Doorstop, Canberra

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Morning, all. Thanks for being here. The current situation is there is one confirmed case of the most dangerous strain of H5 bird flu.

We are waiting on official confirmation in relation to a second bird and we expect those results to come through either later today or tomorrow. I want to thank the public for being so active on this front and making calls to that emergency hotline. We encourage people to continue doing that as well as, of course, making sure that they don't have physical contact with birds that they might come across that are dead or looking very unwell.

Just two further things to add. Today I will be convening a meeting of Australia's federal, state and territory Environment Ministers to receive briefings from the Chief Veterinary Officer of the country and also our Threatened Species Commissioner. We've been working very hard with states, industry, environment groups, scientists over the last couple of years to make sure that we are as well prepared as we possibly could be.

As a government, we've invested $113 million including $11 million in the most recent budget in those preparedness efforts. So I feel confident that we've got the systems in place, and that we're working cooperatively with states, territories and others to make sure that we can manage this outbreak if it does get more serious. But bringing those Ministers together today will again ensure that we are on the same page.

That follows a number of phone calls that I've had with state and territory ministers over the weekend and we've had a number of other official committees meeting across the weekend, including with stakeholders about this as well. We'll continue to work with all of those parties to make sure that we are managing this incident as quickly as we can. Of course, we don't want to see the outbreak get any wider, but if it does occur, we do have those systems and preparedness plans in place to manage this.

Happy to take any questions. Thanks. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture.

We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.