The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (DoAWR) promotes a shared responsibility to manage the biosecurity system. This is a core concept underpinning Australia’s national biosecurity system whereby all stakeholders have important roles and responsibilities in the management of biosecurity risks in Australia.
The off-shore preclearance inspection programme is an example of shared responsibility, and for years it has offered the dual benefits of facilitating open trade and avoiding costly onshore treatments or delays whilst ensuring the majority of pest and disease risks are managed off-shore.
The pre-clearance inspection programme operates across 75,000 tonnes or $300 Million of fresh fruit imports from New Zealand and the United States. It involves deploying Commonwealth quarantine inspectors off-shore to perform phytosanitary inspections of product in the exporting country, to result in no, or minimal, inspection in the importing country. For pre-cleared consignments, the NPPO of the importing country will undertake a documentation compliance examination for consignment verification purposes at the port of entry prior to release from quarantine.
It is a vital tool for importers to ensure safety and suitability of imports and to identify and mitigate the risk of exotic pest incursions through approved integrity and compliance checks.
This programme has been fully funded by the importing industry for many years whilst delivering great benefits for Australia’s biosecurity.
Off-shore pre-clearance inspection provides the opportunity for detection and interception of biosecurity risks before they arrive on-shore. By allowing off-shore inspection of master consignment volumes intended for export to Australia, biosecurity compliance and oversight can be achieved before the product leaves the country of origin. This has also given Australian consumers imported fresh produce without incurring delays upon arrival in Australia reducing shelf life.
DoAWR have announced their intention to remove this program without without prior consultation with industry. This program is to be replaced with a "post-entry" compliance-based inspection scheme that could culminate in only 25% of product being inspected upon entry in Australia. The transition away from Off-shore Preclearance Inspection requires all importers to bring the biosecurity risks to our mainland shores for assessment of biosecurity compliance in order to achieve entry to Australia.
For more information:
Dominic Jenkin
Australian Horticultural Exporters Association
Tel: +64 0423 394 476
dominic@ahea.com.au
http://www.ahea.com.au