Gippsland Lakes

And a few others, there have been other species involved, fluttering shearwaters, white-fronted terns, only a few individual birds.

So although it feels good to say that what they call a first wave, they talk in terms of the bird flu comes in waves, and so this is the first wave of bird flu, and in the southeast, I personally think the first wave is over, but it is continuing to spread west across to Eyre Peninsula, and it's spreading east into Victoria and Gippsland Lake.

Yes, so there's still spreading.

So you can't say this first wave is over, only that it appears to be over along the Limestone Coast.

At least they got around to charging them.

Kevin, I'm just looking for the piece of paper that tells me how much water is owed to the Latrobe River, because that's the one that's going to stop running to the Gippsland Lakes if this goes ahead.

And that will cause the Gippsland Lakes to crash.

When we dammed the Thompson River, the lack of that fresh water going into the Gippsland Lakes killed the fishing industry down there because you didn't have the right mix of fresh and salt water.

And if you're going to have fertile coastal fisheries, you need a mix of fresh and salt water.

If you take the Latrobe out, that is the major river at the moment giving water to the lakes, right? The Macalester is primarily used for irrigation and we know that's a food goal.

That's the first place.

We have to come up with a plan.

If we're putting good river water, you know, from Noondara into the lake, there's a trade-off somewhere else.

And it goes all the way down to Gippsland Lakes, which is Ramsar listed.

So part of this process is putting forward their expert assessments and modelling, and it's our opportunity as a community, especially if we have community experts who are informed, to actually look at those assessments and see if they're credible.

And if they're not, that's when we want to actually, you know, make a statement about it.