David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to address the Quarantine Amendment (Disallowing Permits) Bill 2011. In doing so, I would like to recognise Senator Xenophon's deep concern and interest for industries in South Australia, and I think that is shared by all members of parliament in South Australia. Having attended rallies up in the Adelaide Hills with apple and pear growers and seeing people from the Liberal side of politics there and also Family First, Senator Xenophon and others, there is obviously a deal of concern to make sure that we sustain what is a very good industry for South Australia.

There are a couple of issues, though, with this bill. It seeks to address the option for parliament to intervene in imports. This is largely in response to the issue of New Zealand apples and the expected impact that may have due to the presence of fire blight in their orchards, which not only has made apple growing problematic for them—although they have a large industry and they manage it—but also has pretty much obliterated their pear industry. So there is a great concern here that, if fire blight took hold, it would likewise obliterate the pear industry here. So there is a very legitimate concern that has led to this bill. The problem with the bill, though, is that it will apply far more broadly in Australia and will have impacts in many other sectors. What I would like to do is acknowledge the South Australian situation and what has led to the bill. And then I will talk a little more broadly about how the government has responded to the New Zealand issue and to biosecurity more broadly—the need to put in place a suitable framework for biosecurity and, most vitally, what it has done to date in terms of funding for biosecurity. Biosecurity is not just our horticultural sector. It is also about our livestock sector and even things like native forest growth and the opportunity there for carbon sinks. If we are to truly protect industries such as the apple and pear industry in my home state of South Australia, as well as many other industries, there is a whole range of areas where biosecurity is quite important.

In South Australia apples are important. Something like 29,000 tonnes of apples are grown there. The farm-gate value of production there is nearly $60 million and that represents about nine per cent of Australia's apple production. It has exports of around 1,000 tonnes a year which are valued at some $2.8 million. It has about 220 apple growers and about 100 primary produce growers, and the vast majority of those are family owned businesses in the Adelaide Hills. There is a rich history going right back to the 1860s in South Australia. They have obviously been very concerned about the decision to allow New Zealand apples in because of fire blight. In response, the South Australian government has also looked at this and has had a couple of knee-jerk responses—for example, putting in its own quarantine zones. It has been interesting to see that even Apple and Pear Australia Ltd and the growers have said that is not a great idea and have encouraged them to wind back those options. It has been heartening to see some of the supermarkets in South Australia say they will only stock South Australian grown produce. Along with appropriate labelling to give the public the option to choose where they buy things from, I think that is a good way to move ahead.

This bill, in seeking to address the problem Senator Xenophon has identified and brought to our attention, would have a far more broad reaching impact. As we have just heard from the previous speaker, Australia exports significantly more than it imports. It is important for Australia to maintain its integrity within the World Trade Organisation construct and rules so that we can have the fairest and easiest access for our produce into overseas markets—and that is across a whole range of areas.

The New Zealand Apple occurrence is a really good example of why this bill is not a good idea. The bill essentially provides a mechanism whereby the parliament can inject itself into a process that should be something importers and exporters see as a consistent, reliable and transparent process that will allow them to make investment decisions with some certainty around what crops they will grow and what money they will spend in terms of marketing their produce. Our Prime Minister addressed the New Zealand parliament and decided to announce that new Zealand would be able to send their apples to Australia. Biosecurity Australia then had to play catch-up to produce the appropriate IRA to allow that to occur. So the very thing that has led Senator Xenophon to this bill is a classic example of why this bill is not actually a good idea. It is not in the long-term interests of Australia's growers in the apple and pear industry or any other industry that seeks to export its produce from Australia.

The Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport held an inquiry into this bill. A number of stakeholders came together and provided input to the inquiry, and the vast majority of them did not support the bill. The committee argued that the bill was not only unnecessary but also had the potential to weaken Australia's quarantine and biosecurity framework—and that framework is the thing that provides security and certainty for importers and exporters. The committee also indicated that the bill would cause significant and unnecessary delays both in the issuing of permits and to trade itself. The committee acknowledged that the evidence provided by a number of organisations argued strongly against the bill on the basis that it would be contrary to Australia's WTO obligations—and, as I have highlighted, those obligations are important for the viability of our industry to actually maintain exports into a number of countries.

The governance issue and the framework are really where I would like to spend the remainder of the time I have available. The Labor government, to their credit, commissioned Mr Beale to have a quarantine and biosecurity review into the framework of biosecurity in Australia. Mr Beale found that 'it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the agencies are significantly underresourced, putting Australia's economy, people and environment at significant risk'. Despite that, in 2009 the Labor government slashed $58 million from the Customs budget, leading to some four million fewer air cargo consignments being inspected each year and 2,150 fewer vessels being boarded on arrival. There have been further cuts to things like CRCs, which are an investment in our ability to develop the science to actually conduct appropriate biosecurity measures. Given that agricultural production in this country drives around $150 billion a year in economic production—it is about 12 per cent of GDP, about 1.6 million Australian jobs and around $32 billion in exports—cuts to the resources going to biosecurity are obviously not viable.

The reason we need to make sure that biosecurity work, both in framework and in resources allocated to it, has again been borne out by the whole New Zealand apple import issue. Whatever the political background, whatever the flaws in the way it has been arrived at, the people involved have intercepted nearly a quarter of the New Zealand shipments and found that they have not met the requirements—so they have been rejected. Whilst that is pleasing from the point of view that they have been intercepted, what it highlights is that an adequate level of resourcing in a suitable framework is required if we are to maintain the integrity of biosecurity in Australia because the cost of the resources to intercept and stop infected shipments arriving pales into insignificance compared to the cost of constraining an outbreak. We have seen in Australia that just in the horse industry, for example, over $1 billion has been spent trying to constrain outbreaks. If we look at foot and mouth disease, which could have a devastating impact in Australia, or diseases in the apple and pear industry or any number of areas, once an outbreak has occurred the cost to constrain it and recover would be enormous. So it is worrying when we see throughout the Beale review a number of comments that the Commonwealth government needs to increase resources. Recommendation 3, for example, says:

The Commonwealth should increase its resources to support the monitoring, surveillance, investigation and, where appropriate, prosecutions associated with post-border biosecurity detections.

There are a whole range of areas where the review talks about the need for increasing resources as well as increasing cooperation.

When we look at the government's response and the 2011 budget papers what we see is that they have successfully negotiated a draft intergovernmental agreement on biosecurity, but the actual actions that have been taken have been largely around interim inspector-generals—so more bureaucracy—and an expansion of an eminent scientists group to include an economist, and an advisory council. They have put in place a whole range of these measures but not more funding to people on the front line to do the roles that have been identified as necessary.

The South Australian government in their submission last year to the Senate inquiry into biosecurity and quarantine arrangements noted that the formation of Biosecurity SA had integrated a bunch of things because of the value of the agricultural sector and primary production in South Australia. But it goes on to say that, due to budget pressures facing governments, it is going to be difficult to maintain the current capacity to manage biosecurity threats. It talks about a number of things being developed, but goes on to highlight that budget pressures are the significant issue.

This bill goes far broader than the apple issue that caused Senator Xenophon to bring it forward. It would, however, undermine our obligations to the WTO, which is the framework under which most of our primary producers are able to export and which is of great value to Australia. But the critical point is that the growers' concerns have been validated by the import consignments that have already been rejected. It highlights that not only do we need a good framework for biosecurity but it needs to be adequately resourced. The record of this government to date has not shown that it is serious about adequately resourcing the biosecurity framework. So, whilst not supporting Senator Xenophon's bill, I do support his concern and I certainly call on the Labor government to provide adequate resources to make sure we have a biosecurity system that will prevent, as opposed to just respond to, biosecurity issues in Australia.