Speaker: Give the call to the Honourable Member for Bradfield.

Nicolette Boele: Thank you, Speaker. My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. We know that Australia's species extinction crisis is due to habitat destruction, invasive species and runaway climate change. And now one in five Australian bird and mammal species are at high risk from H5 bird flu, including seabirds, black swans and seals.

Conservation scientists are calling for $200 million over two years to build that resilience of these critical species. Will the government commit that funding to give our wildlife populations the best chance of recovery?

Speaker: Call to the Minister for Agriculture, the Minister for Fisheries and the Minister for forestry.

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I want to thank the member for Bradfield for that question. I know that she, like so many people in this place, are concerned about the impact of the H5 bird flu, and I know many members of the government have actually raised threatened species with me over many times in relation to what the government is doing.

And as I said, in this place many times we have invested early in $113 million investment and preparedness for the bird flu. Of that $113 million, $47 million has specifically gone to improving habitat and improving biosecurity for captive held threatened species, native species, with a focus obviously on birds and the mammals that will be impacted by the H5 bird flu.

The Minister for the Environment and the Environment Department also has another program which is $99 million for the saving native species, which is also about improving the habitat of threatened species. Since the incursion of the H5 bird flu, we've also unlocked an almost $25 million, it’s $24.8 million now with the States and territories, in terms of the response on the ground in relation to the H5 bird flu. And that includes the preparedness that is happening on the ground by the States and territories.

And I announced in this place yesterday that as part of that is the vaccination program. And I'm pleased to be able to say to the Honourable Member that the Victorian government has actually announced today that their state will begin vaccinating penguins, little penguins, and that vaccines from the Commonwealth have now arrived at Phillip Island with little penguins both at Phillip Island and St Kilda, to be vaccinated starting as early as next week.

As part of the vaccination trials. We have looked at particularly wild birds and vaccinations, knowing obviously that vaccination is just a complementary part of that process, and biosecurity is obviously our first line of defence. As part of the original $47 million investment, that biosecurity improvement has been really important, particularly for those threatened species that are held in captivity, so at lots of wildlife parks, including my own electorate. I've seen at Raptor Refuge, where they have protected wedgetail eagles, for instance, and mast owls, and made sure that they've improved their biosecurity in the separation from native wild birds to protect them, particularly in relation to their food and water supplies as well.

So there has been a lot of preparedness done to make sure that as a Government, we are doing everything we can do to protect our threatened species. And certainly from our Government, we know the biosecurity is the front line, but the vaccination and the vaccination program will also be complementary, and I look forward to hearing from other states and territories as they work on those vaccination programs.

But it is terrific news that we are going to start vaccinating little penguins in Victoria.