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January 2012
Kiwi apples put Tasmania and Canberra at loggerheads By Hugh de Lacy
statement inside our own Parliament,” Groser said.
we do have to protect the biosecurity of Tasmania.”
Tasmania’s cruising for a bruising from Canberra over its continuing ban on imports of New Zealand apples in ‘illegal’ defiance of a World Trade Organisation (WTO) edict.
In a visit to New Zealand last year, soon after she replaced Kevin Rudd as Australian Prime Minister, Gillard assured this country that the contentious apple dispute was behind it, and that New Zealand would face no more obstacles in exporting pipfruit to Australia.
Her stand flies in the face not only of the WTO and the overwhelming weight of science, but also the high likelihood that fireblight is already prevalent in Australia, and has been for decades.
As it did ten years ago over imports of Canadian salmon, Tasmania has refused to accept the WTO’s assessment that the plant disease fire-blight cannot be transmitted through mature fruit. This is despite Australia’s public acceptance of the ruling and the appearance in supermarkets in other states of the first New Zealand apples since Australia imposed a ban following the discovery in 1919 of fire-blight in New Zealand fruit. Following a WTO ruling sought by the United States over-turning Japan’s ban on apple imports from countries with fire-blight, New Zealand took a similar case against Australia, with the same result. New Zealand’s Minister of Trade, Tim Groser, told Canterbury Farming that Tasmania’s ban was ‘illegal” and ‘not compatible with Australia’s obligations’ as a WTO signatory. “We’ve got the strongest support you could imagine from the Australian Government for implementing this [WTO] finding, including [Australian Prime Minister] Julia Gillard making a clear, unambiguous
Tasmania, which calls itself the Apple Island, produces about a quarter of all Australian apples but accounts for about two-thirds of their exports, mostly to Japan and Korea. Though rumours appear to be circulating in Australia that New Zealand intends going back to the WTO to have punitive retaliative tariffs imposed on imports from Australia, Groser said that at the moment he’s leaving it to Gillard’s federal government to sort Tasmania out. “It’s been a very long and bitter struggle, so the last thing we want to do is get off-side now with the Australian federal Government, but of course we have not gone away,” Groser said. He agreed that the matter involved the sensitive issue of state versus federal powers in Australia, and that was something for the Australians to work through. But Tasmania’s Premier, Lara Giddings, is sounding increasingly defiant, saying, “We will be exploring all of our powers and what measures
Ten years ago a New Zealand scientist noticed the disease on trees in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, and brought clippings home for tests that positively identified the disease. Australia responded by claiming the scientist had deliberately infected the Melbourne trees, which were pulled out and burned to support a declaration it no longer had the disease. The chief executive of industry body Pipfruit New Zealand, Peter Beaven, told Canterbury Farming Tasmania’s defiance of the WTO ruling was ‘a nonsense’.
“We allow a significant range of Australian produce into New Zealand with all the attendant risks of fruit-fly coming in here. “And fruit-fly, despite what the Australians are saying, is a far greater phytosanitary risk than fire-blight will ever be, simply because if we got fruit-fly in New Zealand — it’s throughout very large parts of Australia — pretty much every market of any significance throughout the whole world would be shut not just to our apples, but to kiwifruit, avocados, citrus and whatever else.
All four separate WTO hearings — both the American and New Zealand panel hearings and the subsequent appeals by Japan and Australia — had determined that mature and symptomless apples produced under standard commercial practices and subject to a border inspection do not pose a risk of transmitting fire-blight.
“It would kill horticulture in this country pretty much instantly,” Beaven said.
“So who the hell is an Australian state government to decide that they’re wrong?” Beaven said.
“So what right do they have to take a completely different view on fire-blight where the risk is much lower, as
“We’re running this constant risk in the name of the free trade agreement between New Zealand and Australia, and our expectation is that the Australians will manage that risk so that we’re not exposed [to fruit-fly].
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demonstrated by the science.” New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) told Canterbury Farming it was aware of the Tasmanian ban, and noted that last year Australia reviewed its Import Risk Analysis for New Zealand apples to bring them in line with its WTO obligations. “For Australia to comply with the WTO ruling, all the states of Australia must comply,” MFAT said in a statement. The matter was one between Tasmania and the federal government. “The Australian Government has made it clear at the highest levels that it is committed to implementing the WTO Dispute Settlement findings,” MFAT said. In 2000 Tasmania similarly imposed a ban on Canadian uncooked salmon despite a WTO ruling that it posed no health threat to the Tasmanian industry. It is unclear whether that ban still applies.