ADJOURNMENT

Senator McLACHLAN (South Australia) (20:05): Wendell Berry, a novelist, poet, American farmer and activist, gave this quote: … Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do. Bird flu has arrived in South Australia. It threatens not only our farmers' production but native bird life and mammals.

Possibly, at its worst, many might go extinct. South Australia has had little time to respond to the algal bloom, and now we have the immense threat to our natural world with bird flu. We learnt from the bloom that we need more scientific research in understanding our environment.

Importantly, we also learnt that the destruction of our reefs and oyster beds meant that when an event such as an algal bloom arrived, we suffered more than we would have otherwise. We need a strong and healthy population of native birds and mammals to resist the bird flu. This is why we should invest in eradicating our invasive species and stop destroying our ever-diminishing habitat.

We need to restrain our greed and our consumption and instead invest in wildlife resilience. I use the term 'invest' as Professor Dieter Helm does, in that nature can be invested in and seen as a productive capital, an asset that sustains our life. For me, the worth of nature is intrinsic, but as our economic settings and outlook have caused the consumption of nature at an ever-increasing rate, I adopt economic terms to try to protect nature's value.

I joined the Invasive Species Council and called for an urgent investment of at least $200 million over two years in a wildlife resilience fund for species conservation and threat mitigation. This call has also been joined by the Murray-Darling Conservation Alliance. Their similar call is based on the need for further water flows of an environmental nature so that we can strengthen the resilience and health of our critical wetlands and bird habitats across the Murray-Darling Basin.

That will allow more options for our birds to spread out, breed and survive the impacts of the bird flu. We must put nature at the heart of all our decision-making. As a conservative, my objective is to leave the planet in a better condition than when we inherited it.

I support the calls for a wildlife resilience fund, and I ask you to do the same.