Committee Hearing - Australian Honeybee Industry

I will be discussing the meeting of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, on August 8 2007.

The reference for this meeting was the future development of the Australian honeybee industry. The terms of reference for the Committee were:
To inquire into and report on:
Honey bee industry in terms of:
1. Its current and future prospects.
2. Its role in agriculture and forestry.
3. Biosecurity issues.
4. Trade issues.
5. The impact of land management and bushfires.
6. The research and development needs of the industry.
7. Existing industry and Government work that has been undertaken for the honey bee industry.

Present at the hearing were members of the committee, and four delegates from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC).

The hearing adhered to these terms very closely, with the majority of discussion on current and future prospects, biosecurity issues, and the research and development needs of the industry. These areas - particularly the third – are perhaps somewhat predictable, given the witnesses in attendance, and their affiliation with the scientific community.

The RIRDC essentially pushed for an increase in funding for the honeybee industry, with Chairman Desmond Cannon at one point agreeing to an assertion that the current funding was “chickenfeed”.

Throughout this hearing, I was struck by the sympathetic way in which the Committee approached the RIRDC’s presence at the hearing. There seemed to be quite a good rapport between the two groups, and it often felt as though the RIRDC was simply going through the motions and being led by the Committee’s questions. A perfect example came when the Chair of the Committee, The Hon Alby Schultz, says that the level of funding “is still chickenfeed… in terms of what we really required?”, to which the RIRDC agreed, as mentioned above.

The Committee is also quite willing to allow the RIRDC to overstate their case. At one point, Margaret Thomson from the RIRDC says that “$4 to $6 billion of industry would be impacted upon by the varroa destructor mite if it were to infect Australia. This figure was significantly higher than the Committee expected, that figure being $2 billion, and came about as Ms Thomson spoke of the total size of indirectly involved industries, not the impact upon them.

The varroa mite actually took up a significant amount of time in the hearing, in relation to its threat as a biosecurity hazard. Again, the RIRDC were well armed with financial information, pointing to the mite’s occurrence in New Zealand. The NZ government spent $800,000 trying to stop the mite spreading from the North to the South Island, whereas Australia currently spends only $20,000. The RIRDC also suggest that Australia could be significantly more secure against the risk of infestation for only $1,000, a number taken by the Committee as representing extremely good value on a cost-benefit basis given the honeybee industry generates around $60 million.

However, the RIRDC made sure the Committee understood the level of risk facing Australia. There are multiple mentions of “colony collapse disorder”, an issue currently effecting the US and New Zealand honeybee industries. In response to a direct question about the apiary knowledge of Australia, the RIRDC say that Australia is “probably just above the developing countries”.

Overall, I think the Committee process allows interest or lobby groups to succinctly and openly state their case to Parliament. However, the need to construct quick, precise and meaningful communication is enormous. Given the wide-ranging nature of such Committees, the ability to distil an entire issue into a small message gives lobbyists a considerable advantage, while the importance of being across all areas of an issue is very obvious.