Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I can spell it if you need that. I will deal with New Zealand first because the biosecurity arguments there are the strongest ones in the sense that they have been around as arguments between the two nations for 70 years. When I was shadow minister for immigration, I took a quick trip to New Zealand as a guest of the then New Zealand government. I was shadow minister for immigration, and every discussion I had with every member of parliament or government agency began with a discussion about the migration of New Zealand apples to Australia. It is a massive issue for New Zealand, but fire blight is a massive issue for Australia, and we have every right to defend ourselves in every international court.

There are protocols around WTO decisions, protocols which—from leaks that have appeared in the international press—it would be arguable that not everybody has followed. But there is a protocol that there is a gap between when the parties receive a ruling or a draft ruling from the WTO and when they are allowed to make it public. We observe those protocols to the letter. The final report is expected to be made public later in the year, possibly in July, but that will have to follow very strictly the WTO rules about when it is allowed to be made public, and the release of it would come not from me but from the Minister for Trade, as he has principal carriage of the issue. (Extension of time granted) The issue of an appeal obviously always depends on legal advice and is a call made by the Minister for Trade in the final instance, not by me, although it is an issue on which we do work closely together.

Without in any way compromising the formalities of the process we are in, I will just say there is no difference between the vigorous way in which this government will defend Australia’s biosecurity in every international court and the way in which every previous Australian government has defended our biosecurity in every international court. I do not know that I can go any further than that without reflecting on information which at this point is still confidential.

With respect to New Zealand, that applies to the fire blight issues surrounding both apples and pears. China is different. Since 1999, pears from China have been allowed into Australia. That means that a large number of biosecurity issues and the science on apples had in fact already been resolved to Australia’s satisfaction since 1999. The issue of the pest whose name I have pronounced once—and I will leave it at that; we will refer to them as the suzukii pest—has been raised by industry recently. I know the shadow minister has met with the peak industry body. The peak industry body were offered a meeting with my office, but it was not at a time they could do, in fairness to them, and we are still finalising another meeting. There is certainly no reticence from me or from them about sitting down and working through this issue.

Any decision on the pest that has been referred to will be made on the basis of the science and will be made at arm’s length from the minister, as previous ministers have done. But a decision will be made on the basis of the science, and if the science says there is a biosecurity problem which has only recently come to light then I have no doubt that the Director of Biosecurity will act according to the responsibilities he holds in that job by making sure that the level of risk that is dealt with for Australia is kept at the appropriate level of very low but not zero. I cannot answer further than that, as the shadow minister would respect, without there being a ministerial direction of that nature to the Director of Biosecurity, and I think we would both agree that to go that distance would be inappropriate.

In terms of particular references that have been made by others, any recommendations obviously will not be taken lightly but extremely seriously. I go to issues first raised by the member for Gippsland and echoed by the member for New England with respect to Landcare, and then there were a couple of other issues that were raised by the member for New England. On Landcare, I believe that part of the way in which the member for Gippsland described the issue is accurate. Some of it is, I think, rhetoric which does not quite match the truth, but some of it is accurate. Is there less money for Landcare? In the forward estimates of this budget, when compared to the forward estimates of the previous budget, the answer to that is yes. Is there more money for Landcare next year than there was last year? Yes. Is there more money again for Landcare the year after that? Yes. So what does that mean? First of all, in dollar terms, in 2009-10 there is $35.1 million for the National Landcare Program; in 2010-11, $36.2 million; and in 2011-12, $39.1 million. Would we all—everybody here—liked to have had a situation where the budgetary constraints were different and we had a whole lot more money for Landcare? Of course we would. But I do not believe it is reasonable to put it in the terms that the member for Gippsland did. He said that this would result in a reduction in practical environmental work. You cannot increase the funds and reduce the practical environmental work.

See this speech in context