WTO angers farmers over apple imports
Australian apple growers are angered by reports the World Trade Organisation (WTO) will overturn Australia’s 90-year ban on New Zealand apple imports.
Rotten ruling a threat to apple industry
THE Adelaide Hills apple industry is facing similar devastation to the Riverland’s horticultural downturn, because of a World Trade Organisation decision to allow New Zealand apples into Australia for the first time in nearly a century.
The move is expected to jeopardise the state’s entire $50 million apple and pear industry.
Apple growers yesterday warned the ruling represented both an economic and disease threat.
Australia’s $500 million apple and pear industry yesterday vowed to fight the WTO decision on disease and trade grounds and to launch a major marketing program to convince consumers to buy Australian..
Adelaide Advertiser, 14 April 2010
Free trade benefits consumers and the wider economy
THE World Trade Organisation’s decision to overturn an 89-year ban on importing New Zealand apples will naturally unsettle local producers but it is good news for consumers. New Zealand apples were first banned in 1921 after some were found to have fire blight. The WTO has reportedly ruled that the ban breaches international trade rules and was not, as Australia has claimed, necessary to protect local crops from disease.
NZ apples to take bite out of Australian fruit market
New Zealand’s apple growers have reportedly won a major victory in their 90-year battle to sell fruit in Australia, but mindful of Australia’s mastery of delaying tactics, the industry is not expecting benefits any time soon.
New Zealand Herald, 13 April 2010
WTO win for apple growers reported
NZ apples were first banned from Australia after fireblight was found in Northland, in 1919, probably after infected nursery stock was imported from California.
Australia first banned the import of fruit trees from New Zealand in the early 1920s when the disease spread in this country, and later the import ban was extended to all apple and pears.
Though New Zealand scientists have found fireblight in Australian ornamental plants and shown that the bacterial disease is unlikely to be transmitted on mature, clean fruit, efforts to gain access to the potentially-lucrative Australian market in 1986, 1989, and 1995 were rejected.
Further talks over the restrictions also failed when access was allowed in 2006 with conditions – such as orchard inspections – so strict that exports would not be economically viable.
New Zealand took a complaint to the World Trade Organisation in 2007, on the basis that the proposed constraints were an unacceptable trade barrier. …
Biosecurity Australia said Chinese apples could be imported as long as risks from 18 pests of concern were a “very low level”.
The pests included mites, oriental fruit fly, mealybugs, Japanese apple rust, apple brown rot, European canker, apple scab, apple and sooty blotch and flyspeck complex – but biosecurity officials said they were satisfied China does not have fireblight.
Australia must abide by WTO rules on apples
It seems almost inevitable that Australia will appeal against the WTO’s final report, which is due in mid-year. Such an appeal, while restricted to issues of law covered in the report, would mean another delay.
In the process, however, Australia is besmirching its reputation as a promoter of free trade. At the moment, its trade practices are the subject of 10 complaints from other countries.
New Zealand has no such cases against it. But Australia is not shy of using the WTO disputes process when it feels slighted. It is a complainant in seven cases, and has also registered as a third party in 47 cases, where it believes that it has commercial or legal interests.
Obviously, the Australians are prepared to use the WTO rules when they are in their interests.
hooray for yummy cheap kiwi apples!
now when can I start eating delicious phillipines bannanas?
How come Kiwi apples will be so much cheaper than ones from Australia? Is the freight free? By the time they appear at your local supermarket I’m confident that they will be as un-delicious as Australian ones (stored for a year etc etc).
I don’t think it’s possible to have a rational discussion about this topic.
How come Kiwi apples will be so much cheaper than ones from Australia?
I think production costs are lower in NZ, possibly because it’s a lower wage economy, possibly because the environment is better suited for growing apples. Browsing an NZ on-line shopping site, they’re selling Braeburns for $2.98/kilo (I don’t think Braeburns are available in Australia), Pacific Rose for $2.48/kilo, and Royal Gala for $2.98. Those are all NZ grown apples. The prices look slightly cheaper than the absolute $ prices I pay here, and by the time the exchange rate is taken into account, they would be cheaper again. But by the time transport and quarantine costs are taken into account, I don’t think that there will be much of a price difference, if there is one at all.
I don’t think it’s possible to have a rational discussion about this topic.
I suspect “rationality” in this topic is strongly determined by which side of the Tasman you come from. As shown by the extracts from newspaper articles from either side of the ditch.
In resolving this problem one thing will be helpful. We won’t be comparing apples to oranges.
Sadly, ’tis true.
I’m just basking in the irony that of the publications quoted here the Oz is the newspaper most likely to go under, as it hasn’t turned a profit since the era of b&w TV. When Rupe kicks it will be the burdensome subsidy at the top of the new management’s do-not-need list.
Then we’ll be no longer able to enjoy their defences of the Great Invisible Hand.
May I suggest an acquaintance with the principle of comparative advantage?
And yay for free trade & NZ apples. This history may well be instructive.
“How come Kiwi apples will be so much cheaper than ones from Australia?”
