Impacts to DAWE Service Standards in New South Wales and Victoria

Attention: Shipping Manager

Further to our recent April update, we have now received a copy of the advice from the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment in relation to impacts to service standards in New South Wales and Victoria.  An excerpt of this is below, courtesy of Freight & Trade Alliance:-

What has changed?

The department continues to experience high volumes of inspection requests and services across Victoria and New South Wales; the department’s ability to meet service standards for inspection bookings, in these states, will be impacted over the coming weeks, and possibly beyond.
Imported cargo declarations for 1 July 2021 to 28 February 2022 have increased by 17% compared with the same period last year; while high value cargo has increased by 4%; and low value cargo has increased by 18%.  Since January 2022, the department facilitated over 20,000 client-initiated inspection bookings in Victoria and New South Wales.  The department acknowledges clients are currently experiencing delays. All efforts are being made to manage increased workloads to meet service standards, while we also manage an ever increasing biosecurity risk profile.

What is driving this?

A combination of high volumes of incoming cargo, our borders reopening to passengers and cruise vessels, a changing biosecurity risk profile, as well as the ongoing impacts of COVID-19, both across the department’s workforce and at third party premises. As a result, inspection appointments are experiencing delays and in some cases are needing to be rescheduled, often at short notice.  During this period of enormous trade and global pandemic disruption, we have continued to detect and manage many biosecurity risks.

Australia is lucky to be free from many of the world’s most damaging plant pests however, serious biosecurity risks such as khapra beetle, invasive ants, giant African snail and brown marmorated stink bug are being detected at the border and in some cases post biosecurity and require active management to prevent establishment.  Exotic plant pests are capable of damaging our natural environment, destroying our food production and agriculture industries, and some could change our way of life.  Serious animal biosecurity risks threats have emerged at the same time, such as Japanese encephalitis which has now been identified in more than 60 piggeries in four states of Australia.  We also continue to manage the escalating threat of some significant animal diseases that remain exotic to Australia but are moving ever closer to our shores. For instance, lumpy skin disease continues to spread in our region, with 18 countries officially reporting outbreaks of the disease for the first time and 3 countries including Indonesia reporting their first outbreak since the start of 2022. An outbreak in Australia would have significant impacts on cattle health and production and present a serious and immediate risk to Australia’s live and boxed beef and dairy trade.  In 2021, the department responded to over 2,000 post border biosecurity detections and to date in 2022 we have had 480 detections. Some of these have required redirection of significant resources to investigate and manage.

How is the department responding?

Resources are being diverted from other areas to assist with surge capacity where possible, particularly across the inspection and booking functions. New recruits are being deployed where we can.  The department is also offering to inspect cargos on weekend and after normal business hours.  Inspection requests for highly perishable airfreight consignments and live animal imports are being prioritised with the department actively working to bring forward delayed appointments for other cargo.  We acknowledge these are challenging and frustrating times for all. But we do expect these delays to continue for some time, although we will monitor and adapt as we can to the prevailing situation

Thank you for your understanding, and for your ongoing patience and cooperation.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact your customer service representative.