Have we seen the TV shows? Australian and New Zealand.
With so very much for us to endanger I am unimpressed with the fines, even if its a mistake.
Seems Customs stopped 110kgs of Thailand citrus leaves used in cooking,contaminated with Citrus blight.
We could introduce somethings that would forever take our clean and green tag away.
We could even by barred from some markets.
In a country suffering still from introductions by unknowing or the unwise, rabbits,cane toads, Lantana, Fox's, sparrows, Indian Minor birds.
Can we justify fines of $250 even less?
Maybe the average should be $1.000 or a prison term.
How many of us are confident a day will not come that brings us to our knees?

Border Patrol Protection for Animals and Plants
That joke is as old as the hills. Drive down Cape York after 5 pm on friday & there's no checking until monday 8 am.
Boats over 7 m which in general are kept clean & anchor off-shore need special clearance to go to Cape York from PNG. The small dinghies in the relay that carry all the deceases can go at will. Makes a lot of sense doesn't it ?

In reality some city livers would not understand how bad the danger is.
I have seen, time and again,in both Australian and Kiwi programs people let of.
Yet our whole food export industry can be lost.
We spray plans and yet almost for sure risk SOME thinking it is worth the threat.
As a gardener I am often forced to remove a plant and sit back and hope its disease will be contained before I need to remove them all.
Cattle, pigs sheep and much more is threatened even humans as illness we currently see little of is being re imported.

Whilst it is vital that we protect what keeps us going, we mustn't lose sight of a perfectly natural phenomenon called evolution. We can only try to control nature but eventually she'll do whatever she pleases, crops or no crops. We put a lot of effort into preventing plant deceases from getting a foot in the door whilst by far the greatest threat is from pussy-footing incompatible cultured people from within. Cultured as in business culture & every other sense. GM crops may be a great short-term solution at this stage. We're still in no position to confidently say that GM crops are totally without detrimental consequences to our ecology. Sooner or later some decease will sneak into the country & GM crops may or may not be able to hold up against it. If there is indeed a change in climatic conditions this also will impact differently to what we think we're prepared for. Nature co-operates with our interference to some extent & allows for it in evolution but does not bow to our every whim.

In watching those TV shows we can if we want see vegetation or fruit food wrapped in clothing and hidden.
Australia by its very nature has not had many plant and animal diseases, distance and time taken by sail boats kept them out.
To suddenly find we have foot and mouth?
And end forever, to some meat exports and for a very long time to most.
Some parts of our country always, will need those exports we can not mine what is not there.
Vegetable matter can do the same.
Citrus rust threatened the QLD industry, over seas bee illnesses are maybe already here but others can come.
We should never ever forget, terrorism too could just import an illness and let it destroy whole industry's.

Just a thought on keeping terrorism out of the country, perhaps we should control American foreign policy and take over their military bases in Australia.
Den71