BANANASnow: LETTER TO THE MINISTER [Q'LD]

THURSADAY APRIL 28 2022

Dear Minister Furner,

I write directly to you now having been ‘bureaucratically shunned’ by your department. My experience has been that I have called on the advertised contact number on two occasions, firstly some weeks ago, and again yesterday. On the first occasion the person undertook to get someone to contact me but that hasn’t happened. Thinking that with the recent floods and COVID etc. these things might well have come together and the commitment has been overlooked.

Apparently, that is NOT the case, given that I called today seeking to:

• Speak to someone in the department engaged in/with ‘research’ to do with ‘banana agriculture in Queensland’ my request was deemed to be “too vague”;

• Upon my insistence that almost anyone engage in, involved in, research relevant to ‘banana agriculture in Queensland’ would most likely provide a way forward for me – not a bit of it;

• To compound what looks a lot like ‘obfuscation’ I was put ‘on hold’ while someone who might want to take my call was searched for and a very protracted wait nobody could be either found or named;

• Yet again a commitment was made to search for someone to call me back but I have no expectation of receiving a call given that I live in Tasmania, that I do not grow bananas and my inquiry does not comply with expectations – and who am I anyway.

I’ll simply leave it to you to make your own assessment of the acceptability of your department’s performance and indeed its credibility, accountability even relative what I present here.

CONTEXT .

I am a cultural producer, researcher, cultural geographer and my background relative to ‘banana growing’ is to do with my family’s involvement in ‘banana growing’ in Northern NSW that goes back to pre WW1. While you might take the boy out the subtropics you cannot take the subtropics out of the boy.

That said, I have come to an understanding that suggests that banana growing in Australia/Queensland is at a crisis point.

Indeed I’m coming to the position that looking ahead ‘this industry’ is totally and absolutely unsustainable despite the apparently enormous large demand for ‘desert bananas’ as a product – that is ripe cavendish banana on the cusp of going extinct by some estimates.

The response I’ve received from the Banana Growers Council has been pretty much in line with your department’s apparent MINDset. In the vernacular, ‘treat’m with the ignore they deserve and they’ll tire of it and go away … JOB DONE” and sadly this is what is clearly in evidence. .

However, it is concerning that your government has spent in excess of $30Million already funding research etc relative controlling the spread of Panama TR4 and that your department has handed such funding to an ‘industry peak body’ to by-and-large squander on spurious activities (research?). That is, when a MINDset change, on the evidence, needs interrogation in order to arrive at tangible and credible outcomes that measure up against ‘KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS’.

What appears to have been missed, ignored and totally disregarded is the enormously unrealised potential of the ‘banana plant’ as:

• A diverse varies of the plant offer as an ingredient in Australia’s increasing ly diversifying cultural realities;

• A food source for humans for other parts of the plant beyond ‘the yellow berries’ we see in supermarkets;

• An as yet untapped fodder source for livestock in Australia;

• A ‘fibre source’ for textiles and more broadly in regard to paper, medical bandages, cordage etc. etc; and

• A component in sustainable CULTURALlandscaping in the context of climate change and shifts in resource supply chains.

WHAT AM I ACTUALLY SEEKING?

Quite simply, I’m seeking to speak to, communicate with, someone who willing to discuss the ‘classes of research’ your department is engaged in/with and supports. Moreover, I would hope to do so in the context of an ‘open critical discourse’ that looks towards developing better understandings of what was, what is and what yet might be relative to ‘industrial agriculture’ – banana farming being that euphemistic ‘canary down the coal mine’.

I look forward to your timely response and to being able to advance the research I’m engage with.

Yours sincerely, Ray Norman

NB: SADLY ... No acknowledgement received

no contacts provided!