This is a Bill to consolidate in one Act our existing legal powers, which originated the best part of a century ago in an Act of 1877 and have been extended since by Acts of 1907, 1929 and 1954, for the enforcement of measures to prevent the introduction and spread in this country of plant diseases and pests.
The powers contained in the Acts are principally exercised to control the importation of plants, bulbs and similar produce which might be the means of bringing pests and diseases into the country; and of course to prevent the spread of pests or diseases within the country.
The successive extensions of the scope of the original Act arose from the growing knowledge of the possible effects of insects, pests, etc., on crops. The first Act, of 1877, was designed to deal only with the Colorado beetle, following the rapid spread of that pest in the United States and the havoc it caused to the potato crop there. The Act of 1907 added any insect, fungus or other pest destructive to agricultural and horticultural crops, trees and bushes, and the Act of 1929 any agents, bacteria, or other vegetables or animal organisms, causative of a transmissible crop disease. Finally, by the 1954 Act, insects which might be brought into the country for the biological control of plant pests, namely predators, parasites and micro-organisms, were also included. This Act also removed certain anomalies in the previous Acts regarding payment of compensation for crops destroyed compulsorily, by placing the entire responsibility for such payments on the Department of Agriculture. Up to then compensation was payable either by local authorities under the 1877 and 1907 Acts or by the Department under the 1929 Act.