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Australia's state and territory governments have primary responsibility for animal welfare and laws to prevent cruelty. The Australian Government is responsible for trade and international agreements relating to animal welfare. We work with exporters to maintain international export standards.
The following links will take you to external website landing pages for each state or territory agency responsible for regulating animal welfare and their legislation registers. The legislation titles are posted here for reference when searching for the latest version that is currently in force on the register.
The department is not responsible for the content on external websites.
The Indonesia–Australia Partnership on Food Security in the Red Meat and Cattle Sector (the Partnership) is a bilateral initiative established in 2013.
It aims to develop a competitive, efficient and sustainable Australia–Indonesia red meat and cattle industry as part of a globally competitive supply chain.
On 28 March 2021 Australia’s new legal framework for agricultural exports commenced. The Australian Government introduced the new export legislation as part of a wider initiative to strengthen Australia’s agricultural exports and market access. This initiative will make the laws more relevant, responsive and efficient, provide the same level of regulatory oversight, remove duplication, and ensure consistency across the commodities where possible.
On 17 September 2024 Australia and the United Arab Emirates announced conclusion of negotiations for the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (A-UAE CEPA).
The agreement was signed on 6 November 2024.
Australia has concluded FTAs with 18 countries, or groups of countries. These FTAs and the entry-into-force date are:
High-quality, comprehensive free trade agreements (FTAs) play an important role in:
Free trade agreements can cover entire regions with many participants or link just two economies. Under these agreements, parties enter legally binding commitments to open access to each other’s markets for goods, services and investment.
Australia has 18 free trade agreements currently in force.
