Biosecurity Tasmania left a big, expensive order of pesticide with a supplier for many weeks during the fruit fly incursion, tried to cancel it, finally picked it up and then appeared not to know it had it, Fairfax has been told.
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“ ... when the initial fruit fly outbreak occurred, Biosecurity rushed a pesticide order to a Northern Tasmanian supplier,” a source told Fairfax.
“A very urgent order that required immediate action.
“The supplier jumped through many hoops to get the order filled via mainland suppliers.
“The order arrived, but sat in the store for many weeks awaiting directions for delivery or pickup.
“Eventually the phone rang from Biosecurity with an extraordinary request that the order be cancelled and returned to the mainland.
“This was a $250,000 order.”
The source said the supplier refused because of the effort made to facilitate the order and Biosecurity was asked to collect the pesticide.
“This they did, picking up and taking to Hobart,” the source said.
“After the fruit fly detection at George Town, the supplier received a call from a different Biosecurity officer requesting they order an urgent quantity of the very same pesticide.
“The supplier proceeded to explain to the officer that they already had a huge amount of the pesticide already available for their use.
“This was a surprise to the officer, who was unaware any such order had been placed.”
The Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment did not directly address all of what was claimed.
A spokesperson said: ”A critical part of the fruit fly response was targeting sites around infected areas with a treatment program identified as appropriate and effective for fruit fly eradication.”.
“The department ordered a supply from interstate to deal with known infected sites at the time, but also ensuring there was adequate supply if incursion areas increased.
“Fortunately, the incursion was contained and additional treatment was not required.
“The department intends to keep some supplies of the treatment to enhance response capabilities if required in future.
“Some supplies have also been sold to interstate authorities.”
Primary Industries Minister Sarah Courtney said there were lessons to learn from any crisis management situation and she was sure there would be from fruit fly too.
“That is why we stated we will conduct an independent review into the fruit fly response once our pest free area status has been reinstated,” Ms Courtney said.
“What is important is that quick action by Biosecurity means we have been able to contain the incursions to within control sites and we are on track for restrictions to be removed in January.
“The government is working with industry to ensure our biosecurity system remains well placed to respond to any potential future pest incursions.”
Shadow Primary Industries Minister Shane Broad said: “It is obvious that the initial stages of the fruit fly outbreak were chaotic and a local business was left holding $250,000 of product, which no doubt caused cashflow issues.”
“The fruit fly and blueberry rust outbreaks have demonstrated that the government is simply not prepared for biosecurity failures, which is why Labor has been calling for urgent work on preparation projects so that Tasmania is not caught out again if another pest or disease arrives.
“The government must also account for the rapid expenditure of $17 million of the federal $20 million bailout, which has led to grower support package being cut off.
“This chemical purchase is simply another example of money being wasted as the government scrambled to respond to an outbreak they should have been prepared for.”
