While the government spent the weekend dropping big-money announcements ahead of the budget, one of the best announcements from the government hasn’t quite caught on — yet. Science Minister Christopher Pyne is promising a “carp-ageddon” with the federal government announcing that a strain of herpes would be released into the Murray-Darling river system to eradicate the European carp — an introduced species that Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce calls the “rabbits of our waterways”. Senator Anne Ruston borrowed a line from the Prime Minister, saying “there has never been a less exciting time to be a European carp”. Pyne couldn’t answer when asked how the carp would catch the virus, but scientists told the ABC “random carp-to-carp encounters” would spread the virus.