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AQIS Report to Clients 2002-2003
From the Executive Director
AQIS at a glance
AQIS objectives
Working with our clients
Quarantine and export advisory council (QEAC)
Consultation with industry
AQIS-industry co-regulation
Quarantine
Northern Australian Quarantine Strategy
Exports
Market Maintenance
Public awareness
Compliance and investigations
Financial overview
Regional snapshots
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From the Executive Director
By any measure 2002/03 was an exceptionally busy one for AQIS.
International events once again presented AQIS with major challenges. The tragedy of the Bali bombings and the resulting influx of returning travellers presented us with a genuine test of our quarantine arrangements. The work done by AQIS employees in the ensuing period was outstanding in terms of effort and professionalism.
The international outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) this year and the intense media scrutiny that followed placed an added burden on our operations. Airports Program staff did a great job working closely with airlines, State Government representatives, Commonwealth Medical Officers and the Australian Customs Service in ensuring that procedures were in place to manage the risk to Australia, and we were a finalist in the Prime Minister’s Excellence Awards for this aspect of our work.
AQIS was also recognised for the service we provided in support of the recent Australian Defence Force operations in the Middle East. General Cosgrove, the Chief of Defence Force, wrote to AQIS thanking us for our efforts in pre-clearing military personnel and equipment returning to Australia.
The success of any organisation is based on the efforts of all its staff. It is important to recognise the contributions made by those who keep the corporate wheels turning — our financial and information systems, our recruitment, training and development initiatives and administrative assistance. This year saw a number of highlights in these areas. Our financial and information systems continue to be refined, and while these things never reach perfection AQIS is recognised by internal and external stakeholders as having very good systems. A highlight on the people side has been our accreditation under the Investors in People framework which ensures that we continue to give focus to leading our diverse snd geographically dispersed organisation in providing high service standards.
Much effort has been put into the planning and fitout of new premises in Sydney, Melbourne, Broome and at Canberra Airport. We have also co-located with Customs into new accommodation at ports in Sydney, Melbourne, Mackay and Brisbane. These moves have increased our ability to provide quality service to our clients while boosting our border protection operations.
This report chronicles the work done and advances made across many areas of AQIS’ activities, marking significant improvements in efficiency and effectiveness in our quarantine and export programs. We are committed to maintaining and improving our services to our client groups.
I commend this report to you — but in doing so I remind you that AQIS is always reviewing the way we do business, and we welcome constructive comment on how we might work even better. We look forward to the challenges ahead, and trust that we can continue to work closely with our clients for the benefit of all.
Meryl Stanton
Executive Director
AQIS at a glance
The AQIS organisation chart is designed to be more descriptive than the normal hierarchical diagram. It shows the regions as our front line, our main means of communication with our external stakeholders. There are deliberately no arrows showing reporting lines: relationships between regions, central office programs and the executive group are dynamic and depend on the issues at hand.
AQIS objectives
As outlined in the Australian Government `Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s Corporate Plan 2001-2004, AQIS’s objective is to protect Australia’s animal, plant and human health status and maintain market access through the delivery of quarantine and export services. AQIS is therefore working to:
- maintain Australia’s quarantine integrity through appropriate border protection arrangements;
- help Australian exports by providing export inspection, auditing and certification services; and
- raise public awareness of quarantine and export services requirements.
Working with our clients
AQIS works continuously to improve its service quality, value for money and client focus by working in partnership with industry to recognise clients’ needs, increasing staff awareness of our customer service obligations and ensuring the delivery of quality customer services. As a regulatory agency AQIS is committed to providing our services in ways that consider the impact on our clients, while meeting our important legal obligations.
Through initiatives such as AQIS-industry consultative committees and the Quarantine and Exports Advisory Council, we work in partnership with clients to provide programs and services that reflect the needs of industry and the community.
