Press conference, Adelaide

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Well, good morning everyone. Thanks very much for joining us here on a Saturday morning at the wonderful Adelaide Zoo, a world famous zoo not just nationally famous, and we're here today to make an announcement that is truly world leading, as well as being nationally significant. What we're going to do today is cover two issues, some new investment by the Federal Government towards the eradication of feral cats on Kangaroo Island, and also we've got Minister Collins and Minister Bourke here to provide a latest update on bird flu as well.

So as I say, I'm very pleased today to announce that the Albanese Government is joining the South Australian Government and the Invasive Species Council with a massive investment to protect native species on Kangaroo Island. Today I can announce that the Albanese Government will be investing $2.7 million to take other contributions from the state government and the ISC to a nearly $4 million investment in total to eradicate feral cats from the Dudley Peninsula on Kangaroo Island.

Those of you from South Australia will know even better than me that there is a fence on Kangaroo Island that separates the Dudley Peninsula from the rest of the island. There's been great work undertaken already to eradicate feral cats from that Dudley Peninsula area, but by this further investment we'll be able to close that gap in funding to eradicate the last remaining feral cats on that part of the island.

Why this matters is that we know that already feral cats have inflicted terrible damage on native species on Kangaroo Island. And it's worth remembering that feral cats are not your furry pet at home, they are stone cold killers of some of Australia's most important native species. So this investment means that we can eradicate those feral cats, and give those native species a fighting chance towards their survival long term, something that they deserve.

The Albanese Government was very proud in our first term to commit to no further extinctions of Australian native species, and programs like this are really important towards achieving that target. We know that South Australia and Kangaroo Island are blessed to have all sorts of native species, whether it be the Kangaroo Island echidna, the hooded plover, and other species as well.

And they are in danger of becoming extinct as a result of feral cats ripping into them and eating them, and we want to stop that. So this is a really important investment of course for Kangaroo Island, but as you'll hear from others here today, this is a nationally significant investment as well, because it shows a pathway towards approaches that we can take, not just on islands, but on the mainland as well, to eradicate the invasive species that are doing so much harm to native species that we want to protect.

So happy to obviously talk about this in more detail, but I might invite the South Australian Minister Emily Bourke, who's also been a great contributor to this project, to say a bit more about it as well. EMILY BOURKE, SOUTH AUSTRALIAN MINISTER FOR CLIMATE, ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Well, thank you, Murray. As we've just heard, this is a significant investment and makes it the largest investment we have ever done in the Feral Cat Eradication Program.

And this is about getting the job done. It is about making sure that we can finish what we've started. We’ve already invested, as you have heard, a significant amount of money as an election commitment - $800,000 from the State Government here in South Australia.

But also investments from the people behind us, the partnerships that come with this. And that's what's made it successful, is the community has been right behind it on Kangaroo Island, and now the government at both levels have been behind this program to make sure that Kangaroo Island can be the largest inhabited island anywhere in the world to eradicate cats.

That is a significant outcome, and that's why it has the attention that it’s getting. Because we can achieve something that hasn't been achieved anywhere else before. That's why these investments are important, but they're important for many reasons.

On Kangaroo Island we see it as a space where nature is at its finest. It's a space where you go to to escape and be amongst native vegetation. And if you were a cat, you're joining a long list of species that have now been on the eradication list under this governments.

Feral deer? Been eradicated. Pigs?

Been eradicated. Now, cats are going to be eradicated on Kangaroo Island. And that’s the success of this program, for investing to make sure what can happen.

We’ve shown previously with other species we can get it done, and we’re going to do it with feral cats as well. So that's why this investment is important. It’s not just about our native species, we also know that it has a really big impact on our farmers on Kangaroo Island.

Cats do spread disease, and we've seen that with our sheep on Kangaroo Island - they can spread disease into our sheep population as well. And that is what has enabled the Landscape Board to be a really pivotal role in this today, and that's why Will is also here from the Landscape Board. So I just want to say thank you to everyone that's been involved in this incredible process.

We get to not only lead at a national level, but we get to lead at a world level as well. JACK GOUGH, CEO OF THE INVASIVE SPECIES COUNCIL: G'day, so Jack Gough, I'm the CEO of the Invasive Species Council and so we put $370,000 towards this project with our donors to support it. So this is a fantastic day for the wildlife of Kangaroo Island, for the dunnarts, for the hooded plovers, for those echidnas that are directly threatened by cats that are incredible hunters and incredible killers of our native wildlife.

It's also an incredibly important day for our farmers on Kangaroo Island, because we know that cats unfortunately spread diseases which reduce lambing rates. The excellent part about this program is we've got philanthropy, state government, federal government coming together to invest in the full funding for an eradication program. Eradication doesn't work if you don't get the last few animals, the big costs come in getting those last few animals.

