I have seen questions asked about getting things to Australia. This is from a submission for productivity from 2011 that AusPost did.


  1. It should be stressed that Australia Post has no involvement in the actual screening ofpostal articles for Australia?s security and quarantine requirements or in the assessment,payment or collection of customs duties and taxes. Responsibility for these mattersremains strictly with Customs and AQIS.
  2. Australia Post does, however, play a facilitating role in the clearance processes of theborder agencies.
  3. Australia Post is required to present all inbound international postal articles for riskassessment and screening by Customs and AQIS respectively at Australia Post?s fourinternational gateways. It is the border agencies that determine whether a particular postalarticle is ?low risk? or below the low value threshold.
  4. Only after the postal articles are screened by the border agencies are they lodged into theAustralia Post domestic network.
  5. Currently, postal articles targeted by Customs and or AQIS pending completion offormalities in respect of GST, import duty and or security/quarantine matters are storedby Australia Post. In the case of duty and or tax formalities, Australia Post, at its ownexpense, notifies the concerned addressees that they are required to contact Customs. AFirst Notice (PPC1) is issued to the addressee providing information on the postal articlebased on the details declared by the sender. The First Notice would also includeinformation on, and the forms needed for, customs clearance processes.
  6. Postal items of particular interest to Customs and or AQIS are referred to a secondinspection process. Australia Post staff are required under Australia Post?s enablinglegislation, the Australian Postal Corporation Act 1989 (Cth) (and not internationalagreements ? page 181 of draft report) to open such postal items for assessment byCustoms and or AQIS. After the inspection is completed, the items are then resealed byAustralia Post staff.
  7. Addressees have one month from the date of a First Notice to have their postal articlescustoms cleared. Subsequent reminder notices (referred to as Second Notice and FinalNotice respectively) are also sent (again at Australia Post?s own expense) to the addressee if no action has been taken by the addressee. If the postal article is not cleared within onemonth, the postal article will be returned to the sender or treated in accordance with anyalternative instructions given by the sender.