Mr ANDREN(4.58 p.m.) —Developments since the motion on the importation of New Zealand apples was presented on 3 March have seen parts of this motion outdated. However, the specific issue it deals with—namely, fire blight and the opening up of our markets to New Zealand apples—remains of vital importance to Australia.

Fire blight—the scourge of any apple and pear industry—is the horticultural equivalent of foot and mouth disease. This bacteria thrives in warmer months and reduces yields by infecting individual fruit, blossoms and trees. In extreme cases, the disease destroys entire orchards.

Once established, fire blight is almost impossible to cure. Its symptoms are treatable only by an expensive antibiotic which is not available in Australia and is not wanted because it adds another unknown dimension to the artificial control of disease in our primary industry and has obvious impacts on the environment—even by the secondary route of the need, as the member for Murray (Mrs Stone) pointed out, to incredibly increase our water regime once more and contribute to, in her case, the further salination of the Murray-Darling Basin.

If fire blight takes hold in Australia, it threatens to devastate our apple and pear industries and contribute more to the degradation of our environment. On one estimate, the disease would cut output in these industries by $922 million over the next six years, interfere with interstate trade, damage our growing export markets and lead to thousands of job losses directly and to many more in associated industries.

While 34 countries in the world are fire blight declared, until earlier this year Australia was thought to be free of the disease. I believe it is still essentially free. But it all changed with the coincidental and, dare I say, controversial discovery in May of the dreaded disease in Melbourne and Adelaide botanic gardens. It was coincidental because the discoveries were made just as AQIS was in the throes of recommending rejection of a New Zealand application to export apples to Australia; and it was controversial because the discoveries were made by two New Zealand scientists—supposedly in Australia on holidays—who happened to stumble across the disease in these popular public gardens. Since this discovery, the disease has been confirmed as fire blight, but perhaps not the most virulent strain, by Australian and German scientists.

At this stage—and luckily—the outbreak is thought to have been confined to the two botanic gardens sites. The fruit growing regions of Victoria and South Australia have been given the all clear, but not before suffering greatly from bans being placed on their produce by their northern neighbours while, as the member for Lyons (Mr Adams) indicated, the Tasmanian Fuji export opportunity to Japan has been lost for this year at least.

For the sake of the industry, and especially for the hundreds of apple and pear growers and nurseries in my electorate of Calare, I sincerely hope AQIS is correct in predicting the disease has been contained or eradicated. But we will not know that until well after spring. However, in the meantime, the question remains: what is to be done about the importation of apples from New Zealand? According to AQIS, no final decision will be made on New Zealand's application until the full extent of the disease in Australia is confirmed.

There are three possible outcomes: firstly, the survey will confirm the disease; secondly, it will find that the disease remains in the botanic gardens but has been contained; or, thirdly, it will show that the disease has in fact broken out. Undoubtedly, New Zealand is now in the process of compiling its response to our refusal, pending AQIS's final decision, and anxiously—if not maliciously—hoping that the spring survey confirms the disease has not been contained so they can argue that their apples should be let in.

Regardless of the outcome, the government's preliminary decision to reject New Zealand's application should remain as is. Even if the disease has not been contained to the botanic garden sites, fire blight is not widespread in Australia. At most, it will be restricted to some areas of Victoria and South Australia. Because of this, our internal quarantine measures should be able to restrict its spread.

I do not envy the government's position but trust that, with the Nairn review and the botanic gardens scare, measures will be put in place to ensure fire blight is eradicated and kept out of Australia for good. We must not allow this to be interpreted as a chink in our quarantine wall, with the wall therefore having to be demolished. That would suit New Zealand and other countries determined to infect the mythical level playing field with every disease under the sun. AQIS's decision to reject New Zealand's application was the correct one. Under no circumstances should the government allow New Zealand apples into Australia. I commend the member for Lyons's motion to the House. (Time expired)