Why worry about our apples? I am enjoying one of your pears.' Of course he was enjoying one of Australia's pears—because of fire blight you cannot get a pear commercially in New Zealand.

All through this process there has been a withholding of information. Industry tried and tried to get access to New Zealand's integrated fruit management plan. They were told that it was commercial-in-confidence and it was not until the opposition demanded in this chamber that those documents be released that they were finally released. When they were released, we discovered that they were largely as prepared in the import risk assessment. All the government had to do was tell the industry that this was a reproduction of what was in the integrated fruit management plan and the industry would have understood that. But, no, the government would not put that on the table. They said sorry, you cannot have it, it is commercial-in-confidence. So of course this huge level of distrust has developed between industry and the government over this process. How could the industry not be furious about this decision and be complaining bitterly about the result it has had?

The industry through the consultation process actually put some very sensible propositions to the government. They asked that no apples be imported into Australia from orchards affected by fire blight. The New Zealand integrated fruit management system identifies those orchards, because the orchards are treated; they are sprayed. It is very easy to identify orchards with fire blight. My understanding is that only about 10 per cent of New Zealand orchards have an incidence of fire blight on an annual basis, so let us just rule them out. That lowers the risk and mitigates some of the issues. We are going to have just a simple quality assurance program. What we are being asked to accept here in Australia for the defence of our disease-free status is a quality assurance system.

One of the other questions the industry has is where is the verification system? Where is there a strong process of verification? My understanding is that the shadow minister put to the minister last week a request that we have a completed QA process, a full verification process, before the fruit is shipped. I would have thought that was a simple process that did not step outside the bounds of what is reasonable. Let us have verification that all the things that are supposed to be done are done before the fruit is shipped. Then we can have a level of confidence that there is proper verification down the supply chain, and particularly through the packing process and the inspection process. Even that has been ignored.

Given the science we have had put in front of us that fire blight loses its viability over time, it would have been quite reasonable to impose a short withholding period. My understanding is that fire blight does not seem to be an issue anymore for New Zealand apples going to Japan because there is a two-month withholding period for other pests and diseases and over that time the fire blight bacterium decays and becomes no longer viable. Why not put something simple like that in place to mitigate the issues that might impact on the industry here? But, no, the government has not accepted anything the industry has said and the industry is justifiably concerned. Apple and Pear Australia Ltd said today:

The measures adopted in the final policy and determination for the importation of New Zealand apples are horrendously weak and we are extremely concerned that the three pests recognised as major risks to our biosecurity won't be controlled to the degree the industry requires.

Industry remain concerned about the possibility of fire blight coming to this country and I think it is reasonable that they continue to be concerned. The industry goes on to say:

It is critically important that the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service maintains a high level of diligence in New Zealand and that there is no leniency in applying the phytosanitary measures.

One concerning thing which came through in this process was a statement by one of the representatives of the New Zealand industry who talked about the efficacy of the New Zealand system. There was an outbreak of one of the diseases in Taiwan that the biosecurity system was supposed to cover. This goes back to the issue of the withholding period. There was a breakdown in the New Zealand system which allowed a disease to get into Taiwan. The response from the CEO of Pipfruit New Zealand, Mr Peter Bevan, was:

No system is perfect and systems break down.

That is what we are supposed to accept—that no system is perfect, systems do not work all the time, systems break down and an admission from Pipfruit New Zealand that this does not work 100 per cent of the time. I do not think that is acceptable.

It is really disappointing that the minister has not chosen to accept any of the sensible recommendations made by the industry here in Australia. I believe we are therefore in a situation where our industry has been exposed to the potential for fire blight. We know what it will do to the pear industry and we know that it will have an impact on our apple industry. It is extremely disappointing that we have gone down that track today where the minister has effectively refused to listen to anything industry has said.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the ministerial statement tabled in relation to the import of New Zealand apples, in particular the risk of fire blight. This parliament has considered this issue for many years. It has been before rural and regional committees many times and we have spoken to people in the department very often on this subject. The fact of the matter is that several years ago officials before our committee accepted that fire blight would come to Australia. That was accepted—it will come here. Let us not pretend that we are having any discussion other than an acceptance of the fact that, whatever quality assurance processes are put in place, the reality is that one way or another fire blight will come to Australia.

