Australia’s Environment Ministers join forces to fight bird flu threat

Federal Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek today chaired a meeting of Australian and New Zealand Environment Ministers to help prepare and protect against bird flu.

The Ministers recognised the unprecedented threat that high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 poses to our environment and threatened species.

While this deadly strain of bird flu hasn’t yet reached Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, it is causing mass mortalities in wildlife and significantly impacting poultry overseas.

Ministers received the latest updates from Australia’s Chief Veterinary Officer Dr Beth Cookson and Threatened Species Commissioner Dr Fiona Fraser.

The Ministers also shared updates from their own jurisdictions and acknowledged the cross- government efforts to date, including the multi-agency Exercise Volare simulations to test Australia’s response to bird flu. 

Today the Ministers agreed to:

• continue to prioritise, and where possible increase, work already underway to support species recovery and abate threats
• champion ongoing collaboration between environment and agriculture, health and emergency management portfolios for a coordinated response
• meet regularly to continue preparations.

The Albanese Labor Government is already taking strong, coordinated action on bird flu.

This week, Minister Plibersek joined the Federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Minister for Health and Aged Care, and Minister for Emergency Management to announce a further $95 million investment in preparedness efforts - including $35.9 million specifically on environmental protection measures. 

This work includes supporting state and territory governments to boost preparedness planning for our most vulnerable species and places and key conservation partners to improve protections for captive populations of threatened species.  

The new investment builds on more than $1 billion of additional biosecurity funding announced in the 2023 Budget, and a previous $6.9 million investment into national H5N1 preparations.

The full communique was agreed to by Ministers and can be found here. 

More information about the Australian Government response to the threat of HPAI H5N1 is available at birdflu.gov.au. 

Quotes attributable to the Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek:

“As Environment Minister, I am focused on protecting our precious threatened species and that’s why I called today’s meeting.

“All governments must work closely together on a national, coordinated response to tackle this deadly strain of bird flu. 

“It’s great to see the work underway already across states and territories to protect our iconic native wildlife, including threatened species in captive breeding programs and in the wild. 

“We will continue working closely with agriculture, health and emergency management leaders across the country to help us prepare for a detection and protect our biodiversity. 

“We are united, prepared and taking action.”