Its easy to source hop flowers from the internet - getting them into Tassie? - now theres a thing. Probably easier to smuggle drugs than import hop flowers. It's not worth the effort if I get caught - huge fines, prison, death penanlty, flogged with a cat o'nine tales. You get the picture. Try walking through the airport with an apple in your pocket?
I have a mate that managed a hop farm in NE Tassie, who still has connections within the industry. I recently met the state manager from his company. If I wanted to purchase 1 tonne of flowers, no worries, but any thing less, then they arent interested. They are only interested in pellets, and 99% of their crop is sold prior to harvest.
As far as rhizomes go - only an idea, but planting up to an acre of hops is going to be costly @ $25/rhizome. Plant 10 rhizomes and work from there, ok, not so costly. Anyway, its just pie in the sky talk atm.
Cheers
LagerBomb