Grievance Debate

MOUSE PLAGUE

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (15:10): I rise today to talk about the mouse plague which has the ability to cripple South Australian farmers this season. It certainly had the potential to do the same thing to our farming community last year. Thankfully, last year, farmers had a reasonable season and got through with an over 10 million tonne harvest, a harvest that the government would like to benefit from by talking about the boom in agriculture this year.

Mouse plagues are a nasty business. I lived through one in 1993, after another big year in 1992. Mice were that bad through the Mallee and the Upper South-East, and throughout the state, but they were certainly in plague proportions throughout the Mallee. At night you got sick of them running over your face while you were sleeping. During that plague, many women from country areas either left and went to live in Adelaide if they had the opportunity, or put up mosquito nets around their beds to keep the mice out.

It was a disgusting situation. That year we managed to use strychnine which was mixed with wheat at regional mixing sites. Local councils got on board, and that was a fantastic product for killing a mouse. In fact, a mouse would live for about eight seconds after eating this bait; it was a direct hit. At the time I was living in the farmhouse and the only other occupant was my father. I was sick of him grumbling about the mice through the house and I said, 'Dad I will get rid of them but it is going to stink.' So, I used those little Vacola tin lids you get on the preserving jars, filled them up with strychnine, put them throughout the house and, I was right, I got rid of the mice and the place stank, but these are the things that people have had to do in the past.

Let me come forward to the last couple of years and the issues that farmers had last year. We have had meetings with the government over 12 months to talk about the issues of the cost of zinc phosphide and the commercial product called Mouseoff. The problem is that the product is $10 per hectare to apply, and many people are having to spend many tens of thousands of dollars to apply this product to their farming land to protect their freshly sown crops, because the mice just run up the rows and pull the grain out of the ground. The problem we have at the moment is that not only is it expensive but also it is almost impossible to get in places.

Applications have been put in by other companies like 4Farmers to bring in zinc phosphide, and to try to get clearances to mix on-farm with wheat. I am led to believe that you can mix zinc phosphide on-farm with wheat in other First World countries. So, I ask the question: why can't we do it here? I heard the comments from the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority spokesman the other day, who indicated there is a potential health risk in allowing farmers to mix on-farm. Well, people need to be aware, and the government needs to be aware, that farmers have ChemCert accreditation. They are used to handling S7 chemicals. They are used to operating in the field with very dangerous chemicals, they have to be certified to do it, and they go through regular courses to keep up their accreditation.

The problem we have at the moment and what we are hearing anecdotally is that farmers are being forced to use off-label options. This is not good for anyone. It is not good for the farming community and it is not good for the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority because they need, along with the state government, to get out in the real world and see what is happening out there, and to listen to the anecdotal stories, because farmers do not want to see their whole sowing program taken away by millions of rodents pulling their grain out of the ground.

We need to get a solution. I respect the fact that we have another meeting with minister O'Brien and minister Caica this afternoon, but we need to find a resolution for the state's farmers. Not only is it affecting grain farmers but the owner of one chicken shed in my area is spending $1,000 a week protecting their chickens from mice. Also, throughout regional areas there is the impact on schools, hospitals, other public buildings and housing. I wonder if we would have some more action if these mice were invading the homes of Springfield.