Fruit fly fight: Primary Industries and Regional Development Minister David Basham’s challenge to Victoria

Fresh produce from Victoria has been revealed as a major source of fruit fly detections in SA. Our Agriculture Minister has demanded an explanation.

The State Government has blasted Victoria for skyrocketing numbers of fruit fly detections in commercial fruit from over the border, saying it has “serious concerns” over controls in the eastern state.

Primary Industries Minister David Basham wrote to his Victorian counterpart Mary-Anne Thomas, saying of 14 detections in the past two years, 10 had been in the past two months.

“Each of these detections represent a serious failing of ... businesses in Victoria,” Mr Basham wrote, naming five companies from which imports had been suspended.

“The frequency of detections raises serious concerns regarding the level of assurance South Australian consumers and industry can have that imported fruit from Victoria will not introduce Queensland fruit fly.”

Mr Basham wrote that he understood Agriculture Victoria had “failed to identify specific faults in the application of (fumigation) and (pre-harvest insecticide) arrangements.”

“ The inability of officials to identify failures raises further concerns,” he added.

The letter followed Monday’s detection of Queensland fruit fly in stone fruit from Victoria.

The Queensland Fruit Fly was detected in stone fruit from Victoria.

Mr Basham wrote that the SA Government “cannot accept further risk” and was “considering what further measures may be required on the arrival of commercial consignments from Victoria”.

He called for Agriculture Victoria to work with horticultural producers, packing sheds, distributors and fumigators to lift their game.

Victoria’s chief plant health officer Dr Rosa Crnov, said she was surprised by the issues raised and said they had not been reported “as per the national biosecurity protocols.”

“Victorian businesses demonstrate high levels of compliance with fruit fly controls and treatments. Any reports of non-compliance are investigated immediately,” she said.

“Agriculture Victoria has consistently shown through the investigation of these incident reports that there are no failings as described by the South Australian Minister.”

“Agriculture Victoria looks forward to working through these matters and would welcome support from South Australia in managing the risks of Queensland fruit fly movement in produce, in an effort to increase the validity of the national Interstate Assurance Arrangements in place.”

The Opposition has blamed problems in the department responsible for biosecurity for failures to contain outbreaks.

In October, the Auditor-General’s report into Primary Industry and Regions Department found issues with compliance in the biosecurity section dating back to 2018-19, but the Minister says these issues won’t be fixed until at least June this year.

It was also revealed the biosecurity section didn’t have any structured or formal programs in place to assess compliance and report breaches.

Opposition primary industries spokeswoman Clare Scriven said the slow response by the Minister was unacceptable.

“These failures raise questions about the Minister’s handling of the multiple fruit fly outbreaks South Australia has suffered over the past three months,” she said.

“David Basham really doesn’t seem to be across his brief, this is a critical agency that needs to be fully compliant and have in place systems that are able to report breaches.”

In written response, a State Government spokesman described Ms Scriven as confused, having “misrepresented the Auditor-General’s findings”.

“The Auditor-General’s report does not make any findings in relation to the Department’s fruit fly control operations,” he said.

“Over the past two years the Auditor-General has recommended continuous improvement in technical aspects of how Departmental officers assess whether they have met all requirements of the various pieces of legislation they implement and whether those assessments and any non-compliances are internally documented.

“These are matters which clearly were not documented the way the Auditor-General would prefer during Labor’s long years in office and are now being addressed by the Department as part of continuous improvement in record keeping.

“The findings do not relate to on-ground compliance activities by the Department’s biosecurity officers.”