I have the same thought when I see Californian oranges in Coles cheaper than Aussie ones.
Anyone noticed that a quite a lot of frozen vegetables are now coming from China, Poland and other countries and they are also cheaper than Aussie and NZ equivalents?
Well that’s pretty basic, skepticlawyer, but there are a few other things to think about. So here goes from one who lives on this side of the Tasman.
I doubt whether the environmental conditions are much better in NZ than in Tasmania and the best apple growing areas on the Australian continent. Our usual practice is to export our best quality, so we probably don’t get it on the local market. Because we usually can’t compete on price for two reasons.
The first is cost of labour, which is cheaper in NZ, Asia, Central and South America and we have to contend with subsidies in the US, Canada, Europe etc.
Secondly our dollar is distorted to blazes because of the mining industry, which squeezes the life out of manufacturing and agriculture. It’s also a big worry in areas like education, tourism and services generally. This, frankly, is a big worry for when the mining boom passes as it almost certainly will. Frank Gerber said the other say that it worries the life out of him as news came through about losing another 80,000 jobs in manufacturing. Our margins are getting paper thin in many areas.
Additionally we have problems in penetrating markets that still have tariffs and quotas.
It’s all very well for people in cities to say tough luck, suck it up or go and do something else, but adjustment is not easy where you have infrastructure in place. Also finding and learning new industries, plus the cost of investing in them if a bank will lend you money is not that simple.
WTO rules allow you to take measures to protect home industries when under threat. Places like the US do this by using quotas on imports. We seem to do nothing that means anything if you take instances like pork as a guide.
The charge that we are using biosecurity as a trade barrier is easy to make. If you ask farmers they will say that the official attitude to risk is appalling and that there is a free trade bias in the way Biosecurity Australia goes about things. It’s hard to get a dispassionate and informed view on this issue.
In feeling relaxed about imports from overseas the issue of how it gets here has to be taken into account. Air transport is appalling from the CO2 emissions point of view. In shipping you are supporting the expansion of a pretty filthy industry, without scruple and basically out of control. Think about that as you munch on your crisp NZ apples.
Then there is the issue that I keep bleating on about, which is food security in a world where agricultural production will be under pressure from climate change and urban expansion as well as population rise. We should be very careful about killing existing industries.
On fireblight, I heard a lot about it when there was an outbreak about a decade ago, which looked suspiciously as though it didn’t get here by accident. The BA attitude is to manage risk, but the counter to that is that if you allow risk you’ll inevitably get the disease sooner or later. At which time it is often unmanageable in practice.
So there is this meme about Australia using biosecurity as a trade barrier, but frankly we have a relatively clean environment to protect, which is rare in the world. You can’t regard the people who take pot shots at us over this as disinterested.
There is a lot that is general in the above, rather than specific to the apple industry. I don’t claim to know a lot about the whole issue, but I get pissed off with the simplistic level of the debate.
That’s about all I have to say.
Air freighting food is a disgrace. The WTO can go to hell and so can kiwi apple growers. Kiwi triumphalism all through the blight of Rogernomics was built on the unacknowledged fact that enzed exported its potential unemployed to work in the Australian economy. First wide comb shearers and now apples. What next? Sheep?
Yes – it’s all predicated on lower wages in NZ and air freight, neither of which you’d want to encourage, I would have thought.
I won’t pretend to have the expertise to evaluate the biosecurity issues here — I don’t. On CO2 footprint grounds though I’d be against a liberalisation of this trade. There is no shortage of quality apples here and I haven’t heard of apple and pear growers making windfall profits behind biosecurity walls.
By way of comparison, there is apparently a huge trade in bottled water between Australia and the UK which results in a net exprt to the UK from Australia of about 5-10% of the total trade. That sounds totally bizarre to me. If the trade were banned, few would be worse off.
The broader Dutch Disease questions raised above probably deserve a separate post Brian.
The wages paid in NZ are a matter for NZ voters, surely. They’re lower than Australian wages, but they’re not third world wages. So if NZ orchardists produce apples at lower cost because the inputs into their business (land, water, wages, whatever) are lower, then that’s just comparative advantage.
The air freight argument is more compelling. I love Braeburn apples, and I miss them, but as a rule I don’t buy imported fruit, so even if they are allowed into Australia, I might just go on missing them. Nor am I all that keen on buying say, strawberries that have been airfreighted across from Western Australia, or down from Queensland. Better to buy the local product in season. Defining ‘local’ is interesting: is it say, 50km around where you live, or the state in which you live, or all of Australia?
DD: “Anyone noticed that a quite a lot of frozen vegetables are now coming from China, Poland and other countries and they are also cheaper than Aussie and NZ equivalents?”
Does anyone still eat frozen vegetables? In any case, the fresh ones are much cheaper in China also (if you’re getting varieties that they grow), so that doesn’t surprise me.