And we have been concerned many times that, unfortunately for a lot of environment programs, we build half a bridge and wonder why we don't get anywhere. Today, the governments are committing to building that full bridge, to making sure that the Dudley is done. That we don't have feral cats hunting, harassing, killing our native wildlife.

That's extremely important also in the context of bird flu. We know that bird flu is of huge threat to our native wildlife. It could be costs on the scale of the Black Summer Bushfires around Australia.

And when it comes to bird flu for our wildlife, what matters is stopping some of those other threats. Making sure that we don't have feral cats out there catching, hunting, killing our native wildlife is going to mean that they are much more resilient to the wave of devastation that we could be seeing if bird flu establishes itself in our native wildlife populations.

So this is a fantastic day. I'm really pleased that the Albanese Government has joined with the South Australian Government and with the Invasive Species Council and our donors to make sure that we can get the Dudley done. This is an important national program which tells us what can be achieved at scale on islands that are populated, and we look forward to further investments making sure that we take the learnings from Kangaroo Island all around Australia.

Because cats aren't just a problem on Kangaroo Island. They are one of the greatest threats to Australia's wildlife. They've made over 20 of our native species extinct.

And if we don't invest at scale, scale, we're going to see more of the wildlife that Australians know and love unfortunately disappear forever. JOURNALIST: Can someone talk about how they'll be eradicated, and the timeline for when they'll be gone? WILL DURACK, GENERAL MANAGER OF THE KANGAROO ISLAND LANDSCAPE BOARD: Yeah, so I'm Will Durack, I'm the general manager of the Landscape Board, and the community couldn't be more happy with this outcome.

In our mind, success begins and ends with the community. We’re in a really unique where Kangaroo Island has the privilege of 98 percent community support for this program. So how will it happen?

It will happen as an active collaboration between the Landscape Board, the Australian Government, the State Government, and most importantly, our community. Community provide access to their land. Every time you go on someone's land, that is a privilege.

We set traps, we run dogs, we have drones operating over the area, and an incredibly sophisticated array of technology, motion-activated AI-processing cameras, all of which assist us and importantly the community, not to be sideline supporters, but active contributors to this program. The Kangaroo Island are fiercely proud of our biosecurity status. We've already eradicated pigs recently, again, with the support of the Australian, the State Government, and philanthropic investment.

We’ve previously eradicated deer, we’ve eradicated goats, and now we are moving on to cats - our most cryptic species, and something that we know is possible and will be achieved. And as has been said, once complete, the Dudley Peninsula will be largest human inhabited feral cat-free area in the world. This is a remarkable achievement, both for Kangaroo Island, but more for for Australia, and internationally, as we set the frameworks to understand how to do truly bold, truly ambitious landscape scale programs that create impact.

JOURNALIST: What’s the timeline? WILL DURACK: The timeline for eradication is that we run the knockdown this calendar year, and by the end of ’26, we will have removed 95 percent - our goal is to remove 95 percent of the total population. The final two years of any eradication are the hardest.

That's when you move into your final mop-up, and also conducting of detailed monitoring to ensure that you have done the job. JOURNALIST: Can you just explain why those final two years are the hardest, to get the eradication complete? WILL DURACK: So cats are incredibly intelligent, and they will learn from all of their interactions.

And most of the remaining cats will have already interacted with our trap network, with our camera network. And so they’re wily. And so the final cats are incredibly smart, they are incredibly cryptic and avoid our efforts.

JOURNALIST: And is the goal to finish to finish this all by 2030? Is that the final…? WILL DURACK: No, the goal is to finish the Dudley Peninsula by December 2028, and that will include both the removing of the animals and also the scientific proof of freedom to ensure that we have the statistics to back the outcome.

JOURNALIST: What makes you so confident that you’ll get to full eradication, if they’re smart and they understand what you’re doing? WILL DURACK: It's a fantastic question. The confidence that I have comes from both the community, the staff who deliver the program, and the science, the innovation and the technology that sits behind it.

We're at a new era of eradications, where the scientific monitoring that sits behind this program, and the physical infrastructure and engineering allows you the ability to cover broad scale landscapes with absolute confidence. MURRAY WATT: Anything else on this before other issues? EMILY BOURKE: Well today we can confirm that we have two additional cases, suspected cases, of H5 bird flu in South Australia.

And again, unfortunately we are finding that these two cases are in our local species. So we need to send these tests off now to Geelong for them to have the confirmation at that centralised location that they are, or are not, the H5 high strand of this disease. But we also need to make sure that we can get those testings undertaken, and that will be undertaken over the weekend and into the coming early week.

