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| Friday, 29 April 2013 | ||||||||
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Strengthening Australia's Air Cargo Supply Chain - Submission Update | ||||||||
| Dear All,
Further to our Bulletin of April 8th, the AFIF aircargo sub-committee members have worked on the Draft Submission paper that we circulated to you at that time and the Final Submission as lodged with the Office of Transport Security (OTS) is attached.
As we advised before, the AFIF submission may not necessarily reflect the views of your organisation independently, nor the whole air cargo community or its customers. It is, however, a view from experienced practitioners who have been close to the various scenarios evolving around supply chain security, both in Australia and globally and includes key forwarding concerns to be considered in the discussion. The Government is also very keen to hear from any Forwarder and also from Export Shippers and we encourage you to share this discussion paper with your customers, some of whom may have received a notice directly from the OTS already. As advised previously, comments on the paper should be submitted to the OTS by Sunday 28 April 2013.
Here is a summary and additional information as supplied by the OTS:
1. Discussion Paper
The Discussion Paper: "Building a More Secure End-to-End Supply Chain for Our Australian Air Cargo Exports outlines the key policy changes in the Securing the air cargo supply chain framework for international export air cargo. Before the new framework is put into place, the OTS invite industry members to provide feedback on what the proposed measures mean for your business and/or the changes in general.
The Discussion Paper is a key piece of industry consultation, the feedback from which will inform the Government Regulation Impact Statement and ensure that the final security framework is appropriate for the Australian context.
To read the paper and have your say, click here.
Short factsheets are also available on the OTS website to aid industry in understanding the proposed measures. Click here to go to the relevant Webpage: http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/transport/security/cargo/
Should you or your customers have queries about the Discussion Paper, please contact the Department on:
2. EACE Equipment List and Policy Statement
The OTS has also released an Enhanced Air Cargo Examination (EACE) Policy Statement and an Australian Air Cargo Examination Equipment List (ACEEL).
The EACE Policy Statement will provide background and context to industry members regarding the proposed examination requirements for international export air cargo, and assist industry to make decisions about their potential future involvement in EACE. The ACEEL contains examination equipment known to currently meet the Department's requirements for the enhanced examination of international air cargo.
The ACEEL should be read in conjunction with the EACE Policy Statement. While distribution of the EACE documents is restricted due to the security nature of the content, they will be made available through the Govdex website (www.govdex.gov.au) to all relevant industry participants that may be interested in conducting EACE under the new air cargo security framework.
To obtain access to the EACE Policy Statement and the ACEEL industry participants should contact the EACE policy team at: eace@infrastructure.gov.au The OTS have stated that these documents represent many months of research, industry and related consultation and policy work and that they are important steps in moving towards the new air cargo supply chain security framework.
We strongly encourage you to consider the content of the Discussion Paper and provide your feedback via the formal submission processes so that it can be considered by Government in the Regulation Impact Statement (RIS).
Please consider these issues and their likely impact on you most carefully. We would also welcome any input to our proposed Draft Submission. Brian Lovell | ||||||||