Trish Cook (Bullwinkel, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. How is the Albanese Labor government working with experts to strengthen Australia's preparedness and response capability to pests and diseases, and why is this so important for our farmers and our regions?

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do want to thank our terrific member for Bullwinkel, a new seat created in this place. She's a terrific representative, and I know that she's out there engaging with her farmers all the time, so I want to thank her for that. Of course, she, like the Albanese Labor government, does take our biosecurity system very seriously. That's why we have been investing and we've committed over $2 billion since we've come into office to strengthen our biosecurity system, which, of course, is the first line of protection for Australia's people, our animals and our ecosystems.

Today is One Health Day, and One Health is the way that we are managing our biosecurity risks. Right across government, we are working together. That is why, as I've said, we've been making that critical investment that I've been talking about. We know that that funding is critical to protecting our $100 billion agriculture, fisheries and forestry sector—our forest industries, our environment, our economy and importantly, as the member for Bullwinkel will know, our regional jobs that rely on agriculture, fisheries and forestry right across the country.

While Australia remains one of the few countries free from the world's most invasive pests and diseases, our work on the prevention, detection, eradication and management of the threats that we face never stops. I regret to say that, just over a week ago, Australian scientists observed signs consistent with bird flu in wildlife during a management voyage to the subantarctic island Heard Island. This is 4,000 kilometres south-west of Perth and about 1,700 kilometres north of the Antarctic, and it's about 450 kilometres away from some of the subantarctic French islands where bird flu has been confirmed. I want to be clear that this is a suspected case of bird flu. It is not a confirmed case of H5 HPAI bird flu, but of course it does reinforce the need for us to remain focused on preparing for an outbreak on mainland Australia. I want to advise the House that samples have been safely collected and securely packaged and will be tested when the RSV Nuyina returns to Australia later this month. It was detected, I'm very sad to say, in an unusual level of deaths of baby elephant seals on this Antarctic island.

This is very concerning indeed, and that's why we are investing $100 million to boost our preparedness across the country and adopting the One Health approach, as I've said, to protect our people, animals and ecosystems. We've also provided funding to the states and territories for critical equipment to make sure that we're ready for rapid mobilisation if there are outbreaks, including mobile laboratories, drones and emergency animal disease response trailers, because we all know that protecting this country is really important. We've also seen the impacts of the bird flu globally. It's costing billions of dollars in other countries, particularly when it does damage to poultry and impacts dairy herds, along with the impacts to human health, so it's important we get this right.