Originally Posted by
trekkie
Australia,NZ and Uk supposedly have one of the world's strictest quarantine and customs regulations but a lot of the enforcement centres around profit protection. Australia for example claims to protect its agriculture from diseases and what have you. So does NZ. Yet these countries are not immune to the china dairy melamine food contamination. Last year, Australia also had the horse flu issue and some of their agricultural disease issues originated from their own grounds. If you compare food prices in NZ, Australia vs rest of the world, prices tend to be relatively dearer.
Not sure what point you are trying to make by using the word "supposedly". It does have strict quarrantine and customs to stop diseases, bugs, etc, but sometimes things get through because of the carelessness of people. AQIS take all this very seriously, so seriously that it basically closed down the Australian horse racing industry for two months and stopped all movement of horses from properties.
Melamine? That is not contagious, a disease or a bug. Food prices in NZ and Australia are no more expensive than any other developed nation.
If you want to know what can ruin the country and industries in Australia, look at rabbits, cane toads (cane beetles) and carp. And there are many diseases of plants and animals that they are trying to keep out of the country to stop it destroying both native and introduced animals and plants.