Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

and we do tend to take it for granted—the member for McMillan would agree with this—that we can go and buy some of the best quality food in the world in our country. We seem to think that it will be there forever, but it will not be if our biosecurity is put at risk as it is being put at risk now. We take it for granted when we go to buy our fruit and vegetables at the local fruit and vegetable market, or wherever we go, that they are going to be of the quality and standard that we expect and demand and enjoy. I have great faith in our growers, but I am very concerned about the organic growers, because they cannot use strept­omycin. How does an organic grower deal with fire blight in that instance? This has the potential to do a lot of harm and it also affects a whole range of other genera. We know that well. It could well affect the cotoneaster group. There are a whole lot of ornamental pear trees as well, in a whole lot of gardens right around this nation, that could be affected by this.

So this is not a simple issue. Certainly Biosecurity Australia should be applying the utmost rigour to this and not be trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. The debate on this bill covers quite a bit of ground, but it hits on the importance of biosecurity and the types of products coming to Australia, where they emanate from, how they are grown, how they are produced and whether they meet the standards that we in Australia comply with and that give us the opportunity be the producers of some of the best food in the world. This is very important in consideration of this bill, and I put those concerns on the table.

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