Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It would be an understatement to say that there is a lot happening in the world today. Australia as a nation has a lot on its plate. But our country is facing another potential national crisis, a crisis that threatens our entire industry in the state of Queensland, threatens to cause a devastating impact on livelihoods and threatens to put Australia in a position that it can never repair or reverse. I am talking about the danger of exploding pineapples. You heard me correctly: the issue of exploding pineapples is one that threatens to engulf Queensland's $80 million fresh pineapple industry.

Can you imagine the catastrophe? One minute you are walking past a peaceful pineapple patch in the hinterland, and the next—bang!—a pineapple spontaneously explodes like a hand grenade. According to the respected industry leaders we are in grave danger or becoming a nation of exploding pineapples. This might sound slightly exaggerated and not the hallmark of a serious national issue. But let me explain. Exploding pineapples could be the result if this nation does not listen to current warnings from our nation's key pineapple supply industry. The industry is concerned about a move to allow the importation into Australia of fresh pineapples from Malaysia. Let me make it clear. My comments today are not a racial slur designed to offend our friends in Malaysia or their pineapples. But they are designed to highlight the fact that the Australian pineapples industry is highly vulnerable and that importing fresh, decrowned pineapples from our Asian neighbours could introduce a disease that could potentially decimate our own industry, the result of which would be to ruin our local growers and lead to paddocks of pineapples spontaneously exploding.

It may sound as though I am making light of this matter, but let me assure you: this is a real disease, this is a real threat, this is a real national issue. The disease I am talking about is the pineapples strain of Erwinia chrysanthemi. The disease is an internal rot that has been known to make the pineapple explode. Part of the cause is an internal build-up of noxious gas that swells up inside the fruit. There is no known method of dealing with the disease and no known way to eradicate it. A decrowned pineapple is one that has had its green head removed. In Australia, all of our major industry is based in Queensland, supplying about 60,000 tonnes of fruit a year.

My home town of Yeppoon, on the Central Queensland Capricorn cost, is the headquarters for a company called Tropical Pines. Sourcing fruit from all over the state, Tropical Pines supplies 45 per cent of our nation's appetite for fresh pineapple. I have a huge interest in this industry. Earlier this year I brought 300 fresh Yeppoon pineapples to parliament house in Canberra to distribute to my federal colleagues. My 'pines for parliament' campaign aimed to highlight the agricultural diversity of my electorate of Capricornia.

Only a week ago, I was asked to help judge Yeppoon's Pineapple Festival street parade, which celebrates this tropical Queensland fruit. Now, I ask this question: why would we as Australians want to put at risk an industry that we consider worth celebrating with a community festival?

Industry leaders are distressed by the thought that Australian bureaucrats see nothing wrong with putting our industry at such risk. This disease is most prevalent in the most popular varieties grown in Malaysia, and has been known to wipe out up to 40 per cent of a crop, when detected.

Let me give you a detailed background. The federal Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, or DAFF, has performed an import risk-analysis for the importation of fresh pineapple from Malaysia. Respected members of the Queensland pineapple industry have thoroughly reviewed the document and they believe an error has been made by the department's bureaucrats when assessing the probability and impact of the exploding pineapple disease.

Tropical Pines CEO, Derek Lightfoot, indicates that there is no known method of dealing with the disease and no known way to eradicate it. The only way it is managed is to throw away the pineapples that are showing signs of the disease. Mr Lightfoot asserts that two per cent of contaminated pineapples will not show any signs or warning of the disease, even though they are infected internally.

I would like to read to you part of a report provided to me by the Queensland pineapple industry:

Queensland pineapple industry executives say DAFF is in error, and confuses the frequency or number of diseased pineapples entering Australia, with the real probability of diseased pineapples entering Australia. This is an important distinction. Experienced industry managers like Derek Lightfoot and Mick Cranny maintain that the probability of importation is certain, because up to two per cent of the fruit arriving here will carry the disease in a manner that is not detectable. To quote directly from their assessments:

They say:

Normally, a correct assessment would ensure that additional safeguards should be put in place to prevent this disease coming to Australia, or imports should not be allowed. However, both of the Tropical Pines experts say that the 'key point here is that there are no additional safeguards that can be put in place because there is no known method of treating' this exploding pineapple disease, especially when you cannot see the effects on the outside of the fruit. 'Therefore the import of fresh pineapple from Malaysia, should not be allowed.'

Australia is a country in which we cannot even take fruit across our own state borders without risking a fine, because of the apparent risk of spreading disease. In airports like Perth, sniffer dogs roam around baggage collection points to detect passengers who may have carried a banana or a pineapple off a direct flight from Brisbane. Yet our government departments are prepared to allow a fruit with a significant disease risk to freely enter our national borders from Malaysia. We quarantine international race horses prior to the Melbourne Cup, all in the name of disease prevention. We outlaw animals with foot and mouth disease or rabies. Yet, we are a nation that appears willing to allow a dreadful disease to potentially infiltrate our iconic pineapple industry.

We must not allow this nation to suffer from exploding pineapples. Queensland's leading pineapple industry officials go on to assert that DAFF's error is a technical error, but a very dangerous one. As a result, Tropical Pines has provided me with the following questions to ask this House. Why would we allow a disease into Australia that cannot be treated but can wipe out our pineapple industry? Why would we risk the pineapple industry for an annual quota of 200 tonnes of pineapples from Malaysia when we already produce 60,000 tonnes of pineapples in Australia? The risk-benefit equation makes no sense. Who is liable when this disease takes hold and cannot be eradicated and destroys the Australian pineapple industry—especially when DAFF has made a mistake in the risk analysis?

The pineapple industry in Queensland is worth $80 million a year. We have about 80 growers, and the sale of fresh pineapples is growing at a rate of five per cent per annum. Earlier this year, our colleagues in the Australian Senate completed an inquiry into the importation of decrowned Malaysian pineapples and recommended that they should not be allowed to enter our country. Yet bureaucrats from DAFF are bent on pushing ahead with the importation.

Meanwhile, agricultural experts report that in Hawaii the same disease affected other plants that were grown in soil that had been infected by the exploding pineapple disease. Today, I call on common sense to prevail. Bureaucrats have the power to halt this madness. Do we want to be among the world's leading nations of exploding pineapples, or do we want to ensure that we maintain a healthy and growing Australian industry, of which we can rightly be proud?