New Zealand apples look to have cleared the final hurdle for access into Australia with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) rejecting a last ditch Aussie attempt to uphold a 90-year ban.

Earlier this year the WTO ordered Australia to end restrictions on New Zealand apples in place since 1921, when an outbreak of the disease fireblight led to a ban.

Australia has long maintained the biosecurity risks were too great to allow kiwi apples in.

Trade Minister Tim Groser says the WTO ruling is great news for apple exporters.

"This issue had been the only issue we’d not been able to resolve through consultation.

"I had taken the view long before I had gone into politics that there was only one sensible way forward, to go to court.

"To use an appalling rugby analogy, it was like using the video ref.”

Mr Groser says he can sympathise with Australia’s opposition to the WTO ruling.

“They’ve done the right thing by their growers, they’ve used up every option for international appeal.

"I’m expecting a new Australia, a constructive Australia, and that’s the assumption I’m making."

Pipfruit New Zealand chief executive Peter Beaven says the ruling shows Australia’s stance was rooted in politics rather than science.

"When you have one of the scientists in the WTO case saying there is as much chance of fireblight getting into Australia being blown across the Tasman as it had of getting there in one of our apples, it goes along with what the import risk analysis found.

"You’ve got a gulf between what the science Australia was looking at and what the WTO was looking at.”

Peter Beaven says all going well, the first apple shipments should be made next year.

“My guess is it’s going to take eight or nine months or so.

"What Australia has to do is to come back to the WTO with a timeframe of how they’re going to implement this. And if we don’t like it, we can challenge it."