Alerts

Dear import permit applicants,

As many of you would be aware, in recent months, the department has taken longer than would usually be expected to process some import permit applications.

The commodities affected by these delays include: laboratory materials, bioremediation products, fertilisers and some other products containing biological ingredients.

While the department aims to process permit applications within twenty business days, the process of assessing permit applications can take longer for a number of reasons. Recently, the technical team responsible for assessing the commodities outlined above have experienced unforeseen priorities, including managing the department’s response to the emergence of disease outbreaks overseas.

At this time, the team responsible has over four hundred permit applications under assessment. This is a high workload and we’re doing everything we can to alleviate the backlog and get permits assessed as quickly as possible.

The department has put various measures in place to improve the situation and this includes reallocating staff to work on these applications, recruiting new staff and also setting up a new team to assist with the more administrative tasks performed by permit assessors. Note, these new measures will take time to have an effect as on-boarding staff takes time.

To help avoid unnecessary delays in the meantime, we ask that permit applicants do the following:

1. When submitting a new application – ensure that all relevant information requested is provided, including having your manufacturer complete the ‘manufacturer’s questionnaire’ if this is requested in the application form.
   

2. If you have already submitted an application and you have not provided a ‘manufacturer’s questionnaire’ – check the following biological checklist webpage to see if a questionnaire is required to be filled in for your commodity. Please have the questionnaire filled in by your manufacturer, check that all requirements are met, and submit it to the department as soon as possible.
   

3. Where possible, we also encourage you to submit permit applications early.
   I can advise that the department is able to forward date permits by up to three months from the date of application, if you inform us you would like this to happen. This means that if a new permit will be granted before your old permit expires, we make the start date of the new permit up to three months in the future.
   

4. Please note that all information supplied in support of the permit application must meet the 'Minimum documentary and import declaration requirements policy'. Often delays occur because documents provided do not meet these requirements.
   

If you have any questions or wish to discuss the matter please email imports@agriculture.gov.au (attention to Lisa McEwan) or call 1800 900 090 (prompt 1, prompt 1).