Advocacy update - December 2022/January 2023

10 Feb 2023

 

Hello colleagues, 

We hope you had a wonderful festive season and were able to spend some time with your family.  

 

Key advocacy and public affairs updates for December/January 2023 

In December, the AVA Board ratified the national AVA advocacy plan and the proactive advocacy projects that will be prioritised in 2023. These proactive projects encompass work force sustainability, wellbeing and public awareness. Our reactive advocacy work continues to be front and centre in the team’s priorities.  

Since the last update, the AVA has made another 12 submissions on a variety of issues. 

  • Veterinary regulations  
  • Biosecurity 
  • Animal welfare 
  • Australian CDC 

2023/2024 Prebudget submission – the AVA made four key recommendations 

  • Attract more veterinarians to regional communities 
  • Prioritise workforce sustainability 
  • Formalise the role of veterinarians in biosecurity policy through funding models 
  • Sectoral mental health support. 

We continue to encourage you to get involved to provide input into activities that the AVA is commenting on or undertaking.  

 

Key advocacy activities (National)

Value of the Profession 

Emergency Animal Diseases - the AVA continues to provide representation on the numerous industry and government working groups and task forces that are in operation for diseases of highest risk. In December we met with the Animal Health Committee on this issue.

We will continue to provide up-to-date information through the Emergency Animal Diseases webpage as it comes to hand. A reminder also that there is a good range of online training for veterinary teams.  

Advocacy on National Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements - the AVA are advocating at the national level for emergency veterinary care of disaster-impacted owned animals to be eligible for funding assistance in the national Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA). The Minister for Emergency Management has provided a response to the AVA advocacy advising he asked the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to explore the development of a specific animal welfare assistance package that could include veterinary care activities, supports the AVA request for inclusion of animal loss and injury statistics in major incident reports and asked NEMA to raise this with the states. The Minister commends the work of the AVA and its members in caring for impacted animals during times of disaster.  

Workforce sustainability and wellbeing 

Veterinary education – the activity of the last few months has continued. The most recent process that the AVA has been engaged in is providing a submission to the higher education review. 

HECS fee forgiveness for recent veterinary graduates – we included this proposal in our pre-budget submission for the 2023/2024 budget. We also surveyed the student group to get their thoughts.  

AVBC sustainability forum - the AVA contributed to the AVBC sustainability forum in December where the profession came together to talk about many of the issues that the profession is facing. 

 

Policy Advisory Council (PAC) Update

At the AVA Board’s December 2022 meeting, the following five policies were ratified: 

A review of all of the policies ratified over the past 12 months can be found here. 

For more information about Division and SIG-specific advocacy activities, please login or join the AVA.

 

 

As always, we welcome any feedback you have around our updates - please email publicvetaffairs@ava.com.au 

 

Best Wishes, 

Cristy Secombe, Graham Pratt, Melanie Latter, and Jeffrey Wilkinson, on behalf of the Veterinary and Public Affairs team