Mr ADAMS (7:13 PM) —The Quarantine Amendment Bill 1998 is a result of the government's response to the Nairn report. Its purpose is to identify and spell out ministerial authority and responsibility in the enabling legislation through the transference of major regulatory powers. In the dying days of the Labor government, former Senator Bob Collins established an independent committee to review Australia's quarantine policies and programs. This was after a number of problems with certain pests being brought into Australia and quarantine measures that had proven to be faulty or insufficiently resourced to deal with this problem. When the new government took over, they continued the quarantine review, which was commendable and sensible. I believe both sides of the House believed that there were some serious problems with our quarantine operations and that we certainly did need a review. Because many of the systems were old and using outdated technology, it was time for an upgrade to modernise certain sections of our quarantine service.

The government's response to the Nairn report accepted the majority of the recommendations; however, they did not accept that a new body should be formed to try to separate out the duties of quarantine. Nairn recognised, as I think many of the submissions to the inquiry did, that there was a problem having the political process too close to the risk assessment process, that quarantine measures should remain at defending Australia's borders against the introduction of pests and not be part of the risk analysis process.

Many of us by now would have followed the debate about the salmon industry and concerns about the introduction of Canadian salmon. If my colleagues have not actually followed the debate, they would have sampled the product as we have had a number of excellent tastes. Mr Deputy Speaker, I can remember you taking the opportunity of tasting Tasmanian salmon, and an excellent taste sensation you would have had. Tasmania has a product that cannot really be equalled anywhere in the world. It is unique, and I believe it is the best product produced in the world—short of looking for the Scottish wild salmon, which is not easy to buy and pretty expensive when you do. The Tasmanian salmon is a unique phenomenon. The industry has worked very hard against all sorts of odds and natural disasters, like overwarm water in certain years and plagues of jellyfish in others, and they have built something that has put Tasmania on the map economically. In fact, it has now become one of the chief primary industry exports in monetary terms and is extremely important to us.

Suddenly, we are in a situation of trying to ensure that we do not endanger this resource by the import of disease through another country's salmon—a country that has had difficulties controlling disease. Disease in fish is very quickly spread and, when in water, it is almost impossible to eradicate. Despite all our efforts, it seems that the World Trade Organisation has seen fit to ask Australia why we cannot abide by their recommendations in a time frame of around six months. Some of this time has already passed. To my mind, something has gone awfully wrong with this process, and I am not sure that it will be fixed by the adoption of these regulations.

As people are probably aware, in the response of the Nairn report there was a section in which fish quarantine was to be considered by AQIS so as they could meet key recommendations in the National Fish Task Force report over the next four years to review the risks associated with importing fish and fish products into Australia. I think they will receive a substantial amount of money over that four-year period to help them modernise and to have the people to carry out those tasks. This was in 1997. We now have a situation where we are being forced by some other authority—of course, outside Australia—to allow imports because we have no mechanism yet to argue against it. Time has run out before we are half way there. This takes me to the whole issue of world trade and who it is actually run for. I am wondering if Australia is the country that benefits from most of the arrangements and how the devil we can protect our industries from the entry of disease.

Quarantine is so terribly important to Australia. We are a nation of islands. I say that because our nation is made up of a number of islands, contrary to what the Prime Minister seems to think when he talks of our vast island continent. He rather leaves Tasmania off the map, something I take great exception to, and I see that the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party in Tasmania also took exception today by making some reference in the press along those lines—and rightfully so.

Islands, of course, have opportunities that other nations do not have in that they are isolated. This is a problem in some areas such as transport but, where we lose, there can be gain. The fact is that we can be isolated somewhat from diseases and pests that move so easily between countries that have land borders between them. So when we have an opportunity, we should do something to boost the ability of Australia to make sure that any risk assessment that is done is done in favour of Australia, not some other nation. We have seen the results of that before, and what we have seen has not been very pretty.

There are several issues that I had come across, in a practical sense, which I see are picked up. In some of my work I can remember a flower grower having great difficulties with the cost of shifting flowers to be inspected in the Sydney area—in coming from outside Sydney and having to go into Sydney and having to go to a quarantine area. I see that the act gives authority for approval of commercial places where goods of quarantine interest may be treated or otherwise dealt with. I think that is a new area, to let people have opportunities for officers to perform their duties at a marketplace or something like that. That will certainly save some growers a considerable amount of money in transportation. Those sorts of issues were some of the concerns that I found coming out of industry, such as the actual cost that was being imposed on them. So to take into consideration some of those issues, such as a national scheme of private premises for the use of quarantine purposes, is very good because the quarantine services are extremely important to us.

The member for Calare touched on the fire blight issue. I was very involved in that a year or two ago, especially through the House committee. In dealing with that issue, we went to New Zealand. The fire blight issue cost the Tasmanian apple industry a year's export into Japan—a market they had just established and were ready to go with, and that was cancelled at the last minute to make sure that we were fire blight free. I can remember the issues that took place on the borders of Victoria and New South Wales and the cost that was levied on people. People may have played state politics to look after themselves—as these things get going—and people suffered. Truck operators, working people in those areas and the growers of those fruits had extra costs shoved on them.

I do not believe governments should be cutting back in our quarantine area. I believe they should be upgrading, getting the new technologies and training the people in the skills that are needed in this area. Another area that came to mind that I dealt with was the great difficulty we had with ballast water coming into Tasmania, and we believe that the starfish that is now reaping its progress across the Derwent River could pose a threat to our oyster industry in the future and certainly some of our scallop industry. These things are now under the AQIS head. They need to be looked after, but they need money and they need people to have those skills.

The privatisation of inspection services is also a major concern to me. Other countries pay for their quarantine services and I think we should also do that. We should not be cutting back; we should be giving our quarantine service the support that it needs. We need to have a lot of transparency in it so that people understand why quarantine is important, and education programs are of major importance in that area. It is good to see this legislation come before us, and it will be supported by this side of the House.