Cheese Exports Disrupted

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31161, 10 September 1966, Page 3

Cheese Exports Disrupted

(N.Z. Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Sept. 9

New Zealand cheese being matured for the Australian market will not be admitted to Australia under new quarantine regulations announced in Sydney.

“The Australian quarantine legislation now prohibits the importation into Australia of cheese unless it is accompanied by a declaration stating, inter alia, that the milk from which the cheese was made or the cheese itself has been effectively pasteurised and that the milk was subjected during manufacture to a test known as the phosphatase test,” said Mr A. H. Ward, general manager of the Dairy Board. The Government was discussing the question with the Australian authorities, he said.

The phosphatase test was designed to show whether the milk had been effectively pasteurised, Mr Ward said. “All our cheese is based on milk which has been effectively pasteurised, and there would be no difficulty in supplying the Australian authorities with documentary evidence of this fact. “But it is not customary for our manufacturers to carry out the phosphatase test and in any case it would not be possible to furnish phosphatase test certificates in respect of cheese already manufactured and being matured for the Australian market.

“We hope the two Governments will come to an agreement so that we can continue to market cheese in Australia without interruption in the terms of the trade agreement between the two countries,” Mr Ward said. New Zealand has made a formal protest to the Australian Federal Government over the new quarantine regulations on imported cheese, says a Sydney message. Observers in Sydney regard the new regulations, described by importers as the “toughest in the world,” as a blow to the spirit of the Limited Free Trade Agreement between Australia and New Zealand, which came into effect this year. : New Zealand cheese exports to Australia were increased this year under the agreement, which allows for annual increases for the next five years. The director of the SydneyChamber of Commerce, Mr A. J. R. Birch, said today that because of the new regulations all lines of imported cheese would go off the Australian market after October.

Observers in Sydney regard the quarantine moves as particularly untimely in view of the Limited Free Trade Agreement and the present Tariff Board Inquiry into cheese

Domestic specialty cheese manufacturers have asked the board to raise the existing 5.8 cents a pound tariff on imported cheeses to 25 cents (N.Z.2s). It is believed that the regulations, designed to prevent the entry of disease organisms into Australia through cheese, are not aimed at New Zealand but at some southern European countries, whose cheese production is not as scientifically advanced. Australian health authorities are believed to have no doubt about New Zealand’s high standards of hygiene in food production, but they feel unable to make exceptions for individual countries in general regulations. New Zealand is believed to have told the Australian Government that no other country requires the phosphatase test

for -imported cheese. The regulations were the “toughest in the world,” and had been gazetted without warning, Australian importers said. They are designed to pre-

vent the entry of a virulent strain of brucellosis. Brucellosis, which causes a high fever, can be transmitted from animals to humans through cheese, and can be fatal.