Threat To Freedom From Disease

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31043, 26 April 1966, Page 12

Threat To Freedom From Disease

“New Zealand quarantine and inspection services and securities are as good as they possibly can be, and should be, in the light of our great dependence on our primary industries, but as long as people travelling or dispatching goods either wittingly or unwittingly breach our quarantine and customs requirements risks will continue. “Most of the hazardous materials reported as interceptions are declared on the baggage forms filled in by visitors or returning New Zealanders, but baggage searches reveal too many cases of oversight or evasion. The number and variety of interceptions in incoming mail, particularly of meat and other animal products, is especially alarming. An increasing number of items potentially dangerous to animal and plant life in New Zealand, and thus to the primary industries, is being intercepted at ports and airports and in incoming mail, according to the Director-General of Agriculture (Mr D. N. R. Webb). The increase is causing concern to Department of Agriculture authorities responsible for animal and plant quarantine and for port agriculture inspection services. “Monthly reports from our officers at points of entry to New Zealand on the number of interceptions they have made and the kinds of material they have intercepted are cause for fears about the maintenance of our freedom from some of the major scourges of animals and plants whose introduction could have a devastating effect on our economy," Mr Webb cays. Impracticable "Total security against the risk of introduction of animal and plant diseases and pests is not pmcticafaly attainable in today’s conditions of rapid communication and everincreasing travel and trade, except at prohibitive cost in staffing and provision of protective organisations and unacceptable restrictions on the

movement of people and goods. “New Zealanders travelling abroad or having acquaintances or relatives abroad or temporarily resident in New Zealand could do much more to assist our security both by more careful observance and understanding of our security requirements and by making more widely known what we have at stake.” Items Intercepted Items: listed in recent interception reports from ports of entry and the Post Office included soiled shoes,-.used roller skates, animal skins, bongo drums, soiled tent pegs, deer horn, live crabs, used shearing gear, used butchers’ knives, pigeon and goat meat, dried lizard, snake skin, mushrooms, elephant foot, feathered fans and dolls, pot plant and soil, and a variety of foreign food, fruits, and plant. “These things could be the means of introducing dangerous exotic animal diseases or new and serious pests and diseases of crops and commercial and ornamental horticulture,” Mr Webb says. Checking,interception, fumigating and destruction are taking an increasing proportion of the time of officers of the quarantine and port agriculture services, Mr Webb says. “Wider appreciation by the public of the need for maximum security in the interests of our primary industries could greatly reduce the volume of inspection wort and also the degree of continuous risk to which we are exposed.” DECIMAL CONVERSIONS Decimal currency . will be introduced In New Zealand In July, IM7. Recommended conversion rates from 5s ;to ri are as follows:

51 50c Us <1.30 <S Me . Us <1.40 7s 70c Ma <1.50 8s 80c Ms tl.M 9s Me 17s <1.70 10s n 18s <1.80 Ils £1.10 Its <1.90 12s <1.20 20s <2