KAP Federal Member for Kennedy, Bob Katter, yesterday used Question Time to demand urgent action to save the Mount Isa region’s industrial backbone and to protect Australia’s banana industry from the threat of disease-bearing imports.
Mr Katter described a “doomsday” scenario unfolding in North Queensland with battles occurring on two fronts. The closure of Glencore’s copper operations and the simultaneous shutdown of the Phosphate Hill facility in the west, catastrophic for Mount Isa, once the fourth-largest industrial centre in Australia, and a battle in the east with banana farmers livid over the Government’s intention to assess an application from the Philippines to import potentially diseased bananas into Australia.
In his question, Mr Katter asked;
“Treasurer, we praise the Prime Minister for completion of the Great Inland Way. Now disaster—the closure of copper by Glencore and phosphate by Dyno Nobel. Simultaneously, the government put bananas on the scaffold, accepting an import application from the Philippines—rife with disease and exploited wage earners. The expiration of the $6 a unit gas agreement precipitated doomsday for copper and phosphate. Our competitors pay $6; Australia pays $16.60. Treasurer without reserve resource policy, won’t your government preside over the obliteration of Australia’s fourth-biggest industrial centre, Mount Isa, and a goodbye to bananas?”
Mr Katter said he was intrigued by the Treasurer’s response when he referred to Mount Isa as a “strategically important asset”, paving the way for the area to be recognised as a “special economic zone” under Traeger MP, Robbie Katter’s proposal.
“It is about 600 jobs at Mount Isa and Townsville. It is about 500 more at Dyno Nobel’s Phosphate Hill that would go if the smelter closes. But it’s bigger than that. It’s about the broader industrial capabilities of our country and that really important region,” the Treasurer said.
“The Mt Isa copper smelter is a nationally significant asset and a significant facility for regional Queensland’s industrial capability, and that has driven our efforts throughout this process,” he said.
The Treasurer’s response to the bananas provided the Kennedy MP with less enthusiasm, disappointed that there was not categorical ruling out of the import application.
“I want to assure the Member for Kennedy that the Government will not compromise on biosecurity when it comes to banana imports,” the Treasurer said.
“Our enviable biosecurity status is not up for negotiation. The Department’s assessment process is evidence-based and does not predetermine any trade outcome.”
Mr Katter said that while he welcomed the Treasurer’s assurances, he considered the government was cherry picking Australia’s international obligations.
“There is overwhelming evidence of exploitive working conditions including child labour, significant environmental damage caused by pesticide and chemical usage banned in Australia, yet all the Government will consider is the biosecurity risk,” Mr Katter said. “This cannot and should not be the case.
“We’ve got our industries hanging by a thread, bananas, copper, phosphate, they’re all on the scaffold,” he said.
“If we lose them, we lose Mount Isa, the northwest and a banana growing region the size of Ireland – that’s a big piece of Australia’s economic might.”
The threat posed to Far North Queensland’s $589m banana industry cannot be overstated and is not the first time the Philippines has tried to send their fruit to Australia.
A Panama disease outbreak 16 years ago at Mareeba, a substantial hub of the Cavendish and Lady Finger banana industry, resulted in numerous farms being quarantined and taken out of production altogether.
The Filipines is not Panama-free and has other banana diseases which are not prevalent in Australia.
The Panama outbreak at Mareeba was blamed on Filipino farm workers arriving by plane and going direct to farms to start work, bringing Panama spores on their work boots and clothing which infected several lady finger crops.
These crops were eventually destroyed.
Filipinos first requested to export Cavendish bananas to Australia in 1995, initiating a long-standing effort that faced considerable resistance from the Australian banana industry due to biosecurity concerns about moko disease, black sigatoka, and freckle.
Woolworths and Coles tried to import bananas after major cyclone Larry in 2006 flattened many banana farms in FNQ causing a supply shortage, but it is not known if the cartel is behind the latest attempt.
Despite Australia’s quarantine agency, Biosecurity Australia, eventually allowing imports in 2009, the strict conditions imposed have since deterred Philippine suppliers from applying for import permits.
Katter is the only political bulwark between imported bananas and the local industry, however comments by the Federal Treasurer citing biosecurity concerns seem reassuring.
Biosecurity officers will visit FNQ next week to discuss the import application and its implications for the local industry.