Prawn farms call for imports to be cooked after bumper season in Moreton Bay

A bumper prawn season in Moreton Bay has renewed calls from Logan River prawn farmers for raw imports to be better regulated.

Tinnies out on the Logan River this weekend catching prawns after a bumper yield this season.

A bumper prawn season has renewed calls from Logan River prawn farmers for the federal government to get rid of “double standards” for imported raw prawns.

Logan prawn farmer Alistair Dick said the rules for imported raw prawns were not as tough as those imposed on local farmers and called for the federal government to make them fairer.

Mr Dick, who runs Gold Coast Marine Aquaculture prawn farm on the Logan River, said the “double standards” at play decimated his business and was still affecting the local raw prawn industry, hit by white spot in 2016.

Gold Coast Marine Aquaculture is taking action in the Federal Court against three seafood importing companies and the federal government.

Rain early in this year’s season had produced a bumper prawn yield in Moreton Bay and along the Logan River with hundreds of fishers out over the weekend casting nets.

But Mr Dick said his business had lost up to $40 million in revenue since the white spot outbreak and now he wanted the rules to be consistent for imports and local produce.

Of seven prawn farms on the river, only three were still operating and last year two were reinfected with white spot.

The river was declared white spot free initially in 2017 and again after a year of no sightings in 2018. But crabs tested positive to the disease in 2020.

Aquaculture farms on the Logan River, where there was a white spot outbreak in 2016.

“This is not going to go away and we are living with it every day and it’s unfair when the imports still don’t have to abide by the same rules that we do,” Mr Dick said.

Under current federal biosecurity laws, prawn producers operating inside white spot zones, are not allowed to sell or move raw prawns outside the declared zone, which runs from Caboolture in the north, to the New South Wales border.

But raw prawns can be imported under strict federal guidelines.

Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries scientists found cooking prawns was the only way to stop spreading emerging diseases.

“Which is why they make us do it but have not imposed the same standards on imports,” Mr Dick said.

“The federal government is insisting that control measures they are putting in place for imports are equivalent to cooking the prawns but in the Queensland white spot-affected areas, they are asking farmers not to release any prawns that are not cooked.

“The federal government has created a double standard and this goes against all the agreements set up to ensure the bar set is not higher for local industry compared to imports.”

Mr Dick said he hoped the federal government would force changes to import rules after Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud declared he was unhappy with recommendations from his department over import regulations.

A draft review of federal risk assessments of imported raw prawns currently does not recommend any significant biosecurity changes or required testing for white spot disease and yellow head virus.

A range of emerging diseases such as Irido virus, which is affecting farms in China, do not fall under current testing arrangements.

Prawn farmers on the Logan have been asking for the same import conditions afforded to the chicken, pork and beef industries where no raw products are allowed into Australia due to the risk of disease transfer.