Tasmanian Premier Jim Bacon said the Tasmanian Government would not buckle to pressure from the WTO and the Australian Federal Government to weaken its quarantine laws and allow raw salmon into the state.
"This is not a trade issue. This issue is about the protection of Tasmania's reputation as a producer of fine quality, disease free food."
"Tasmania is the only salmon producer in the world that is disease free and we have managed to maintain that status through tough quarantine measures. The Federal Government and the WTO need to understand our determination to maintain that disease free status," Bacon said.
"I am encouraged the State Opposition has offered bipartisan support but am extremely disappointed that Liberal senators are trying to use Tasmania as a scapegoat." Mr Bacon said the WTO found that Australia, not just Tasmania, must relax its restrictions on salmon imports or face punitive trade retaliation from Canada.
Mr Bacon says that "the Canadians still believe the Tasmanian Government has imposed the import ban as a trade protection measure. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Tasmanian salmon market would be worth less than $30,000 to the Canadians - hardly worth the cost of pursuing the issue. But on the other hand, the State will lose a $120 million industry if it loses its disease free status with ramifications for all of Tasmania's food industries." Canada is claiming lost trade of C$45 million [since 1975], a figure with which Australia does not agree.
Meanwhile Australia tries to isolate Canada salmon trade war. The Australian government and trade groups are attempting to stop a new eruption in a longstanding dispute with Canada over salmon imports from spilling into major areas of trade.
Top of the list of trade retaliations being considered by Canada are Australian lamb exports, worth about A$50 million a year, followed by a range of other mostly minor exports. Australian government and trade officials say they will work to ensure the dispute does not widen to involve major commodity exports such as beef, raw sugar and some metals products.
Canada is one of Australia's largest markets for raw sugar, taking 616,081 tonnes in 1998/99. This made it Australia's fourth largest export market, after South Korea, which took 695,500 tonnes, Malaysia and Japan. The Canadian Trade Department said last Friday it now had the right to retaliate against Australia and would ask the WTO to rule on the extent of retaliation Ottawa can take. The process takes 60 days. However Canada may not wish to shoot itself in the foot and target products which it indeed wants to buy, it could rather target products produced from Tasmania, which would not include raw sugar. An official with Australia's national farm lobby group, the National Farmers Federation said retaliation was a lose-lose outcome and bad for trade.
"This latest panel ruling confirms once again that the Australian measures, which continue to restrict salmon imports from Canada, are not based on science," said Canadian Fisheries Minister Herb Dhaliwal. Australia's government would consult with authorities in the state of Tasmania, where import restrictions have been imposed on salmon imports which extend beyond Federal quarantine restrictions. It will also be consulting with Canadian authorities, Australian federal officials said.
Sources: Tasmanian and Canadian governments, Reuters, WTO.:
