A row is brewing over the internal trade of mangoes in Australia.

A leading Northern Territory mango grower wants the NT government to take Western Australia to court over what he says is inter-market bullying.

The WA Government wants to tighten quarantine measures to protect its industry from the disease, mango scab.

But Darwin grower Peter Cavenagh says mango scab is already in both areas, and the draft changes are more about protecting the emerging Kununnurra market.

He said: "l I think that our government should straight away just take them to court. The constitution has particular remedies for this.

"Really what they're trying to do is stop the trade between the states and I guess look after Kununnurra, which had a very bad season last year.

"Perhaps we should return the favour by not allowing their stuff to transit the Territory to go to the eastern states because after all they have fairly frequent outbreaks of mediterranean fruit fly over there."

The Territory's director of biosecurity and product integrity, Ian Kilduff, said the proposed changes will be fought but with science and not in the courtroom.

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