AQIS’s clients and stakeholders are:
- our portfolio Ministers and through them the Australian Government;
- the Australian community;
- importers of animals, plants and their products;
- exporters of animals, plants and their products;
- passengers, owners and importers of goods passing through airports, international mail and air courier facilities and seaports;
- industries and their representative organisations that rely on AQIS to negotiate national and international agreements and protocols aimed at improving market access and trade; and
- people and entities interested in food safety, the preservation of our natural environment and human health.
AQIS conducts an annual survey of clients to evaluate their satisfaction with our services. In 2002/03 approximately 1650 clients participated in the survey. Results indicate that 83 per cent of clients surveyed are as satisfied or more satisfied with AQIS’ services than they were two years ago. The high overall satisfaction benchmark set in 2002 has been maintained in 2003.
Of those clients surveyed whose overall satisfaction had improved, close to one in five attributed this improvement to AQISstaff being more approachable, and communicating better with clients. The other main factors contributing to improvement in satisfaction were:
- understanding business / business needs
- more contact / personal service
- staff better trained; and
- improved efficiency.
Quarantine and Exports Advisory Council (QEAC)
QEAC is a non-statutory, independent advisory council that:
- provides advice to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Director of Quarantine on major quarantine and export certification policy issues and strategic directions for AQIS;
- inquires into and provides advice to the Minister on matters referred to it by the Minister;
- acts as a focal point to ensure effective consultation between AQIS, industry and stakeholders;
- provides advice on the effectiveness of AQIS’s program delivery; and
- helps AQIS evaluate its performance.
QEAC comprises members with skills in quarantine services, animal and plant health, importing/exporting, business management, the environment and communications. Mr Murray Rogers, an experienced business leader, chairs QEAC.
As at 30 June 2003 the members of QEAC were:
- Mr W. Murray Rogers (Chair)
- Mr Andrew Inglis (Deputy Chair)
- Mr John Crosby
- Ms Mary Harwood
- Mr Brian Jeffriess
- Mr Hart Krtschil
- Mr Roly Nieper
- Dr Lyndy Scott
- Ms Meryl Stanton
- Ms Anne Story
- Ms Carolyn Tanner
- Mr Michael Taylor
The Council met five times during the year.
Consultation with Industry
AQIS maintains close and regular contact with its industry clients through industry consultative committees (ICCs), aimed at ensuring efficient and effective service delivery.
These ICCs are instrumental in AQIS import and export programs. They formulate efficient and practical operational responses to government policy and ensure that business confidence and continuity are maintained in AQIS’s delivery of Commonwealth regulatory requirements.
The ICCs are:
- AQIS – Airline Industry Consultative Committee
- AQIS – Grain Industry Consultative Committee
- AQIS – Industry Cargo Consultative Committee
- Biologicals Industry Consultative Committee
- Dairy Export Industry Consultative Committee
- Export Meat Industry Advisory Committee
- Horticulture Export Consultative Committee
- Imported Food Consultative Committee
- Live Animal Export Consultative Committee
- Livestock Export Industry Consultative Committee
- Meat Industry Charging Review Committee
- Organic Produce Export Committee
- Post Entry Plant Industry Consultative Committee
- Seafood Export Consultative Committee
- Northern Australia Quarantine Strategy Stakeholder Consultative Committee.
AQIS-Industry Co-Regulation
There are about 3800 co-regulatory arrangements, with schemes in all operational AQIS programs. Schemes introduced for Quarantine programs in 2002-03 included the collection, transport, storage and treatment of quarantine waste, onshore fumigation and revised imported pigmeat arrangements. A major success story for 2002-03 was the conversion of all older style Approved Quarantine Directives into the new AQIS Compliance Agreement format.
During the same period, export programs amended and enhanced a number of agreements. New schemes released in the same period were predominantly in the horticulture program and detail requirements for company’s exporting into countries requiring additional declarations as well as those requiring additional declarations plus treatments. The export meat, fish, dairy and organics programs currently have co-regulatory arrangements covering more than 95 per cent of industries.
