New Zealand-Protectionism by another name.

When it comes to biosecurity other countries can only dream of the advantages we have. We are a group of small islands in an ocean at the bottom of the world. It’s difficult for the really bad bugs to get here.

But, unfortunately, biosecurity is inextricably linked to trade. While the natural instinct is to turn our country into a fortress, we have to sell our goods to others. In turn, they want to sell to us.

If they are countries that have diseases we do not want, we have to find ways to let their goods in and keep their bugs out. Fortunately, rules have been worked out so this can happen. For the most part, everyone abides by the rules. We are proud of our efforts.

And they have been rewarded. We have an agreement with Europe that acknowledges the veterinary standards of both sides.

Basically, it allows us to say that if a food product we want to export meets New Zealand standards then it will be allowed in to the European market.

It means we do not have to apply all of Europe’s prescriptive and detailed standards on, for example, meat and dairy products.

This is looked on with great envy by the Australians.

Ah, the Aussies. They are the authors of their own misfortunes. Instead of accepting the inevitable - you have to trade fairly to survive - they have built a fortress. I suppose it comes from their frustrations about where they stand in the world. They are not a big, powerful country and they are not a tiddler. They just hang around outside the big boys’ club looking longingly in the windows.

But they have a market everyone else wants to trade in. The trouble is, they allow their domestic politics to intervene in deciding who is allowed in.

By protecting their local industries they hamstring their exporters - no special deals like our veterinary agreement.

That is not to say we offer easy pickings for our trading partners. We put up some pretty high biosecurity hurdles for them to get over.

And like Australia we have our own domestic industries that kick up a fuss at the same time.

Last week I talked about the pork industry’s battle over Agriculture and Forestry Ministry efforts to change the rules over pork imports.

Since then some very nice people have gone to a lot of trouble to straighten me out on a few points.

I wrote about how the pork industry was worried the change, which will allow the importation of fresh pork, would also allow in a devastating disease called PRRS, and that the industry’s view is that the only reason for the change is so New Zealand can hold its head up in the trading world.

The industry’s science advisers say if fresh cuts are imported PRRS will enter New Zealand within three to five years.

The industry’s scenario is that the imported meat will become a staple of cheap restaurants and fast food outlets whose food scraps are good sources for thousands of uncontrolled backyard pig raisers.

However, the ministry has its own science experts. They say the food scraps hypothesis does not wash. The PRRS virus degrades quickly at room temperature and is gone in a couple of days.

The pork will be imported in high-value 3kg consumer-ready packs designed to reduce the chances of offcuts.

Whose science is right I am not qualified to determine, but a panel of experts is being assembled to review the arguments. This is at the request of the pork industry and, in effect, delays by up to a year the change in regulations.

It has been suggested to me that the pork industry, made up of 250 pig farmers and processors contributing $700 million to the economy, is indulging in good old-fashioned patch protection of the kind that would be applauded in Australia.

You cannot blame them, but the industry body, NZPork, denies that. It just does not want PRRS.

However, before 2001 New Zealand imported raw pork from countries with PRRS without restriction and had no disease outbreak.

It was stopped when a laboratory experiment demonstrated that PRRS could be transmitted when heavily infected fresh pork was fed to healthy pigs.

Since then scientists have been hard at work trying to understand the science and the risks. The result has been the latest proposed change in the regulations.

Meanwhile, no doubt the industry has done well without the competition from imported fresh pork.

It should be pointed out that 40 per cent of pork sold in New Zealand is imported, but only in cooked or frozen form.

I am told that if we decide not to allow fresh pork imports the risk is that Europe and the United States would take another look at how they apply their own biosecurity rules to our exports. And we have more to lose than they have.

So it seems that’s our choice. Play fairly by the rules and keep our hard-won access to our high- value markets or bend the rules and join the Aussies as international trade pariahs.