Doorstop, Canberra

Since 2024 our Government has undertaken a significant amount of work to prepare for the possible use of vaccinations to protect some of Australia's most vulnerable native birds from the H5 bird flu. We've secured suitable vaccines and undertaken trials and pilots so that if vaccination was needed that Australia would be ready. Today I can announce that the first vaccines are expected to roll out in coming days and weeks, based on an agreed national approach to the targeted vaccination priority native bird species.

This approach will mean that the states and territories are able to commence vaccination activities, initially focusing on priority species in captivity identified by those states and territories. The priority species will be identified based on vulnerability to the H5 bird flu and the potential conservation impact, informed as always by scientific advice. We've been very clear that we cannot stop the H5 bird flu from spreading amongst wild birds, but we can take action to protect the species most at risk and the vaccination is now a part of that response.

This work has been backed by our investment of almost $2 million into vaccines and trials as part of the $113 million in funding that supported preparedness and response capabilities. Vaccination activities will be guided as always by expert scientific advice and will build on the work that the states and territories are undertaking on the ground to manage the impact on the H5 bird flu.

I want to be clear, as I said last week, and we have been abundantly clear, that Australians should expect to see more spread and larger numbers particularly of dead birds and mass mortalities around the country from the H5 bird flu. We have been very clear that this will continue to spread across the country. We also know that as the disease becomes more widespread in wildlife, counting individual confirmed birds no longer gives us the clearest picture of how this disease is spreading.

So our reporting will evolve to focus on confirmed H5 events and the developments that matter the most: where the disease is spreading, new locations, more species affected in emerging areas of risk. Australians can rest assured that our government will continue to communicate updates regularly as we have from the very beginning and been transparent. And these updates will be in addition to the regular updates that we've put on our birdflu.gov.au with all the latest numbers and detail that we have available.

I do want to finish by reiterating that at this time there have been no detections in poultry or in the wider agricultural industry, and the risk to human health remains low. And again a reminder to the Australian public who are doing such a terrific job, if you do see sick or dead birds or other animals please do not touch them. This is particularly important as we are going to be seeing more of these around Australia.

Please avoid contact and record what you see and make a report through birdflu.gov.au so Australians can keep up-to-date. I’ll now hand to Minister Watt. MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Thanks very much Julie.

Australia's birds are something that we all love. The sounds, the colours, the role they play in our ecosystems and that's why as a government we're determined to do everything we possibly can to protect them. Today's announcement is another step in supporting our bird population to face up to the massive challenge of bird flu and as Julie has indicated let there be no doubt how serious a challenge this is, obviously for our native wildlife but also for Australians as well.

As Julie has indicated we are going to see more mass mortalities of birds, that's going to be a very distressing thing for Australians and as a government we are determined not only to protect our birds as best we can but also to support Australians through what is going to be a very difficult journey. As the Environment Minister I very much welcome this development and this announcement by Minister Collins to roll out targeted vaccinations of priority native bird species.

As we've heard Australia has been doing vaccination trials for some period of time and now we're making a commitment to roll out those vaccinations more broadly with the federal government supporting states and territories to vaccinate priority species that they identify based on expert advice. As you may have heard Julie and me say, it is difficult to vaccinate birds in the wild.

It does take two vaccination doses to vaccinate birds and it is difficult enough to catch wild birds once, let alone twice. Where it's possible to vaccinate wild birds we will do so but the priority here is to vaccinate birds that are in captivity and of course in our zoos and various other institutions. We’ve been taking steps to ensure that we do have populations of our most vulnerable bird species and they're going to be the priority when it comes to vaccinations.

We are taking this step now because of course the situation regarding bird flu in Australia is escalating. We're taking a graduated response to step up that response as developments unfold based on expert advice so this is announcement to broaden out our vaccination program is another step to protect our native birds and that builds on the steps that we've already taken over the last couple of years.

As you've heard me say before, as part of the government's $113 million investment in bird flu preparedness, that has included $47 million of investments towards wildlife resilience to make sure that our wildlife is as resilient as possible for the bird flu arriving in the way that we expected that it would. And that's done things like seal off enclosures in zoos, to ensure that wild birds can't make it into zoos and spread infection to captive populations.

As I've mentioned we've increased our captive breeding populations in those zoos to make sure that we do have viable populations of our most endangered species and we've eradicated feral animals and weeds to allow a better chance for those populations to thrive and be resilient for bird flu and now of course we're spreading towards vaccinations. As I say this is going to continue to be a serious event.

We will continue to update you as developments unfold and again, to all Australians, the best thing you can do is avoid, record, report. Avoid contact with what appear to be sick animals, record what you see and report it to authorities so that action can be taken. JOURNALIST: What are some of the species that we can expect to see vaccinated and how many species will you be helping?

