When Ron and Kay Harbeck wrote to Chief Minister Adam Giles expressing concerns about the National Banana Freckle Eradication Program, they didn’t expect a call from a government employee warning them about the consequences of failure to co-operate with the aims of the campaign.
Mr Harbeck, 74, of Alawa, said an officer from the eradication campaign, identifying herself only as Sarah, rang him at home yesterday saying she was calling about the letter they had written.
“I asked her what letter and she said, ‘the one you wrote to Chief Minister Adam Giles’. She sounded pretty hard-nosed.”
Mr Harbeck said Sarah told him that a refusal to co-operate with the campaign would lead ultimately to departmental staff forcing entry to the couple’s Mullen Gardens home accompanied by police, if necessary.
“It sounds like they’re going to do some heavy stuff. It’s intimidating and threatening. All I’m trying to do is protect my healthy bananas.”
The couple’s letter to Mr Giles did end on a defiant note: “We will resist these standover tactics by whatever means we can. In the meantime will you attempt to stop the lies and falsehoods which are being fed to the public.”
Primary Industries plant officers had previously visited the Harbecks’ property and the couple are now listed, along with 38,000 other Top Enders, on a National Banana Freckle Eradication Program case file.
The response to the letter came from Primary Industry and Fisheries Minister Willem Westra van Holthe, who is responsible for the program.
Given the response to the letter was four months ago, Mr Harbeck was surprised by the timing of Sarah’s call. He wonders if his activities with the Rural Residents Rights Group, which has a stall on Sundays at the Rapid Creek Markets might have been the real cause.
But a spokesman for the program said yesterday the communications between the Harbecks and Mr Giles and Mr Westra van Holthe had been attached to their case file.
When asked if it was unusual for a letter from a member of the public to a minister to be attached to a departmental file and prompting a call from a bureaucrat, the spokesman said: “There’s nothing conspiratorial about what happened.”
Source: News.com.au