Australian Customs

Australia Customs manages the security and integrity of Australia’s borders. It works closely with other government and international agencies, in particular the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs and the Department of Defence, to detect and deter unlawful movement of goods and people across the border.

Protecting the Australian community through the interception of illegal drugs and firearms is a high priority and sophisticated techniques are used to target high-risk aircraft, vessels, cargo, postal items and travellers. This includes intelligence analysis, computer-based analysis, detector dogs and various other technologies. Customs detector dogs are trained at the Customs Detector Dog Training Centre (DDTC) in Canberra to detect specific target odours. This can include training to find a range of narcotic, firearms, and explosive substances.

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How Has Customs Changed?

Canada Customs has changed the way in which customs and trade legislation is enforced. In the past, Customs verified one import at a time at the port of entry. Officers at the port inspected shipments and documents at the time of release. However, changes in trade environments, together with ongoing administrative cost constraints, have challenged Customs to find more efficient ways of enforcing its laws and regulations. Like their private-sector counterparts, customs administrations are under constant pressure to do more with less. As a result, Customs has moved from the old, transactional model of enforcement to comprehensive on-site audits of importers.

This has greatly increased the legal bonus on importers to ensure the correctness of customs accounting. Importers’ customs accounting will be further tested when Canada Border Services Agency implements its comprehensive penalty mechanism, Administrative Monetary Penalty System (AMPS). AMPS will impose penalties on importers not only for customs accounting errors having a revenue implication, but also for errors in the submission of purely statistical information.

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