So that obviously depends on the work states and territories are doing in relation, as I said to captive native species but also whether the vaccines are effective in that species. But also this is obviously part of the response, for some threatened species the response might not include vaccine it might be much more about biosecurity, it might be much more about resilience of the species, but I'll hand to Dr Cookson to answer the details of that question.

DR BETH COOKSON, AUSTRALIAN CHIEF VETERINARY OFFICER: Thanks for the question. I think really important to note that we are not starting today, as you've heard from the Ministers we have been working very carefully for the last 18 months as part of our national preparedness to make sure that we have the safety and efficacy data available to us, as well as appropriate vaccines to use in captive and managed populations where it can be a complementary tool.

It's not a standalone solution, biosecurity will remain very important for the protection to these species. The trials and pilots we've undertaken so far has provided us some safety data across a range of different species and there's now active consideration being taken with our state and territory colleagues who are guiding the prioritisation of those species and the identification of the populations that can appropriately be vaccinated.

JOURNALIST: So you can't say where you would start or which species or which geographical locations or facilities? So the states and territories will be making their own announcements in coming days in relation to starting the vaccinations and what they've identified as their priority species so we’ve been working very closely with them. I'm not going to make that announcement on their behalf because they have been doing the work on the ground.

But Dr Cookson can probably talk a little bit about some more of the types of things in terms of the birds that we have been working with. Yes, certainly the approach that we've undertaken through the pilot, and those pilots have been undertaken in close collaboration with the jurisdictions also, has been focused on making sure that we've got safety data across a range of different species, as you can appreciate birds come in all different sizes and the vaccines that we've got are made for poultry so it was really important as part of the preparedness that we have that safety information.

We'll continue to gather that information and to prioritise vaccination in those species where we have got sufficient evidence. As I've mentioned vaccines are not necessarily risk free and only one part of the suite of tools that we've got available, but a very important one that we starting to see applied now. JOURNALIST: Will mammals be included in the vaccination trial?

There are no commercially available vaccines suitable for mammals. We are working very closely with counterparts internationally to follow some of the trials that have been undertaken including in the United States and certainly we will be looking in the future to make sure that we've got all of the tools available to us to make the right decisions and protect Australian wildlife as best we can, noting that as we've heard today broad scale vaccination in the wild is not practical or feasible and so it is very much a tool that we will be looking to prioritise for certain captive populations and managed populations where appropriate. : Minister, does the evolution of this increase the risk of an inflation spike, is the government considering that Australians may be forced to pay more for eggs and chicken?

Well as I've said there is no evidence of it in our poultry or agricultural system. And certainly we have been doing everything we can do to keep it out of that system for the very reasons that you indicate and certainly we want to make sure that important staples remain available to the Australian public which is why we have done the preparedness, why we've invested early and we continue to work really closely particularly with the chicken and the egg industry in relation to keeping it out of our system.

We have learnt from the H7 incursions that we did manage to eradicate is a lot of lessons and we have applied them as well and we have also done that early investment to make sure that we are doing everything we can possibly do. But I’ve also been very clear that overseas we have seen it spill over into agriculture so we’re doing everything we can do to keep it out of our agriculture system and at this time it is not in our agriculture system.

Could I ask you both, on another matter, on the melons controversy. While we’ve got the chief vet, could we finish off bird flu and come back? JOURNALIST: How many vaccinations are there?

So we've secured $2 million worth of vaccinations so that is I think 1,500 vials but the doses vary depending in those vials on the size of the bird. So we have sufficient vaccines in terms of undertaking the initial vaccination program but we've also been very clear we are working with states and territories if we need more vaccines we're able to secure those.

I'll let Dr Cookson add if she needs to. JOURNALIST: Is there an estimate as to how many birds can be vaccinated? So we are working to prioritise carefully the initial vaccines that will be rolled out.

There are some limitations in terms of the way the vaccine can be used including the vials needing to be disposed of after being opened so part of what we are looking at doing is making sure that, one, we're prioritising but that also where possible, we're making sure that other species within the same sort of collections where possible can also make use of the vaccines.

But we are confident that we have enough to provide the initial priorities for vaccination in Australia and as the Minister has mentioned we will get more vaccines if we need them. JOURNALIST: Hundreds of pelicans were found dead near Broken Hill last week. Testing hasn't come up with any evidence of bird flu.

How many cases are you seeing where there's mass death of birds but there isn't evidence of bird flu? Thanks for the question. It is a really good one and a good reminder to the Australian community that whilst we are of course all concerned with what we're seeing with the spread of H5 bird flu, there is always an underlying level of mortality in our wild populations in Australia, not everything will be bird flu.