The question then becomes: will it spread? That is the point over which there was considerable contention and discussion. My view is, if you import a disease of this kind, it is inevitable that it will spread. The officials, however, have argued that that will not be the case. Frankly, I cannot and do not accept that. We know this is a devastating disease to the apple and pear industry and we know that when you have it, it fundamentally changes things. It is not just the occasional tree that you might be able to excise; it means wipe out, gone, finish. You can lose virtually the entire orchard or the entire district that might have been dedicated to apple and pear growing. So we know what the consequences will be.

Australians must be asking themselves today: how is it that a nation with disease-free status, with an industry which trades on its disease-free status, would allow these products into Australia and risk that disease-free status? Why would Australia do it? Why would we go down this track? The answer is because of the World Trade Organisation rules. It is as simple as that. I am just so tired of the dedication in the Australian parliament to the extremes of the World Trade Organisation rules of free trade.

The Europeans must laugh at us every step of the way because, while they say they are committed to the WTO rules, never did a group of people subsidise and protect their agricultural product at every turn more than the Europeans. They say very clearly that their aim is to make sure that the European Union is self-sufficient across seasonal and latitudinal zones so that they can always be self-sufficient in food, that it is fundamental to their culture that they be able to grow their own food across their regions and they are sticking to the maintenance of small farms with massive subsidies. Australia can bleat its way around the Doha Round at every session of the world trade talks but the reality is that protectionism is there.

What has changed fundamentally is that with climate change and extreme weather events we are now seeing massive disruption to global food supply. The result has been that several countries have abandoned the world trade system. They have recognised that it does not matter how much money you have; if you have money but countries decide to withhold food, not to sell it, then you cannot buy it on the global market. That is why countries like China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Qatar have now said: 'Right, that's it. We will trade when it suits us but more particularly we are going to outsource our food production so that when there is a global food crisis we can just grow for ourselves at our outsourced land and water and bring that food back to the domestic market and completely ignore the trade rules.' That is why China has gone out, why the Saudis have gone out and why Qatar has gone out. They are buying up hundreds of thousands of hectares across the planet and the water rights to go with them. In the case of the Pakistanis, not only have they sold the land and water but they have sold a security force which goes with it because they recognise that at the time these food shortages really start to bite there will be hungry people outside the fences who want that food. So those countries will want to make sure that they can get that food out and back to their own countries, where they need it to be.

The whole set of World Trade Organ­isation rules pertaining to trade around food are now under serious question in the context of global food security. How do you main­tain secure supplies of food in a global market and in an age of climate change in which outsourcing of food production is now becoming a fairly common thing for some of those countries?

People who are trying to protect Australia's disease-free status are auto­matically accused of trying to bring in protectionism. Minister Emerson is out there arguing, in every second speech he gives, that anyone who stands up and says that we need to protect our disease-free status and go strictly with science to get that disease-free status right is a protectionist and is using quarantine for protection—trying to protect Australian growers against competition. The reality here is that we have disease-free status and that is incredibly valuable. As a Tasmanian, I am more than aware of the significance of our environment in ensuring there is a significant premium, because we are disease free, for Tasmanian product going into all sorts of markets.

Australia is disease free. There are many countries who would, quite frankly, be very pleased if Australia got fire blight, because that would level up the playing field. Everyone would be very happy with that outcome, except the growers in Australia. You would say, 'This makes no sense; we do not want these apples from New Zealand.' The point is that Australia did say that we did not want the apples, but New Zealand took us to the WTO. We lost in the WTO. The appeal has been through, but we lost that as well. The situation is that, because of our commitment to WTO rules, Australia would, if it persisted in keeping the New Zealand apples out, run the risk of New Zealand taking retaliatory action against us big time. They could take retaliatory action against any other products—and Australia trades massively with New Zealand.

