Tasmania 5pm Wednesday

The ban on non-racing events involving 10 or more horses has been eased.

In short, events will be allowed by permit only and, to get a permit, event organisers must use the biosecurity plan template and demonstrate they have the capacity to implement that plan on the day(s). The template and other papers we’ll be loading onto our website tonight. If you are organising an event, please keep checking the website for the latest version of these papers, as there’s a chance they may be fine tuned as the situation develops. ·

We have been working with the Longford and Flinders shows today in anticipation of the non-racing event ban being lifted. The biosecurity bar will be set high, for obvious reasons. Some events will probably meet the required standards with ease, others may not.

We’ll have staff at the control centre tomorrow (Thursday) who’ll be able to answer any queries you may have in relation to the biosecurity at any specific event you may be planning. We expect to be flooded with permit applications, queries etc now that the go ahead has been given, so please be patient!!

I'll load the permit application form onto our website tomorrow(Thursday)

· The commonwealth government has ordered another 750,000 vaccine doses. Minister Llewellyn has formally requested that Tasmania gets enough of these to vaccinate 7000 horses. The decision-making process over vaccine usage and distribution is too complex to describe in a few words but, somehow, it works quite quickly! The key point is that Tasmania cannot make its own decision to vaccinate.

Cheers Barry
CalderbankCommunications