QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for the Environment and Water) (14:48): Thanks, Senator Pocock, for the question. Obviously, our government is taking the risk of H5 bird flu extremely seriously. We started taking that seriously well before we started seeing the first cases of that strain of bird flu enter Australia's shores.

It's why, for the last couple of years, our government has been investing in preparedness. I dare say that that's one of the reasons that it has taken so long for that strain of bird flu to get to Australia, noting that we are the last continent on Earth to have this strain arrive on our shores. The list that you're referring to, which some environmental organisations have referred to in the way that you have, was published by my department a couple of weeks ago.

I don't know the exact date that it was first prepared, but it wasn't months earlier. It's been an ongoing piece of work. It was an important piece of work undertaken by my department to inform our preparedness exercises.

It so happens that the five species that were identified as being at extreme risk of extinction in that list have all received some form of financial support towards their resilience, monitoring or surveillance under the preparedness activities that we've been undertaking over the last couple of years—as have many of the other species listed in that list as being at high risk of extinction.

That has been an ongoing piece of work that has informed the funding decisions that my department has undertaken. To give you a couple of examples, here in the ACT, we have invested $60,000 towards supporting the construction and deployment of floating island refuges across the ACT's lakes, dams and wetlands. In New South Wales, more than $1.2 million is supporting New South Wales to reduce invasive species.

They're the kinds of investments that have been made to protect those very endangered species. (Time expired) The PRESIDENT: Senator Pocock, first supplementary?