Customs brokers are not directly regulated under Australia’s illegal logging laws. Legal obligations are placed on the businesses that regulated import wood, pulp and paper products into Australia.
However, your clients may ask for help understanding their responsibilities under the illegal logging laws.
What your clients need to do
Australia’s illegal logging laws make it a criminal offence to import illegally logged timber.
Importers are required by law to assess and mitigate the risk that the products they are importers may include illegally logged timber. These ‘due diligence’ requirements must be met prior to importation.
How you can help
You can refer your clients to information for importers to learn what they need to do.
A fact sheet is also available to help you educate clients on their responsibilities.
Notice and information requirements (NIR)
As you may be aware, prior to 3 March 2025 Australia’s illegal logging laws included a requirement to answer an illegal logging Community Protection Question (CPQ) when importing regulated timber products. This is no longer the case. While there is no longer any legal requirement to answer the question, it will remain on the Integrated Cargo System for a period of time while we work with the Department of Home Affairs to remove it.
From 3 March 2025, the reformed Illegal Logging Prohibition Act 2012 introduces a requirement for importers to provide notice to the department when importing regulated timber products. However, this requirement is not yet in effect.
We anticipate that key due diligence information such as species and location of harvest will be required as part of the notice, in the form of an e-declaration. We intend to implement a new IT system to facilitate importers providing these notices. However, this system is still being developed.
Importers will not be required to provide these notices until the IT system is ready. We intend to work closely with our regulated community once the system is operational, before the requirement comes into effect.
Until then, in the absence of the CPQ and notice requirement, importers are still expected to meet their due diligence requirements and keep the prescribed records.
Guidance material to assist you in meeting NIR requirements will be available on the resources for importers page once requirements come into effect.
Reporting illegal timber
We are always interested to hear about potential illegal timber sources. If you have information about trade in potentially illegally logged timber, you can call us on 1800 803 006 for a confidential discussion or provide this information anonymously via this online form: Report Illegal Logging.
Resources
You can refer your clients to resources for importers for useful guidance and tools to help with their due diligence requirements.
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