Oh, sorry, I forgot another of your questions:

"You appear to be quite protective of our primary industries, so don't you think it was worth protecting the apple industry agianst a potentially economically devestating moth?"
I lived in Auckland in 2002 when the min. of Ag & Fisheries was doing the "painted apple moth spraying" (the spray was Foray 48b) and believe me it had nothing whatsoever to do with the painted apple moth. If they had genuinely wanted to eradicate this moth there are more far less toxic methods they could have chosen.

I got the impression that it was all about some top bureaucrat in the ministry office "getting all excited" over the power to order helicopters to spray poison over Auckland. And the incredible thing is that so many people complied with this lunacy as well.

It was a case of "government decides to spray poison over Auckland and doesn't think there will be significant protests, there are significant protests, but government can't back down and admit that they were wrong. People will get sick - and they did - but there were no consequences for government and any costs were met by the public trough of taxpayer money, and the bureaucracy of the ministry of Ag. & Fish. could still "cream their jeans" over the power.

You didn't really think it was about the "painted apple moth" did you?