CHAIR—I now welcome representatives of Apple and Pear Australia, New South Wales Farmers, the Apple and Pear Growers Association of South Australia and Fruit Growers Tasmania. So there you go—jeez, it’s another one of these blokey things! If you would like to give an opening statement we would be delighted to hear it, and then we will go to questions.

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Mr Ashton—I am an apple grower from Batlow. Firstly, we would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to sit before you once again. We have done this several times in the last few years. We would probably prefer to be somewhere else, but this is an important matter. I am sure you recognise most of the faces sitting around here as we have been sitting around for seven or eight years on the same issue. We are doing it because we want to do everything possible to protect our livelihoods. That is really what is at stake for us. The consequences of outbreaks of exotic pests and disease in any part of rural industry but particularly in horticulture and, more importantly for us, in the apple and pear industry are extreme. We are really here to ensure that our livelihoods are protected and that our families are protected as well.

Mr Corboy—Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee. We would like to give you a very quick precis and leave it at that, but obviously there is some complexity to this. I will probably take up more time than either you or I would like, but it is important that we use this opportunity to put our case very succinctly and in a very informative manner. As an introduction, we would like to address some of the misconceptions or myths that are being circulated in relation to this import risk analysis and the purported low levels of risk that occur under it. As Darral said, we primarily deal with fire blight, and I suppose we do that in the sense that we as an industry see fire blight as the most serious disease that we face. The others are very serious, but if we happen to get apple midgets it is like having one arm amputated. If we get fire blight it is like being decapitated, so that is why we focus on it.

Senator JOYCE—How do you determine if it would actually spread? How do you see in your experience fire blight actually spreading? What is the process?

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Mr Corboy—The science tells us clearly that there are a lot of ways by which it has been confirmed that it is spreading. Insects are a primary consideration in spreading.

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Senator JOYCE—Insects that come with the apple or other insects?

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Mr Corboy—Any insects. In Australia we have a lot of plants in the rosacea species. Those are the plants that fire blight attacks—roses, hawthorns et cetera. If there is a heavy infestation of fire blight—or even a light one—it will be in the shade at the bottom end of the apple because fire blight does not like the light. If the infestation is there, an insect can wander in to have a look around, pick up the infestation on its feet, go for a wander and brush over one of those trees that either happen to be in flower or have a wound. Bacteria end up in the plant, and it will have blight.

Senator JOYCE—I would like to go back to your example—was it a codling moth or a cotton moth?

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Senator MILNE—Codling moth. You would know it if you had seen it.

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CHAIR—Codling moth, mate.

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Senator JOYCE—And the effects of Taiwan now knocking out the New Zealand import. What is their process of assessment for codling moth in New Zealand? What was their assessment process at that time?

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Mr Ashton—I would imagine that it is a visual inspection. We have tabled a copy of the press article about it, where they are saying that it could happen to anyone. We really do not believe it should happen to anyone, if they were vigilant, because it is something that you can see. It is not as if it is going to disappear. It is there.

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Senator JOYCE—An inspection carried out by a government department?

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Mr Ashton—It would be under the protocols which MAF would have devised, I believe. It would have been with the grower, and I would imagine that there would have been a MAF inspector there somewhere.

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Mr Hansen—I imagine a lot of the packing sheds have a certification scheme where they are allowed to carry out their own inspections, and then that system would be audited by New Zealand MAF. So most likely it has been inspected by someone from the packing organisation.

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Senator JOYCE—Is that the same anticipated process which would be used for fire blight?

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Mr Corboy—We do not know.

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Mr Ashton—We do not know. No-one has told us.

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Mr Hansen—That is part of the problem.

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Senator JOYCE—Just going back through the proposition of vectors between the apple and the spread of the disease, if an apple turns up and there is fire blight in the calyx of the apple, can it go by an interim entity to infect a tree? For example, can it go from the apple to a rosebush and from the rosebush to the tree?

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Mr Corboy—There are two obvious ways that it can be spread relatively quickly. One is by insect. And, if it is established, it appears that one of the most common ways that it gets transferred is then by birds, because they perch on a branch—and it is a sticky disease when it is in full bloom—and then go and land on another tree. So it is relatively easy for it to move itself around. The most likely view of how it spread to Holland is on wind currents from the UK. She’s a fairly persistent little thing when she gets going. That is 400 kilometres.

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Senator JOYCE—Would it be able to remain undetected in a sort of dormant fashion in suburban Australia and then at a later time break out into your orchards?

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Mr Corboy—That is our biggest concern. Our concern is that this will break out in the middle of the metropolitan area, through somebody who looks out and says, ‘My tree looks a bit crook, but oh, well, I don’t know much about it,’ and then it spreads to the neighbours’ trees and the neighbours’ trees et cetera. That is most likely how it will happen. Fruit fly, for example, nearly always emanates out of a backyard orchard. And that is our fear—that it will literally get into a backyard garden in a metropolitan area and be picked up by a bird. I am 180 kilometres from Melbourne—big deal for a bird!

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Senator JOYCE—And the issue obviously is that if we presume that every orchard has fire blight—or that is the presumption that they start with—then ultimately just probability itself will say that, if you keep going long enough, it obviously has to come in.

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Mr Corboy—As a fruit grower I can tell you, and it is pretty much proven, that, if a pest or disease is present, sooner or later it finds a way of replicating itself. A bacterium does not need a mate. So our view very clearly is that anything coming in that has the risk of it—and BA says it is a very low risk and it will be low numbers. We disagree with that, and we have put science up clearly showing it being found in orchards without showing symptoms. But, that disagreement aside, it only takes one to create an outbreak.

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Senator JOYCE—But even just probability itself says that, on a statistical model,