Bill
Biosecurity Amendment (Traveller Declarations and Other Measures) Bill 2020
passed, as at 2020-11-20. Agriculture, Water and the Environment portfolio.
- Sponsor
- Not recorded
- Portfolio
- Agriculture, Water and the Environment
Recorded stages
- introduced — 2020-06-17
- second reading — 2020-06-17
- second reading — 2020-10-07
- second reading — 2020-10-07
- third reading — 2020-10-07
- introduced — 2020-10-07
- second reading — 2020-10-07
- second reading — 2020-11-11
- second reading — 2020-11-11
- third reading — 2020-11-11
- passed — 2020-11-11
- royal assent — 2020-11-20
Divisions
No divisions recorded. Most questions are decided on the voices; this does not establish that a bill was unopposed.
Plain-language summary
Written by a model from the explanatory memorandum; not the record, as at 2020-06-17.
This bill would change the Biosecurity Act to give officials more flexible ways to deal with travellers who break biosecurity rules.
The main change is to let regulations set different fine amounts for different types of breaches, and to allow the Director of Biosecurity to issue a list of goods that can attract higher fines.
The Director's list would last no more than 12 months and would not be subject to parliamentary disallowance because it is based on technical risk assessments.
- The bill would allow different penalty amounts for different kinds of alleged contraventions under the Biosecurity Act.
- It would permit the Director of Biosecurity to specify by legislative instrument which goods or classes of goods can have a higher infringement notice amount.
- It would clarify that regulations can set different payment periods depending on the kind of goods involved.
- It would make the Director's instrument not subject to parliamentary disallowance and limit its duration to 12 months.
- It would allow regulations to incorporate references to the instrument as it changes over time.
Travellers, crew, biosecurity officers, Australian Border Force officers, and the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment are affected.
Sources
em
billhome
frl act