Pest bill hits $100m

By ANNE BESTON

New Zealand has had around 30 biosecurity incursions requiring eradication or control over the past five years, Parliament was told yesterday.

The estimated cost of those incursions was $100 million, Acting Biosecurity Minister Michael Cullen said.

Dr Cullen faced a grilling in Parliament from Green MPs and National's Shane Ardern over New Zealand's biosecurity record after this week's announcement that the fight against the gumleaf skeletoniser is to be abandoned.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has opted simply to try to control the spread of the Australian moth. Its voracious caterpillars attack eucalyptus trees but at least one conservation group fears it will acquire a taste for New Zealand natives.

Dr Cullen also revealed that the cost so far of the Government's war against the painted apple moth in West Auckland is almost as much as if the moth had been left to its own devices.



"In the case of the painted apple moth, the programme is now approaching the bottom-end of the estimated cost of simply allowing the moth to spread," he said.

When the decision was made last year to launch an all-out aerial attack on the moth, budgeted at $90 million over three years, Maf said the pest could cause between $58 million and $356 million in damage over 20 years.

The estimated cost so far of the current eradication programme is $39 million. That is on top of last year's campaign, which cost between $11 and $13 million.

Dr Cullen said he did not have information on the number of times over the past five years an attempt to eradicate a pest had been abandoned.