Biosecurity Risk and the (Anti)Politics of Trade Liberalisation: The Case of New Zealand Apple Imports into Australia
Author: Dr Vaughan Higgins
Abstract
Biosecurity represents a rapidly growing area of social science inquiry. Yet, despite claims that biosecurity measures represent non-tariff trade barriers, there has so far been little attempt to provide a critical analysis of the ways in which biosecurity concerns are rendered (at least ostensibly) compatible with trade liberalisation. This paper uses Barry's (2002) notion of the 'anti-political economy' to explore how techniques used to frame and assess biosecurity risk are linked to the politics of trade liberalisation. Drawing upon a case study of the long-running dispute concerning efforts by New Zealand apple growers to gain access to the Australian market, we highlight the significance of the import risk-analysis process used by Biosecurity Australia in framing potential outbreaks of apple fire blight disease as a technical issue of risk management - an anti-political activity. In seeking to shift concern over disease risk away from the political, the paper contends that this approach gave rise to contestation from Australian and New Zealand growers who variously viewed the risk assessment process as insufficiently scientific or trade distorting. The paper concludes that focusing on risk assessment as a political but putatively anti-political activity provides crucial insights into the nuanced and complex relationship between biosecurity and trade liberalisation.
