Freight & Trade Alliance (FTA) and Department of Immigration & Border Protection met in Canberra on 19 January 2017and subsequently received feedback from Treasury in response to our submission on the draft legislation – for further detail please refer attached.
FTA has expressed serious concerns about rushed industry engagement to complete the legislative drafting before Parliament sits again in early February with Royal Assent to be a formality. Despite our advocacy for an extended implementation timeframe, the government (and states) are clearly focussed on the need to collect additional GST revenue. We are following up by meeting Russell Zimmerman (CEO Australian Retailers Association) to gauge their views on the reform and whether the legislation meets the needs of the retail sector.
Complexity exists in terms of processes affecting overseas vendors – FTA's primary focus remains on issues directly affecting freight forwarders, express carriers and customs brokers – we are pleased to advise that these are being addressed as DIBP continue to closely engage with all major software developers and we have reassurances that compliance activity will be conducted on a retrospective basis with cargo not to be impeded at the Border.
Whilst FTA will continue its advocacy, we highly recommend that you and / or your clients pull out all stops to have systems and processes in place because at this stage it is unlikely that we will obtain any variation on a 1 July 2017 implementation.