Australian Border Force (ABF) Compliance 

The industry has been aware for several years of an increase in compliance activities by the ABF. These activities include investigating incorrect details supplied on declarations lodged on behalf of importers and exporters. As part of this process ABF has increased staffing in this area to further strengthen the focus on compliance.

This has lead to increases in intervention, revenue recovery and fines issued to the international trade community.

Therefore if we ask questions which may appear to be unusual or obscure, there are reasons behind this, as we are here to protect our clients, partners and VoxGroup from the ABF.

Stevedores at it again

We have been notified that one of the Stevedores in Melbourne are increasing their infrastructure charges again. We are working with our transport partners in reducing the impact to our clients, and will advise separately the quantum of any increase.

Our industry is lobbying all levels of government to put a stop to these intermittent increases, however to date the approaches have been unsuccessful.

Penalty Unit Increase 

From 1st July 2020 an increase in a Commonwealth Penalty Unit is in place. Under most Australian Border Force laws financial penalties are expressed in terms of Penalty Units rather than stated dollar amount. For example, a maximum penalty may be expressed as ‘10 penalty units’ instead of $2,100.00. On 1 July 2020, the value of a Penalty Unit will increase from $210.00 to $222.00

Waiting time at depots when returning empties

We are currently seeing increase’s in costs when returning empty containers to their nominated depot. Whilst we try and mitigate these costs where we can, some of these charges are substantial. When we are passing on these charges to our customers, time-sheets and verification will provided with your invoice.

With any additional charge, we continue to work on the behalf of the client to substantiate the level of increase presented by the shipping lines, stevedores and transport partners.

Be safe, have a good day and if you have any queries on the above please give us a call.