5 March 2009
DAFF09/95T
Tony Burke interviewed by Michael Smith 4BC Brisbane
Subject: banana imports
E&OE
MICHAEL SMITH: The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and a range of things is Tony Burke. G’day Tony.
TONY BURKE: G’day Michael.
MICHAEL SMITH: Mate, is this true? That there is now approval from the Australian Government for the Philippines to import bananas into our country?
TONY BURKE: If the Philippines jump through hoop after hoop that’s been put in front of them. But if you have a look at it, Philippine growers are all the way through the Philippine newspapers today outraged about the decision and saying this means they won’t be able to get bananas into Australia.
MICHAEL SMITH: Well, what are the hoops, Tony?
TONY BURKE: It goes to the number of spraying times that they have to do each year, it goes to them having to have Australian inspectors on each plantation and then having to pay the fees for the Australian inspectors and go through disinfection and fungicide spraying.
It’s all been put together by the scientists to say, given the diseases that they’ve got in the Philippines, for it to be safe in terms of biosecurity, these are all the things you would have to do in order to preserve our biosecurity. And Filipino growers have had a look at it now and represented it to their Government and said: if we have to do all those things it simply means we can’t afford to export to Australia. And my view is, that’s their problem, not ours.
MICHAEL SMITH: How many Australian inspectors would you have in the Philippines?
TONY BURKE: Well it depends on how many applications we have. At the moment, the expectation that we have is that there would be no applications in which case there would be no inspectors. But if any plantation wanted to, they’d have to first of all establish that they were a low-risk plantation to be eligible at all and if they were it would depend on the science as to how many inspectors.
But the bottom line for us is: it’s not our concern to try to help them export their bananas. Our concern is: they’ve got a whole lot of diseases that we don’t have and we’ve got to make sure that we preserve Australia’s biosecurity.
MICHAEL SMITH: Well wouldn’t it be cleaner and easier and more certain to not say, well if you can meet this, that and the other condition then you can bring them in. Isn’t it easier to say, well your country’s got diseases, we’re not interested.
TONY BURKE: Well unfortunately that decision was taken from me eight years ago. Warren Truss, when he was the agriculture minister, started the process off. By the time we had the change of government and I became the Minister, it was already in the hands of the Director of Quarantine. So the part of it that I do have control of is making sure that the rules that are put in place are followed absolutely to the letter, that the conditions that are put on are very strict and that if the Philippines complains and wants us to lower our biosecurity, I say ‘No’.
MICHAEL SMITH: Yeah, well it would seem to me to be easier and safer to just say, “Sorry, your place is rife with disease and rife with corruption, we’re just not interested.”
TONY BURKE: Well the way the law works on this, once the process is started – and it started under Warren Truss eight years ago – then it gets handed through a scientific process and the opportunity for the Minister to intervene doesn’t come up until that process has ended. So that process has ended now. And the role that the Minister now has – as in me – to intervene is to make sure that there are absolutely no compromises on the rules, once they’ve been set in place.
MICHAEL SMITH: Tony, where are your sympathies – Australian farmers, or Filipino farmers?
TONY BURKE: My job is to look after Australian farmers, simple as that. And to look after and protect the biosecurity issues in Australia. They’ve got a whole lot of diseases that we don’t have.
MICHAEL SMITH: Yeah, well that’s what I think. It’s just crazy to give them even half an open window.
TONY BURKE: I’ve got to say, it’s gone through a whole team of scientists who say that if you do all these things, then the window’s no longer open.
MICHAEL SMITH: Mate, how many times have we heard that – like equine influenza, I mean there’s a range of things.
TONY BURKE: Well equine influenza wasn’t because the scientists got it wrong… you go through the Callinan Report …
MICHAEL SMITH: Yeah, but you know what I mean Tony…
TONY BURKE: Yeah I know what you’re saying Michael. But as I say, under law, the chance to go down the path you’re proposing was taken from us eight years ago.
Ends