I am very aware that the coalition solution is to introduce a disallowable instrument which would enable the parliament to disallow any part of any free trade agreement in the future. That is a very interesting turn of events. It would make global news because it would mean that the coalition had abandoned the notion of the free trade system and was giving the parliament the ability to dismantle free trade agreements and any parts thereof. That is an interesting thing that shadow minister Cobb is talking about doing. It would certainly shake up the whole WTO process and where Australia sits in it.

From the Greens' point of view, it is essential that we not only maintain our disease-free status and use the best science we have to defend our disease-free status but also recognise that, as long as we have a slavish adherence to the WTO rules, we are always going to be in this situation and we are always going to be fighting. The reason is that the basis on which we export is 'negligible risk'. It is not 'no risk'; it is 'negligible risk'. We say we send our product overseas on the basis it is negligible risk and, as a result, the New Zealanders say, 'You have these apples—since it is negligible risk, it comes into the same category.'

The discussion we should be having in this parliament is about how we are going to respond to the changed global trade environment in an age of food security and insecurity. How are we going to produce enough food for our own people and meet our moral obligation to supply as much food as we possibly can into a global scenario where people are going to be desperate for food? That is the reality of where we are going on this planet and that is the conver­sation we need to be having. It needs to be a much bigger conversation than just this.

I recognise the stress we are under in relation to fire blight and I particularly recognise the stress that those apple growers and pear growers are under because of this decision. I ask the government: what are you going to do when, inevitably, fire blight gets to Australia? And who is going to be liable? Who is going to pay and compensate the farmers concerned when fire blight devastat­es orchards? I cannot believe we will be in a scenario where that is not going to happen.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the ministerial statement on import conditions for apples. For 10 years I have been chairman of the committee that has kept the apples out and kept bananas out and looked at why we got citrus canker and kept BSE meat out and kept foot-and-mouth meat from Brazil out. This is an insult to the apple industry. What this is really all about is the government saying, 'Let's find a political way to get these apples in,' instead of, as we used to say, a scientific way to keep them out. This is a complete forfeiture of the rights of Australian apple growers. As everyone has pointed out, the import risk analysis, or IRA, on this said, 'We will bring in fire blight.' It is there in black and white. But, magically, it is not going to get out into the orchards.

The reason New Zealand enjoys our pears and we have not enjoyed their apples is because they have fire blight and so they have no pears. The whole thing is just a political exercise in determination to satisfy the people who sit around and drink wine in Geneva at the World Trade Organisation. It is a lowering-of-the-bar exercise which is going across all trade around the world to make it simpler to bring back to the pack people who, like us, have a trading advantage through being clean, green and free. It is exactly the same as the BSE argument and we had to do a lot of work to stop that. This is the same principle. With the BSE and the beef, the Canadian government eventually came back and we said, 'What about an IRA?' and they said, 'We do not have the resources to comply with that.' The US came back and said, 'Stick it—the American cattlemen's association does not want to have full traceability, they do not want to close the border with Mexico and they do not want to close the border with Canada and there is no such thing as a BSE-free herd.' This is the same thing.

Fire blight in New Zealand is not a reportable disease because it is endemic. What they do is go around saying, 'Oh, God, blimey, it is too high; I won't prune that one.' The evidence is that we are going to have apples coming into Australia from trees which have fire blight. They have accepted that because, they say, it is not going to get out into our orchards. The original IRA said we would have to have buffer zones and so on. Under the science, there is an acceptance that we are going to bring fire blight in but that it is not going to do us any harm—it is going to be under a code of farm manage­ment practices. I note that there is no-one here from the Labor Party to respond, probably because they are all ashamed that a political imperative has taken over the right to keep our industry clean, green and free. They are saying, 'Oh, well, our farm manage­ment practices will sort this out.' They would not show us their farm management pract­ices. They would not let us go to an apple orchard. I know as a farmer that every farmer has a different farm management practice, so that is just jiggery-pokery political garbage.

What are we doing? We are going to go along with it. For God's sake, New Zealand are in court now locked up with the pork growers because the WTO—you cannot have your bloody cake and eat it too—has said to New Zealand that they have to take pork from countries that have porcine reproduct­ive and respiratory syndrome, and they have said, 'No, we don't want to take it because we haven't got it.' It is the AIDS equivalent in pigs. At the same time as they are at the WTO telling us that we have to take their apples, they are in court saying, 'We don't want to take the pigs.'

