Alerts

Dear import permit applicants of animal based foods and biological products,

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

Various commodities are affected by these delays to different degrees.

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 teams responsible for assessing these commodities have experienced significant unforeseen competing priorities.

Below is a summary of the number of permits under assessment and approximate minimum assessment times for the three teams that are experiencing delays.

Laboratory team
Laboratory materials, diagnostic kits, microorganisms, culture media, animal fluids & tissues, bioremediation products, fertilisers, baits & attractants

• about 400 permits under assessment
  

• minimum 14 weeks for non-standard permit assessments
  

Dairy and Poultry team
Dairy products, chicken meat, egg products

• about 200 permits under assessment
  

• minimum four weeks for non-standard permit assessments
  

Meat and Therapeutics team
Pork, beef, medicines, complimentary medicines, hides & skins, animal fibres, cosmetics

• about 250 permits under assessment
  

• minimum six weeks for non-standard permit assessments
  

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.
   The department is able to forward date permits by up to three months from the date of application, if you inform us you’d 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 department’s ‘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: ‘one of the teams listed above’) or call 1800 900 090 (prompt 1, prompt 1).