Doorstop at Parliament House, Canberra

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA 
MONDAY, 25 AUGUST 2025

Subjects: H5 Bird Flu Preparedness, National Biosecurity Week

JULIE COLLINS, MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY: Can I start by saying happy National Biosecurity Week to everybody. It’s terrific to be here with my Ministerial colleague, Kristy McBain. Importantly, I’ve got Dr Brant Smith and Dr Fiona Fraser here from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Environment, who are our technical experts when it comes to the H5 bird flu. It was just around nine, ten months ago that we announced $100 million towards preparedness for bird flu coming to Australia. As many people would know, we are the only continent without the H5 bird flu strain. What we want to do is to make sure that we prepare and we learn the lessons from those other countries where bird flu has impacted. We’re particularly concerned across government about our mammals, our birds and our native species that are endangered and doing what we can to protect them. And then, of course, our food supply system and making sure that it doesn’t impact in terms of agriculture and our food supply chain. We also want to make sure that we protect human health, and so we’ve been working across government, with state governments, with industry and, importantly, making sure that we all work together in a collaborative way and that we have the resources we need to be able to prepare. Today, I'm pleased to be able to say that we have now got an agreement with the states for $12 million for the states and territories to be able to purchase more mobile laboratory equipment and to be able to do more assessments quickly. So my strong message to the Australian public is that if you see a group of dead birds, please go online to birdflu.gov.au and to report it, do not touch it. That is the important message I would say. We do know that during spring we have a lot of migratory birds and we know that Australia is at risk of this H5 bird flu coming. What we want to do is to make sure that Australia is prepared. I’ll hand over to Kristy McBain to talk more about what we’ve done to date in terms of her portfolio of regional Australia and the national emergency response.

KRISTY MCBAIN, MINISTER FOR EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Thank you, Minister Collins. It’s always fantastic to work with Minister Collins, particularly on issues just like this one which impact large swathes of regional Australia. The National Emergency Management Agency was created three years ago by the Albanese Labor Government in response to knowing that there had to be a more coordinated approach to emergencies that may impact our communities and, in particular, our regions. The National Emergency Management Agency co-chairs the National Coordination Mechanism with Minister Collins’ Agriculture Department when there is an agricultural emergency. It is really important, though, that we pre-plan and pre-prepare for events like this. Just a couple of weeks ago we had Operation Convergence, which brought together states and territories, industry bodies and the Commonwealth Government with a range of other civil society organisations to plan and prepare what it would look like if there was an avian bird flu outbreak. It’s really important that we continue to prepare and plan for these such occasions, and NEMA will continue to work with the agriculture department on what that looks like going forward. This announcement today of $12 million, which is going towards the states and territories to make sure that they’re better equipped if there is an outbreak, is another significant announcement about biosecurity by the Albanese Labor Government. There has been record investment in biosecurity because we understand that we have to keep our communities safe to make sure that our food supply is ongoing into our communities but, most importantly, that industry isn’t impacted to the levels that we’ve seen in other countries. I want to thank Minister Collins for the work that she’s done and thank the agriculture department, the environment department and NEMA for the work they’ve done in preparing for what any potential outbreak looks like.

COLLINS: Thanks, Kristy. We’re happy to take some questions and, we’ve got our experts here to answer any technical questions or any detail.

JOURNALIST: There’s been some initial criticism about the focus on populations in captivity. Obviously it’s much easier to do things like vaccinations when you’re talking about a small group in captivity rather than more broadly. But what do you say in response to the allegations or suggestions that there hasn’t been enough action taken early in the years we have known about this risk for the broader population, particularly migratory sea birds?

COLLINS: What I would say is our government is serious about biosecurity. Since we’ve come to office now in three years, we’ve added an additional $2 billion investment to biosecurity. That includes $100 million for preparedness for this bird flu. What I can say is that our preparedness is on track since we announced this funding just under a year ago, about 10 months ago. We are on track to deliver and we are working other tiers of government, with industry, and I’m happy to hand over to Dr Smith and Dr Fraser to say a few words about that.

