Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

The Act remains the primary mechanism by which Australia ensures that timber and wood products in Australia are free from illegally sourced material. The amendments to the Act coming into effect on 3 March 2025 do not change the relevancy of the Act. 

The amended Act can be found on the Federal Register of Legislation.

Key amendments to the Act introduce more ways for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to undertake activities, and include:

• enabling testing of timber products at the border and beyond to ensure non-compliant illegally logged timber is not imported
• introducing a requirement for importers and processors to give notice before importing or processing regulated timber products
• adding strict liability offences, injunctions and enforceable undertakings to enforcement powers
• enabling audits to be carried out to determine compliance with the due diligence requirement
• extending the time frame for issuing infringement notices to 24 months
• enabling the department to publish details of contraventions on their website.

From 3 March 2025, the Rules will replace the existing Regulation and introduce changes to due diligence requirements. From 3 March 2025, the Regulation will no longer have any effect.

There may be some time between when the importer conducted due diligence and when the product arrives in Australia. You will be expected to conduct due diligence under the laws that are in place at the time you conducted the due diligence.

If you are audited or issued a Request for Information notice, we will consider the date you conducted your due diligence.

For the first six months of the Rules being in effect (from 3 March 2025 – early September 2025), we will conduct audits and issue Request for Information notices as usual, but will focus on education and guidance for non-compliance matters relating to the application of due diligence arrangements.

We may still take further action for non-compliance matters relating to due diligence requirements that remain unchanged.

From 3 March 2025 the department can use timber testing technologies to verify claims of species and origin of timber and timber products at the border and under a warrant.

We will provide more information on the proposed use of timber testing as it becomes available.

As these terms under the Act and Rules all rely on the ordinary meaning of the word, it was not necessary to include definitions in the legislation.

Under the Act and Rules, processors of domestically grown raw logs need to conduct due diligence prior to processing. The term ‘processing’ under the Act has the ordinary meaning of the word. The Macquarie Dictionary defines process as ‘to convert (an agricultural commodity) into marketable form by some special process; prepared or modified by an artificial process; to treat or prepare by some particular process, as in manufacturing.’ In the context of the Act, this means any activity that turns a raw log into something other than a raw log.

A raw log is a felled tree that has been bucked and delimbed. Therefore, while bucking and delimbing activities are not considered processing, any further activities would constitute processing for the purposes of the Act. For example, debarking processes are ‘processing’ for the purposes of the Act.