Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the challenges inherent in planning and responding to disaster events in a multi-agency context where numerous governmental and non-governmental actors and agencies are involved in the planning and response phases. In particular, the authors examine a situation where a lead agency has recently been delegated the responsibility for emergency relief logistics and how it might determine and implement best practice. Design/methodology/approach – Adopting an iterative inductive approach, the authors gather data and insights from academic literature, emergency management policies, frameworks and documents and exploratory in-depth interviews with 12 key informants who have considerable experience with the challenges of logistic preparation and response to disasters in a developed country context. The data and context are limited to developed counties, especially the state of Queensland, Australia. Findings – The authors discuss the challenge of achieving coordinated supply chain management where mandated/lead response agencies are required to meet stakeholder and local community expectations and outcomes. From these findings, the authors offer 11 practical recommendations to assist the delivery of best practice in emergency logistics. Originality/value – Humanitarian logistics is usually examined from a low/middle-income country perspective, yet an efficient and effective disaster response is no less important for developed economies. In this respect, the authors offer a fresh examination of the challenges of delivering best practice for emergency logistics in order to achieve expected community outcomes.