Tuesday, 8 September 2026

 Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (23:36): (2773) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Environment. The action that I seek is for information sharing on what on-ground measures are being undertaken to protect wilkerr from their likely extinction. A recent report by the ABC revealed that the wilkerr dingoes of the Big Desert are now being considered for critically endangered status under federal environmental law. The wilkerr dingoes are a genetically distinct, culturally significant and ecologically important population, but they are in an extinction vortex, with estimates of as few as 77 individuals or less remaining. What makes this even further distressing is that there have been recent allegations of illegal killing of wilkerr dingoes. In May last year landholders attending a community meeting in Murrayville openly stated that they intended to continue killing dingoes on their properties, regardless of their protected status. These comments were reportedly made in front of Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action and Agriculture Victoria staff. Concerns about what was heard at that meeting were subsequently raised with the government in writing, yet no response was ever received.

In 2024 the government took an important step by ending the unprotection order that had allowed dingoes to be killed on public land in the Big Desert and surrounding areas in the north-west region. It also made efforts to change its language, in line with genetic research and the expectations of First Nations advocates. The misnomer ‘wild dogs’ was replaced with the correct term ‘dingoes’, and the longstanding bounty of $120 per dingo paid to landholders was finally removed. These were welcome decisions, but for the wilkerr population protection cannot simply mean changing their legal status and just hoping for the best. The federal assessment will run for three years. Three years is a very long time for a population that is this small, and we cannot have the diabolical situation where scientists are assessing whether a population is critically endangered while they go extinct at the same time.

My office has flagged with the minister the release of our 2024 documents motion on the dingo unprotection order for the remainder of the state, and we are hopeful that we can get these documents before the end of the term. Legal protection means very little if it is not enforced on the ground, and once they are extinct, no assessment or survey is ever going to bring them back. We have a choice here. We can wait for another report, another assessment or another committee to tell us what we already know, or we can act while there is something still left to save. The wilkerr dingoes are part of Victoria’s natural and cultural heritage. They belong in the landscapes, and they deserve more than to become another species we mourn after it is too late. I ask the minister to take every possible step to ensure that does not happen and to share this information with the public.