Livestock emergency animal disease preparedness
Know what to do and when
Biosecurity is everyone's business
The recent detection of LSD and FMD in our near neighbour, Indonesia, highlights the importance of having strong biosecurity systems in place.
Biosecurity is everyone's responsibility and we must all play a role to ensure we minimise biosecurity risks to protect Queensland's lifestyle, industries and environment. All Queenslanders have a general biosecurity obligation (GBO) under Queensland's Biosecurity Act 2014 to ensure you do not spread a pest, disease or contaminant. Watch how you can meet your GBO.
To manage emergency animal disease incidents Biosecurity Queensland needs to know where susceptible animals are and who is responsible for them. All keepers of livestock in Queensland, both commercial producers and hobby owners, must register as a registered biosecurity entity. Up-to-date registration allows us to communicate directly with you so we can act quickly in a biosecurity emergency response.
Biosecurity Queensland also has a number of tools available to livestock owners, including biosecurity planning information, the Farm Check-In app and biosecurity signage.
Animal Health Australia's Farm Biosecurity site also has information on farm biosecurity planning and preparedness. Northern Territory and Western Australia have information about requirements for livestock owners and enterprise managers in these jurisdictions.
Incursions affecting our neighbours
The Australian Government's outbreak site has information on current biosecurity incidents.
The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) in Queensland has formed a dedicated industry taskforce to ensure a coordinated effort and information sharing in response to heightened animal disease threats including LSD and FMD.
Objectives
- Identify and prioritise key issues for consideration and progression, where practicable, to optimise or influence levels of awareness and preventative practices to minimise the likelihood of LSD/FMD incursion in Queensland.
- Guide and inform stakeholder preparatory work so that responses to a disease incursion are effective and coordinated.
- Work within Australian Government, interstate and stakeholder jurisdictions to complement work of common interest concerning awareness, prevention, surveillance and control.
- Provide Queensland input to the national agenda associated with LSD and FMD.
- Minimise the impacts to disrupted supply chains through collaboration between industry and government.
- Work through any other specific industry impacts.
Scope
The scope of the industry taskforce is to explore issues that may improve Queensland’s LSD and FMD preparedness capability and surveillance across all stakeholder interests.
The industry taskforce will initially focus on:
- prioritising work that needs urgent attention to prepare for the potential of LSD/FMD occurring in Queensland
- communication strategies to increase the awareness and importance of LSD/FMD preparedness, targeting relevant audiences, particularly those in northern Australia
- information sharing across organisations/sectors and jurisdictions, particularly northern jurisdictions (Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia).
The industry taskforce will provide technical advice to the Queensland Government on disease prevention and control preparedness. The industry taskforce will not be a forum for determining government policy.
