QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for the Environment and Water) (14:52): Thanks, Senator Pocock. Again, this government has already invested significant funds towards the resilience of our precious native species. Of the $113 million that this government has invested in bird flu preparedness, around $47 million of that has gone towards wildlife resilience.

Again, you would expect the groups that are calling for this additional investment to do that. That is their role. They have, in fact, been calling for that kind of investment to occur in native species for some time, not just since bird flu arrived.

We've said that we have an open mind about the need for further funding in this space. My colleague Minister Collins is, obviously, also working with states and territories about the needs of the agriculture sector to deal with the bird flu virus having arrived here. I might say, though, that we make no apologies whatsoever for investing in the future manufacturing capacity of our country and the tens of thousands of jobs that rely on it.