The Announcement in the Federal Budget of a Biosecurity Levy of $10.02 per TEU to be introduced on 1st July 2019 has implications for the freight forwarding industry and importing community. Those importing non-containerised goods will pay $1 a tonne.
The Australian Logistics Council, Australasian Railway Association, Ports Australia and Shipping Australia have this week joined together to call for clarification of how the Biosecurity Levy will operate. Industry body AFIF (Australian Federation of International Forwarders) has denounced the levy as a “Sleight of Hand.â€
Ports Australia has expressed the concern that the levy has been announced with almost no engagement with the supply chain and with no plan on how it will be used in the Biosecurity System.
The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWR) explains the principle of the Biosecurity levy and the process for collection – levied on a per TEU basis for containerised cargo and per tonne basis for bulk cargo – is to cover non-regulatory biosecurity activities – whereas regulatory biosecurity activities (BAU) are costs recovered via the FID process. So, there will be no direct service provided for the levy, particularly relating to the importation of goods or the conveyances in which the goods are transported, whether that be by air freight or sea freight or the carriage entity itself.
The Biosecurity Levy set at $10.02 per incoming twenty-foot equivalent sea container and $1 per tonne for non-containerised cargo, is proposed to be collected from ‘port operators’. The Biosecurity Fee would be collected by the stevedore ‘transaction by transaction’ at the time of importation, while DAWR will invoice the stevedore on a quarterly basis.
The Biosecurity Levy arose from a Recommendation within the Priorities for Australia’s Biosecurity System – An Independent Review of the capacity of the national biosecurity system and underpinning intergovernmental agreement (the Review).
One of the main points of contention is that the revenue measure estimates $360 million over three years, yet only $76.6 million of this is to be spent enhancing Australia’s Biosecurity System over the same period, leaving $283.4 million unaccounted for.
