Booklet smooths way for Olympic and Paralympic visitors

A booklet for wide distribution overseas will help welcome competitors, administrators and spectators to Sydney for the 2000 Olympic and Paralympic games ­ and help ensure that they comply with Australia's entry laws.

It is part of the Commonwealth Government's multilingual program to inform Olympic visitors about Australian border laws to make their comings and goings as smooth as possible.

The booklet, A must-read for visitors to Australia, was developed from the Australian Customs Service'sperennially popular traveller's guide Know Before You Go.

Customs is working with the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and a number of other agencies in a committee convened by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to reach as many visitors as possible before they arrive in Australia.

The booklet sets out special entry and exit provisions for accredited members of the Olympic and Paralympic "families", which include competitors, team officials, media representatives, and dignitaries.

The booklet includes advice on goods that must be declared, duty-free allowances, duty and sales tax, quarantine issues and documents required for Customs clearance. For members of Olympic and Paralympic families, there is information on games visa arrangements and duty-free concessions, regulations covering medicines, prohibitions on performance-enhancing drugs, and even requirements for importing competing horses and stockfeed.

Hundreds of thousands of information brochures in English, German, French and Spanish have been distributed overseas through Australian embassies. They are also on the Internet at
http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors

Translations are in progress for readers of Russian, Arabic, Japanese, Simplified Mandarin and Indonesian.

Tourism operators will be asked to link with the Internet site to increase the amount of information available on Australian border laws.

The booklet and web site will help visitors to know about requirements for Customs, quarantine and immigration. It also provides general information on health, currency and wildlife.