In many ways the frustration of Bass Strait as an additional cost to agriculture is also our greatest buffer against disease.

We have already seen how European carp quickly established in lakes Crescent and Sorell and the crown-of-thorns starfish is having a dramatic impact along Tasmania's East Coast.

Millions of dollars are controversially being spent on preventing foxes from gaining a permanent foothold in Tasmania.

We have quite appropriately railed against lifting our ban on New Zealand apples to protect our fireblight-free status.

The New Zealanders can complain all they like but contaminated containers of apples have already been discovered in Victoria which effectively puts them at our front door.

Allowing these apples into Tasmania will neither make or break any free trade agreement but fireblight could destroy Tasmania's apple industry.

The latest threat is a plant pathogen called myrtle rust that has just been discovered in Victoria for the first time.

It was first seen in NSW less than two years ago and spreads rapidly through plants in the myrtaceae family, which includes native Australian species like eucalypts.

TFGA chief executive Jan Davis said that myrtle rust could be the worst bio-security risk ever seen in Tasmania because once established it cannot be eradicated.

She claimed that only 60 per cent of shipping containers are subject to quarantine checks and only one in three airline flights.

Our governments must be pro-active on this issue because, as we are seeing with the carp and foxes, it is extremely expensive to try and clean up the mess retrospectively.

-MARTIN GILMOUR, editor