I hope the Labor government is strong enough to resist this as it was Coalition who stopped the WTO in its tracks 4 years ago by setting conditions that made it economically impossible for NZ to send us their diseased apples which could well blight our own industries here.

I don't have much faith in their being able to and can only hope for a Coalition government being elected who will stick up for Australia and not lie down and invite the International lefties to walk all over us.

We need to keep our agriculture decease free but it is a hard job in the face of constant bullying by left wing organisations like WTO, United nations, Amnesty and others who masquerade as being do-gooders but actually cause more harm than good and bully the western successful countries because they hate anyone who achieves success.

[quote]WTO rules against Australia on NZ apple imports

Updated Tue Aug 10, 2010 3:50am AEST

The World Trade Organisation has ordered Australia to change restrictions on New Zealand apple imports after it found they are illicit.

A ruling by WTO's panel of independent arbitrators says "the dispute settlement body request Australia to bring inconsistent measures... into conformity with its obligations."

Australia banned New Zealand apple imports in the 1920s, claiming there was a risk of spreading the fire blight apple tree disease.

The Australian government lifted the ban in 2006 but imposed strict conditions that New Zealand said made its exports uneconomic.

New Zealand claims the disease cannot be spread through clean mature apples, and in 2007 it asked the WTO to settle the dispute.

The WTO panel upheld New Zealand's arguments, challenging the validity of the scientific and risk assessments invoked by Australia.

Under the WTO's plant and human health rules, any restrictions on trade must be based on a proper assessment of the risks, using internationally recognised methods, as well as "relevant" scientific evidence.

New Zealand growers have estimated that exports of apples to Australia could be worth NZ$50 million (A$40 million) dollars a year.[/quote]

[url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/10/2978225.htm]source[/url]

Now this is something we women can do - stop buying anuthing from new Zealand that will hurt the other industries and let them know they cant bully us nor slip in chinese veggies etc into packets of frozen foods and lie to us saying outsourced is under Australia and NZ food regulations because in china they take no notice and use human feaces for manure have done for centruies they are inured to it we are not and amyway our farmers would be locked up if they did it too.

double standards. We don't want a FTA with China either and will under Labour as already in discussions.

We want our own food grown here and the money we pay for it to go around and around back to our farmers in payment and in wages for work and then into income taxes to pay for our services like hospitals and education and transport not to go off shore to the Chinese whose standard of living is moving upwards in leaps and bounds whilst ours languishes as we lose the capacity to feed ourselves or skills to make the superior manufactured goods we once enjoyed.


We need to look after Australia it is our home and the only one in the world like it - we have to make sure we keep our sovereign rights to do as we need to for the good of all Australians and only after that give any surpluses away to help others.

There is this movement to take away the sovereign rights of all countries and have one world government - which will just be a pit of consumerism where we lose all of our rights to govern ourselves.