Quarantine
This year saw continued consolidation following significant injections of resources into this area in the 2001 Budget. Increased staffing levels and the necessary infrastructure changes to allow increased quarantine intervention around Australia have largely been achieved.
The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) earlier this year placed a drain on our resources. Airports Program staff worked with airlines, State Government staff, Commonwealth Medical Officers and the Australian Customs Service in ensuring that procedures were in place to manage the risk to Australia.
Despite the operational challenge caused by SARS, national intervention level for airports remained consistently higher than the Government’s target intervention rate of a minimum of 81 per cent. Effectiveness levels for intervention of quarantine risk material have improved. A targeted approach to resource allocation and new initiatives for collecting and recording data are planned for 2003-04 to further improve effectiveness results for higher risk items.
Intervention levels have been maintained at 100 per cent for all classes of mail. The International Mail Program continues to implement initiatives to increase effectiveness, from around 63 per cent to almost 80 per cent for higher risk material in the last quarter of the financial year. However, effectiveness levels are not likely to increase substantially until the completion of infrastructure changes in mid 2005.
Both Import Clearance and Seaports recorded intervention levels of 100 per cent. Effectiveness for sea cargo containers fluctuated between 72 and 82 per cent on a national basis. Work is progressing on ways to make external sea cargo inspections more effective. Strategies implemented to improve Seaports operations have resulted in the effectiveness performance rising from 90 to 97 per cent in the last quarter of the financial year.
Northern Australian Quarantine Strategy
The Northern Australia Quarantine Strategy (NAQS) is the only Quarantine program to combine pre-border, border and post-border quarantine activities — the three tiers that make up the continuum of quarantine.
Border activity in the Torres Strait remains a focus of NAQS work. During 2002-03 officers inspected and cleared luggage from more than 75,000 domestic passengers moving between quarantine zones in the Torres Strait. These zones are designed to stop the spread of pests south from Papua New Guinea to the Torres Strait, and to contain seasonal incursions of foreign pests. This work supplements Quarantine’s normal border activities at international sea and air ports, and takes account of factors that make Torres Strait a quarantine hot spot.
NAQS scientists detected the serious citrus disease huanglongbing and its vector in Papua New Guinea for the first time, in Sandaun Province near the border with Indonesia. This significant detection triggered response measures on the ground in PNG, and signalled the eastwards movement of this disease, which is of concern to Australia’s citrus growers. Early warning of exotic diseases in our region is an important aspect of pre-border quarantine activities; it ensures Australia has in place appropriate border and post-border strategies to mitigate the risk of exotic incursions.
Back in Australia, Quarantine continues to build on collaboration with indigenous communities — the owners of most of the northern coastal land and neighbouring islands on which NAQS surveys and monitoring occur. In the Northern Territory, serum and tissue samples from feral animals, collected by ranger groups from Arnhem Land communities, significantly supplement the frequency and size of post-border surveys and monitoring.
Exports
In 2002-03 the Live Animal Exports Industry Consultative Committee was established to implement the action plan for the livestock export industry. The committee’s action plan focuses on enhancing standards and processes to improve animal health, welfare and transport conditions for live animal exports, and targets an improvement in service delivery to clients while ensuring regulatory obligations continue to be met.
The Meat Program continued to ensure market access for Australian meat exports, highlighted by the successful review of Australian inspection and certification system by Indonesia, Russia, Egypt, Ukraine and the United States.
The Grain Exports Program has continued to help market access by providing cost-effective inspection and certification options to the grain industry. To increase the confidence of our trading partners the program introduced copy-proof security papers for electronically generated EXDOC export certificates. The Fish Exports Program has had significant success in encouraging clients to use EXDOC as their main source of documentation; more than 80 per cent of documentation is now being raised through EXDOC.
Market Maintenance
Improved market access was negotiated for a number of commodities to several export markets. Protocols for beef, sheep and goat meat exports to China were signed in June 2003 — good news for Australian producers and exporters and for Chinese importers and consumers, who will now have access to a greater range of Australian meat commodities.
