Fruity Flies

Oh dear, fruit flies have been found in Tasmania. The larvae was found in fruit bought from a Hobart supermarket this week - it appears a shipment of fruit intended for Queensland was accidently sent to Tasmania after a mix-up at a vegetable market in New South Wales. Tasmania has maintained a massively complicated quarantine system for decades in order to keep the fruit fly out of the State, even to the point of regularly seaching people and vehicles on the interstate ferries and airlines. Because, the authorities say, it would absolutely destroy our fruit industries if they ever got in. Except it obviously hasn't destroyed the fruit industries in NSW, because that's where the shipment of fruit came from, and QLD wasn't worried about it, because that's where the fruit was supposed to go. Fruit flies haven't destroyed their industries, but they would destroy ours somehow.

I well remember science class at High School. We did experiments with ether and... fruit flies. We knocked the little mongrels out, examined them under the microscope, and tossed them out the window whenever the science teacher's back was turned. I reckon every science class in the State did the same thing, but somehow we never managed to wipe out the Tasmanian fruit industry despite our best efforts. Of course, that was then, when Kids Were Kids, and this is now, when Kids Are Young Persons With Unique And Valuable Skills And Assets Which Can Enrich The Wider Community Including People of Diversified Ethnic Backgrounds And Those With Differing Abilities. Whatever way you look at it, one crate of apples with a couple of fruit flies in it isn't anything to panic about, unless there's government money in panicking. In that case, like the so-called fox epidemic, it's "goodbye common sense and keep those cheques coming."