Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I ask a question of the Minister representing the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. The minister will be aware from the motion passed in the Senate yesterday of the death of a young person in Queensland as a result of contracting lyssavirus from flying foxes. At estimates on 12 February 2013, departmental officials advised me that a flying fox count from 14 to 16 February this year. Can the minister advise the Senate of the progress of that count and whether early returns show that the species, particularly the grey-headed flying fox and the spectacled flying fox, are anything but rare and vulnerable?