Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (14:27): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before addressing a question to the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development regarding the tomato brown rugose fruit virus testing.

Leave granted.

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: On Tuesday, the minister, in response to a question asked by myself regarding testing result delays, noted that if we the opposition received advice from growers that there were delays in tomato brown rugose fruit virus testing to reach out to her office directly with specifics, which we did. It has been brought to the attention of the opposition that despite reaching out to the minister's office directly, tomato grower Emmanuel Cafcakis is still waiting for a return phone call regarding where his test results are, which are now well beyond the 10-day testing turnaround time required by WA that the government promised.

Rather than the minister or one of her staff members communicating directly with Mr Cafcakis, his concerns were apparently directed back onto the department, which has already been liaising with growers on an almost daily basis on these issues—and credit to the department for that. But as Mr Cafcakis has said to me:

We have now been talking to the department on a daily basis asking for answers, which they cannot give, and we now want to speak to the minister but she is nowhere to be seen.

My questions to the minister are:

1. Why is the minister hiding behind her department and not speaking directly to growers on this incredibly important issue?

The Hon. I.K. Hunter interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: Also:

2. Will she commit to this chamber to ring Mr Cafcakis back personally to discuss his issues with his continual delay in testing results?

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Hunter!

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: Would you like me to repeat that second question?

The PRESIDENT: I have no idea what it was.

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: Will the minister commit to this chamber to ring Mr Cafcakis back personally to discuss his issues with his continual delay in testing results?

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (14:29): My advice is that my office spoke with Mr Cafcakis' assistant yesterday and he was advised that we would provide updates to him once we knew the status of his tests. We have had a number of other calls, and I am pleased to say that a number of them have been able to be resolved.

What is really important to note is that there have been discussions, including publicly, in terms of the time taken to provide the results. A number of samples were taken and results commenced before the full operation of the new lab at Waite. Some of those have needed to go interstate, remembering that there are only three labs in the country that are accredited to be able to test for the tomato brown rugose fruit virus.

There were only two until very recently, but, as I have mentioned in this place, as soon as it became clear that there were delays occurring at the interstate labs, we took action to be able to set up and establish and have accredited a laboratory here in South Australia. So here in Waite in Adelaide there is now an accredited laboratory. I think that has not been fully operational for two weeks yet—it's a bit less than that, I think—and so some of the results were part of the process that still needed to go interstate.

Certainly, the department has been working very hard, as is their job. I am glad that the Leader of the Opposition in this place has finally acknowledged that they have been in contact with growers regularly. I am also advised that the department has been reaching out to Mr Cafcakis specifically as well.

I do hope that the newfound credit that the Leader of the Opposition is giving to the department will continue, because it's very important, when we are talking about biosecurity, that we don't try to make political statements and we don't try to make political opportunism the order of the day. What we need is everyone working together. What we need when it comes to biosecurity is everyone working together. I think if we could actually achieve that it would go a long way towards supporting all the industries in our state.