Focus on keeping us clean, green

Let me take your mind back to December 2009. A shipment of 16 tonnes of Egyptian fenugreek seeds was distributed throughout Europe. Salad sprouts grown from the seed caused two outbreaks of a rare strain of the E. coli bacterium. It killed 49 people in Germany and thousands more became ill.

The lesson for Tasmania was obvious then and is still undeniable today. Our population and our agriculture have to be protected from this form of lethal invasion.

The consequences are huge. Because we are an island, because we are largely pest-free, we are lucky and we have to ensure that our luck does not run out.

Biosecurity, the modern term for protecting our health and our environment at our borders, is fundamental to the development of our rural industries and the overall state economy, in which agriculture and aquaculture are pillars.

The growth in visitors to Tasmania by sea and air and the ever-increasing range of products being imported to Tasmania put additional emphasis on our biosecurity protection.

They place additional burdens on the staff of Biosecurity Tasmania, who are the people who stand between prosperity and calamity here.

Recently, the union representing those 300 workers, the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU), surveyed its members, a little more than half responded. Of those, the CPSU said, 60 per cent had significant workload issues and 80 per cent were worried workload pressure could lower their standard of work.

The Government pointed out that this did not explain how the other half felt, those who did not respond to the survey. It alleged that “the union chose to focus on those who often were in the minority because their answers supported its negative narrative”.

I am not going to buy into that argument. Suffice to say that the TFGA has welcomed the recent Budget initiatives to upgrade biosecurity with more dog teams at airports and the TT Line terminal at Devonport and upgrading of other infrastructure.

However, the take-home message from the CPSU survey is that the frontline workers, the union and the Government must continue to talk to each other about the strengths and weaknesses of our vigilance system. Notwithstanding the survey, the staff of Biosecurity Tasmania were outstanding in handling the recent outbreaks or myrtle and blueberry rust.

What is absolutely critical is that we have to maintain our biosecurity status, so much depends on it.

The Tasmanian brand is clean and green and that is how it must remain. It is the advantage we have over so many other parts of the world.

As Fruit Growers Tasmania business development manager Phil Pyke says: “Biosecurity is the backbone of our industry and it’s the reason that we are reaching into these protocol markets of Asia.”
Eternal vigilance and open communications between those responsible for it are the key.

THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN TAS COUNTRY ON 24TH JULY.
TFGA president Wayne Johnston