QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Ms COLLINS (Franklin—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) (14:52): I do want to thank the member for Sturt for her question. I know that she has been particularly concerned about the H5 bird flu transmission in her home state of South Australia and her local community, and I thank her for her involvement. This, of course, is about us taking steps to make sure that Australians are prepared for and able to respond to the H5 bird flu, particularly as we continue to see more detections in our wildlife.

In the last few weeks, our government has launched the 'H5 bird flu. Know what to do.' national campaign. It's running across television, digital, radio and social media channels, providing Australians with practical information to help them prepare for the threats of the H5 bird flu, simple steps to know the signs of bird flu, to avoid touching sick or dead birds, to report suspected cases and to take precautions to protect pets and backyard poultry.

From keeping your aviary and surrounding areas clean to keeping your pets' food and water away from wild birds, there is clear and practical advice from technical experts, and it continues to be available on birdflu.gov.au. This campaign is, of course, part of our government's more than $270 million bird flu response, a response that has also been supporting our states and territories to roll out the H5 vaccines secured by the Commonwealth.

I can advise the House that we've now had over 3,000 H5 vaccines administered to priority wildlife species nationwide. This includes the little penguins in Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT, and soon Western Australia. It also includes the regent honeyeaters in South Australia, orange-bellied parrots in Tasmania and Carnaby's black cockatoos in Western Australia.

As I've said before in this place, this is understood to be the globe's largest vaccination effort of its kind. In my home state of Tasmania, wildlife experts also recently began vaccinating the endangered shy albatross, and I'm proud to say that this is again Australia leading the way. This is the first attempt across the globe to actually vaccinate albatrosses against the H5 bird flu.

I'm asked repeatedly about vaccinating mammals. Can I be clear that there have been limited trials undertaken globally. Given there is no approved vaccine for use in mammals in Australia or internationally, this is complex.

But I can advise the member for Sturt that our technical experts are monitoring trials underway on Hawaiian monk seals in the United States, and we continue to work with the South Australian government to be able to assess the suitability of this vaccine for use in our unique marine mammals in South Australia. I do want to reiterate that there remain no detections in our poultry or agriculture systems, and that the risk to human health remains low.

I can say we've now had over 700 bird flu events across the country and 60,000 calls to our disease hotline, and I again thank Australians for helping.