Brian: “The first is cost of labour, which is cheaper in NZ”
I’m sure that’s true, but the difference between NZ and here isn’t huge, and I bet it isn’t responsible for most of the difference in the price of apples (assuming that labour is just a small proportion of the cost of apples), so my bet is that it’s your second suggestion that is on the money (i.e., the dollar), and whilst we might complain about it, I’m not sure that having a low dollar to support a rather small industry is really worthwhile (especially because NZ has to do something, and they don’t have all the minerals we have!). Alternatively, not frittering away the money from the mining boom is certainly a good idea.
AN: “Air freighting food is a disgrace.”
Who said apples are air freighted over (let alone the frozen vegetables)? There’s a reason they taste horrible from the supermarket (try tasting one’s grown in someone’s garden or if you live in Victoria, buy some from farmers at Viccy market who come down now and then), and it’s basically because we’re not getting them quickly.
Given the now very complicated levels of cross ownership between Aust & NZ supermarkets chains, I suspect the ‘benefit’ will all be to the bottom line of the two main chains, now able to further squeeze Aust apple growers and their NZ counterparts in one of their usual games of “Race to the Bootom’. They are also able to ship at a per unit cost just about no one else can match.
And Deborah, you can buy Braeburns in Aust that have been grown here – but not at the chains.
conrad, it’s the mining industry that’s small in employment terms. But Fran is right, the Dutch Disease aspect deserves a separate post.
I have to fly, but Background Briefing on RN this morning was on food labelling. One of the constant themes is how far we are bending to accommodate the corporates and the whole trade agenda. There are whole areas where in practice we are letting things rip, so you have Chinese bottled water marketed as “proudly Australian” and the GM Regulator depending on company-supplied research from a company that was caught elsewhere in the world falsifying its research.
Right at the end they said we needed a food ministry and a food policy. Now that’s an idea!
Deborah, there are raging anomalies about they way food moves around Australia. Bob Katter is actually good on this one. He tells of food being trucked to Melbourne from NQ and then distributed back there, mostly by road transport. Not good. In that case it would be environmentally friendlier to ship it in from just about anywhere in the world.
Deborah, you can buy Braeburns in Aust that have been grown here
I haven’t seen them at my non-chain local, but I will check out the Adelaide markets and the local farmers’ market. It’s a two-way thing, this missing of particular products. Whenever we go back to NZ, I miss Pink Lady apples, and mangoes, and readily available cheap eggplant.
Brian, if you won’t listen to me, maybe you’ll listen to Paul Krugman on this. And the way around CO2 emissions is a carbon tax.
The latter may even make NZ apples more expensive.
I wouldn’t trust AQIS to manage quarantine and disease issues. You may remember back in 2007, there was a breakout of horse flu which closed down horse racing in most Australian states and had a terrible effect on the breeding industry.
From memory, the breakout was traced to a horse who had been shuttled from Japan. It was revealed that the quarantine conditions were regularly ignored at the quarantine station and it was a minor miracle there hadn’t been disease outbreaks previously.
This also reminds me of a court case that was run a few years by New Zealand producers. They argued that NZ television should be treated as Australian content in Australia, due to the Closer Economic Relations agreement signed by the two countries. NZ producers wanted to take advantage of the local content rules, because quite pathetically, they don’t have any such rules at home. They won the case. So NZ television content is now counted as Australian content. It doesn’t seem to have made much difference to the production industry on either side of the Tasman. New Zealand still makes the worse tv in the world.
New Zealand still makes the worse tv in the world.
Could we discuss this issue without throwing insults about?
This topic gives me the pip! There is only one solution: adopt the American strategy of invading and occupying.
New Zealand should be a pushover and then we Ozzies can destroy all their crops (like the Israelis do in the West Bank). Then we can build a military base there, hence starting our own Empire.
The way to go!
The reason we have a WTO is to act as a rational independent umpire on such matters. I presume they have done so and I presume that we will ultimately honour the decision.
I like apples.
The reason we have a WTO is to
act as a rational independent umpire on such mattersensure US interests are given primacy.There, I fixed that for you, TerjeP.
Deborah,that’s a bit thin skinned. It isn’t a personal insult. Talk to the people who make NZ television and they’ll agree with me. It’s because it has to be pitched to the lowest common denominator to be able to produced. The new CEO of Screen Australia is a NZer and she’s gone out of her way to emphasise that, if she has anything to do with it, Australia won’t make the same mistakes NZ has. By that, I mean going totally down the privatisation road.
Nothing could be less in Australia’s interests than the pursuit of national autarky in agricultural products. The benefits for Australia from reduced protectionism in other primary products markets (EU, Japan) are potentially massive, which is why back in the 80s the Hawke Government led to push to reduce tariff and non-tariff barriers in primary products (remember the Cairns Group?).
Given how much crap Australian TV that New Zealanders have to endure, tucking into a few of their apples is the least Australians could do.
I only rarely post here but I recall this exact discussion several years ago on this same forum.
While the free trade arguments will be rammed relentlessly home, unfettered trade and the containment of foreign pests and diseases I think are somewhat difficult to reconcile.
