[For stakholders' comments up to 2023-09-11]

The Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (the department) has prepared this draft report to assess the proposal by Vietnam for market access to Australia for fresh passionfruit for human consumption.

Australia currently permits the importation of passionfruit from New Zealand for human consumption, provided Australian biosecurity import conditions are met.

This draft report determines that the importation of commercially produced passionfruit to Australia from all commercial production areas of Vietnam can be permitted, subject to a range of biosecurity requirements.

This draft report contains details of plant pests that are of biosecurity concern to Australia and are potentially associated with the importation of fresh passionfruit from Vietnam. The term ‘pests’ includes both arthropod pests and pathogens. This report also contains risk assessments for the identified quarantine pests and regulated articles, and, where required, proposed risk management measures to reduce the biosecurity risk to an acceptable level, that is, to achieve the appropriate level of protection (ALOP) for Australia.

Eleven pests have been identified in this risk analysis as requiring risk management measures to reduce the biosecurity risk to an acceptable level. These pests are:

·fruit flies: Oriental fruit fly (Bactrocera dorsalis), melon fly (Zeugodacus cucurbitae) and pumpkin fruit fly (Zeugodacus tau)mealybugs: Pacific mealybug (Planococcus minor) and mango mealybug (Rastrococcus invadens)scale insects: dictyospermum scale (Chrysomphalus dictyospermi), mulberry scale (Pseudaulacaspis pentagona) and West Indian red scale (Selenaspidus articulatus)spider mite: Tetranychus pierceithrips: melon thrips (Thrips palmi) and chilli thrips (Scirtothrips dorsalis).

Of these 11 pests:

ten are quarantine pests, including melon thrips, which was also identified as a regulated article as it is capable of harbouring and spreading emerging orthotospoviruses that are quarantine pests for Australiaone is a non-quarantine pest (chilli thrips) but is identified as a regulated article as it is capable of harbouring and spreading quarantine orthotospoviruses.

The identified pests are the same, or of the same pest groups, as those associated with other horticultural commodities that have been analysed previously by the department.

The proposed risk management measures take account of regional differences in pest distribution within Australia. Four pests requiring risk management measures, Planococcus minor, Chrysomphalus dictyospermi, Pseudaulacaspis pentagona and Thrips palmi, have been identified as regional quarantine pests for Western Australia, and Thrips palmi has also been identified as a regional quarantine pest for South Australia. These pests are considered regional quarantine pests as interstate quarantine regulations and enforcement are in place to prevent the introduction and distribution of these pests into the respective jurisdictions.

In this draft report the department proposes a range of risk management measures, combined with operational systems, to reduce the risks posed by the 11 identified pests to achieve the ALOP for Australia. The proposed measures are:

for fruit flies:pest free areas, pest free places of production or pest free production sites; or fruit treatment considered to be effective against fruit flies such as irradiationfor mealybugs, scale insects, spider mite and thrips:pre-export visual inspection, and if found, remedial action.

This draft report has been published on the department website to allow interested parties to provide comments and submissions within the specified consultation period.