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Comment by aunty_helen | Hacker News Reader

Australia is an island and islands are weird places compared to continental countries. Border security is ridiculously overkill and there’s a mentality that you can just keep x out permanently.

The first time you go from a country like this to the mainlands it seems weird they don’t check for things like having an apple in your bag when crossing borders.

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I’m pretty sure you are supposed to declare agricultural products at customs. Sure, if the apples are cooked into a pie that’s probably fine but I believe most countries don’t let people bring in fresh fruit because of the possibility that some pest (insect, fungus) could be hitching a ride on it.

I believe the point is that in other countries they won’t rifle through your bag to verify whether or not you have brought apples. I’m not familiar with Australian customs though so I could be mistaken.

The US and Canada will both do that. It's at the whim of the border guard though.

And it's taken pretty seriously. Enough to have dogs trained to smell out agricultural products in luggage.

England/Wales/Scotland form an island. None of that is true.

There's certainly not a tv show then that follows border agents around like in Aus/NZ.

Britain's ecosystem also hasn't been isolated and untouched for many many generations. Isolated islands like Australia have far more unique plants and animals that could be wiped out by an invasive species. It doesn't take much for one to gain a foothold to the point of being impossible to remove, either.

The odds of an apple seed crossing from the US into Canada without a human involved are astronomically higher than one getting to Australia, hence customs are far more diligent in looking for that sort of thing.

Since they're already on high alert, everything looks suspicious I suppose.

If there's one thing Australian's all agree it, it's that carrying fruit across certain state boarders is generally a bad idea.

Nah, there are many island nations in the world, especially in oceania. Only NZ and AU are particularly overkill and security for x and y.

Case in point, I go to Indonesia and Philippines - I buy produce in either country to bring to the other country, full declare it, show it - no one cares. Several kilograms as in 10kg+.

Meanwhile, airplane gives passangers apples on flights to New Zealand (or was it AU?) and they all get fined $1000 upon entry if they kept it.

Now why do I bring produce from an country to another? Cost and availability. A green pepper costs $4-6+ in Philippines. It's less than 30 cents in Indonesia.

So, to reiterate no - it's clearly Aussie/NZ overkill.

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