Australia was also declared officially free from Newcastle disease in June 2003. Australian poultry and egg exports have regained access to the majority of countries that placed restrictions on exports from Australia during the Newcastle disease outbreaks in 2002.
Access for Australian cream to the USA was further extended, and import clearance procedures for Australian dairy products to Hong Kong were simplified. Continued recognition of Australia’s export certification system for organic products by the European Union and Switzerland has been extended until June 2008.
AQIS also worked with food industries exporting to the United States to help them meet new requirements under the US Bioterrorism Act.
Public Awareness
AQIS Bulletin
AQIS published the AQIS Bulletin newsletter 11 times in 2002-03. The AQIS Bulletin is the official AQIS journal providing a range of information on quarantine and export activities of relevance to industry clients and the community. The Bulletin is distributed free of charge in hard copy and electronic form.
Subscriptions can be arranged by calling (02) 6272 5151, by emailing AQIS Public Relations or via the AQIS website at http://www.aqis.gov.au/bulletin.
Quarantine awareness
During the year the well-established Quarantine Matters! awareness campaign was bolstered by the introduction of national television advertisements featuring ‘Crocodile Hunter’ Steve Irwin. The advertisements ran in the lead up to peak international travel times by Australians during Christmas/New Year and the northern hemisphere summer.
The television advertisements complemented other campaign initiatives such as newspaper and magazine advertisements, including in non-English languages; Internet advertising on- and off-shore; news releases and media events designed to highlight quarantine requirements; airport advertising and signage; displays at travel expos and community events; a range of quarantine information brochures; and various public relations activities.
The campaign was aimed at a range of audiences, including international travellers to Australia (both returning Australians and visitors), cargo importers, international mail recipients, students, the travel industry and rural industries such as those dealing with animals and horticulture.
Research undertaken in association with the campaign showed it is has had a strong impact on key target audiences. More than 90 per cent of the Australian community is aware of the campaign — significantly better than what would normally be considered a good recognition level for a campaign of this type.
In addition to the Quarantine Matters! campaign, AQIS continued its targeted Top Watch awareness campaign directed at remote and regional communities in northern Australia from Broome to Cairns.
As part of the Northern Australia Quarantine Strategy the campaign used outreach visits by staff and a range of information products, activities and promotions to encourage northern residents to look out for and report plant and animal pest and disease risks.
The NAQS News newsletter was published quarterly during the year, featuring a range of information on northern Australia quarantine activities, including the work of NAQS scientists and operational staff. The newsletter is distributed in hard copy free of charge to residents, industry, government agencies and parliamentarians. Copies are also available electronically and on the AQIS website at http://www.aqis.gov.au/naqs.
Export awareness
AQIS continued to develop and deliver a range of information products and initiatives to inform industry and the community of its export facilitation, inspection and certification services and activities. Export awareness initiatives included information brochures and products, attendance at trade shows and industry events and news releases.
Compliance and Investigations
The Compliance and Investigations Program is a strategic and operational program that reports directly to the AQIS Executive Director. The Program’s 21 staff (at 30 June 2003) work in partnership with government and industry stakeholders to achieve voluntary compliance under the co-regulation model.
The Program delivers a variety of services such as detecting, investigating and prosecuting offenders, the application of integrity standards, educating industry to reduce non-compliant behaviour and the identification and reporting of regulatory risks.
During the year the Program emphasised actions to achieve a more balanced approach to enforcement. Fifty actions were undertaken at AQIS export registered establishments to help AQIS identify risks affecting the export environment. This will continue in 2003-04.
During 2002-03 the Program investigated 935 incidents of suspected/alleged breaches of AQIS legislation and issued 71 letters of warning. Six matters were referred to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP); all prosecutions were successful and CDPP lodged and won two appeals for lack of severity of sentence, resulting in higher penalties imposed. There are three other matters currently before the courts.
