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Output 1 - Facilitation of the legitimate movement of goods across the border, while intercepting prohibited and restricted imports and exports

Output 1 pricing is shown in the financial statements.

To prevent the import or export of prohibited items, and to control the movement of restricted items, this Output covers the processing of goods across the border, including:

• risk assessment of vessels, aircraft, cargo, mail, air and sea passengers and baggage
• intelligence, targeting and search activities
• surveillance of international airports, waterfronts and international mail centres
• land-based surveillance of the coastline, and aerial/marine surveillance and response for specific operations.

The Output covers the investigation and prosecution of non-narcotic prohibited import and export offences, including measures by Customs to control or restrict the movement of goods on behalf of other agencies. Prohibited and restricted items include illicit drugs, weapons, pornography, unsafe and unlabelled products, therapeutic goods, wildlife, quarantine items and counterfeit and pirated goods. Broadly, this Output covers Customs community protection role by carrying out all the above mentioned activities.

This part of the report includes measures taken to streamline the flow of legitimate trade, as well as initiatives introduced in 2004–05 designed to enhance community protection.

Key operational objectives in 2004–05 included:

• improving (or sustaining) industry compliance with cargo and trade-related Customs laws while minimising any adverse impact on industry/business
• increasing first port boarding to 75–80 per cent by the end of the 2004–05 financial year
• expanding the number of detector dog teams to enhance the Detector Dog Program and strengthen border protection
• increasing operating hours and throughput at Container Examination Facilities (CEFs)
• ensuring existing and new technology effectively supported Customs business processes.

Key achievements included:

• leading a project to standardise data for import, export and transitions of cargo and crew, and exploring creation of a single window for data required by Government
• improving sea cargo reporting
• upgrading INTERCEPT which records vessel and crew movements
• increasing first port boarding to 76 per cent compared with 70 per cent in the previous year
• inspecting 128 411 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent) containers at the CEFs
• expanding the Detector Dog Program to enable the graduation of five new teams in May 2005 and the commencement of four teams into the training program
• expanding the fleet of radiation detectors
• deploying new trace detection equipment in key operational areas for chemical detection
• installing CCTV surveillance systems at airports and seaports
• progressing the neutron scanner trial, to efficiently screen air cargo, by establishing a facility at Brisbane airport to house the scanner
• detecting/seizing 194kg of cocaine, 2375kg of MDMA (ecstasy), 151kg of amphetamine-type stimulants, 177kg of heroin and 5kg of cannabis
• intercepting prohibited imports including 403 wildlife detections and 1010 firearm and firearm parts detections from international passengers
• participating in forums aimed at combating identity fraud, money laundering and corruption.

Performance figures against targets set in the 2004–05 Portfolio Budget Statement are detailed below.

Figure 6: Performance against targets set in the 2004–05 Portfolio Budget Statement – Output 1

Quality/quantity performance measures	Target*	Actual
Facilitate movement of goods
Quality
Proportion of electronically lodged entries where an authority to deal is transmitted within 15 minutes of receipt of entry payment and finalisation of entry details	97%	99.4%
Electronic cargo systems–availability to Customs clients (availability against typical work day)	Air cargo automation 99.7% Sea cargo automation 99.7%	99.9% 100.0%
Rates of appeal against decisions where the original decision by Customs is overturned	**	See Appendix D
Quantity
Number of imported air waybills reported	5 410 000	5 484 627
Number of imported sea cargo manifest lines reported	1 890 000	1 848 511
Number of export declarations lodged^	1 200 000	1 252 972
Interception of prohibited/restricted goods
Quantity
Weight and number of drug detections by significance of offence	**	See Figure 12
Weight of drug detections by mode of importation	**	See Figure 11
Number of detections and/or seizures of other prohibited imports and exports	**	See Figure 7 and Figure 8
Price	$329.235m	$329.675m

* Targets may be performance targets, service level targets or estimates.

** Performance targets cannot be estimated through any reliable statistical or other method.

^ Includes both ECNs (or export clearance) issued under the old EXIT scheme, and EDNs (or export declarations) issued when the Integrated Cargo System (ICS) Exports module went live on 22 September 2004.

Figure 7: Number of detections/seizures of prohibited imports* for international air passengers other than illicit drugs

		2002–03	2003–04	2004–05
Quarantine^		106	41	42
Revenue		3 126	2 705	3 211
	Major	45	75	123
	Minor	3 081	2 630	3 088
Undeclared excess currency (referred to AFP)		190	156	158
Wildlife		1 225	637	403
	Major	24	2	7
	Minor	1 201	635	396
Prohibited imports		5 444	4 859	..
	Major	213	179	..
	Minor	5 231	4 680	..
Firearms (including firearm parts)		..	..	1 010
	Major	..	..	34
	Minor	..	..	976
Other weapons		..	..	1 038
	Major	..	..	51
	Minor	..	..	987
Other prohibited goods		..	..	3 282
	Major	..	..	61
	Minor+	..	..	3 221

* A major find usually refers to an incident where a record of interview is conducted or prosecution action commenced. A minor find usually refers to an incident where a record of interview is not conducted or no prosecution action has commenced.

^ Refers to quarantine related finds by Customs that result in prosecution action. The number of minor finds referred to AQIS is not shown.

+ Includes ‘Other’ finds.

A new recording system, the Baggage Action General Statistics (BAGS) system, was introduced in the middle of 2003–04 financial year. One major change with BAGS was that only undeclared items located during a baggage examination or personal search conducted by Customs were recorded in the statistics. Undeclared items located otherwise, for example, during AQIS intervention, are not captured in BAGS. The other was that prohibited goods were broken up into sub-categories: firearms (including parts), other weapons, other prohibited goods and ‘other’ breaches of Commonwealth legislation not covered under legislation specified in defined sub-categories. This split is shown for the first time in 2004–05.

 

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