Doorstop in Adelaide, South Australia

E&OE TRANSCRIPT   
DOORSTOP   
ADELAIDE 
FRIDAY, 24 JULY 2026   
  
SUBJECTS: H5 bird flu, Political donations  

JULIE COLLINS, MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY: Good afternoon, testing at Queensland’s state laboratory has returned a suspected positive result for the H5 bird flu in samples taken from a deceased petrel found on Moreton Island off Brisbane. This would be the first case of H5 bird flu in Queensland, and it would be the fourth state with the detection of H5 bird flu. The samples have been sent to the CSIRO lab for confirmatory testing, and an update will be provided as soon as we have these lab results. This suspected positive follows the 17 confirmed or presumed positive cases of H5 bird flu in Western Australia, South Australia and New South Wales. Whilst this additional suspect case in Queensland is disappointing, it is a sign of our strong biosecurity working. All cases of the H5 bird flu in Australia have been detections in wild birds. Once again, I confirm that there is still no evidence of any mass mortality at this time in Australia from the H5 bird flu. Nor is there any evidence it has spread to any other animal populations at this time. There is also no evidence currently of any infections in our poultry or our agriculture system, and the risk to human health remains low. As you would be aware, our Government has been preparing for this. We’ve invested over $113 million to boost our H5 bird flu preparedness as part of our additional $2 billion investment into biosecurity since we’ve come to Government. The Australian response to our bird flu has been both swift and coordinated. Our national biosecurity response arrangements are in place and our experts continue to meet on a regular basis with our state and territory governments managing the on ground responses in each of those jurisdictions. Queensland is continuing enhanced surveillance programs throughout the state. And I have, of course, been in contact with the Queensland Agriculture Minister, Minister Perrett. I’m also continuing to receive regular briefings from our chief vet, Dr Beth Cookson, on the situation around Australia. Whilst here in Adelaide, I’ve also met with the South Australian Minister for Primary Industries, Minister Scriven, to discuss the ongoing response to the detection of the H5 bird flu in Australia and particularly here in South Australia. Once again, I do want to pass on my thanks to the Australian public. The public have been tremendous in terms of the reporting of sick or dead birds or animals. And I reiterate, if you do see a sick or a dead bird or animals, please do not touch them. Please avoid contact and please report them through our birdflu.gov.au, and to the national hotline number. Thanks very much, I’mhappy to take some questions.

JOURNALIST: Minister, are you worried about bird flu spreading to poultry farms and what’s been put in place in place to stop that?

COLLINS: Obviously we have been learning from the overseas experience, and certainly our best and strong defence is our biosecurity system. What you’ve been seeing here in Australia is our biosecurity system working in that we are getting early detections and at this stage in migratory birds or wild birds. We have had one Australian bird in the tern, but primarily they’ve all been migratory bird. But that tern obviously is still a wild bird that does sort of group with those other birds. And there has been no evidence of any transmission or mass mortalities here in Australia at this point. And I reiterate it is not in our poultry or agricultural systems.

JOURNALIST: Minister, when the federal Labor business forum asked you to go and talk to a donor, do you get a choice? Do you get the opportunity to say, “No, I don’t want to talk to that donor,” or is it a direction?

COLLINS: As I’m sure you’ll appreciate, my last meeting today has been with our Chief Vet, and I have been focused on the H5 bird flu.

JOURNALIST: It’s a broad question, though?

COLLINS: And I have been at many national Labor conferences over many years. And certainly my focus is on my role as a delegate and my role here as a Minister in my portfolio. And obviously, you know, we do meet with people and we do engage with people both here at National Conference and as a normal part of our job.

JOURNALIST: Do you think it’s a good look for the Prime Minister to be attending a high-profile, you know, event with a Chinese donor who appears to have some questionable links with the ATO and APRA? I mean it’s not a great look, is it?

COLLINS: What I would say to you is that political donations are entirely a matter for the party in that sense. They are disclosed in the usual manner.