That's why we are asking the public to continue to report when they see sick and dead birds, especially in groups so we can continue to undertake those investigations to exclude bird flu and look for other causes as appropriate. I would just say also that we've obviously taken, you know, I think over 12,000 calls to the national hotline and then they're triaged and then appropriate testing is done whereby the state jurisdictions on the ground think there may be a chance of bird flu so we are appropriately triaging all the calls as well.

JOURNALIST: You mentioned efficacy before. How protective is it and does it range from species to species? That's another really good question and something that we are learning all the time.

Like all influenza vaccines, including in humans, influenza vaccines are not 100 percent protective and that's why we do need to make sure that we're seeing this as not a standalone tool but as complementary to those other measures that we've spoken about including enhancing biosecurity. So we would expect that there will be variation in the level of immunity that vaccines can bring to these populations and as I've mentioned that's why it is a complementary tool and enhanced biosecurity will always be the first line of defence.

JOURNALIST: One of the concerns around vaccination is silent transmission. Is that something that you're worried about in the particular roll out of this scale and what are you doing to minimise that? As I've mentioned these vaccines are not 100 percent protective.

No influenza vaccine is 100 percent protective. Whilst we have bird flu in our wild populations I would say that the silent transmission, it will provide some benefit to birds that are vaccinated potentially in lowering the severity of the disease that they develop. So this will be an important consideration in the captive populations.

The silent transmission is probably more important when we start thinking about whether vaccines would be a complementary tool for use in our poultry industries where it can have greater impact. JOURNALIST: What is the deadline for the states and territories to come back to you with that priority list that they've identified, and just on mass culling of poultry, if this is inevitable this spread, what's the timeline for that, when do you expect that we're going to have to do that in the poultry industry?

So in terms of the vaccines and the use we expect a couple of states to announce in coming days that they will start the vaccination program and as I've said I'll leave it to them in terms of their announcements and what they're doing on the ground because we have been working very closely with states in relation to their prioritisation lists, of what types of captive species that are threatened that we should start vaccinations on, based on the scientific evidence and the advice from the trials.

So the states have been involved in the trials process in terms of the types of birds and those types of details, they've been working very, very closely so we are working really closely with them. So we'll continue to work with them but it really is for the state and territories on the ground in terms of the timing of when they start vaccinations and whether or not they are doing vaccinations.

JOURNALIST: But mostly in the next week you'd expect. We'd expect some of them to come back within days, yes. Beth I don’t know if you have any further detail on that?

That's right. We do have a national approach that has been agreed which will include the states and territories identifying the initial priorities for vaccination and we'll continue to work very closely with them. I think you had another question about impacts in the poultry industry as the Minister has mentioned, we don't have bird flu yet in our agriculture system or our poultry production system and we are working very closely with those industries to keep it that way for as long as possible.

If we do start to see increased transmission and spill over into those poultry industries a lot of our preparedness efforts over the last two years including working closely with states and territories through our emergency response frameworks, ensuring that we will be appropriately equipped to respond to those circumstances if they do arise. For now our focus is making sure that we continue to monitor the situation so that there is good understanding of where the risk is, that those biosecurity procedures on farm can be enhanced and you will have also seen that there are some other measures being advised to poultry producers in some locations at the moment including housing orders in Victoria, whilst the situation continues to evolve.

JOURNALIST: Minister, you mentioned that you have the option of buying more vaccines if you need to extend this roll out further. Would that be a straightforward process or could there be a lag of weeks or even months before those extra vaccines come into Australia? My understanding is that they are available, I'll hand to Dr Cookson to see if there's anything further, but it will depend obviously on the prioritisation list from the states and territories.

Yeah, we are working closely with the vaccine manufacturers to know what’s on the market, what's available and of course as we get an appreciation of the priorities for the state and territories, we will be in a position to assess when we made need to buy more and we’ll certainly be looking at doing that. JOURNALIST: Where are the vaccines coming from? The vaccines are an H5 N2 inactivated vaccine.

It's a commercially available vaccine that's registered for use in poultry globally. JOURNALIST: I think you said that some species, there was evidence to suggest it would be effective for some species, are you able to say which ones they are? There's, as I mentioned, there's quite limited efficacy data available for the use of vaccines in wildlife and that's globally.

I would say that across the globe countries that have been dealing with H5 bird flu for many years, vaccination in wild populations is not widely used. So we are at the forefront of making sure that we got some of that safety and efficacy data that allows us to move towards this step in having a national approach to vaccination. Where we have that safety and efficacy data that will help to inform the initial prioritisation and we’ll certainly keep working with our state and territory colleagues to make sure we build up that evidence base.

Not very many countries across the globe are vaccinating. JOURNALIST: So just to clarify a couple of your answers, so you mentioned that on every continent where there's been bird flu it's got into the agricultural sector. Is it the government's view that it's inevitable that this will eventually get into poultry.