DR FIONA FRASER, THREATENED SPECIES COMMISSIONER: Thank you. With the $35.9 million of the $100 million measure for H5 preparedness for wildlife, a big focus of that is on building the resilience of our most threatened and vulnerable species in the wild. A much smaller component of that is supporting species in captivity, highly threatened species in captivity. To date we have been leaning into that with determination and with urgency, working closely with state and territory partners all around the country and with other NGOs to identify the species most susceptible and that are already threatened and most susceptible to H5 bird flu, the wetlands and other places which might be most impacted and to undertake preparedness planning for these species and these places. We are also moving to do work on the ground. So that involves dealing with other threats that those threatened populations already face so that they can have greater resilience when H5 bird flu arrives. That involves getting rid of invasive rodents on islands, it involves removing feral cats, foxes, removing weeds across a lot of our islands and wetland areas so that our native species, our sea birds and other bird species and mammals can have greater breeding success. So that’s really important, ongoing work for building the resilience. And that is our best bet to responding to H5 bird flu in the wild – dealing with other threats that we can tackle more effectively. There is, of course, always so much more work to do for our native wildlife in protecting them, but that is work we are really leaning into at the moment.

JOURNALIST: What’s the latest update on the potential entry pathways? Obviously you can only predict so much, but is the data suggesting it’s more likely to come from south now more than from the north?

DR FRASER: We would say the risk of H5 bird flu, as the Minister has said, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, we are the only parts of the earth that it hasn’t reached yet. So we are essentially surrounded, particularly now as we know bird flu is moving through our Antarctic region. So an increase – a season of increased concern, of course, is spring, the migratory bird season, where we literally have millions of sea birds and shore birds reaching Australia’s shores. And they essentially land all around Australia along our wetlands but also on our southern coastal areas to breed and islands in those places. So the risk of incursion is all around Australia from any point in time.

JOURNALIST: In terms of what you’re seeing through research, is it sort of a matter of when, not if?

DR FRASER: Absolutely. It is a matter of – well, H5 bird flu will almost certainly reach Australia’s shores. Once it reaches here, we will not be able to prevent a spread in nature, and we will not be able to eradicate it in nature, but what we can do is build the resilience of our native populations to better withstand this disease and take important efforts for our captive species. Those efforts for species in captivity, they are the critically endangered species that are most in peril, but if they’re impacted in captivity, that also impacts their prospects in the wild. So it’s quite an important focus of the work.

JOURNALIST: Minister McBain, you mentioned that you were part of a group that looked at some scenarios of what would happen when an outbreak happens in Australia. Will you run us through sort of what those worst-case scenarios look like?

MCBAIN: Operation Convergence, which was recently done with NEMA and a range of other agencies, brings in state and territory governments. It brings in industry groups and a range of emergency-focused personnel to look at and scenario what it would look like if we had an outbreak of H5 bird flu, at the same time there was an impact of bushfire, at the same time that we had a cyber attack. It really is the convergence of multiple emergencies at once and how different levels of governments, our agencies and industry need to respond. That operation was done. NEMA co-chairs that National Coordination Mechanism in general when this H5 bird flu may come to our shores, which means we coordinate the agencies that we need in the room. It’s a situation of government agencies preparing about what it may look like and how you would respond. There’s also some lessons that you learn from that preparation which you can put into action when that time comes. We are preparing and pre-planning for these events. The last time that there were full-scale preparation like this was in the last Labor Government when they looked at what they would do if there was an outbreak of a COVID-like disease. It’s really important as governments that we’ve got everyone in the room looking at how you would prepare and pre-plan for a range of these scenarios. H5 bird flu is one of those.

JOURNALIST: On today’s announcement, what will it actually look like? You mentioned more mobile testing support units. Where will they be stationed, how many, that sort of thing?

