September has been full of activity at Animal Health Australia which has culminated with our second Member Engagement Week of the year in Canberra.

It was pleasing to see so many of our member organisations represented and having robust discussions about animal health and biosecurity issues of importance to you.

It was also great to meet new members and to welcome back familiar faces, and a good opportunity to farewell some of our member representatives who are moving on (hopefully to greener pastures).

During the week, the Board met and attended sessions of the Members Forum.

The Board were really impressed by the passion of and commitment by our members to make improvements to the biosecurity system. We saw this start with the EADRA 5-year review workshop, where there was good discussion around the need to update definitions within the Deed and ensure it continues to be fit for purpose should we need to use it during an outbreak.

Presentations from DAFF on the new Biosecurity Protection Levy and modernising biosecurity levy legislation were of keen interest to all of you and generated a lot of discussion in the room. I wanted to thank again the DAFF representatives who were engaged and willing to listen to your feedback on this matter and we look forward to continued discussions.

I spoke to the AHA Constitutional Review, which is currently underway and remind members that we’ll be doing more engagement on this before the end of the calendar year and again presenting these changes in more detail at the March 2024 members forum.

As many of you know, we also provide members with the opportunity to have management drop-in meetings at the event and it was a pleasure to discuss topics of importance with some of our smaller industry member CEOs, such as Melinda from Egg Farmers of Australia and John from the Goat Industry Council of Australia. I also caught up with Bonnie and Andrew from Sheep Producers and Christian from the Australian Lot Feeders Association.

As for the Board meeting, we had a very significant discussion on the LSD recategorisation proposal. The AHA Board wishes to advise Relevant Parties that they are still considering matters relating to the recategorisation of lumpy skin disease and currently anticipate that they will be able to provide Relevant Parties with written advice of their formal determination in one to two weeks. If you want to understand more about how a recategorisation process works, we have a page on our website outlining this: Recategorisation of diseases under the EADRA – Animal Health Australia.

To finish off, we also discussed and heard about the progress of the AHA mid-term review of our 2025 Strategy, which is now nearing completion. The Board is very appreciative of member feedback and the review progress to date. We are delighted to see such significant progress in achieving our desired outcomes.

Where progress hasn’t been achieved to the desired targets, it allows us to reflect, re-adjust and, if necessary, reprioritise. We understand while we are doing things well, improvements can always be made.

It was really great to see so many of you and I know the Board appreciated the opportunity to chat at meal breaks and at the two casual evening functions! It looked as though everyone enjoyed these networking opportunities. November is coming up quickly and we’ll be in touch again prior to our November Annual General Meeting.

Thanks,

Sharon, Board Chair