AS THE grape harvest moves into full swing, Mildura Rural City Councillor Glenn Milne has attacked the Victorian Department of Primary Industry as “either lazy or stupid” for doing nothing to protect Sunraysia horticulture against further massive losses due to fruit fly outbreaks.
Cr Milne said the Australia Day weekend was always one of the busiest of the year for Mildura, and heavy traffic in both directions on the Sturt Highway had left local horticulture exposed to further outbreaks of Queensland fruit fly that could cost Greater Sunraysia’s horticultural industries “a fortune” in quarantine measures and lost export sales, as had happened last season.
Cr Milne said the Victorian Government had apparently not noticed a recent Q-fly outbreak in the heart of the city of Adelaide; signs on the Sturt Highway leading out of the city warned of the risk of phylloxera being transported on infested vines, but there was no warning about fruit fly.
He said that, at the very least, Victoria should have installed a road block on the Victorian side of the highway at Yamba, and another on the Sturt Highway near Euston, to check vehicles approaching from Adelaide and Griffith, where fruit fly was present.
“On the road into Sunraysia from Adelaide, there’s not even a sign warning people not to bring fruit in,” he said.
“The South Australian fruit fly road block at Yamba should be duplicated on the Victorian side of the border.
“The Victorian department is pretty quick to go running out to find fruit fly with baits after an outbreak, but they don’t seem very interested in preventing infested fruit coming into the district.
“Do they really care that outbreaks last season cost this district millions of dollars, and are still preventing most of our table grape growers exporting their fruit by air?”
“I’ll bet that nobody in Adelaide is putting out baits to eradicate fruit flies in Adelaide. It’s now confirmed that South Australia has fruit fly, right in the heart of Adelaide.
“Adelaide can infest the Riverland if they’re not controlling the outbreak, and it’s only a short distance from the Riverland to Sunraysia.”
Cr Milne’s comments follow hot on the heels of Mildura Rural City Council’s involvement in a three-state local government campaign against fruit fly (see Page 10).
More than 50 councils in Victoria, NSW and South Australia have been approached to raise awareness about the dangers of the world’s worst fruit pest.
Councils in the Fruit Fly Exclusion Zone have been asked to post on their websites a community service announcement featuring celebrity chef Stefano de Pieri calling on travellers to leave their fruit at home to ensure they’re not inadvertently responsible for a fruit fly outbreak.
Cr Milne said that fruit fly was a political issue in South Australia – the SA Government received kudos for protecting the state’s horticultural industry against fruit fly, but the Victorian Government “doesn’t appear to be smart enough to take similar measures”.
This article appeared in Friday's Sunraysia Daily 3-2-2012.
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