I watched an entire local citrus industry be destroyed by a disease that was highly likely brought here in illegal plant material since it does not occur in Australia. Farms and jobs wiped out for years – the cost was significant.
Australia has zero need to import food – are we really going to be any better off for importing that which we already produce?
Yep. See principle of comparative advantage above. Because Australians purchase imports, others have the money to buy our exports. Australia exports a lot more food than it imports. Moreover, it is not as though every apple farm in Australia is being destroyed. Competition from NZ apples gives Australian growers incentives to get better at what they do. Australia imports NZ lamb, cheese and wine, and it has not meant the end of an Australian lamb, cheese or wine industry.
The worst possible thing for Australian farmers would be an outbreak of global food autarchy.
So, Terry, you think it’s fine to import diseaes over?
How do you feel about rabies, foot and mouth disease, equine flu? All good, is it?
Terry,
I don’t think cheese or wine are overly susceptable to carrying microbial agents with the potential to wreck local cheese or wine production.
I am unsure of the situation with lamb but I have not heard of NZ flocks carrying any diseases that Australian ones don’t.
The point is that this does not apply to everything – open imports of vegetable material must sooner or later allow entry of microorganisms that do not occur here and which have the potential to do serious harm to local industry.
Which as stated previously, I have seen for myself.
If you want an unfettered global economy, then you must be prepared to accept to some extent a global ecology.
Did I say that I support the import of diseases? A lot of food crosses Australia’s borders, and we have a quarantine service that assesses it. And the idea that New Zealand produce is somehow riddled with disease sounds a bit, um … xenophobic.
I didn’t say that I support an unfettered global economy, and there are some cases where I support protectionist measures in Australia. For example, i support local content rules for Australian commercial television. My point is that the ledger is so massively in Australia’s favour in the area of agriculture – the opposite position to manufacturing – that we would be insane to throw our lot in with the protectionist camp in agriculture.
I’m not sure why people would find arguments that immigration is a zero-sum exercise don;t understand dynamic economics would fail to recognise how similar principles can work with the import and export of goods and services. It is only in industries in which a nation is weak that it would seek protection, not those where it is among the world’s major exporters.
Why would you support protectionist measures for Australian television but not for important agricultural industries that provide local jobs and do something useful – produce food locally so that there is no real reliance on producers oceans away for the food that we eat?
With the case of the citrus industry, it was clear that the risk was unacceptable.
If you import large amounts of foreign plant matter, you must also import disease oraganisms sooner or later.
Are you saying that a job producing TV shows is not a “real” job but one picking oranges is?
Deborah,that’s a bit thin skinned. It isn’t a personal insult.
Really.
Having found myself watching “Rove” in a hotel room in Wellington, I’ve got some sympathy for the Kiwi position that if they have to watch hours of Aussie dross, then the favour should be returned.
Comparative advantage is compatible with taking care to avoid importing diseases. There. Interestingly, a strong case can be made that the most toxic pest ever introduced into Australia came thanks to government getting too clever by half. I speak, of course, of the cane toad.
And what Terry said.
(Ducks and runs).
What Terry said. One of the reasons why Australia gets absolutely nowhere in arguing against agricultural protectionism in others, is that Australia is widely and correctly seen as utterly hypocritical, given that it routinely and blatantly uses the phytosanitary system as a protectionist tool against agricultural imports itself. Not saying it’s the only, or even main, reason, but most around here seem to favour symbolic purity of policy in, say, greenhouse gas mitigation policy in order to add moral force to persuading the main emitters. The argument is the same.
As for the arguments, if they can be dignified as such, that if NZ apples are imported we’ll all get rabies, or the WTO can go hell and so can comparative advantage – well, I guess several have pointed out the difficulty of a rational debate on this subject given those sorts of attitudes, but really.
Maybe the protectionists could look at this way: your argument appears to be “Australians will decide what food crosses our borders”. Now think about refugees. Any analogy evident?
One canard that hasn’t been addressed is the hoary old food miles nonsense – such imports should be banned because of the CO2 produced in their transport. Greenhouse emissions are produced throughout the food supply chain – fertiilisers, sprays, refrigerated storage, you name it. Very rarely, and certainly not in the case of NZ apples, is transport the main contributor of emissions. Arguments of this sort need to be made on the total carbon footprint of the product, not on how far it travels.
A study actually has been done showing that NZ apples exported to the UK in fact have a carbon footprint lower than domestically produced apples. Given the distances involved, it is difficult to believe that this would not apply to comparisons with exports to Australia as well.. (“Thus per tonne of apples in NZ delivered to the UK the emissions [kg per tonne of apples] are 185 compared to 199 in the UK”. See:
http://www.lincoln.ac.nz/Documents/2328_RR285_s13389.pdf )
Wozza’s right, the “food miles” stuff is a complete crock. You minimise environmental damage and resource usage – including CO2 emission – by growing things where climate and soil best suit the crop (not to mention that’s how to get the best quality). Volcanic soils and cool, wet climate mean there’s a lot more apple growing country in NZ than Australia. And Philippine wages could be twice Australian ones and they’d still produce cheaper – and better and more varied – bananas than ours.