The Program maintains an intelligence gathering and risk assessment capability and routinely applies a commodity-based risk assessment/risk identification methodology (CRAM) designed for use in a co-regulatory environment. A total of 21 CRAMs was conducted during the year.
The Program also maintained the AQIS REDLINE (a confidential, freecall phone hotline for the receipt of alleged breaches of AQIS-administered laws): 524 calls
were received and 85 calls were determined as merit calls (calls the agency may not have ordinarily received) requiring further investigation.
Financial overview
The Commonwealth Auditor General audits AQIS’ financial statements and reports his audit findings to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Statements are reported in the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Annual Report and are conveyed to our clients though AQIS-industry consultative committees. A summary of financial results for the year is provided below.
Regional snapshots
New South Wales
AQIS New South Wales had 758 Full time Equivalent (FTE) staff at the end of June 2003. In the continued response to the Increased Quarantine Intervention (IQI) initiative the region recruited and trained 110 additional staff by the end of the financial year.
The region delivered services to all 21 AQIS programs, including issuing more than 43,000 certificates for export meat and inedible products, and inspected 220,000 tonnes of export fruit and vegetables and 2.05 million tonnes of export grain. The region also supervised and inspected 188,370 tons of imported grain into NSW.
Staff at ports inspected 2456 overseas vessels, of which 1995 were first port vessels. The external inspection of 100 per cent of imported sea freight containers was maintained, with more than a million containers and 20 million tonnes of breakbulk cargo cleared.
Airport staff cleared 3,367,137 passengers and crew. Eighteen X-ray machines and 16 detector dog teams are now operating at Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport.
Screening of all air cargo was maintained along with enhanced screening of high volume, low value air cargo and the external inspection of air cargo containers. Increased screening of cruise ship passengers was also introduced.
Victoria
AQIS Victoria region delivered services for all AQIS programs, including full implementation of the IQI initiative and certifying exports of meat and meat products, fruit and vegetables, dairy and grain. At 30 June 2003 AQIS Victoria had 467 FTE employees.
The region has made good progress toward achieving effectiveness targets in many quarantine programs. The Port of Melbourne is the largest container port in Australia, processing more than 1.3 million containers 31 cruise vessels in 2002-03; AQIS inspected 168,700 items of break bulk cargo and 33,245 packs of timber.
Co-regulation initiatives included introduction of the international repositioned seafreight empty container program, schemes to manage the disposal of quarantine waste and inclusion of less than container load under an extension for the Broker Accreditation Scheme. About 7900 containers were inspected for giant African snails. Some 1.77 million passengers were cleared through Melbourne International Airport; 458,370 were processed through the red channel after declaring items of quarantine concern.
Melbourne Air Transit Centre inspected 33.5 million articles.
Six AQIS staff are permanently based at the Australian Customs Service container X-ray facility, to complement our capacity to respond to issues of quarantine concern either at the facility or in the Port of Melbourne.
South Australia
AQIS South Australia continued to consolidate IQI initiatives in 2002-03, including further training of new staff, additional X-ray machines at Adelaide International Airport and mail centre, deployment of an additional detector dog team and issuing a number of new co-regulatory agreements with key clients.
The region had 132 FTE staff at the end of June 2003 and a contractor base of about 25 for seasonal and ad-hoc export grain and meat inspection activities.
The Asian tourism downturn saw a slight decrease in overseas passengers, though 112,989 passengers and their baggage were still cleared at Adelaide International Airport and Edinburgh RAAF Base.
Sea and air cargo were cleared at five seaports, Adelaide Airport and about 220 quarantine approved premises. Airport staff inspected more than 102,495 imported live fish at various approved premises. A major highlight of 2002-03 was agreement on plans for a new ‘Multi Use International Terminal’ for Adelaide, scheduled for completion in 2005.
Co-regulation quality assurance arrangements were managed for eight export registered dairy establishments. The Export Meat Program provided inspection and certification services to 30 export registered establishments processing beef, sheep, buffalo, horse, goat and poultry products.
