Crunch time for apple exports

By GREG ANSLEY

CANBERRA - A Senate report on New Zealand's controversial and long-thwarted attempts to export apples to Australia will almost certainly ignore politics in favour of science.

But with no indications yet on the stance senators are taking as they complete the writing of their report, it is unclear which battery of scientific opinion has swayed their view.

The report, due out in two to three weeks, will weigh heavily on the mind of whichever Government finally makes the decision on Kiwi apples given the sensitivity of the issue and the broad support a continued ban has won from an unlikely alliance of Coalition and Labour MPs, farmers and unions.

There is also considerable public opposition to ending the ban, reflected in an internet poll recording 88 per cent rejection of New Zealand imports because of the risk of introducing fire blight disease.

But the Government is bound by World Trade Organisation rules outlawing the use of phytosanitary regulations to protect domestic industries, and a rejection based on unsound or questionable science would open it to WTO action by New Zealand.

Late last year an interim risk analysis by the federal quarantine agency, Biosecurity Australia, found that there was no scientific justification for a continued ban, originally imposed because fire blight disease is endemic in New Zealand orchards.

In March, Agriculture Minister Warren Truss, under intense pressure to reject the science used in the analysis, ordered Biosecurity Australia to undertake some new independent research, conduct a series of workshops and prepare a new discussion paper.

This process is not expected to be completed before the end of the year, after a federal election.

The key will be to decide which body of scientific evidence to accept.

New Zealand's case, supported by its own research and the Biosecurity Australia draft analysis, was opposed in the Senate rural, regional affairs and transport committee inquiry by science presented by the Australian industry. The committee, which received about 65 detailed submissions, also heard from American fire blight and entomology experts and in May toured New Zealand.

"It's a very big issue, but it really does depend under the [WTO] scheme which everybody has embraced on the science being absolutely right," committee secretary Andrew Snedden said.

"The risk assesment must be prepared in a way which will stand up to scientific examination, and that includes scientific examination in the WTO."