✦ Plain-English Summary

Biosecurity Amendment (Traveller Declarations and Other Measures) Bill 2020

What it does

The bill updates Australia's biosecurity laws to give the Director of Biosecurity more flexibility in setting penalties and rules for people breaking import regulations. It allows penalties to be scaled differently depending on what goods are involved (for example, stricter penalties for importing high-risk items than low-risk ones), and lets the Director create and update lists of restricted goods without needing to change the law each time.

Why it matters

This makes biosecurity enforcement faster and more targeted—customs officers can impose appropriate penalties on the spot without delays, and the government can respond quickly to new biosecurity risks without going back to parliament every time. It's designed to keep dangerous pests, diseases, and contaminated goods out of Australia more efficiently.

Key details

• Commencement date: 1 January 2021
• Penalty flexibility: The bill lets regulations set different penalty amounts based on the type of goods involved—so importing prohibited meat might carry a higher penalty than importing certain plant material
• Director's power: The Director of Biosecurity can now create and update lists of restricted goods themselves, as long as they're reasonably satisfied there's a high biosecurity risk—meaning these lists can change without new legislation

Official Description

Amends the Biosecurity Act 2015 to: enable regulations to prescribe different penalty amounts for infringement notices issued for different kinds of alleged contraventions; clarify that the regulations may prescribe different periods of time to pay an infringement notice depending on the kind of goods or class of goods to which an alleged contravention relates; enable the Director of Biosecurity to determine goods or classes of goods that can attract a higher infringement notice amount and provide that the determination is not disallowable; and enable the regulations to incorporate references to the determination as in force from time to time.

Committee Referrals

Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee; Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills

No formal division recorded

This bill passed by voice vote — parliament agreed without calling a formal count. A division is only recorded when a member explicitly requests one.

No votes yet.

No votes were recorded for this bill.