Justine Keay (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is pleasing to rise on this motion to support the farmers in my area, the producers—and not just the strawberry growers but also our apple producers. Sadly, in Tasmania there have been incidents of contamination with needles in apples found in southern Tasmania. Whether or not that's been deliberate, we don't know. Certainly, the fruitgrowers in Tasmania, particularly our berry growers, have had a really tough time recently, and that's because of the Queensland fruit fly. This will now potentially be very damaging to these growers, if consumers don't get behind them. The good news, particularly for Tasmanian berry growers, is that our berries won't come online for another four to five weeks. It's pleasing to note, from the member for Longman's contribution, that consumers are getting behind these farmers. And I hope, in about five weeks time, when our strawberries come online, that consumers will do the same in Tasmania. However, there are restrictions because of fruit fly.

In my electorate, Craig Morris, a berry grower running Turners Beach Berry Patch, a family business, was terribly hit by fruit fly. Sadly, those berries cannot be taken out of the fruit fly exclusion zone, and that has meant that Craig has had to come up with some very innovative ways of selling on his product—making it into jam, freezing it and doing all sorts of things to ensure that that fruit wouldn't just rot on the ground. The great thing about that grower is you can go onto his farm and pick your own berries. Sadly, though, you have to eat them there because of the restrictions in place as a result of fruit fly. The state government, which was incredibly slow to react to this crisis, is now saying that we potentially won't be fruit fly free until January of next year.

With this new crisis, it's important that Tasmanians get behind our growers, not just in my electorate of north-west Tasmania, where I have significant berry producers—one, in particular, is a corporate grower, Costa's, which produces blueberries, blackberries, strawberries and raspberries—but also in Northern Tasmania, in the member for Bass's electorate, where there are some fantastic strawberry growers up along the Tamar. It's something that our fruitgrowers should not have to deal with, whether it's strawberries, apples or, even, in some cases we've heard of, bananas. What is being proposed by the government is good in the sense that it sends that very strong message to people that you cannot contaminate our food, because it does have enormous impacts on the business of these growers but also on the local economy.

In my area, we've got some fantastic cherry producers as well. Sadly, they've been caught up in the fruit fly exclusion zone as well. They do put on a lot of our young people on the farms, whether they're managing the farms or managing the shifts. A significant number of backpackers come into our region to pick the fruit when it is ready. Of course, after we have our strawberries coming on in the next few weeks, we then go into apples and cherries, so the season in Northern Tasmania is considerably long. There is no doubt that it's high-quality fruit; our fruit is renowned internationally for its quality. But, if people start to baulk at buying these fruits from Tasmania, it will have more impact on those businesses, on jobs and on backpackers coming into our communities and spending their money locally as well.

I want to make it very clear that, whilst Tasmanian strawberries are not implicated in what's happening at the moment, because the berries haven't grown yet, when they have grown, consumers need to get behind our strawberry and other berry producers and our apple producers when they come online a little bit later in the season. They need to cut up the fruit and give it to their children. I've got three small children in my household, and they want to eat all the time. You can imagine what three growing boys want to do when it comes to food. My rule is: 'You can eat as much fruit as you like. You don't even have to ask.' Hopefully, that's something that parents across Australia will get behind to ensure that we support our growers, support the jobs in our local community and make sure that our local economies are strong.

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