JOURNALIST: So you don’t get a choice? You know, if it’s a matter for the party, does that mean you don’t get the chance to say, “No, I don’t want to meet with that donor”?

COLLINS: I meet and engage with people on a regular basis, as you would expect.

JOURNALIST: On the conference, I mean, yesterday we had more than 80 motions, like, that passed unanimously. There seems to be little or no debate on some contentious issues like gambling harm and voluntary assisted dying. Is the Labor Party selling its supporters short? Is this too much of a stage-managed affair?

COLLINS: Look, it’s great to be an ALP National Conference. I’ve been to many of them. Some of them have more robust debate than others. But what they’re about is about rank and file members of the Australian Labor Party having a say in one of Australia’s oldest and most democratic political parties. I’m a very proud member of the Australian Labor Party, and I’ve been attending conferences for decades, and they have been different at every single conference. I think what you see at this conference is a lot of robust debate, but primarily we agree on the direction of the country and we agree on the principles and the aspirations that we have for this nation.

JOURNALIST: Wildlife groups want the Federal Government to invest $200 million to limit other threats to vulnerable wildlife from bird flu. Is the Government considering this sort of funding?

COLLINS: We’ve been working very closely with Wildlife Australia and with experts in this area. As I said, we have invested early. The $113 million to be as prepared as we can be. We have done an assessment of threatened species in Australia knowing that the H5 bird flu does get into mammals, and we have seen that elsewhere across the globe. We have certainly been investing in terms of making sure that we are doing everything that we can do as a Federal Government working with industry and working with those experts, particularly wildlife, about what needs to be done. And that’s what you’ve seen from us. We’ve strengthened biosecurity, for instance, on threatened species in our zoos and aquariums across the country. And we’ve used some of that early investment money to be able to do that. In the last Budget in Minister Watt’s portfolio, there was an additional $99 million for the Saving Native Species program. But we continue to engage with experts about what else we may need to do as a federal and state government working together with industry and with experts in terms of our wildlife.

JOURNALIST: We’ve now seen bird flu in nearly every state. Have we lost the fight on keeping it out of Australia? Is it here to stay?

COLLINS: Well, we’ve always been very clear that it would get to Australia eventually. And obviously we are the last continent to get the bird flu. We’ve seen it come via migratory birds. The fact that we have detected it so early, and the fact that we're detecting it in migratory birds before there’s any evidence of widespread mass mortalities or transmission in Australia continues to give us time to continue to lockdown and prepare and do everything that we need to do as a country to be as secure as we possibly can. Those additional two years have brought us more preparedness and we have not wasted a day of that. We’ve invested early and made sure we’re as prepared as we possibly can be. But obviously this is a very virulent strain, and it’s highly contagious. 

JOURNALIST: So what are the poultry farms doing to lockdown? How does that work?

COLLINS: So we’ve been working with the industry in terms of their resilience and their redundancy, investing in their biosecurity systems and being as strong as they can be, particularly about how this may get into the system and making sure that we are protected as much as we possibly can. As I’ve said in the past, we’ve had two outbreaks of the H7 bird flu virus in Australia in the last five or so years. We’ve managed to successfully eradicate those working with industry and governments, state and federal, together.

JOURNALIST: Just one more on donations. What would you say to a member of the public, there’s already a pretty low trust in politicians in Australian politics. What would you say to a member of the Australian public who might feel pretty skeptical to hear Ministers who effectively have a pay-for-access situation going on simply saying, “It’s a matter for the party”? Like, they aren’t willing to actually answer questions about the donors that they meet and the circumstances in which they meet them. Like, doesn’t that just erode trust?

COLLINS: I’ve obviously answered your questions and that I meet with a range of people on a regular basis all the time. As you would expect in my portfolio, it’s a very broad portfolio, and I continue to meet with them. In terms of donations, they are disclosed, as they should be, in the regular course as they usually would be. I don’t think the fact that there are donations in Australia’s political process would come as a surprise to Australians. And as a Government we have strengthened those disclosure and donation laws, because we needed to for Australia to make sure that our democratic system is robust as it needs to be.