Virtual Fencing Investigation

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (14:23): I seek leave to make a brief explanation prior to addressing a question to the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development regarding virtual fencing.

Leave granted.

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: It was recently reported in the Stock Journal that South Australia's first virtual fencing trial in the pastoral area on Wintinna Station has proved to be successful. According to SARDI senior research officer Megan Willis, the trial was a success, with very good interaction between the cattle and the virtual fence and no negative impact on the temperament or production of the cattle.

Owner of Wintinna Station, Francesca Fennell, where the trial took place, stated that she only sees an upside if virtual fencing becomes commercially available and says it would be really beneficial on the western side of their station, which has dense trees. She says, 'Hopefully, once it becomes legal in South Australia, there will be more suppliers and customers and cost per unit will come down, just as it has with water telemetry.'

A commonwealth animal welfare task subgroup has been examining regulatory issues associated with virtual fencing technology for quite some time now, and I note that PIRSA has a representative on this subcommittee, I believe, in Nathan Rhodes. A communiqué published in July of this year noted on the matter of virtual fencing that the virtual fencing harmonisation project had been paused for prioritisation of urgent projects and that the virtual fencing subgroup would be reconvened soon to progress next steps.

The last communiqué, published in September of this year, noted that the literature review would be released publicly pending final approval from technology developers. My questions to the minister are:

1. Has the minister received a copy of the literature review prior to its public release?

2. Is the animal welfare task subgroup still functioning and, by virtue of the PIRSA representative, will the trial results of Wintinna Station be communicated to this subgroup, and has or will it be considered in the literature review?

3. Will the minister commit her support to see virtual fencing made legal in South Australia within this parliamentary term and, if so, has the minister communicated that support to the minister in charge of the Animal Welfare Act in the other place?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (14:25): I thank the honourable member for her question. I think I have also spoken about virtual fencing in this place previously in regard to the work being done at the Struan Research Centre, and that is work between PIRSA and SARDI together.

For those who perhaps may not be so familiar with the issue, virtual fencing provides an opportunity to better manage grazing pressures on pastures, improve natural resource management on farms and reduce labour and costs associated with installing and maintaining traditional fencing internally on farms.

Virtual fencing is an agtech solution that manages animal movement via GPS-enabled virtual boundaries. The boundaries are enforced by neckbands worn by each animal, and the neckbands administer audio tones and electric pulses in response to the animal's location and behaviour. Over time, the animals learn to avoid that particular pulse by responding to the audio tone alone.

There have been four research trials undertaken to date at Struan Research Centre, in the Far North and on Eyre Peninsula. The aims of the research are to assess any animal wellbeing impacts of virtual fencing, to investigate the commercial applications of virtual fencing, to quantify the demand for virtual fencing and identify barriers to adoption, and to inform options to allow the use of virtual fencing in sheep and cattle in South Australia.

The advice that I have here is that, whilst there are commercial products available for use in cattle based on previous research, at the time of this information being provided to me there was no virtual fencing product ready for large-scale commercialisation in sheep in Australia. I will be keen to know whether there has been anything updated in the last little while on that. PIRSA's and SARDI's research was expanding on previous cattle research and trialling an automatic virtual fencing system in sheep.

The organisations that have been involved with the project include the University of Adelaide, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics at the Adelaide University Medical School, Gallagher e-shepherd Events Corporation, Livestock SA and the CSIRO. In terms of the subgroup that the honourable member mentioned, I am happy to take that on notice and bring back a response to the chamber. In terms of my support, that will of course be informed by the outcomes of the research and the scientific evidence that is available.