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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-09-24 Daily Xml
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Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (14:35): My questions are to the Minister for Primary Industries on the topic of the tomato brown rugose fruit virus:

1. Has the minister spoken to her interstate colleagues to ensure their testing protocols are sufficient and that enough surveillance is being done in other states, particularly those that have enacted movement control orders?

2. Will the minister commit to the establishment of an accredited laboratory testing facility here in South Australia for the virus, and, if so, when will it be established?

3. Can the minister provide more details on compensation planning and arrangements, given the scale of the impact from the current restrictions?

4. Will the minister guarantee that all affected growers will receive compensation?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (14:36): I thank the honourable member for her question. As I think I have mentioned here in this place before, PIRSA is responding to a detection of tomato brown rugose fruit virus at three properties in the Northern Adelaide Plains region. That comes after PIRSA was contacted by a commercial tomato-growing facility on the Northern Adelaide Plains to report a suspected positive result from a laboratory test.

As I have mentioned, the disease is currently considered exotic to Australia. It affects tomatoes, capsicums and chillies. It's highly contagious and is listed on the National Priority Plant Pests list. The virus is listed as a regulated pest in South Australia's Ministerial Notice No. 2, Declared Pests and Quarantine Areas, pursuant to the Plant Health Act 2009.

The infected plants are not known to pose any risk whatsoever to human health. Infected plants will show symptoms such as mosaic patterns, yellowing and deformities on leaves, and the fruits develop brown wrinkled spots, deformities and uneven ripening, which reduces their yield and marketability.

The virus spreads easily through mechanical transmission, as well as a number of other methods. It is considered a significant risk to Australia's $5.8 billion vegetable industry due to reduced yield and quality of produce. I am advised that that reduction in yield can be as much as 75 per cent. Quarantine orders on individual businesses, of course, are not applied lightly. PIRSA has been in close communication with the affected business regarding the quarantine orders.

These measures are first and foremost designed to try to limit the spread of the disease, which preserves the right to aim for eradication of the virus in Australia if it is deemed technically feasible to do that. At the same time, the quarantine measures allow assurance to domestic and international trading partners that they can continue to accept fruit from the large number of South Australian tomato businesses that are not affected directly by the outbreak. Response measures are underway in South Australia, and there has been a strong focus on sampling crops to delimit the extent of the spread.

In terms of some of the other questions that the honourable member has asked, there is a national committee that considers exotic diseases. That committee has met and that has representatives from, I understand, all the jurisdictions, including, of course, South Australia. I have been urging that they consider as a matter of urgency the proposed protocol for dealing with businesses that have had quarantine measures applied to them so that there is a clear pathway out of quarantine for those businesses.

Because this is the first time that this disease has been detected in Australia, those protocols do not yet exist in terms of being adopted and agreed to. That process is continuing at the moment. I have spoken with some of my interstate counterparts, as well as nationally, about the importance of getting those protocols considered and agreed to as soon as possible.

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