The commercial pressure on NZ growers to take advantage ofthis lack of protocol is enourmous as a grower who has travelled widely around the world, this makes no protective sense and beggers belief that BA is providing any security to our country for incursions of Fireblight, canker and midge. Given the volume of product intended to ship their cannot be any confidence that a grower who has a commercial interest in assuring passage of fruit will bypass any assumed "commercial practice" that may prohibit the easy export of infected fruit.
I have seen this devastating disease first hand on travels to the US and cannot believe a Dept given the responsibility to keep our shores disease free would contemplate such a lack of protocol. Under this proposed arrangement it would be more difficult forme to ship apples from Vic to SA than from NZ to Australia. Does this make sense? It doesn't to me and all have an interest in an industry that provides many thousands of Jobs in my region. As an industry we felt it inevitable that we would face competition from imports but we believed we would have the level of safeguards put in place by BA. This is clearly not the case with this present recommendations.
I ask that this should be reviewed as a matter of priority.
Peter Hall
355 Downer Rd. Tatura 3616
0409503523