You're pretty right there, they don't want to cool the fruit down because they're assuming that the fruit flies won't be a problem in the winter, which is interesting, but their experiment to test it puts a lot at risk for one experiment with orange imports :/ (eg: only checking 2%) we don't have the fruit flies here, and it's kind of our little niche in the fruit trade that props up a lot of business here 
and it was a little bit rude of them not to properly inform the Fruit Growers Association- especially with a test trial this big.
I might be paranoid but there'd have to be a fairly high chance of it going wrong in some way, and I think a lot of fruit growers would just prefer no risk to their livelihoods if it can be avoided: a lot of work has been put into keeping these flies and diseases off the island for this long, and it would suck if it all went down the drain for the benefit of another (better-off financially etc) state :/ it just feels......not good....? If were a smaller scale test, carried out somewhere else, (like a lab, or their own state) that would be better maybe...?
It seems like someone saying "Hey there, we're going to inject you with the plague, because we have a theory that you might be fine. If you're not fine: you'll just die horribly, but if you survive: we'll keep injecting you until you eventually die anyway. But it should be fine." :/
Now that I've read the story, I sympathize, O.O. As a former journalist who covered agriculture (among other things), I think this is both potential bad news for growers, and "bad news" in a literal sense. That story sounds like a press release from the Biosecurity agency! There's an insultingly bland statement from the official:
Andrew Bishop from Biosecurity Tasmania says ... fruit growers in the state should not be concerned about the arrival of fruit fly.
Uh --
why shouldn't they be concerned??
And no countervailing opinions quoted! Or background (for those who come late to the story) about why you'd want to loosen the chilling requirements in the first place -- I guess to save $2-3 AUS per box?
OTOH, I didn't listen to the attached audio clip, so maybe that gives more context.
Or does that ABC news outlet often pass along government press releases with little or no extra reporting?