Those tests are on their way. The tests have been sent, we're hoping to be in Geelong today, and we will be looking forward to seeing those results. But the two species, the birds that were found, were the greater southern tern, the crested tern that was located just in Robe recently.

This is the same species, one has been located four kilometres from the previous greater crested tern, and that was located just outside of Robe. The second has been at Semaphore. So these two species have now been sent to be tested, to make sure that we can have the clear understanding if they are testing positive for the high strain of H5.

And it's important that we give the time to make sure that we can get those tests correct and right, so that we can give that confidence to the community of the understanding of what those tests are. So we want to say thank you again to the community. These two tests have come about because community members called the hotline, did the things that we've been saying; avoid, record, and report.

That’s exactly what's happened here. People walking on the beach, people reporting, people recording, and people doing the right thing in South Australia. And now we're able to have a greater understanding if this has spread again into localised birds.

We know that we have five confirmed cases in South Australia, now we have two additional suspected cases. We need to find out if it is the particular strand that we are concerned about, and when we have that information we'll be able to provide further update. But as again, one case is in Semaphore, just near the boat ramp.

The other case was in Robe, four kilometres from where the previous bird was located, when H5 has been identified in a localised bird species. JULIE COLLINS, MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY: Thanks Emily. We still have nationally 17 confirmed cases of bird flu in Australia at the moment.

We have a suspected petrel, obviously off Moreton Island in Queensland that, if it is correct, will be the first in Queensland. And now we have two further suspected greater crested terns here from South Australia. As Minister Bourke has indicated, we have had a greater crested tern previously from South Australia from Robe that has tested positive and has been confirmed positive.

In terms of that particular bird, and the testing, and these birds more generally, we do know that they are wild birds and that they do mix with the petrels and the other sub-Antarctic species which have been found with the bird flu and tested positive to the bird flu. As Minister Bourke has indicated, we will get confirmatory testing, we will expect that testing to come through early next week, and as soon as we have any results we’ll make them public.

What we're doing here today is we’re being upfront with the Australian community at the earliest opportunity, as we have at every occasion with these bird flu incursions. Happy to take any questions. JOURNALIST: Is there a suggestion here there might have been transmission in Robe, given we’ve got two birds suspected positive there?

JULIE COLLINS: Well, that's what the sequencing at the CSIRO lab in Geelong will be able to tell us, they can do detailed sequencing of these birds, depending on the quality of the sample. I do understand that these birds are deceased, so they may be degraded samples. But CSIRO lab will certainly do everything they can to check the sequencing.

We have no evidence of any transmission in Australia in terms of the H5 bird flu at this point in time. We have no mass mortalities being recorded. We have no bird flu in our poultry or agriculture systems, and the risk to human health remains low.

JOURNALIST: In terms of- we've now got 17 cases across the nation. Did modelling show that there was a potential for it to spread quicker than what it has been so far? JULIE COLLINS: So what we've seen overseas is that a lot of other countries have had incursions of the bird flu really quickly.

What we have done, what our biosecurity system has done and our early investments have done, is meaning that we have got early detections, and our biosecurity system is one of the best in the world and it is working, and that's what it is showing. And the Australian public and the Australian people are always our first line of defence when it comes to biosecurity.

And like Minister Bourke I want to thank the Australian public for their role in this. We have now taken over 8,000 calls nationally to the hotline, through the birdflu.gov.au in terms of the reporting, the recording, and avoiding any dead birds. And we've literally done hundreds of tests across the country.

So we are monitoring this incredibly closely, and our early investments of over $113 million for bird flu preparedness as part of our $2 billion additional investment in biosecurity are really showing us that investment has been worthwhile. JOURNALIST: In terms of testing, there's obviously a bit of a wait for the turnaround. Is there any plans to set up localised state-based testing facilities?

JULIE COLLINS: Well, they have had state-based testing, and that's what some of the early investment has been about too, depending on where you are in the country, and we have provided funding to state and territory governments around the country as part of the preparedness, and they have also invested early as well. So this has been a really big joint effort from state and federal governments working together but importantly with wildlife experts, with industry in terms of the agriculture industry.

This has been a really serious investment from the Government, and we have been working and we have done modelling about how this would come to Australia. We always said we couldn't keep it out, we always said it would come by migratory birds, and the fact that we're getting these early detections shows our biosecurity system is working as we intended it to. JOURNALIST: Jack, I might just ask you, obviously surveillance has increased across the nation, here in SA too.

Are you satisfied with what the Government is doing, or do you think there needs to be more? JACK GOUGH: Look, I think Australians should be really proud of the biosecurity response that we’ve had from governments, and that's because there was an investment in preparedness. When we invest in preparedness, it means that the systems are in place years ahead of time for when that incursion occurs.

