SENATOR JOE LUDWIG

Shadow Minister for Justice and Customs

Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate

Labor Senator for Queensland                                                                                  10 May 2006

 

TRADE COMMUNITY PUNISHED FOR

CONTRIBUTING TO THE ECONOMY

 

Customs Minister Chris Ellison has failed to extract any gains for the Australian trade community, instead sending them backwards with a massive import fee hike.

 

Analysis of the budget shows that company tax is contributing a larger part of the Government's revenue, but instead of helping industry to grow so it can carry the tax burden, the Liberal Party seems intent on punishing the trade community.

 

Massive fee slug

 

An additional $69 million is scheduled to be gouged from importers through a whopping 34% increase in air/post import processing charge from $30.10 to $40.20 per declaration.

 

This hit comes off the back of a recent $6.2 million dollar hike achieved by aligning the postal and air cargo import entry level thresholds.

 

More Money to Customs Black Hole

 

Initial analysis reveals a seemingly dodgy $6.2 million funding boost to `maintain data access for border control agencies'.

 

Given $26 million was already allocated for this purpose, Labor questions whether this is not just more cash being shovelled to plug the Customs budget black hole, caused by the climbing $200 million blowout of the Customs IT projects.

 

In what must be a major embarrassment for Senator Ellison, the Treasurer has belied the cat on the botched implementation of the Integrated Cargo System admitting: `technical and business issues resulted in the delayed movement of some cargo' resulting in `potential liability that `cannot be quantified at this stage'.

 

Missing in Action - Minister's broken promise on Trade red tape

 

The Minister has broken a commitment to industry by failing to secure any funds for a 30-day Customs trading account, as part of the dud Accredited Client Program ( ACP ).

 

Incredibly, this ACP also fails to deliver any security gains to the community that the international standard demands.

No reform - Anti-Dumping and Customs prosecutions

 

It's clear that Minister Ellison's review of anti-dumping is not actually intended to deliver major reform as no funds have been allocated for this purpose.

 

Despite ten long years of prompting from the Australian Law Reform Commission, the Courts, industry and even his own backbench, there is no allocation to deal with reform of Customs prosecutions.

 

Plenty of new guns - but no proper oversight

 

The Customs service is increasingly called on to deal with a range of threats, acquiring new powers, access to intelligence, technology and equipment. They are effectively becoming a `border police'.

 

However, the Minister will not guarantee that the Customs service will be subject to the same oversight as the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission.

 

The ACS should be under the purview of the new Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity - as AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty said himself:

 

There is a gap here - and I do not want to name agencies - if you look at the powers, such as access to search warrants, access to the use of firearms and access to detention.

 

For further information contact: Simon Every 0417 308 144