X-rays for all baggage in foot-and-mouth alert

By FRANCESCA MOLD POLITICAL REPORTER

Travellers may endure longer delays at airports because beefed-up border security measures will mean every piece of baggage is x-rayed.

Biosecurity Minister Jim Sutton revealed yesterday that the Government will spend an extra $4.6 million a year tightening New Zealand's borders.

About 60 per cent of baggage is screened at present.

But Mr Sutton wants this increased to 100 per cent, to get as close as possible to detecting all dangerous goods.

A member of his staff confirmed that there could be delays, but the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry national manager for aircraft and passenger clearances, Fergus Small, said he did not envisage any.

Extra soft-tissue x-ray Machines have been ordered and are expected to be in use in two to four weeks.

Mr Sutton said the initiatives had been planned for some time but were announced early to "piggyback" on publicity about the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Britain.

The extra spending includes hiring 34 more quarantine officers and 43 assistants to operate the new soft-tissue x-ray machines at eight of the country's airports.

Several of the machines, which pick up illegal imports like fruit and meat, will be used to boost the number already in use at Auckland, Hamilton and Wellington airports.

Machines will be installed for the first time at Whenuapai and Ohakea military airfields, as well as Dunedin, Queenstown and Palmerston North airports.

The Government will also pay for 11 new teams of sniffer dogs to cover the nine international airports. Six will be used to boost coverage at Auckland Airport to 24 hours a day and provide some cover at Hamilton. The rest will be based at Wellington, Palmerston North, Ohakea and Christchurch.

Mr Sutton said introduction of an instant fine system for passengers breaching border controls would be brought forward to July 1.

Yesterday's border security announcement was almost overshadowed by a developing dispute with a German farming organisation which distributed a pamphlet claiming New Zealand sheep have scrapie.

The fatal, degenerative disease which affects the central nervous system of sheep and goats was last reported here in 1954.

But Germany's Central Marketing Agency (CMA) sent pamphlets to more than 33 million German homes claiming New Zealand has had the disease for 250 years.

The Government described it as a deliberate attempt to sabotage our meat export industry.

Mr Sutton said the CMA was a statutory body with political appointees who might have been driven to publish the claim because German farmers were desperately afraid people were turning away from local meat because of mad cow disease.

"It is an organisation of substance. It is impossible for me to believe they didn't know what they were doing. By implication, they are saying people might go mad if they eat New Zealand sheepmeat."

Mr Sutton said the CMA had a duty to rise above "irresponsible populism" and ensure it provided reliable information. If the meat industry suffered, the Government and organisations such as Meat New Zealand and Federated Farmers might take legal action.

About 40,000 tonnes of sheepmeat, worth $185 million, is exported each year to Germany - New Zealand's second-biggest European market.

The president of the German Farmers' Union, Gerd Sonnleitner, who is a CMA board member, is visiting New Zealand and will meet Mr Sutton tomorrow.

Mr Sonnleitner was last night staying in Feilding with former Federated Farmers president Malcolm Bailey.

Mr Bailey told the Herald his guest did not want to comment until he had received more information from officials in Germany.

Mr Bailey said Mr Sonnleitner had told him the publication was designed to educate Germans about BSE, mad cow disease, and the mention of scrapie in New Zealand was a mistake.

Mr Bailey hosted a barbecue to welcome Mr Sonnleitner and said the German had no qualms about eating the lamb and beef provided.

Federated Farmers national president Alistair Polson called for an immediate retraction from the CMA. If one was not forthcoming and exports dropped, legal action would be considered.

But chief executive Tony St Clair said the federation did not want to overreact so would await all the facts.

"It is another statutory body we are talking about. It is not the farmers' union, and we have to satisfy ourselves that one is not driving the other or vice versa."

Feature: Foot-and-Mouth Disease epidemic