Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, the Hon. Peter Dutton MP and the Assistant Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, the Hon. Keith Pitt MP, joined the Australian Border Force Commissioner Roman Quaedvlieg, to deliver the formal speeches at the launch.
In attendance were also the first 4 accredited Trusted Trader businesses – Pacific Brands, Target, Techwool and Teys Australia, together with representatives from many of the 41 Pilot Partner companies, which included Freight Forwarders and Customs Brokers. Minister Dutton outlined trade and supply chain security benefits and Roman Quaedvlieg said that Australia had been a ‘late starter’ in regard to Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) type programs globally but that Australia was accelerating rapidly with initiatives designed to make it a global leader in a short period of time. The Minister, repeating the objective of ‘reducing red tape’, said that the program was designed to offer expedited movements of cargo, aggregated reporting, accelerated border clearances and the option of Duty Deferral.
The Hon. Keith Pitt stated that he was confident that the recent Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) signed with New Zealand would quickly lead to others including Korea and Hong Kong in the near future. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) would be instrumental in establishing those arrangements.
The ABF commissioner referred to the dual obligations that were required of his department to allow trade to flow whilst protecting Australia’s border. This would become a greater task as it was predicted air cargo alone was expected to grow by 54% in the next 3 to 4 years. As the majority of traders were compliant and cared about their product, reputation and brand, Government had leveraged off this requirement to create the ATT program where self-audit with government compliance audit processes would create greater efficiency. Together it would increase Supply Chain Security to 30% of trade through ATT.