Those fulminating against the WTO here are conveniently neglecting to address the WTO’s actual findings. They’re not saying we should allow our apple orchards to be destroyed by disease in the name of free trade, they’re saying on good scientific grounds that our claims that this would happen are bullshit. They are saying, correctly, that the Australian government is lying through its teeth at the expense of both NZ apple growers and Australian consumers.
The point others have made – that running little protection rackets like this utterly undermines our own farmers’ export interests – is spot on.
I’m not convinced that dd has the knowledge and competence to make a judgement on the science of the fireblight issue. WTO trade disputes are resolved by a panel of three. One is put up by each of the parties and one is agreed by both of them. You would have to look at the qualifications of the panel to see whether they have the requisite scientific competence either, but it is not automatically so. I’ve heard that the panelists tend to be trade lawyers.
But I understand there is Buckley’s chance of an appeal being successful.
There is a huge free trade bias in all the procedures, but the market in agricultural products is anything but free. It is said to be the most distorted of all markets. The setup is that the major players, eg. the EU, the US, Japan, have highly protected markets where internal arrangements respond to democratic and corporate lobbying pressures. Internationally the go has been to lever open all other markets while protecting the home markets of the majors. The WTO meeting in Cancun in 2003 broke down because developing countries were fed up with the hypocrisy of the majors on this matter and a few other matters. No real ‘progress’ has been made since then.
Australian farm interests are highly pro free trade, which is why we started the Cairns Group of agricultural exporting countries to further these interests. So we have a free trade position and reputation to protect. The dilemma is that clean, green production is said to be our comparative advantage, which we naturally want to also maintain. We can only do this on scientific grounds, but there is obviously disagreement on whether we are playing the game honestly. It is not possible, I think, for most commenting here to have an informed opinion about that, but we should all know by now that matters of science are not necessarily black and white.
On the business of NZ TV, Fine has expertise in this area and I would tend to respect her judgement.
The NZ economy, I understand, is a bit smaller then Queensland’s. I know nothing about NZ TV, but a market of that size has limited capacity to generate advertising revenues. If there are too many players in the market production budgets are going to struggle and production values must suffer.
I had this worry in Australia when we issued a third commercial licence. It would be interesting to look at our media electronic concentration and quality of output against the UK situation where the market is about three times as large. Somebody has probably done it.
The point I’d make, though, is that competition between many players is not necessarily the best policy in a small market.
Have to fly. skepticlawyer @ 19, I hope to have time to respond tonight.
Wozza @ 38 has pointed out that food miles are not what they superficially seem to be. I’d accept this completely. But at present there is no capacity in the WTO scheme of things for this being considered, whereas there are arguments as to why it should.
Certainly if we want to preserve the planet in reasonable working order these matters are going to have to be considered dispassionately and rationally, rather than whatever the market delivers or according to perceived national self-interest, which is still the main consideration in trade matters in spite of the ideological blah about free trade. Apart from a few countries, like Australia and NZ, who by and large act as though they believe in free trade, the present dispute notwithstanding.
Does anyone know how much of a problem fireblight actually is? How is NZ able to cope with costs of managing it plus presumably lower productivity from their trees and yet still believe they are able to ship their fruit to Australia at a competitive price?
Brain @ 38 – with a world wide price on carbon there should be no need for the WTO to consider things like food miles. Or lacking that perhaps it should be allowed for countries to impose a carbon tax on imports where the countries doing the exporting don’t have a price on carbon at a similar level. This would also remove some of the fears about production being moved overseas.
In which case derrida, let’s put a proper cost on the lifecycle Co2 emissions of all food howsoever and wherever produced and allow the normal usages to take their course. If it really is a complwete crock, then it will make no difference.
As to Phillippines wages, I’d be happy enough if things sourced there factored in what would be contextually fair wages and working conditions, OH&S etc costs and applied this as a tariff on all producers that fell short of the mark. The funds raised could be used 100% (along with dollar-for dollar matching aid funding) in the Phillippines to operate educational and health programs, quality housing and water, and fund the set up of trade unions, in the locations where goods were being sourced.
That way it’s not protectionism but equity.
NZ TV broadcasters have had advertising for almost their entire existence. There were proposals to turn TV1 into a commercial-free channel like the ABC, but this did not eventuate. NZ is a much smaller market and funds are constrained, unfortunately.
I agree that most NZ TV is pretty shit. In fact some of this shittier bits are directly imported from Aus (yes, it should look familiar). They even had the gall to just beam Aus news reports directly to NZ until recently when they started producing “local” news bulletins. Ugh.
But “worse in the world“? That’s just an unnecessary drive-by insult, offered with no argument or analysis, just tacked onto a line of argument as though it belongs there. That’s what makes it an insult, instead of humour, like say, David G’s invade New Zealand comment.
