Astonville Batlow NSW 2730
31st August 2008
Biosecurity Australia
Dear Sir
As a second generation orchardist in Batlow I wish to explain to Biosecurity Australia my worry on future of orcharding in my case & also all Australia should apples & pears be imported & 'fire blight' comes with them.
I understand pears from China are in country already & your issue paper of 8th July asks for comment after this has happened!!
(I stand corrected if this has been the case!)
I understand from a Batlow grower who went to USA in 1980 & saw the affect fire blight had on apple trees, there is a reduction in yield of 25% which you have imposed on growers if you allow this happen. Also extra expense chemical cost have to used to try & overcome disease on trees & we would have to do this to try & salvage our income from crop we are growing our livelihood from orchard. An extra burden.
You would be guilty of doing this damage to your fellow Australian apple & pear (growers). Do you not realise pears are damaged much more than apples too.
Growers should be able to sue your company for allowing this to happen. Check with Mr Rudd.
One has only to look at incompetence of people in the fiasco recently & you are in a similar situation to even consider this risk (incompetent!).
New Zealand stopped horses coming into their land next day. Can't we Australians do same thing today to safe guard our industry.
Would you accept if your income (salary) was reduced 25% like orchard owners are having forced to accept if you allow disese to come to Australia. I think not! Be hones t& ask yourself to consider this like I am now faced with the expert panel should talk to growers & be told of situation facing us (25% salary cut) to be fair you should have 3 growers to represent industry on panel.
Yours faithfully
Bruce Wilkinson
Disclaimer: The department received this submission in hardcopy only, which has been converted into an accessible format to meet Australian Government accessibility requirements. While due care was taken to ensure the information was reproduced accurately, the PDF should be considered the original document for official purposes.