Finishing the job ...
Great progress has been made to reduce the impact of bovine TB in New Zealand, but there’s more to do to finish the job.
The 2025 TB Plan Review proposed tackling the remaining highly-infected possum 'hot spots' so we can achieve TB freedom in both livestock and possums by 2040. Read the full Proposal for Consultation here.
The government has now accepted the Review's recommendations.
The New Approach
New Zealand is well on the way to the goal of eradicating TB.
But, the Review said that while the disease remains in the possum population, there will continue to be outbreaks of reinfection in the country's herds.
Key aspects of the new approach are:
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Prioritising eliminating TB in the remaining hot spots of highly-infected possum populations as soon as possible, using the most cost-effective tools in large ‘landscape-scale’ operations
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Updating the TB Plan milestones to achieve TB freedom in both herds and possums by 2040
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Using targeted, criteria-based, on-farm TB testing
The Plan's Governance Group
Led by independent chair Dr Helen Anderson, the PGG members are representatives from the organisations which fund the TBfree programme, plus observers from the Department of Conservation and OSPRI.
Members
Observers
What happened to your feedback?
The Plan Review Secretariat analysed the submissions and all the points raised by submitters. This information was used to inform the final proposal to the Minister for Biosecurity.
As part of this consultation, we collect your name, submission, and, optionally, your contact details. Your name and submission may become publicly available. Submissions may also be subject to requests under the Official Information Act 1982 (OIA), which requires information to be released unless there are sufficient grounds for withholding it, as set out in sections 6 and 9 of the OIA. If you think there are grounds to withhold specific information from publication, please make this clear in your submission or contact us directly - reasons may include that the publication would disclose commercially sensitive or personal information. We note that any decision to withhold information under the OIA is reviewable by the Ombudsman, who may direct us to release it.
Providing contact details is optional, but it will help us follow up with you if we have questions about your submission. Contact details will not be published if your submission is made publicly available.
TBfree, as host of the TB Plan Review Secretariat, retains responsibility for all personal information collected during this process, and any such information will be handled in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020. The Privacy Statement for OSPRI, TBfree’s parent company, can be found here. Submission responses using the online form will be processed by a trusted third-party service provider, SurveyMonkey, on our behalf. Please refer to SurveyMonkey’s Privacy Notice for details on how they treat personal information.