31 August 2022
Who does this notice affect?
All vessel owners, operators, master’s, and shipping agents who represent international commercial vessels, including cruise vessels for the purposes of Australian biosecurity clearance.
All airlines, aircraft operators and their contracted services (third parties) for aircraft arriving in Australia.
What has changed?
The ‘Maritime Arrivals Reporting System (MARS)’ will be changed to ‘Maritime and Aircraft Reporting System (MARS)’ on 2 September 2022. MARS is an online web portal originally developed to manage international maritime commercial and cruise vessel arrivals.
As the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (the department) expands the capabilities of MARS, a name change aligns the inclusion of pre-arrival reporting for non-commercial vessels and aircraft. Such additions will further assist in the management of biosecurity risks associated with non-commercial vessels and aircraft arriving in Australian territory.
The MARS service tile on the department home page (for Oracle hosted applications) will be known as MARS Maritime. An Aircraft tile will be added in the future as the MARS build progresses for the aircraft pathway. Aircraft stakeholders will be consulted and informed prior to the implementation of the MARS Aircraft tile and associated reporting requirements.
The MARS name change does not affect any functionality or current reporting requirements for vessels or aircraft.
What do you need to do?
There are no changes to current vessel or aircraft reporting processes.
MARS Maritime users will be required to download the following updated documents found on the MARS offline forms webpage, for lodging in MARS.
- Pre-Arrival Report (PAR) v112
- Non-First Point of Entry (NFP) application v16
- Ballast Water (BW) report v108
- Human Health (HH) update v21
- Domestic risk assessment application v005
Further information
View the Vessels or Aircraft webpages for information on Australia’s biosecurity reporting obligations and responsibilities.