The National Ovine Johne's Disease Control and Evaluation Program (NOJDP) is a AUD40.1 million, six-year program aimed at delivering necessary information on the national distribution of the sheep type of Johne's disease and the technological tools and information needed to make an informed decision on the future management of OJD. The Program is jointly funded by Commonwealth and State governments and national and state industry organisations through levies on producers. The NOJDP is now in its fourth year and has made significant progress, particularly as a result of the extensive surveillance program that has enabled better definition of disease distribution. During the first 3.5 years of the program, 5,400 investigations were carried out on-farm, involving the testing of 550,000 sheep by serology and 400,000 sheep by pooled faecal culture (PFC) and conducting 6,070 post mortem examinations. This resulted in the detection of 709 previously unknown infected flocks. In addition, four percent of 41,000 groups or "lines" (comprising 11.8 million sheep) have been found infected by post-mortem inspection at abattoirs. Initially surveillance was based largely on tracing from known infected flocks. On-farm investigations involved the serological assessment of 400-500 sheep using the AGID. The development of PFC and of abattoir surveillance have greatly improved the program. The PFC has a higher sensitivity than serology and is cheaper, resulting in a 3-5 fold reduction in costs per investigation. The development of abattoir monitoring, based on manual and visual screening together with histological examination of suspect intestines has allowed surveillance to be applied more uniformly across regions. Industry is currently introducing a sheep identification system which will further enhance the surveillance program, and reduce tracing costs.