By GREG ANSLEY
CANBERRA - New Zealand apple exports to Australia will remain in limbo for months as quarantine officials plough through new submissions, most of which oppose a proposal to lift the long-standing ban.
Biosecurity Australia, which in October announced its belief that Kiwi apples could cross the Tasman without bringing
fireblight disease with them, will also be under severe political pressure to change its finding.
The apple and pear industry in Victoria has engaged a high-powered Melbourne public relations company to swing both the minority state Labour Government and public opinion against the draft analysis that recommended reversing federal quarantine policy on the imports.
The finding followed three applications in 12 years by New Zealand for a lift of the ban, imposed because of endemic fireblight disease in Kiwi orchards and the risk of devastation to the Australian industry.
Orchestrated outrage in Victoria last month shut down the large regional city of Shepparton in a mass protest, and has continued to gather support through the National Task Force Against Fireblight and its Unite Against The Blight campaign.
Last week the campaign was launched in Melbourne, with warnings at the city's Royal Botanic Gardens that fireblight would race through suburban gardens as well as commercial orchards.
The campaign has also been stepped up in Canberra, where a Senate inquiry into Biosecurity Australia's findings is due to report in March, and where nervous Government backbenchers support Victorian concerns.
The industry already has the backing of the Victorian Government, which has raised the prospect of using State quarantine laws to keep out New Zealand apples even if Canberra allows the imports.
By the end of the 60-day period for public comment this week, Biosecurity Australia had received 93 submissions - all, executive manager Simon Hearn said, of high calibre.
Key stakeholders including industry associations and governments have provided substantive comment on the science underpinning the draft import risk analysis, he said. These contributions will help ensure exotic diseases such as fireblight are kept out of Australia.
Mr Hearn said the submissions could raise the need for further analysis or expert opinion, and the process of review would take several months.
A 30-day appeals period would be allowed after the publication of the final analysis.