If they actually lose that case in their court, because it is a lowering-the-bar exercise, the people who want to take this pork into New Zealand will go to the WTO and say, 'New Zealand has taken it therefore Australia should take it,' which was what the BSE thing was all about. The Yanks and the Canadians did not want to bring beef into Australia particularly. They wanted us to lose the advantage that we have in Korea and Japan every time they get a BSE reactor. Bear in mind there is no live test for BSE and there is no sterilisation for the prion of the CJD human variant. Yet, under the trade arrangements with the trade minister in this government, he was suggesting, as were the dead-head cattlemen's council, that we should take this beef into Australia just to satisfy the people that drink wine at the WTO in Geneva.

How much of this crap have we got to put up with? What is wrong with this govern­ment? Who is going to get the sack or a smack in the ear if we do what the import risk analysis says and import fire blight? How can it be and what game is being played that an official can fly into Australia one night and fly out the next night after having had a walk through the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne—which I walked through the other day just to get the feel of the place—found an obscure plant in a whole heap of other plants and said that it had fire blight? What sort of game are we being played here? They are trying to play us on a break. It is a disgrace.

We have only another four minutes all up so I had better sit down and be quiet, but this is not the finish of it. The government must understand that the one trade advantage we have in Australia is our clean, green and free status. As for the free trade agreements, which we enacted with the United States when the dollar was 67c, we now have a 40 per cent tariff against us through the currency, having got rid of the tariffs. Thank you very much.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I endorse the remarks of Senators Colbeck, Milne and Heffernan. This is without doubt one of the worst decisions that this government has made, and that is a big call. I say it with despair because the implication of this decision is to put the entire apple and pear industry in this nation at risk. It is a case where the decision has been made on very poor premises, where the goalposts have been shifted, and where Biosecurity Australia has failed Australian farmers and Australian consumers as a result.

I agree with Apple and Pear Australia and their statement today, which said:

... Biosecurity Australia (BA) has abandoned apple and pear growers across Australia and the whole industry is now fearful of fire blight, leaf curling midge or European canker entering this country.

Why on earth are we risking our clean, green, disease-free status? This is an extraordinary decision. Is this the thin end of the wedge? What next for our potato industry? What next for our horticulture industry? We know what happened with myrtle rust, which has devastated and damaged the nursery industry across the country. Once fire blight is in this country, that is it; you cannot eradicate it. We have a situation in the Goulburn Valley where they are 10 times more prone to fire blight than in New Zealand, and we can see how quickly fire blight has spread in New Zealand. This is free trade gone mad. This is about opening the door to the destruction of our horticulture industry in this country.

I recently obtained some information from my contacts within the apple and pear industry. My understanding is—and I call on the government to confirm or deny that this is the case—that several weeks ago at a meeting between industry representatives and the parliamentary secretary, Catherine King, the whole issue of how to contain fire blight was raised. It seems that the only way you can contain fire blight is to use streptomycin, an antibiotic, the use of which is banned in this country. It is an antibiotic that Professor Peter Collignon, Professor of Medicine at the Australian National University, has very serious concerns about because once it gets into our food chain it reduces the antibiotic resistance of the population. There are huge public health implications in relation to that. My understanding is that the government's response is that there will be, as a result of this decision, contingency plans to allow the use of streptomycin here in Australia. If that is the case, that is very disturbing.

Basically the government is saying that this will happen. It is conceding defeat. We will put up the white flag of surrender. We are abandoning our farmers. I would urge the government that it is not too late to reconsider this. The so-called safeguards in place will not provide the bulwark that we need to prevent the introduction of fire blight. It is not a case of if; it is a case of when we get fire blight in this country. When we do, the only way to contain it is through the use of streptomycin, an antibiotic, a chemical that is banned for use in this country today. But that will have to change as a result of this decision.

I would like confirmation from the government as to whether the use of streptomycin was considered and whether lifting the ban has been considered in this country. If it has done so it has huge public health implications. I would urge the government to reconsider its position. This is a disaster that is just waiting to happen.

Question agreed to.