Wednesday, 22 February 2023

 Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (09:51): I recently hopped on over to East Trentham Wildlife Shelter to see the wonderful work volunteers are doing to protect our precious native wildlife, particularly kangaroos. Shamefully, the government increased the commercial kangaroo slaughter quota by 30 per cent this year, with shooting leaving adult kangaroos and their joeys to suffer in unimaginable ways. It is the dedicated volunteers, like Helen and Manfred, who work tirelessly to clean up dreadful decisions like this by rescuing animals in need, and without shelters like theirs the situation for wildlife in our state would be even more dire than it already is. I was amazed to hear that released kangaroos will come back to their beautiful property to say hello every now and then. This is exactly why at the very least we need shooting exclusion zones around wildlife sanctuaries. Despite the endless setbacks to the survival of our native icons, I have hope in the dedication of our incredible rescue teams and wildlife shelters, and I am motivated to change our laws so that we can learn to coexist with wildlife in Victoria.