21952 (2025). Hon Jo Luxton to the Minister for Biosecurity

21952 (2025). Hon Jo Luxton to the Minister for Biosecurity: What, if any, progress benchmarks were required to unlock the conditional and further $5 million Caulerpa response funding in the second half of the financial year, referenced in the August 2024 Cabinet Paper, and why was that funding not ultimately made available?

Hon Andrew Hoggard: As the Cabinet paper noted, “a further $5 million may be available in the second half of the financial year subject to satisfactory progress being made and should the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) have the ability to further reprioritise funding at that time.” MPI was able to reprioritise additional funding – this brings the total spend to more than $24 million – to enable a range of activities including strengthening public awareness of the risk of exotic caulerpa, additional surveillance and responding to new detections such as the range extensions in the Bay of Islands.