Far North
AQIS Far North delivered inspection services for a range of AQIS programs and supplied administrative and technical support for quarantine operations in East Timor. 145 FTE staff were employed by AQIS Far North at 30 June 2003.
AQIS staff helped their East Timorese Quarantine counterparts train staff, develop processes and procedures and draft legislation. East Timor’s continuing freedom from many serious pests and diseases, such as foot and mouth disease, also drastically reduces the risks of these pests entering Australia.
Mackay staff moved into new premises with the Australian Customs Service, integrating a range of border protection functions such as clearance of more than 1200 vessels arriving in Mackay each year. Six AQIS officers work alongside nine Customs colleagues, who share many border functions. Quarantine officers are involved in clearing ships’ passengers and crew, monitoring ballast water discharge, inspecting export grain and horticulture assignments, and screening mining and sugar equipment.
A $3 million upgrade to Quarantine border activities at Cairns International Airport boosted protection for tropical north Queensland’s multi-billion dollar agriculture and tourism industries. More than 32,000 passengers flew into Cairns each month, and AQIS screened close to 95 per cent of passengers — up from about 30 per cent in March 2001.
Southern Queensland
During 2002-03 AQIS Southern Queensland made significant progress in infrastructure re-development for the delivery of quarantine and export inspection services. Redevelopment of the International Mail Centre was completed and significant improvements were made to IT communications in the Brisbane metropolitan area. This has highlighted the need to enhance communications in remote and rural locations; this will be addressed during 2003-04.
November 2002 saw the expansion of AQIS’ Gold Coast operation to coincide with the introduction of regular Australian Airlines flights and the construction of a new international terminal.
South Queensland remained committed to overseas pre-clearance activities, particularly associated with joint military exercises at Shoalwater Bay and the return of equipment from overseas military campaigns. Three senior regional officers participated in pre-inspection of machinery and troops, facilitating the return of Australian military personnel from the Middle East.
At the end of June 2003 AQIS Southern Queensland employed approximately 462 FTE staff and 67 contractors.
Northern Territory
AQIS services were provided by staff of the NT Department of Business, Industry and Resource Development under a Memorandum Of Understanding with AQIS.
In conjunction with the NAQS program, our work in East Timor continued in 2002-03 and is expected to carry on until mid 2004.
The 2002-03 year saw infrastructure improvements to the International Mail Exchange and Darwin International Airport. Offshore auditing of an Indonesian stockfeed manufacturer was successfully introduced and imports of feed are now a regular occurrence. A vapour heat treatment facility for processing export mangoes to Japan was built and passed initial testing.
Tasmania
The Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment provided services on behalf of AQIS under a Memorandum of Understanding. Service delivery in southern, northern and northwestern Tasmania varies according to major functions, but there is a strong emphasis on continuous improvement in the quality of service delivery and maintaining a high level of client awareness.
Throughout the year there was extensive consultation with the clients at regional and State level in the form of meetings, workshops, training programs, newsletters, circulars and awareness presentations.
2002-03 saw the development of a Quarantine Surveillance Code of Practice for the Agricultural Harvesters Contractors Association. Other highlights included a consolidation process for stonefruit exports to Taiwan, a working partnership with ethnic radio in Hobart to promote the delivery of regular quarantine awareness segments, and quarantine awareness training for staff at the Qantas National Call Centre, located in Hobart.
Western Australia
AQIS services in Western Australia continue to be delivered by staff of the WA Department of Agriculture under a Memorandum of Understanding with AQIS.
AQIS WA officers dealt with Australians injured in the Bali bombings, and family and friends returning to Australia. The SARS outbreak saw changes at all entry points quickly and efficiently; AQIS staff responded to increased demands on their time and skills, and helped ensure a smooth transition to the new requirements for processing and dealing with passengers who may have been exposed to SARS.
War in the Middle East also saw Quarantine officers involved in inspecting and processing military personnel from Australia and other countries.