This would not be an issue if Fine had the grace to say, “Yes, that was a silly thing to say” instead of trying to defend her “worse in the world” comment by implying that it’s my fault for being upset.
New Zealand being the small place it is, I have family and friends who work / have worked in television in NZ, who pour their heart and soul into making the best TV they can with limited resources. I would like to think that their output is at least better that some places in the world, even if it doesn’t reach the high standards of Australian TV.
Deborah, seeing as a lot of Australian TV is rubbish, I think you have every right to feel aggrieved. (Disclaimer: I’ve never knowingly watched any TV programs produced in NZ, so have no opinion either way on its quality.)
I’d love to go to the supermarket and know that whatever product I’m buying is produced by union labour whether it is local or international. I’d ‘appily pay the extra for union bananas or union computers because that way I’d know that the human labour involved was getting something in the vicinity of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s wage. Until the WTO factors that in it can sod off and I’ll support any measure that disrupts, hinders or obstructs global free markets coz they ain’t. Go the Ozzie apple-ies. BTW: enzed TV is ok with subtitles.
we were in aldi t’other day, and bought some cheap kiwi fruit. Shocked to discover that this 1 kg punnet for 99c was grown in Italy of all places! how does that make any sense?
Anyway, on this topic, what wozza said. Brian, I certainly don’t know anything much about fireblight, and suspect that no one here does, so I think we’re left either making stuff up or accepting the word of the independent umpire They say that there’s basically no chance of washed mature fruit carrying the stuff. And fireblight is already in Australia, according to kiwi scientists.
Given that it only takes about three days to get a ship from New Zealand to Australia, I don’t know why everyone thinks they’ll be airfreighted. Not much difference from shipping them from Tassie, really.
anthony nolan, what are the odds you’ll be getting union produced produce from Australian growers? Pretty high, probably.
Wilful, the bosses might be represented in a
formal cartelprofessional industry association but only some pickers are covered by the AWU. And there’s a long history there of industrial disputes, back wages going unpaid, payment in scrip and truck abuses, etc.I wasn’t insulting the people who work in the NZ television industry. They’re talented and hard-working. As my comment implied, it’s a structural fault within the industry. You can’t get the money to produce high quality work within such a small market, unless you have strong government financial support. The reason it does things such as buying ‘Rove’ or broadcasting Australian news is that it’s dirt cheap. NZ decided to go down the deregulation road years ago and the industry has suffered for it. Hence, the NZ industry wanting to take advantage of Australia’s regulatory regime. I can’t blame the producer’s for doing that at all.
There’s nothing to silly about my comment. Except on second thoughts, Italian television is fairly awful as well. I blame Berlusconi.
Fine, it’s not just Berlusconi. I think crap Italian TV predates his involvement, althought he’s been … unhelpful.
Back on topic, a bloke I know is married to a botanist (yes, yes, I know, anecdotal hearsay) who reckons fireblight is something we should be concerned about. She doesn’t own an apple orchard, to the best of my knowledge.
*Berlusconi apparently inspired Rupert to go down the hysterical Fox road.
*And Italians apparently watch lots of internet television because they cannot stand the local pile o’s’.
*And the Italian kiwi fruit invasion is now complete. No local product has been available for over a month.
*sorry, Deb, all o/t but I had to say.
This is, unfortunately, true. Agricultural protectionism in the US, Japan and the EU (especially the latter two) is responsible for more ‘intensive’ agriculture, more fertilizer use and more downstream pollution. It also kills Africans, who can do agriculture rather well but are never given a chance to compete.
If we had free trade, there would be no need for ‘fair trade’.
There are two things I think we’ll never have – free trade and a world price on carbon. So we have to deal with the circumstances we’ve got.
wilful, we have one report from the Dominion Post that New Zealand scientists have found fireblight in Australian ornamental plants. I’d want confirmation of that from other sources and comment on its significance before I took it seriously.
This topic was much in the news a few years ago. At that time it got extensive treatment on Radio National. I’d take a lot of convincing as a result that fireblight transmission is not a problem and have almost no confidence in WTO panels to judge the matter.
A few facts in relation to comment that has been made.
Innisfail, where 90% of our bananas are grown is 17 degrees south. Manila is 14 degrees north. I can’t see where the Filipino climatic advantage is. Of course Innisfail is quite remote from the main Australian markets and the transport may be more carbon intensive at present.
Hobart is 42 degrees south, which compares to Christchurch at 43 degrees. I don’t know where the main apple growing areas are in NZ, but on the face of it I can’t see a climatic advantage.
According to the CIA Factbook, Australia’s per capita GDP (purchasing price parity in $US) is $38,800. NZ’s is $27,900, or 29.6% lower. Poland’s is $17,900. This has relevance to the comparative costs of production.
There is information on fire blight here, which, oddly, says NZ is fire blight free. Certainly I understand Japan accepts NZ apples, which NZ can and does use as an argument that we should too.
