Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:20): I rise to support the original motion from the member for Frome:

That this house—

(a) recognises the importance of biosecurity to South Australia, in particular with regard to the state’s primary industries, and the potential impact on production;

(b) acknowledges the significant and ongoing concerns from industry sectors regarding Biosecurity SA’s preparedness and response capability;

(c) calls on the Minister for Primary Industries to establish an independent review into the Department of Primary Industries and Regions South Australia’s response to the tomato brown rugose virus incursion, and its capacity and capability to deal with future pest and disease incursions; and

(d) tables the report of the review as well as the government’s response upon completion.

The impact of this tomato virus on our state's primary industries has been severe, to say the least. That is not to say that we do not need to have a protocol in regard to biosecurity, but I think it is quite timely that we are talking about this because this had a severe impact, especially on the glasshouse industry, and the glasshouse industry is not the glasshouse industry of 50 years ago. It has gone into an industry where tomatoes are vertically grown under a completely different setting from just being planted in the ground. They are in a very controlled environment with nutrients and water pumped through the system.

Many, many millions of dollars have gone into various operations throughout South Australia—obviously, the ones at Two Wells and Port Augusta, just to name two amongst the many others that are operating in this state. We met at multiple times with growers who were heavily impacted by what was happening with the testing protocols in regard to whether or not they had this tomato virus impacting their crops. It was not just the people growing the crops; it was the nurseries that were impacted as well, and it took a long time to get that activity working.

As the member for Frome indicated, we had to get laboratories operating in Victoria, and we became second stringers in the line-up to have tests done to see if their operations had been infected or not. What we saw over time is private laboratories coming on line, and I commend Ray Borda and his team from Macro Meats who set up a private lab so that they could assist their fellow primary industry people in this state in getting those turnarounds a lot quicker.

If you are running any business and you are impacted by something where you are waiting on test results, you want them done as quickly as possible and turned around in three days if that is possible, not three to four weeks. We saw these delays that were heavily impacting on people's livelihoods, and not just the owners of the businesses who would have paid a heavy psychological price as they had to walk into their operations. As we heard with Perfection Fresh, they had to put off 500 workers. Even though there are 500 workers, these businesses are essentially like a big family working together to grow this great produce, not just for South Australia but for sending around this country as great produce from this state.

We do need to make sure that we have a proper review of how these sorts of viruses can be tested—and it is not just this tomato virus. We need to check that we have all the appropriate procedures in place and what can be done to do these things in a timely manner because we do need to make sure we get things right.

As we see with fruit fly outbreaks and what happened at Glynde the other day—and we saw some Berri producers, because it is the national protocol with Queensland fruit fly—they were encased in the 15-kilometre boundary and they have essentially thrown in the towel and given up business. They have said, 'We can't deal with it, we can't sell our fruit the way we did and so we're chucking it in.' That is a huge outcome for those people and I acknowledge that is under a national protocol, but we must continually keep checking to make sure that we have the appropriate protocols in place.

Just reflecting on fruit fly, I look at the many years that we have been working, both colours of government, in the Riverland to make sure that we can stay fruit fly free. There are many hundreds and thousands of hours of work going in with people visiting properties throughout the Riverland and many millions of dollars being spent to keep that status up and there has been some good work done over time in that regard.

I know some people get upset about the no-tolerance protocols with fruit going into the Riverland, but unless you have those no-tolerance protocols, you are never going to get the result that the state needs and the Riverland needs and what we desire.

We just need to make sure the protocols are right. We see in the livestock industry where farmers have Property Identification Codes (PICs) and the electronic identification which has been used for years now in the cattle industry. It is an expensive process as it transfers through to the sheep industry, because obviously there are a lot more hooves and bodies on the ground. It does come at a huge cost for primary producers and especially if you are running, say, 10,000 sheep, which is not that unusual—maybe not during the current drought we are in, because people would have destocked heavily—but there would be producers in a normal year who would be running up to that level of stock and more, so it can be a significant impost.

Just like the tomato brown rugose fruit virus, whether the farmers are in the tomato industry, whether they are in the fruit industry or whether they are in the livestock industry, they will do their bit. But they need to know that they are getting backed up by the appropriate protocols endorsed by the Minister for Primary Industries and the government of the day to make sure that there is a problem, because it does come at a huge cost to the owners of these businesses throughout South Australia no matter what section of primary industries they are in.

They want to know that they have the backing of the government of the day and to know that those protocols can be instituted in a timely manner so that they are not going out of business completely—and some leave entirely—or it has such a huge impact that it puts, as we heard in one case, 500 people out of work for a significant amount of time. People need to know that the protocols are in place.

The government needs to have protocols heading into the future, where people like Ray Borda and his team at Macro Meats can utilise their labs and make sure there are other labs in place that are already operating in the food sector which could be amped up in a really quick amount of time to make sure those tests can be rotated quickly. I think that was the biggest issue in regard to this tomato brown rugose fruit virus impacting growers and their staff across the state.

It came at a huge physical cost and a huge mental cost to these operators. As I indicated before, the primary producers of this state—no matter what they are involved in as far as primary production is concerned—need to know that as long as they are doing the right thing, if things do go pear-shaped, as they did here, they have the backing of the government so things can turn around a lot more quickly than they did with this virus incursion and they can get on with their job of producing quality food for this state and this country.