Friday 24 April 2020
Who does this notice affect?
Importers, approved arrangements, freight forwarders and brokers that deal with imported cut flowers and foliage.
What has changed?
Our trial to provide diagnostics for live pest detections during weekend inspections of consignments of fresh cut flowers and foliage is ending.
The last day our entomologists will be available to provide preliminary identifications and same day advice on required treatments and other biosecurity options will be Sunday 3 May 2020.
Initial analysis of our data shows that demand for weekend diagnostics has decreased substantially since the trial began in September 2019. More recently, we have seen a particularly significant drop in usage which coincides with the growing impacts to air freight travel resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our data also shows that the anticipated benefit for importers of increasing the number of same day releases of consignments through the addition of weekend diagnostics was not realised.
The only exception to that trend was in the lead up to Valentine’s Day in February 2020. As a result, we may consider providing weekend diagnostics for peak cut flower import periods in the lead-up to Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day where industry provides advanced notice of anticipated workloads.
Further information
For importing enquiries please phone 1800 900 090 (when prompted press 1 and then 1 again) or email imports@aff.gov.au
For information about changes to our services due to the COVID-19 pandemic, visit the COVID-19 information hub