A national livestock standstill is a nationally agreed response strategy in the event of the diagnosis or strong suspicion of FMD in Australia. The national Consultative Committee for Emergency Animal Diseases and the National Management Group will consider the implementation of the national livestock standstill. State and territories implement it through their relevant state or territory legislation, to prohibit all new movements of FMD susceptible livestock. The standstill applies to every state and territory of Australia, regardless of where the outbreak occurs, and applies to FMD susceptible animals such as cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, buffalo, camels, alpaca, llama and deer.
The standstill is initially implemented for 72 hours, but this may be extended depending on risk assessments and the outcome of the tracing and surveillance undertaken during the standstill to determine the extent of the outbreak. States and territories may end the standstill at different times, as nationally agreed, depending on the disease situation.
It is agreed that a livestock standstill will be called if there is strong suspicion or diagnosis of FMD in Australia in recognition of and to attempt to reduce the significant impact of an FMD outbreak in Australia.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) estimates that a large, multi-state outbreak of FMD would cost the Australian economy up to $80 billion over 10 years as many export markets would immediately close and potentially not be open until Australia had eradicated the disease. This would have a significant impact on livestock and regional businesses Australia-wide and the broader community.
Australia has only ever implemented one livestock standstill – the equine standstill (for horses and donkeys) during the equine influenza outbreak in 2007. This standstill is credited with restricting the spread of the disease and reducing the cost and amount of time taken to eradicate it.
If FMD was diagnosed in Australia, all cloven-hooved animals such as cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, buffalo, camels, alpaca, llama and deer would be placed under a livestock standstill.
While a livestock standstill will cause short-term challenges for industry and individual producers, its medium- and long-term benefits far outweigh these.
Benefits of a livestock standstill include:
- reducing the spread of disease
- allowing faster eradication of the disease
- reducing the significant social and economic costs of an FMD outbreak to producers, the livestock industries, regions and Australia’s economy.
Government and industry need the support of every member of the livestock industries for the livestock standstill to be effective. The standstill is critical to reducing the likelihood of disease spread whilst tracing and surveillance is undertaken to determine the extent of the disease outbreak and inform the response strategy to eradicate the disease as quickly as possible.
If you breach a livestock standstill you may spread the disease, make it more expensive and time-consuming to eradicate FMD, and increase the amount of time it takes for Australia’s livestock export markets to regain market access.
Under the Exotic Diseases of Animals Act 1993 (EDAA), people who commence a new movement of livestock during a standstill, without an emergency permit from DPIRD are committing an offence. During a standstill, EDAA officers have the power to stop vehicles suspected of carrying livestock to check for an emergency permit.
For a livestock standstill to be effective, both government and industry need to have prepared and tested livestock standstill plans for their respective sectors. This is particularly important for saleyard and abattoir operators, transporters and show managers.
As part of the national Exercise Odysseus, the department conducted regional workshops with industry to examine standstill plans as well as a state exercise to test government and industry preparedness for a standstill. Outcomes from these activities have informed a national review of standstill arrangements.
DPIRD is collaborating with Western Australian (WA) industries, other WA Government departments, and national bodies to prioritise Emergency Animal Disease (EAD) preparedness efforts.
Government and industry share the responsibility for communicating about a standstill and will use a wide variety of methods to communicate with all affected sectors. These will include media, online and social media, advertising and email.
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