Tongan community leader calls for greater education on biosecurity amid fruit fly scare ^Featured

Four flies have been found in the region in the space of just over a week.

Two facialis fruit flies have been found in Otara and two Queensland flies have been found on Auckland’s North Shore.

Getting the message out to the multi-cultural community in Otara has had its challenges.

MPI have made brochures and signs in a range of languages, and have had multi-lingual people on hand to help.

Melino Maka, chairman of the Tongan Advisory Board says he used to run a government funded education campaign, teaching Pasifika people about food safety and biosecurity.

He was on the board of the New Zealand Food Safety Authority at the time.

The initiative was dropped around 10 years ago.

“I was told it’s not a priority,” Mr Maka said.

“Just to discontinue like that...was just like a kick in the stomach,” he said.

“It's always cheaper and better to keep informing people and reminding people about responsibility of bringing stuff to safeguard New Zealand,” he said.

The education programme was available in different languages, to best help people understand.

Mr Maka says the programme cost around $20,000 a year, which he says, is much cheaper than the cost of fruit fly responses.

“What we're doing now is an ambulance under the cliff,” he said.

He is hopeful MPI will look to bring a similar programme back.

“When I spoke to the director general [Ray Smith] the other day - he's keen to explore what we did,” Mr Maka told 1 NEWS.

An MPI spokesperson told 1 NEWS they were unaware the New Zealand Food Safety education initiatives included biosecurity information.

It says it also “recently introduced a range of education initiatives in Tonga to raise biosecurity awareness among air passengers planning to bring food into New Zealand.”

“We are currently considering extending this programme to other Pacific countries.”

For now, biosecurity workers continue the fruit fly response work in Otara, Northcote and Devonport.

The Minister for Ethnic Communities Jenny Salesa, who is also the local MP for Manukau East, is spreading the word at Pacific churches in Otara today.

 - TVNZ