LABOR MUST ACT ON BEE SECURITY
03-March-2011
More than 200 bee campaigners descended on Parliament House on Wednesday to highlight the dangers of the Asian Honey bee. Mrs Mirabella’s office worked with Jodie Goldsworthy from Beechworth Honey to ensure beekeepers across the country could make their case to MP’s in Canberra.
The Labor Government has declared the bee endemic in February and funding for the $5 million eradication program will cease in April.
Meeting with campaign organiser, Jodie Goldsworthy, Member for Indi, Sophie Mirabella said the decision will have serious ramifications for food security in Australia and poses significant threats to the local agricultural industry in the North East.
“The Minister has effectively thrown his hands in the air and declared it’s all too hard for him,” said Mrs Mirabella.
“This decision will have serious consequences at a local and national level and it’s just not good enough for Minister Ludwig to scrap the eradication program and then hide behind his department. If the Minister had any courage, he would stand up to these bureaucrats and reverse the decision.
Asian honeybees (apis cerana) have a very aggressive nature and they are much more inclined to sting people and when cornered will attack. They are also the natural host of the Varroa mite, a major threat to Australia's honey bee industry.
“There is an emerging sense that Labor has absolutely no interest in bio-security. They have stripped vital funding from the department of Agriculture, they tried to weaken cattle import regulations, they have already opened our borders to potentially disease ridden apples from New Zealand and China and now they are canning a program that threatens to destroy our food security.
“This is a relatively small amount of funding for an extremely important program. Labor are happy to re-instate hundreds of millions of dollars of programs at the request of The Greens, but they ignore the importance of our agricultural industry and food security,” Mrs Mirabella concluded.