Apples Top of Smith's Hobart Agenda

  • Dr Lockwood Smith
Trade

Seeking Australian market access for New Zealand apples by mid-year will be top of Trade and Agriculture Minister Lockwood Smith's agenda when he leaves for Hobart tomorrow.

Dr Smith will be in Hobart for a meeting on Friday of the Agriculture and Resource Management Council of Australia and New Zealand (ARMCANZ). On Thursday afternoon, he will meet with representatives of the Tasmanian Apple & Pear Association (TAPA). The TAPA members at the meeting will be:

  • Tim Reid, past president of the association and currently its director of international development
  • Mark Salter, growers' representative
  • Kevin Baddeley, the association's representative on the Australian Apple and Pear Growers' Association.

Following the meeting, Dr Smith will meet with Australian Primary Industries and Energy Minister John Anderson.

"My message to both will be that after seeking access since the 1920s, we believe we have waited long enough," Dr Smith said today. "We believe there is no scientifically justifiable reason why access should not be granted. Research has suggested that the likelihood of unconditional New Zealand exports of mature apples causing an Australian outbreak of fireblight to be one in every 11,364 years. With normal export conditions, the risk would be even less. That is essentially no risk, and certainly does not justify a ban on our apple exports."

It is now expected that New Zealand's application to export apples to Australia will be reactivated in the week beginning 2 March. That would allow the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service to make a decision by the end of June.

"We believe that if the process is based on science the decision will be in our favour. I will be seeking reassurances that the process will be based on science," Dr Smith said.

Dr Smith will also seek advice from Mr Anderson on the likely timeframe for our application to export salmon to Australia to be processed.

Other points for discussion are outstanding poultry access issues, closer quarantine cooperation and strategy for the 1999 World Trade Organisation agricultural trade liberalisation negotiations.

While in Hobart, Dr Smith intends to sign a bilateral arrangement with Australia implementing a system of having scientific observers on fishing vessels targeting Patagonian toothfish in the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources region. The arrangements also involve South Africa and mean that the scientific observer on a nation's vessel will come from one of the other two countries.

Dr Smith leaves Australia on Saturday and will head to Dubai, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia for bilateral visits, before attending the OECD agriculture ministers' meeting in Paris at the end of next week.