Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, Senator Davey, for the question. As Senator Davey is well aware, the Commonwealth is always open to the option of deploying Defence Force personnel to assist in any natural disaster, if requested by the state government. I am not aware of any request having been made by the New South Wales government for that form of assistance. I'm happy to be corrected, if such a request has been made. But, of course, the other point to be made is that the Menindee Lakes fish deaths, while absolutely tragic—and I think all of us have been very disturbed by the footage from there—do not constitute a natural disaster, so I'm not sure whether there is even the capacity to deploy the Defence Force, even if such a request were to occur. If Senator Davey is aware of a request having been made by the Defence Force, I'm happy to be made aware of that, but I'm certainly not aware of any request having been made.

Of course, it's not uncommon for the opposition to call for the deployment of the Defence Force and other federal assistance when it hasn't been requested by state governments. We saw Senator McDonald do that in a radio interview last week in relation to the floods in north-west Queensland, only a matter of hours after I'd informed her that no such request had been made by the Queensland government. But never let things get in the way of making a political point when that can be made!

As I said, I think we are all concerned by the large-scale fish kills that are being captured on footage at the moment at Menindee Lakes, and this, of course, is the second time in four years that we've seen this occur. While this is still being investigated, it seems that it's mostly caused by blackwater and the low oxygen that results from that. The fish kills have been caused by flooding, combined with high temperatures, which is what causes that low oxygen that flows from blackwater. (Time expired)