DR BRANT SMITH, FIRST ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BIOSECURITY ANIMAL DIVISION, AUSTRALIAN DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY: We’ve been working with each state and territory government to determine what they need to best place them in response to an emergency or an outbreak. So some of the response equipment will be forward command posts, mobile trailers, point-of-care testing and the like. So each state and territory has provided different requests for that sort of equipment, and we’ve been working with them closely for the last few months. And that’s to have them in the best possible place for preparation going forward. But it’s very practical, on-ground type equipment. It places them well for diagnostics and for response as quickly as they can should an outbreak occur.

JOURNALIST: How confident are you going into the spring season about Australia’s preparedness?

DR SMITH: We’ve spent a lot of time and effort on preparedness for some time. This increased investment has been really important. It’s been very targeted. We’ve also provided some support to Wildlife Health Australia - $7 million to help with our surveillance. We’ve also increased our surveillance around our national avian influenza wild bird survey and working with the states and territories. We’ve got the first national management agreement which is put in place should there be an outbreak in the wild, in the environment. That complements our emergency animal disease response agreements we already have in place for industry. And that’s been a national first. So working across all levels of government, working within industry and working within the community and key groups has been really important for the last few months in particular.

JOURNALIST: Minister Collins, I’ve been hearing some talk about avian flu. To the average Australian [indistinct] egg shortages that kind of happened as a result. Are they of a different strain to the outbreaks that happened last year? Is that something that Australians should sort of, I guess, be expecting in the next 12 months?

COLLINS: We have had outbreaks of the H7 bird flu virus. We’ve had two in the last two and a half years. We were able to successfully eradicate those, particularly in terms of our food supply system. What we did see from those and some other issues were around egg supply. Our government has made an announcement that we’ll also work on a food security strategy which will look at our entire food system, so from inputs into production, production, farmers, all the way through the supply chain to the end consumer to make sure that as a nation we are better prepared in terms of our food supply system. Australia produces enough food to feed the population two and a half times over, but with changing climate, changing people movement, we will see more issues impacting our food supply system. What we want to do is be prepared. This $100 million for our bird flu H5 preparedness is part of that. It is about making sure that we’re as prepared as we can be. I’m happy to hand to Brant to talk about if we were to get it in our food supply system in terms of our poultry industry, because we have learnt a lot from the H7 outbreaks that we’ve been able to successfully eradicate in terms of our food supply system.

DR SMITH: Thanks, Minister. So we have been working really closely with industry around what possible impacts there could be on food supply issues. We used the National Coordination Mechanism to work with retailers because they understand the logistics better than anyone. And that’s been a really important part of this process. But working with industry has been really key because we’ve learnt a lot from the H7 outbreaks around points of entry into particular layer flocks in free range bird systems, but also we showed just how secure the boiler or the meat chicken industry was, and they weren’t – they didn’t have any outbreaks of disease. So what will be really critical is we continue to work with key bodies like Egg Farmers Australia, Australian Chicken Meat Federation, which we do every week, to make sure that we with working hand in glove on any matters of preparedness.

JOURNALIST: Minister Collins, can I get you on a separate matter about the Australian welfare – animal welfare strategy? Is that going to have any implications for the practice of mulesing?

COLLINS: We’re working with the states and territories in terms of the animal welfare strategy. As you would be aware, the states and territories have primary responsibility on the ground for animal welfare. What we’re talking about is a national statement and making sure that we’re all on the same page. This is particularly important in terms of overseas trade for Australia and making sure that our access to markets is not impacted and making sure that Australia maintains the highest animal welfare standards. Animal welfare standards are important to Australians and they’re important to our trading partners.

JOURNALIST: On the practice of mulesing, though, will it have any implications for that?

COLLINS: What I would say is that we continue to work with states and territories who have the primary responsibility on the ground. Any other questions? The only other thing I would add is that in relation to some of our endangered captive species, we’ve also rolled out some money to zoos and aquariums for them to improve their biosecurity systems and protections. Some of that money has gone to zoos, and we announced that just a week or two ago in relation to making sure that we protect those that are in captivity, in terms of some of the endangered species.