Who does this notice affect?
Brokers, importers and biosecurity industry participants operating under the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources Class 19.1 Approved Arrangement: Non-commodity for containerised cargo clearance (NCCC) and class 19.2 Automatic Entry processing for Commodities (AEPCOMM)
What has changed?
The department requires consignments that have been directed for a rural tailgate or tailgate inspection to have details of Sulfuryl Fluoride treatment included on the entry. Entries processed via Automatic Entry Processing (AEP) are assessed by accredited persons, therefore commercial documentation is not always available to officers to determine type of treatment utilised at the time of inspection.
From the 30 January 2019 the department will require Self-reporting Importers and Customs Brokers to report containers that have been treated with Sulfuryl Fluoride when lodging the import declaration. The method for reporting this will be via the Entity Identifier (AEI) field in the Integrated Cargo System (ICS). A new generic AEI (SFTREATED) has been generated and is available in the ICS for selection when Sulfuryl Fluoride has been used on the consignment.
The new SFTREATED AEI must be used in conjunction with the AEI allocated to any of the current offshore treatment providers for Sulfuryl Fluoride. It is important that the specific AEI for the treatment provider is reported in conjunction with the new generic AEI number to avoid unnecessary referrals of entries that are subject to high risk Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB) measures and have been treated offshore. Refer to the Industry Advice Notice 58/2018. Reporting the relevant AEI numbers is also a requirement of Non commodity for containerised cargo clearance (NCCC) and AEP for commodities (AEPCOMM) Approved Arrangements.
As Sulfuryl Fluoride is also an approved biosecurity treatment for pests other than BMSB the new generic AEI must be reported whenever Sulfuryl Fluoride is used as a treatment. When non BMSB treatments are performed by providers that are not registered as an approved offshore treatment provider there will not be an associated AEI for the treatment provider (e.g. timber products from non BMSB country). In this scenario only the generic AEI (SFTREATED) is required to be entered into the import declaration.
At the time of inspection an inspecting biosecurity officer may request documentation from the person in charge of the goods to assist them in making this assessment in relation to Biosecurity or Work Health and Safety. In order to streamline processes at the point of tailgate or rural tailgate inspection, the person in charge of the goods (importer representative at inspection) should be able to provide treatment certificates and the packing declaration on the request of the biosecurity officer.
System generated directions will be updated to include the direction comment ‘Person in charge of the goods must provide packing declarations and treatment certificates related to this consignment on request of the inspecting biosecurity officer’
Further information
Please contact AEP support if you have any questions.
*Original article online at http://www.agriculture.gov.au/import/industry-advice/2019/12-2019