10 July 2018
Who does this notice affect?
All importers and customs brokers who lodge imported cargo to the department for biosecurity assessment.
What has changed?
The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources, Compliance Division, is implementing a highly compliant importer project (HCIP). The HCIP introduces an entity compliance overlay to the management of at border biosecurity risk. Under the HCIP importers that have established a 100% compliance history through repeated physical inspection over an extended period of time for particular commodities, will be identified during entry processing and receive reduced intervention.
HCIP aligns with the Biosecurity Compliance Statement where for certain commodities, the department may reduce inspection rates when ongoing compliance has been demonstrated.
Importers identified as ‘highly compliant’ may be excluded from referral to the department when lodging full import declarations for imported cargo consignments and the relevant community protection profile question will not appear during lodgement. Clients are not required to volunteer entries to the department where these profile tariff exclusions have been applied.
The HCIP currently applies to the following tariff codes and further tariffs may be added in the future:
- 9401 – Seats (other than those of 9402), whether or not convertible into beds, and parts thereof
- 9403 – Other furniture and parts thereof
- 8801 - Balloons and dirigibles; gliders, hang gliders and other non-powered aircraft
- 8802 - Other aircraft (for example, helicopters, aeroplanes); spacecraft (including satellites) and suborbital and spacecraft launch vehicles
Note: All lines within the consignment must continue to meet Biosecurity Import Conditions (BICON) upon arrival into Australia, including non-commodity concerns.
Highly compliant importers will not be advised of their inclusion within the project, however, their ongoing compliance will be monitored through a random referral rate through consignment verification inspections. If non-compliance is found the importer’s consignments will return to the standard rate of biosecurity referral to the department.
The highly compliant importer project is a department led initiative to reduce intervention for compliant importers and ensure departmental resources are focused on high risk priorities.
The mechanisms used by the department to implement HCIP are subject to further development and an IAN will be published to advise industry of any process and/or tariff code changes.
Further information
For further information about HCIP contact AEP Support or 1800 900 090