| Good afternoon,
On the 26th of June 2024, the Freight & Trade Alliance (FTA) team together with the Food and Beverage Importers Association participated in a consultation meeting with officers from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry's (DAFF) Illegal Logging Compliance and International Forest Policy teams.
FTA has been extensively advocating for reforms in this area on behalf of our Australian Peak Shippers Association (APSA) and FTA membership base. We consider the latest meeting to be a positive step forward.
THE LATEST: - The relevant Bill is currently before the Parliament and is expected to be debated in the Senate soon. If passed, this will replace the existing Illegal Logging Prohibition Act. Further information about the Bill is available HERE.
- The Senate's Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee recently concluded its inquiry into the Bill. They received 37 submissions and recommended that the Senate pass the Bill - read the committee's final report HERE and FTA's submission HERE.
- Once the Bill is passed, DAFF will develop draft Rules to replace the existing Illegal Logging Prohibition Regulation, that will set out how the new legislation will be implemented.
- When the draft Rules are ready, DAFF will approach Industry to engage in further stakeholder consultation and seek feedback on their likely commercial and practical application.
- DAFF is developing these draft Rules as a priority, and they must be ready to replace the Regulations before their scheduled expiry date of 1 April 2025.
E-UPDATES:
DAFF will continue to keep interested stakeholders up to date with the latest on the illegal logging law reforms via the Illegal Logging E-Update newsletter, which is emailed directly to subscribers and is also published on the DAFF website. We encourage those interested to sign up for the E-updates HERE, as we understand that only a fraction of the estimated 30000 importers of regulated timber products are currently subscribed.
You can find the latest E-update newsletter HERE.
To help shape future e-updates, DAFF would like to provide you and your clients the opportunity to influence the topics they cover. We encourage you to provide feedback via the DAFF's "Future Topics for Illegal Logging E-updates" Survey
The survey closes AEDT 16:00, 16 December 2024.
HOW YOU CAN BE INVOLVED:
FTA would like to thank our members for their valuable insight and continued consultation. It has allowed us to provide DAFF with a commercial insight that may assist in shaping the future administration of the illegal logging legislation.
If you are a high-volume importer or customs broker that represents a high-volume importer, we encourage you to get in touch, so that we can correlate a list to send to DAFF of best-suited candidates for industry engagement that will occur once the Rules are ready for consultation. Please send your expressions of interest via email - bflint@ftalliance.com.au
Bianca Flint
Member Support - Trade Operations | Licensed Customs Broker
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