Tuesday, 12 November 2024

Avian influenza

Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (18:52): (1265) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Agriculture, and the action I seek is for her to provide detail on the process, including before and after, of the use of firefighting foam to kill birds. For the past two sitting weeks I have asked the minister to explain the methods of killing millions of chickens and ducks affected by avian influenza across seven farms in Victoria. It resulted in the minister admitting the unspeakable: the government, against the advice of leading vets, approved the use of firefighting foam on at least one farm in our state. I then had to go further to be provided more information by asking in the following sitting week how many birds and what species were killed by this method, and the answer was a staggering 30,000 ducks – 30,000 ducks were suffocated to death.

How one can believe that this is a suitable method for ducks, when they can hold their breath, is beyond me. After struggling to stay clear of the foam, these animals died slowly and painfully from either heatstroke or organ failure. We saw footage of ducks desperately trying to climb on top of each other to avoid being completely covered in foam, grasping at the barrier, trying to escape. The minister said the foam is designed to minimise the stress and suffering of the birds, and I implore the minister to watch the footage and reconsider whether this alleged aim was achieved.

Far be it for this government to take a proactive approach to this problem. Instead the preferred option is to kill millions and millions of affected animals, only for the disease to resurface because the conditions they caught it in remain exactly the same – responding only to the symptoms and never the cause. The scientific evidence has long been laid out before us. It is high density and extreme close confinement in factory farming that poses the greatest threat to our biosecurity and is responsible for the spread and emergence of zoonotic diseases. I also asked the minister to explain the environmental considerations in using the foam, but the minister was silent on this, and it leads me to wonder what chemicals are in this foam and how the birds are disposed of, particularly at a time when the federal government is banning forever chemicals.

There is so little we know on the process of the use of foam, be it from getting the ducks into the area they need to be in and the time it takes until they are all dead to the disposal method – and we will be seeing this method used more and more in the future. So the action I seek is for the minister to explain in depth the full process of this heinous slaughter method being used in Victoria.