Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Wong, the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. I wish to draw the minister’s attention to the recently released four-year study of the impact of phytophthora dieback in WA—Project Dieback. Phytophthora dieback is identified as a key threatening process under the EPBC Act and has been named as the most significant threat to biodiversity in south-west WA, which is a world biodiversity hotspot. Project Dieback showed that one million hectares in southern WA is infected with dieback and another one million hectares is at high risk. Nearly 80 per cent of the plant species in the south-west of WA are found nowhere else in the world. At least half of these are vulnerable to dieback. As a key threatening process under the EPBC Act, why is dieback not listed as a priority funding under Caring for our Country and what action is the government taking to address phytophthora dieback urgently?