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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-09-26 Daily Xml
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Dingo Unprotection Orders

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:41): My question is to Minister Mullighan, representing the Minister for Primary Industries. Has the government made any representation to the Victorian government regarding their decision to stop unprotection orders for dingoes in north-west Victoria? Mr Speaker, with your leave, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr McBRIDE: From March this year, the Victorian government made the decision to stop the unprotection order for dingoes in north-west Victoria. This area borders both the Tatiara District Council and the southern Mallee council. Primary producers believe this decision will pose a significant risk to their livestock.

The Hon. V.A. Tarzia: Good question.

The SPEAKER: Treasurer, go your best for the dingoes.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (14:42): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Something that I agree with the Leader of the Opposition about: it is a very good question. Wild dogs, and dingoes in particular, are a substantial problem to farmers particularly who have sheep on their farms and particularly because of the two different approaches between South Australia and Victoria when it comes to managing these species. Of course, we would all be aware that there was an initiative commenced under the previous government to rebuild the dog fence. We are all intimately familiar with this initiative because we received at least two updates per sitting week from the member for Chaffey about the dog fence, so we are thoroughly briefed about it.

As the member for MacKillop says, there has been an order lifted in Victoria, which is threatening now farmers in South Australia on our side of the border, for dingoes to start moving from Victoria into South Australia. The approach that we have taken as a state, I am advised, has been one of significant control efforts, including baiting of wild dogs. I am also advised that we are now having to deploy additional resources to the South-East for these efforts in order to understand the now apparent increased threat from dingoes in the South-East to farmers, in particular these wild dogs moving through the Ngarkat Conservation Park on towards farms where sheep are located. So it is a concern to us.

Of course, when that change in policy was made in Victoria, there was obviously communication between the respective departments of both states to understand what was now the case in Victoria and to gain an understanding about how that would impact South Australia and making sure that there are additional resources being allocated to this region.

As the member for Chaffey reminded us, when you have a—I had better get this right—2,150-kilometre long dog fence trying to protect the roughly southern third of the state from the northern two-thirds of the state where dingoes and wild dogs breed, it is a resource-intensive challenge to make sure that that bottom third of the state and the sheep that are farmed within that third of the state are protected.

I am advised that the combination of these protection efforts in South Australia in the last financial year was over $8 million, funded by both the Australian government and the South Australian government and also from primary producers and other industry participants. That is how seriously South Australia approaches this challenge and we are very concerned about policy changes on the Victorian side of our border and how it may impact sheep farmers.

Again, a really important question for the house to consider is how we are responding to this, but I can tell the member for MacKillop and his constituents and those with an interest in sheep and the associated industries that we are deploying more resources as a result of this change of policy from Victoria.

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