Fruit Fly

The Hon. S.W. KEY (Ashford) (14:55): Thank you, sir. My question is directed to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. Minister, can you update the house on the detection of Mediterranean fruit fly in Clarence Park and what the government is doing to maintain South Australia's fruit fly freedom?

The SPEAKER: Presumably that is not freedom for fruit flies. Minister.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport, Minister for Racing) (14:55): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I thank the member for Ashford for the question and acknowledge that today an outbreak of Mediterranean fruit fly has been detected in Clarence Park in Adelaide's inner south in the member for Ashford's electorate.

What the team from Biosecurity South Australia will be doing is informing people within a 1.5 kilometre radius of that outbreak of steps that they can take to ensure that the fruit fly outbreak does not extend beyond the quarantine zone so that we can remain fruit fly free.

In fact, we are the only mainland state in Australia that is fruit fly free and phylloxera free, and that is something that we should be very proud of. We spend $5 million a year combating fruit fly coming into our state, because the horticultural industry in South Australia is worth $1.1 billion. It is part of the $18.2 billion that food and wine represent here in our state. We work hard at keeping things out of our state.

It is very important, and we call on the public to help in that. We were alerted to this outbreak of fruit fly by a member of the public who phoned the fruit fly phone number to report it. We get about 400 calls to that number each year. We go out and have a look at what is happening, and thankfully most of them are diagnosed as just being garden pests and that is a good result.

However, if people do see maggots or they see suspicious flying creatures around fruit and vegetables we do want them to let us know, because we must all be vigilant. We have really reduced the number of fruit fly outbreaks in South Australia since 2002 and that is something we want to continue to do, because the rest the world looks at South Australia and we get a big tick for our fruit fly free status.

We know that we do not have to undergo some of the measures that food producers in other states do to be able to export their produce into some countries. In fact, China still insists that we cold treat all our citrus, and that costs the South Australian citrus industry about $15 million a year and it is actually not necessary. For about 15 days they have to put their citrus in cold storage so that they can eradicate fruit fly that is not there.

We had a meeting last year with the agricultural department of China when we were in Beijing, and with us was Con Poulos, who was then representing the citrus industry and the Citrus Board here in South Australia. Now he is the chief of staff to Senator Anne Ruston, who is the Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. So, it is terrific to have Con in that position. He knows what needs to happen from an industry point of view, and we have now got him in with the federal government working with us to try to get that approval.

Another thing that we are doing is spending $3 million on a sterile fruit fly facility up at Port Augusta, and the member for Chaffey, the member for Hammond, the member for Stuart and Senator Anne Ruston were all with me when we turned the first sod, I think, last year. That facility should be open in October this year. They will be able to breed 50 million sterile male fruit flies a week. That is a staggering figure. They will be Queensland fruit flies because we can get our Mediterranean fruit fly from the breeding program that they have in Western Australia. Queensland fruit fly have basically infested the eastern side of Australia. The Mediterranean fruit flies are in the west of Australia. South Australia, as I said, remains fruit fly free, and phylloxera free.