Call to lift oyster seed travel ban

AN assistance package has been announced for Tasmania’s oyster growers, battling the devastating impact of the Pacific oyster Mortality Syndrome.

Oyster Hatchery

A GOVERNMENT assistance package has been announced for Tasmania’s oyster growers, battling the devastating impact of the Pacific oyster Mortality Syndrome (POMS).

The packaged includes waiving this year’s licence fees, due in April, the next lease rental fees as well as the Tasmanian Shellfish Quality Assurance Program levy.

The package totals more than $777,000, with lease rentals costing more than $135,000, licence fees $126,000 and the levy worth more than $514,000.

Primary Industry Minister Jeremy Rockliff on Saturday said the fee relief would assist every grower across Tasmania (104 lease holders) with an average assistance of $7,500, though that will vary depending on lease size.

Further assistance was being considered.

POMS had been confirmed in six Tasmanian growing areas, with a seventh likely to be confirmed by further tests.

These include Pitt Water, Island Inlet, Pipe Clay Lagoon, Blackman Bay, Dunalley Bay and Little Swanport.

High mortalities have also been recorded at Great Bay on Bruny Island, which is undergoing further testing.

POMS was this month detected in Tasmania for the first time.

DUNALLEY oyster farmer Ben Cameron is a worried man.

After completing the unenviable task of sending five staff members on a forced two-week holiday yesterday after the Pacific oyster Mortality Syndrome virus wiped out most of his mature stock, Mr Cameron now faces an indef­inite ban on moving lucrative hatchery seed to both Tasman­ian and interstate markets.

Mr Cameron is hoping swift action from the State Government will help lift the travel res­trictions that have grounded millions of healthy oyster larvae — known as spat — that his company supplies to growers Australia-wide.

Mr Cameron said he feared an extended period of healthy farms being starved of vital stock would create a “ripple eff­ect” of pain through the ­industry across the country.

“The hardest part is the fact that we have got perfectly healthy oysters living in a closed system, but until we can get that clearance from the Chief Vet, we can’t move them on,” he said at an oyster industry “wake” at the Dunalley Hotel, attended by a number of laid-off farm workers.

“Because they grow so quickly when they are small, pretty soon we are going to have to take them out of the tanks and just leave them on the ground to die.

“We’ve only got space to hold a couple of ton, and that’s doubling every three weeks, so we are looking at having to progressively cull oysters.

“My sister’s farm at Eaglehawk Neck hasn’t been touched by the virus but those guys could all lose their jobs as well. So there’s a fair bit of work going to have to be done by the Government on this.”

Graeme Cameron, hatchery manager, left, and general manager Ben Cameron at Cameron of Tasmania hatchery in Dunalley. Picture: SAM ROSEWARNE

The State Government is expected to make an ann­ouncement about support for the industry today but Mr Cameron has already felt the financial bite of the POMS scare — a $100,000 load of spat ready for takeoff at Hobart airport bound for South Australian growers was turned around by nervous officials and since then more ord­ers have been missed because oysters cannot be moved from their tanks.

The veteran oyster farmer, who said his company and Cremorne’s Shellfish Culture Ltd supplied up to 80 per cent of the Australian spat market, claimed time was of the ­essence in finding a solution to the impasse on travel res­trictions.

“My business has got cash to keep trading in a meaningful way for the next 12 months but if we are going to go down that path, then I’ve got to sack everybody tomorrow,” he said.

“Cashflow is king. If we get a resolution in the next four weeks, I don’t have to put off another person.

“We really need draft prot­ocol in the next two weeks, and final protocols in four weeks.”