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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-06-05 Daily Xml
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Kangaroo Management

The Hon. B.R. HOOD (14:48): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development about kangaroo management.

Leave granted.

The Hon. B.R. HOOD: During the Premier's visit to Peterborough, he heard from farmers how huge populations of kangaroos were damaging scarce resources for livestock. $1.3 million was promised as part of the second tranche of drought relief that was announced in early April; however, when details of the program were made clear, it became evident that only four of the 17 kangaroo harvest regions were included in the program. Moreover, the regions that were most heavily impacted by kangaroo numbers were not included in the program. Farmers were told that a reduction in rainfall was not enough to warrant their inclusion. Thankfully, this decision was changed late in May, albeit seven weeks after the announcement of the package.

My questions to the minister are: why was the decision made to limit the kangaroo management program based on rainfall and not on the areas where the kangaroos were a problem, and why did it take so long to reverse this decision?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (14:49): I thank the honourable member for his question. There are a couple of inaccuracies within his question, but I am certainly happy to provide that clarification.

The Hon. K.J. Maher: Help him out.

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: Always keen to help. As part of the state government's $73 million package for drought support, funding has been provided to reduce grazing pressure through the management of kangaroos. The program is providing incentives for professional field harvesters to remove kangaroos across the entire state. The amount that is being offered includes both an amount per kangaroo—one figure for kangaroos harvested for commercial reasons and another figure for kangaroos harvested for non-commercial reasons, which essentially means for animal welfare.

There are two very important problems with the overabundance of kangaroos in these areas. The first is the impact on farmers. Obviously, they are competing for feed and that is having a significant impact, but there is also the animal welfare issue in that many of the kangaroos are starving, which is never a good thing for people to see either. So it was important, when working with industry, peak bodies and farmers directly, to provide an amount both for non-commercially harvested kangaroos, and that will be $7 per kangaroo, and for commercially harvested kangaroos, and that figure will be $5. Permits always need to be issued and permits are available statewide. They could either be permits that landholders have received for non-commercially harvested kangaroos or permits that the government has issued for broader kangaroo harvest subregions.

In addition to that, the program is providing additional daily incentives to encourage field harvesters to work in areas where the number of kangaroos harvested are typically far below the annual quota allowed. That will pay a daily incentive to encourage harvesters to travel to those more remote regions. When I say 'remote', some of them are not remote in the usual sense of the word, it is simply that they are not the areas that normally have high levels of commercial harvest. The rate of the incentive is being scaled to provide higher incentives for field harvesters who are working in areas where the least quota has typically been harvested.

Industry provided a list of high priority areas. The intention of that was to try to target those areas because, as I said, a number of them had certainly not in recent years reached anywhere near the number that is allowed under the quota system, but it was never intended that other areas would be excluded. That was not the intention of the program, and I think the clarifications have ensured that that is now well known and communicated across our state.

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