There has been only one ABC item so far. Of most interest to me was the information that we have a half billion dollar apple industry. To NZ our market would be cream on the cake, about 5% of their crop. They couldn’t supply all our needs if our industry was stuffed, so I don’t know how all that would work out.
Italian kiwi fruit appear here probably for the same reason the Italian tomatoes appear in Ghana. Because of subsidies in the EU.
BTW we ate bananas from Ecuador in NZ recently. Not impressed. If anyone ate yummy bananas in the Philippines it is unlikely that the same quality bananas would reach us.
Forget it, Fine.
we ate bananas from Ecuador in NZ recently. Not impressed
I prefer the taste of Australian grown bananas too. But that wouldn’t be a good reason to prevent other bananas from entering the country.
Hobart is 42 degrees south, which compares to Christchurch at 43 degrees. I don’t know where the main apple growing areas are in NZ, but on the face of it I can’t see a climatic advantage.
Not in Christchurch! Hawkes Bay and Nelson. You need good winter dormancy, and dry warm summers. I suspect, ‘though I don’t know, that the reason for growing apples in Tasmania is the winter dormancy period.
Holy crap, is this credible? China produces 29 million tonnes of apples a year, more than all other countries combined by the look of it. Perhaps it isn’t NZ apples that the Australian industry fears, but that they would be the thin end of the wedge?
Deborah, one of the problems of a thread like this is that we get ‘information’ that actually has little basis in fact, but stands if unchallenged. I’m no expert on the climatic conditions for growing apples and bananas, but Australia had many climates and on face value I don’t think we can assume that there are no areas in Aust with climates similar to NZ for growing apples.
I’m for consumer choice also and would have no objection to NZ apples being available here if the disease threat issue is not a problem. WTO philosophy privileges trade heavily above all other considerations. Skepticlawyer, I’m aware of comparative advantage and I think Terry put the case well @ 29. But when you tender for a contract for goods or services you don’t always take the cheapest tender. There are other considerations, which, time permitting, I’ll say a bit more about tonight.
I’d be happy about Filipino bananas, within limits provided the disease issue could be genuinely resolved, provided we could still retain a domestic industry, and provided certain other issues were OK, like the exploitation of Filipino labour, and effectively strip mining hillsides and then moving on to clear a new bit of jungle, which I’d heard was an issue.
We shouldn’t imagine we would be helping Filipino peasant farmers. My understanding is that what’s behind the Filipino push is the interests of multinational corporates.
Some of the various considerations could be balanced by import quotas, which is how the Americans go about it, while preaching the virtues of untrammeled open markets for everyone else.
aidan, that’s interesting, but it’s well known that China has food surpluses in some areas. In negotiating an FTA with them agriculture looks like being a major sticking point. I’m not across all the detail, but I understand they want to continue to protect their agricultural industries while having access to our markets where they have surpluses. I’m sure they have strong internal reasons for doing this while they reorganise their agriculture and consolidate small landholdings without having more redundant farm labour than they can handle.
The WTO if they have a chance to rule on anything doesn’t give a shit about how much social dislocation their decisions cause.
I also suspect that Chinese people eat a lot of Chinese apples.
The issue is not whether Australia has areas that can grow apples, or whether New Zealand has areas that can grow apples. Clearly both land masses have areas that are highly suitable for growing apples, and it’s not at all clear that one is better for growing apples, or best at growing apples. However the cost of growing apples may differ from place to place, due to the costs of inputs. For example, wages may be lower in one area than in another, water may cost less, or not cost anything at all, because there is sufficient rainfall, the price of pest control may be lower in one area than in another. This will vary between apple growing areas within one country, as well as between countries. If apple growers in one area find that they can cover their costs and make a return on investment ie. a profit, when their apples are priced at say $2/kilo, then good on them. If apple growers in another area find that they need to have apples priced at say, $3/kilo in order to cover costs, well, that’s their lookout. It’s up to them if they want to stay in business.
So if Australian apple growers can get their products to the market more cheaply than NZ apple growers, because the input costs are less, then that’s fine. That’s the way that markets operate, and most of the time, when it comes to distributing food and consumer goods, unimpeded markets work quite well.
If you want to add social reasons on top of market decisions, that’s fine. If you want to protect a local industry, then it may be a shame for your consumers, who pay higher prices than they might otherwise pay, but that’s your call. Unless of course, you have signed treaties that say that you won’t have trade barriers between nations.
I agree with the necessity for preventing pests and diseases from entering countries. NZ is around about as pest and disease free as Australia: Australia has some pests and diseases (eg. fruit flies) that are not present in New Zealand, and New Zealand has some pests and diseases that are not present in Australia (eg. fire blight, varroa bee mite). The question is whether fire blight can be spread on fruit. If it can be spread on fruit, then there is good reason for Australia to ban the import of NZ apples. If it can’t be spread on fruit, then given the trade agreements between Australia and New Zealand, there should be no reason for New Zealand apples to be barred from Australia.
A mate who currently spends half of each year teaching in China reckons that the fruit and veg he gets over there is way fresher than anything we see in Australia.