And then the second question is, is poultry on the list of potentially vaccinated birds or is it just wild birds at this point? So I will respond to that. In terms of, is it inevitable, I don't think it's ever inevitable and we've learned a lot of lessons from the H7 incursion.

But I am being realistic about biosecurity is our first front line. We also have a lot of particularly in free range producers in Australia and keeping wild birds out it is very difficult and we've also been very upfront about that. What we want to do is be able to be in a position to respond as quickly as we possibly can, and certainly we’re ready to be able to do that but our first line of defence is our biosecurity, and we've made that as strong as we can learning from incursions overseas and learning what we did with the H7 incursion as well.

So I'd say Australia's biosecurity system is one of the strongest across the globe and certainly we learned a lot of lessons from previous incursions of different forms of bird flu and we've learnt from overseas and we have seen other countries globally be able to eradicate it. So we're very confident that we will do everything we can do to keep it out for as long as possible, but we're also being realistic that we have seen spillover events globally.

When it comes to poultry vaccinations I might hand over to Dr Cookson but we're certainly working very closely with industry about whether or not this is viable and whether or not this is feasible. Yeah, that's right. We have continued to work very closely with the poultry industry to make sure that we are looking at what's happened within the global context and that we are as prepared as possible.

We will always look to biosecurity as the first line of defence for on-farm biosecurity but there are a range of other considerations as it relates to vaccines. Some of those are quite complex and we're starting to see a shift in the global attitudes and practices around vaccines that we're also learning from. It's not been a widespread tool in some of these countries that have continued to eliminate it from our poultry farms and certainly our first line approach is to do that based on our H7 experience.

But we do want to have all tools available to us and we continue to look at those opportunities to consider when and how vaccines might be applied and we're doing that with industry. JOURNALIST: Is that because there will be export restrictions on vaccinated birds? Is that potentially why you wouldn't want to use vaccines in poultry?

Yeah there's a range of quite complex considerations when it relates to vaccination of poultry. One of those is that the vaccine itself is not 100 per cent protective. So even in flocks that are vaccinated they can still have the virus introduced if their biosecurity is not keeping the infection out.

In those populations where virus is introduced and H5 bird flu is detected they still need to be eliminated because they can spread the virus further and be harder to detect. We also see that in some countries that has started to consider the use of vaccines that trading partners have increased some restrictions, so we need to work through those. Done on bird flu?

JOURNALIST: Yeah, just on the other issues. So even if we accept the Prime Minister's explanation, the Prime Minister's office explanation, at the very least do you think that he should have spoken up for a woman, a very important woman, who was being made the subject of a crude joke? I don't accept the premise of the way that you described that.

Can I say that I know the Prime Minister very well and the Prime Minister's been very clear that the type of inference that you're applying there is not what he was – JOURNALIST: Well there's definitely a crude joke going on, whether or not he was in on it is another point. But Minister Watt what do you think? Well the Prime Minister has been clear that some media interpretations of that episode of that podcast had been misinterpreted.

Minister Collins can talk to you about the strength of the relationship between Australia and Japan as it relates to agricultural trade. This government's - Minister Collins again is probably more appropriate to talk about this government's record when it comes to women. So I do note that the cable that apparently had been sent referred to some of the sensationalised media coverage regarding this and that's probably something we should all take into account.

JOURNALIST: Is it appropriate though for a man to let a crude joke like that go by without saying anything, without standing up for the woman involved? We have been clear that any statements or the Prime Minister's participation in that part of that episode has been misinterpreted. JOURNALIST: Even if it's a misinterpretation, even if it's sensational media coverage, it's clearly becoming an issue for the government and certainly it's been noticed in other parts of country and the world, wouldn't it be an opportunity to apologise or try and move on?

Well with the greatest of respect, the cable that apparently has been issued, one of the things that is noted has been the sensationalised media coverage of this issue and that's probably something we should all reflect on. JOURNALIST: But the fact that it's in a cable from one of our closest Asian partners suggests that they might have noticed that there's some kind of problem going on.

We have an incredibly strong relationship with Japan. This government has strengthened that relationship with Japan whether it's about trade, whether it's about security, there is no evidence whatsoever that that relationship has been damaged at all. JOURNALIST: Should a man stand by though and allow a crude joke about a woman without speaking out?

I've answered that question a couple of times. JOURNALIST: South Australia has announced a Royal Commission into AI. Should this be a federal enquiry?

Do you think there should be a Federal Royal Commission into AI? We might make this the last one if that's okay because we do have to go, but look it's obviously a matter for state governments to choose what matters they hold Royal Commissions on. From the federal government's perspective, the Prime Minister's made some very strong statements recently about the need for nationwide standards.

We have been working on that when it comes to energy. There will be a meeting of Ministers, Water Ministers later in the week to consider what action should be taken around data centres and water use. But it's obviously up to the state government there to determine what they want to have a Royal Commission on.

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.