Myrtle Rust

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:01): My question is to the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development. Will the minister inform the chamber about the air samplers installed at South Australian botanic gardens to help guard against plant diseases?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (15:02): I thank the honourable member for his question. It was a pleasure last week to attend the Adelaide Botanic Garden to see the high-tech monitoring device which has been installed to protect native flora from plant diseases, particularly myrtle rust. SARDI will use the automated air sampler to track the presence of myrtle rust, which is a fungal disease that spreads through air and water, and is known to hitch rides on insects and animals.

It attacks eucalypts, bottlebrushes, paperbarks and other members of the Myrtaceae family, causing deformed leaves, stunting growth, reducing fertility, causing heavy defoliation of branches and killing plants. According to DCCEEW, only one strain of myrtle rust exists in Australia, with other strains present overseas. These close relatives of the disease could have devastating impacts on Australian plants were they to reach Australia.

In 2022, the federal government established the National Myrtle Rust Working Group, bringing experts from Australia and New Zealand together to drive a coordinated approach to responding to the disease, and this group continues to meet. Locally, SARDI Plant Health and Diagnostics is working alongside the Australian National University and Data Effects, in partnership with Australia's network of botanic gardens to track myrtle rust from airborne spore movement, helping to map disease risk and guide management strategies.

There are two air samplers in South Australia, at Adelaide and Mount Lofty botanic gardens, and sites nationally include Darwin, Cairns, Lismore, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart and Perth. As part of the project, an interactive dashboard is available on the Spore Tracker website—for those interested, www.sporetracker.com.au. As of samples taken today, 13 November, the website shows 1,314 samples have been collected, 1,077 samples analysed and 170 myrtle rust detections across Australia, including recent detections in Canberra, Sydney, Lismore, Cairns and Darwin.

Each site's information includes a range of live environmental data and historical statistics on myrtle rust detection, which pleasingly show no detections in South Australia since tracking began. It is another great example of the kind of work SARDI undertakes across such a wide range of agriculture, plant and livestock, health and marine research, with expertise that we are incredibly fortunate to have in South Australia.

Once again, certainly from this side of the chamber at least, we say thank you to SARDI scientists for their work, which informs so much of how industry adapts to and overcomes a wide range of challenges and opportunities. Here on this side of the chamber, we value the science, and we thank SARDI for the great work that they do contributing to our state on a daily basis.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!