Review and update of the Industry Response Plan for the live export industry

Summary

Australia’s livestock export industry must manage ongoing risks to people, animals, the environment and businesses across the supply chain. As such, well developed, understood and practiced response plans are required to prepare for risk mitigation in the livestock export supply chain.

This project reviewed and updated the Industry Response Plan (IRP) for risk mitigation, which included a ‘risk simulation’ exercise and the development of an implementation plan for ongoing simulations and document review.

The IRP now incorporates a Strategic Response Group (SRG), which helps to establish strategic objectives and coordinate an industry-level response to any foreseen incident.

Objectives

The primary objectives of this project were to:

• review and update the current IRP to ensure it is still current
• conduct simulation exercises to test and assess the effectiveness of the revised IRP
• provide a framework for annual emergency response exercises
• scope an effective communication platform for key industry representatives to use during emergencies.

Key findings

• The project has reviewed and updated the industry Incident Response Plan, to provide a structured response through the establishment of a Strategic Response Group (SRG).
• The SRG’s role is to coordinate industry level response to any incident by assessing emerging or current incidents, determining strategic objectives, coordinating an industry-level response and managing internal and external communications.
• The SRG advises industry representative bodies, producers and exporters to coordinate an industry-level response and manages internal and external strategic level communications. When required, the SRG will engage with government departments, ministers, foreign governments and the national and international media.
• The revised IRP outlines that the responsibility for managing an incident that occurs on-farm, on a vessel or elsewhere in the supply chain remains the responsibility of the producers and exporters.

Benefits to industry

The update to the IRP will see an increase in the ability of exporters to effectively respond to major incidents. In particular, the IRP guidance material and templates will help exporters and other businesses along the supply chain prepare their own risk management plans.

Updating and improving these plans will reduce businesses’ overall risk exposure by helping them to better manage and mitigate the consequences of major incidents.

MLA action

In collaboration with LiveCorp, MLA will undertake an annual exercise simulation to assess the effectiveness, understanding and execution of the IRP in varying emergency situations. This will provide an opportunity to identify weaknesses in the IRP so it can be revised accordingly.

Future research

The IRP and SRG will require ongoing maintenance and annual reviews to ensure they stay up-to-date with any new emerging incidences in the live export industry.