NZ apple ban costs $20m a year, says grower

Australia's refusal to allow New Zealand apples across its border is costing New Zealand's pipfruit industry $20 million a year, an industry leader says.

"We don't have access so we don't know how much trade there will be, but we think it could be as much as $20 million a year, perhaps more," Pipfruit NZ chief executive Peter Beaven told Radio New Zealand yesterday.

Mr Beaven was in Geneva, where he has gone to present evidence to the World Trade Organisation that the Australian protocols for New Zealand imports are too strict.

"We've got a risk analysis that's sitting on the table in Australia, and it doesn't deliver meaningful access and we don't believe that it's scientifically based," he said.

The 88-year battle over fair access to Australian markets for New Zealand apple exporters has come to a head this week, with lawyers and scientists representing New Zealand before a four-strong panel in Geneva.

Australia has relied on a perceived risk of the bacterial disease fireblight to provide a non-tariff trade barrier to a transtasman apple trade.

New Zealand growers and scientists have shown the clean, mature fruit is unlikely to carry the disease. The WTO, dealing with the same issue between Japan and the United States, ruled that fireblight was not transmitted by mature fruit.

In 2006 Australia provided import protocols, but their rules were so strict that New Zealand growers said they blocked profitable exports.

In 2007, New Zealand asked the WTO to investigate whether Australia's apple ban was legal under international commercial law. Yesterday's hearing is the last major step and the WTO panel is expected to deliver its decision in January.

"Australia has taken an incredibly conservative view and has exaggerated the risk in many areas," Mr Beaven said.

"At the very least, we'll get much better access than the current arrangement allows us."

- NZPA