Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Riverina might dispute this but, of course, we have the famous Adelaide Hills pink ladies, which are by far and away, according to my children at least, the best apples ever produced. We also produce beautiful honey in the Adelaide Hills, and on Kangaroo Island too. We are very proud of the export-quality food that we produce.

Honey has been a topic that we have debated in this parliament in the last couple of weeks. In particular, we had ‘honey meets parliament’, which highlighted a national disgrace at the moment, that the government would not commit a small amount of money—I think it was $10 million—to ensure action against the Asian honey bee, which is such a risk not only to our honey production in this country but also to the pollination aspect given the importance of pollination in Australia. Not many would know that in the early part of Australian settlement we had to import bees from Europe to pollinate crops. We were running out of fresh food in Australia in the early 19th century because we did not have pollinating bees so we imported them from England to ensure that we had fresh food. Now we have this huge risk of Asian honey bees exposing Australia to enormous risk because they do not pollinate crops. The risk for our export industries as well as for our domestic food production is significant and for just $10 million we could prevent that from happening. I think it is a disgrace that the government is not investing that money today to ensure that happens.

The member for Makin referred to issues in relation to apple importation from New Zealand and China. Many in the apple and pear industry have great concerns about importation from both countries because of the disease risk. My view is that if we are confident that they are clear of disease it is fine because I am very confident that my producers in the Adelaide Hills will walk all over any competition from international competitors and from domestic competitors as well. But we need to make sure they are on a level playing field. A real concern that I have is that this government has not invested enough in making sure that we have a level playing field. Investing in the science, particularly the quarantine science, is good for our future; it is important for our future. There should be an immediate decision today by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Ludwig, to invest more money in our quarantine system. We know the state Labor governments have cut the guts out of primary industries departments across the country, particularly in South Australia. It is not good enough. One thing that we can do arising from this motion today is invest more to make a real difference for the future.

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