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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-05-01 Daily Xml
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FRUIT FLY

The Hon. S.G. WADE (14:37): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries questions about fruit fly protection.

Leave granted.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I am advised that there have been more than 200 outbreaks of Queensland fruit fly in exclusion zones in New South Wales and Victoria over the past year. At the end of March 2013, Queensland fruit fly larvae were found in peaches bought at two South Australian supermarkets, one in Northgate and one in Victor Harbor. The peaches, I am advised, were grown in northern Victoria.

The first outbreak of the season in South Australia was declared after detection of a fertile female Mediterranean fruit fly in a trap on 17 April; five days later, Biosecurity SA found nine Mediterranean fruit flies trapped at Woodville Gardens. Given that Biosecurity SA has stated that it expects only eight to nine single fly detections a year, to find nine in one trap is a significant concern. I ask the minister: given the significant increased level of detections, what action is the government taking to respond to this risk and maintain our fruit fly protection?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for the Status of Women, Minister for State/Local Government Relations) (14:39): I thank the honourable member for his most important question. Indeed, the Victorian and New South Wales governments announced in late August or September 2012 proposals to deregulate the Queensland fruit fly in their respective jurisdictions, and I have talked about it in this place before. In fact, I think I have answered an almost identical question on this previously, but that is okay.

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins: They're never identical questions because it keeps moving on, unlike you.

The Hon. G.E. GAGO: They're so close it doesn't matter. The Victorian DPI has advised industry that maintaining the current pest-free area in the Sunraysia area and establishing new pest-free areas in Victoria will be on a cost-share basis. The deregulation decisions are believed to be in response to the establishment of populations of Queensland fruit fly in areas outside the pest-free zones in Victoria and New South Wales, where it has not occurred previously. While Queensland fruit fly numbers in some of those areas remain low, ongoing regulation of these as pest-free areas outside Sunraysia is no longer considered technically or financially justified.

The Victorian industry has obviously lobbied the Victorian government to maintain a high level of fruit fly activity, and in Victoria, because of the costs associated, they said that the industry would need to contribute to those costs. My understanding is that the industries in Victoria and Queensland were not prepared to do that, so deregulation occurred.

South Australia is very proud of its fruit fly free status, and we are the only jurisdiction to be able to claim that. We can do so because of a number of measures we put in place in this state to maintain that protection, and those things are well established in this place in terms of the biosecurity controls, our roadblocks, our grid trapping and monitoring techniques and the way fruit is monitored and intercepted coming across borders.

So, a range of biosecurity measures have been very effective in the past at maintaining our fruit fly free status, and they continue to be effective. We notice that the prevalence of fruit fly from both Queensland and Victoria has been increasing over the last number of years, yet it does not appear that that has resulted in any increased infestations in this state. In fact, the current infestations recently notified included the outbreaks in the Kilburn area and vicinity. There have been a number of findings. These are Mediterranean fruit fly, which are from the west and are not associated, I am advised, with the Queensland and Victorian fruit fly, which is a different species.

We are the only mainland state jurisdiction to maintain a fruit fly free status (Tasmania also has one, so I correct the record). The current infestations are Mediterranean fruit fly, which are from the west and our monitoring systems have successfully picked them up. We are investigating a supply chain from where they could possibly have arrived, and our officers are working through strategies to check where any breaches may have occurred. The two obvious ones are from the west by road and/or rail, and both vectors are being scrutinised very carefully to determine where those breaches could have occurred.

Our fruit fly strategies and programs have worked very successfully in the past; they continue to be very successful in protecting our status and there is enough flexibility in our programs to ensure we are able to shift and move programs to where they are needed, and we will continue to do that. We believe that our current programs are satisfactory to continue to meet the protection of our very important stone fruit industry.

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