Wednesday, 4 March 2026

 Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (19:11): (2382) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Environment, and the action I seek is for the kangaroo harvest program to be suspended until credible ground-based population assessments can be undertaken across all recent bushfire zones. You can only imagine the shock my office felt when we were told multiple kill permits had been approved to shoot kangaroos in bushfire-impacted towns such as Longwood. As wildlife rescuers struggled to keep up with the number of injured, burnt and displaced kangaroos, the Victorian government continued to give the green light to their sanctioned slaughter.

In Victoria kangaroos are killed in two ways. They are either shot by private landholders who hold an authority-to-control-wildlife, or ATCW, permit, or they are hunted by so-called professional shooters supplying the commercial kangaroo industry for their meat and for their skins. Both of these programs operate with limited scrutiny and oversight, and we now know they are continuing despite the fact that we have no clear understanding whatsoever of the impact the 2026 summer bushfires have had on kangaroo populations. We were told of a Seymour local witnessing commercial shooters transporting multiple kangaroo carcasses to the processor in the weeks following the fires. Instead of being afforded every possible chance to survive and recover from the devastation, these animals are being peppered with bullets. This is particularly galling given that wildlife rescuers were blocked from entering fire zones to undertake their vital work following the bushfires. It might just be me, but it appears to be a desperate attempt to conceal information and delay public knowledge of the bushfire devastation in order to deny calls to suspend these killing programs, which I might note the government has done before – after the Black Summer bushfires.

We know the continuation of this authorised shooting is not what most Victorians want. Independent survey results from the Victorian state survey report by Kangaroos Alive found that 77 per cent of Victorians want commercial killing stopped until reliable population estimates are obtained, and 90 per cent believe kangaroos should remain part of the Australian landscape. So how can the minister allow their killing when we do not even know how many are left in these areas after the fires? This government’s current treatment of kangaroos is deplorable, and I am not one bit surprised that the slaughter is taking precedence over ensuring these animals get a fair chance at survival after surviving the bushfires. I urge the minister to immediately suspend the kangaroo harvesting program and ensure that rigorous, transparent population assessments are conducted before any further killing is permitted.