We won't be able to stop the H5N1 strain spreading. What we've seen from overseas is that it can move very quickly through populations. Maybe we get away with it this winter, but we know that birds are going to keep coming to Australia, it's no longer theoretical that H5N1 can turn up here.

It spread through the entire South American continent within six months. So this is going to be a wildlife disaster at some point, and the best thing that we can be doing on top of that biosecurity work is an investment at scale into wildlife resilience, and to making sure that those other threats to our wildlife are being dealt with at the same time. That's why we're pushing for an investment into increased wildlife resilience to go alongside that biosecurity response which is doing so well.

The other thing I'd say, we see, in terms of a whole heap of different biosecurity threats, whether it’s fire ants or yellow crazy ants or bird flu, almost always it's members of the public who make these detections and mean that our biosecurity system is working. So the fact that we are getting such large numbers of people reporting in, is something that I think we should be very encouraged about, because it means that, in terms of really slowing that spread, we're going to have a good chance for our wildlife to be prepared, for agricultural industries to be prepared, because this is going to come down to a numbers game for our wildlife.

It’s going to be about how many of our critically endangered wildlife are there when we start to see that wave moving through at some point. JOURNALIST: What does that wildlife disaster look like, and why should we be concerned about it [inaudible]? JACK GOUGH: Yeah, unfortunately this is something that we've seen overseas has killed millions of birds, hundreds of millions of poultry have had to be slaughtered, tens of thousands of sea mammals as well die.

So if you look at Cape Valdez in South America, 95 percent of all elephant-sealed babies dying in 2023 when this bird flu turned up there. In the UK, 30 percent loss of their breeding skuas and gannets and those shorebirds. So, unfortunately, this is something that could be on the scale of the Black Summer Bushfires.

Down in South Australia, I think that we can see what's going on with the algal bloom in terms of the way that the public respond to seeing that scale of devastation, and I think any government that's out in front of that making sure there's an investment in all the other things that can do to protect wildlife will be in a good position to be able to deal with what I expect would be a pretty significant wave of grief from public as we start to see that significant level of deaths of our native wildlife.

JOURNALIST: Minister Bourke, when exactly were these two birds found? EMILY BOURKE: Yeah, so they were reported on Thursday and the testing was undertaken in Adelaide yesterday and now they are on their way for further confirmation in Geelong. So again, this has been a quick turnaround because of that reporting process.

People are being made aware. The Government has been running community forums. There will be, ironically, a community forum in Glenelg on Monday and I'm sure there'll be much more interest now with a local bird being identified in that area.

So we really are appreciative of the efforts of local communities to make sure that they are reporting. It's easy to walk past, but people aren’t, and they are reporting it. I think we've had over 2,500 phone calls coming in since our first detection in South Australia, and that shows that people are engaged.

That shows that our information is getting out there, it shows that our community forums are working. It also shows the engagement we're doing with local NGOs like Birds SA, BirdLife Australia providing training to them, who already have the expertise, the knowledge and we are utilising that knowledge to get them out on the ground as well. So we've done one webinar of training with them that's been designed by them, for them.

But we're also doing our first face-to-face training with Birds SA, BirdLife Australia members, and the Conservation Council on Monday night as well. So we're making sure that we have as much knowledge on the ground. We all know what a bird is, but when you have a membership, you know what a bird's species is, what their normal behaviours are, what their normal characteristics are, also trained now in understanding bird flu at a greater level.

We know we've got great skill sets on the ground, out in the community, across South Australia. JOURNALIST: And in terms of where they were found, on the beach? EMILY BOURKE: Yeah so at Semaphore was just near the boat ramp, and in Robe was just near Long Beach, which is four kilometres away from the marina where the original one was found and the confirmed case was found.

So again, sometimes these aren't in highly populated areas, but people are locating, people are reporting, and people are avoiding, all the things that we've been asking. JOURNALIST: Just a separate question for Minister Watt. MURRAY WATT: JOURNALIST: On a different topic, is there a level of complacency in the Labor Party given how fractured the conservative side of politics is?

MURRAY WATT: Absolutely not. We understand that being in government is a privilege every single day. And we understand that as much as we have worked very hard as a government to deal with the cost of living pressures that all Australians are experiencing, among a range of other concerns, we know there's always more to be done.

And that's why over the last couple of days of our national conference, you've seen a really strong focus from the Government about what more we can be doing to assist with those cost of living pressures, continue to roll out more healthcare, continue to protect our environment. We’re not complacent about anything, because we know we always, every single day, need to deliver for the Australian people.

JOURNALIST: MURRAY WATT: Okay? Thanks everyone. 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.