However, I’m not sure that’d be true by the time we got it. I’ve bought Chinese garlic. Once.
That’s all logical, Deborah. If we have signed a trade agreement with NZ, then you are right, we have to cop it sweet. It’s analogous in a way with what happened in the dairying industry here, except in that case there was a levy put on the remaining producers to assist with the cost of industry adjustment, which we obviously can’t put on NZ producers.
I’m with Ross Garnaut in not favouring these bilateral preferential trade agreements, (which is what they are) but that is another issue. With NZ it’s a done deal and is unlikely to change.
well deborah has basically said it all.
On other trade matters, these 99c kiwifruit, and 89c cans of tomatoes. Is it ethical for me to eat them – after all, I am merely benefiting from the social choices that Europeans have made, to preserve their agricultural traditions, right? What should I care that European taxpayers are getting stiffed? It’s a wealth transfer, right?
Actually, wilful, I always buy the Italian tomatoes, because they’re the only ones you can buy that have only tomatoes – and nothing else – in the tin. I’d rather buy Australian, but Australian tinned tomatoes are always adulterated.
wilful, I reckon it’s up to you. Until about 5 years ago I used to read more about trade than I do now about climate change. I said a lot of what I thought in a long piece in Webdiary. If you read through to the section on Experiential Reality you’ll get the picture. One example I gave was what subsidised US rice imports did to Honduras:
I remember not using a story about how subsidised Italian tomatoes had devastated the tomato industry in Ghana, with a pathetic tale about peasants trying to sell their produce on the roadside. Problem was it was the road to Burkina Faso where no-one goes much.
BTW it’s probably the German taxpayers more than the Italian ones who are being stiffed.
In the piece I said:
The WTO doesn’t is designed to bring recalcitrant governments who adopt the ‘wrong’ policies into line. That’s the aim.
But to get back to the NZ case, bi-lateral trade agreements are frowned upon by Garnaut because overall they are preferential and distortive and often strangle trade in red tape. The Aust/NZ one is supposed to be perhaps the most open, the cleanest and the most complete in the whole wide world. The very model of how these things should be done.
I think they should be done only where there is a clear mutual advantage or with relatively mature economies and then with countries that are socially and culturally compatible.
I couldn’t think of a better mob for us to link up with than the mob across the ditch. I do wonder what they think about it though, apples apart.
Rugby is the answer Brian, but now that the natural order of the universe has been restored and the Crusaders are back at the top of the Super 14 table, I can divert myself with apples again for a minute.
As for, “we need a rule-based trading system, but hopefully one that incorporates a respect for diversity, democracy and self-determination” and Fran’s similar suggestion that trade rules need to cover “contextually fair wages and working conditions” and “a proper cost on the lifecycle Co2 emissions”, well, it would certainly be wonderful in theory if a benevolent, all-knowing central authority could take and implement the right decisions, based on every social, economic and environmental parameter, about who should make what and where, whom they should sell it to, and whom they can buy what other stuff from.
I think that’s been tried, though, and the Soviet Union no longer exists as a result. It just is not possible in the real world. It isn’t even possible to do the limited life cycle carbon footprint comprehensively – take a look at the Lincoln study I referenced and see how much time and info was required to do it for 3 products from one exporter to one import market. World-wide, over all products, to and from all markets? Forget it.
All one can do is regulate trade as trade, and the convoluted and time-consuming procedures of the WTO show how difficult even that limited objective is. You may interpret it as an unhealthy trade policy bias in decision making; I interpret it as the WTO doing the job it was created for, and the biggest job it can realistically do, and doing it pretty well on the whole.
Wozza, what I am on about in part is the restoration and preservation of the capacity of democratically elected governments to make decisions within their own country which balance the interests of their constituencies. International trade negotiations are conducted on the basis that the majors will retain that capacity,but democratic processes in other countries, those on the periphery of the world system, are undercut and constrained. I explained this in some detail in the linked article. But if you want an insight into the sheer brutality, cynicism and total lack of ethics in international trade negotiations, read Eileen Kwa’s study Power Politics in the WTO.
IMHO:
The majors also respond to their peak farming lobbies, but also use trade to project power and influence in the world.
I’m also aware of the difficulty of carbon labelling and did a post on it in June last year. Still, we can’t ignore the issue of minimising the carbon footprint of food production and distribution, because by the middle of this century the world is going to have to have a carbon budget to produce twice as much food as we do now, because we have to eat to live. All these emissions will have to be offset if we want a livable world and a continuation of a reasonable life-style.
I’m with Clive Hamilton in saying that we need to clean out the corporate influence in government and radicalise and renew democracy if we are to have any chance at all, which is not much. So we need more democracy, not less.
But yes, greed and the untrammeled materialist/consumerist growth agenda is going to have to be constrained, by regulation if necessary. Unless we can find and apply unlimited sources of clean energy, applicable to air travel/transport as well as shipping. This I believe is possible in the future, perhaps from some time in the second half of this century, but not in time to avoid dangerous climate change.