Thursday, 17 October 2024

Fruit fly

Kim O’KEEFFE (Shepparton) (17:31): (879) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Agriculture, and the action that I seek is that the minister reinstate the funding for the Queensland fruit fly eradication program. The announcement that this funding will end in June next year has raised grave concerns in the agriculture and horticulture industries across my electorate. Fruit and veg growers manage fruit fly on their farms but have no control over residential properties or government land. This has been a highly successful program since funding was first made available in 2017. The program has created awareness, education and engagement in local communities. The Goulburn Murray Valley (GMV) fruit fly program has reduced the fruit fly population by 60 per cent across the region, and if supplemented by the release of sterile fruit flies into wild populations, the population can be reduced by 83 per cent.

Local fruitgrowers in my electorate are bewildered and concerned as to how infestation-level migration into commercial crops from backyard gardens and public land will be managed. A single fruit fly detection in any of our fruit and vegetable exports could devastate the horticulture and agriculture industries. Cobram & District Fruit Growers Association president Adrian Conti said of the decision to cease funding:

It defies logic that the Victorian Government is terminating funding for this –

successful and proven –

community-based program …

In 2021 the GMV fruit fly program won a community award at the Australian Biosecurity Awards. The award, presented by the Australian Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, recognised the important contribution the program is making to the quality of Australian horticulture and national biosecurity. The Goulburn Valley is known as the fruit bowl of Australia and, for example, is the largest producer of canning pears in the Southern Hemisphere, with 100 per cent of canned pears, 99 per cent of nashi pears and 86 per cent of fresh market pears contributing to Australia’s overall fruit production.

There is serious doubt in relation to the future management and control of Queensland fruit fly, with no commitment from the Victorian government to continue to fund the program. The minister needs to understand the devastating consequences of not continuing to support this program. I urge the minister to reinstate this important funding.