Watch out for Australian Customs

[Joonya]

Hi all

Just a heads up for my fellow 2stroke lovers. If you are like me you get at least some of your parts from overseas. At the moment Australian quarantine (the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (DAWS) in particular) have got a bee in their bonnet about motor vehicles (including bikes) and parts for motor vehicles. I know about this for two reasons. First, I know someone who imports 2nd hand bikes, and he is having all sorts of problems with quarantine at the moment. Second, I just had a shipment of parts from Europe held back by DAWS for possible inspection, even though the parts are brand new. I have been able to get a declaration from the seller about the parts, which should sort my problem (I hope). If the seller had not been willing to provide the declaration I would have been up for a $90 fee to the shipping company for an initial inspection, a possible $105 fee if DAWS had wanted to do an official inspection, and after 5 days the shipping company starts charging $25/day for storage. Just something to be aware of if you are thinking of ordering parts from overseas.

[JonW]

this because of the new stupid 'zero asbestos' rules?

[Joonya]

Yeah it is for the bloke who imports bikes. In the case of my shipment, they seem to be more concerned that the parts might be used and therefore might have foreign material on them.
Update - DAWS have been next to impossible to deal with. The shipping company assures me that I am allowed to organise my own quarantine clearence, and they have had customers do just this. But I can't get info out of DAWS about how to do it. They just keep telling me I have to go through the shipping company. To avoid ongoing storage fees, I had to pay the $90 for the shipping company to clear my shipment.

[JonW]

hmm, Ive seen quite a bit about this online and its a sad state of affairs. The stories of the car import issues makes sobering reading about pathetic officialdom and silly spiralling costs. All very sad for what we tell ourselves is a progressive country.

[hybrid]

You can have the inspection done before it is exported too.

[Joonya]

I didn't know that they could be inspected prior to to being shipped. How does that work?

I suspect that if the parts are new, and the shipper marks them something like "Motorcycle spare parts. New, unused and not tested", then they would get through with no quarantine issues. The thing customs seem to want is the "new, unused and not tested." I'm not 100% sure, however, as I can't get any information out of DAWS.
Don't really know what the deal is with 2nd hand parts. I am guessing that they would have to be inspected, with all the fees that go with that process. I will continue to try and get info from DAWS (cause I'm a masochist) and post anything useful I manage to obtain.

[JonW]

I would suggest that a foreign 'pre inspection' will not always believed and while any postal declaration is legally binding, how would they prosecute someone in another country for a false declaration?

Knowing my own dealings with the Aussie govt bodies for other things, the only person who is trusted to provide any kind of stat dec is an Aussie citizen and while plenty of us live overseas its not likely your exporter is going to be one and be able to actually swear the parts are as required.

Ive read some terrible stories of guys importing cars where bits of the car (rare bits on rare cars) have been destroyed for sampling at the importers expense. Some older wiring, seam sealer, interior parts, body panels and of course clutch/brake linings have been said to contain asbestos. I was going to import a pre 89 car next year, but ive given up now, its just not worth the hassle.

One question; Why is 'not tested' a good thing in this declaration?

[Joonya]

The "not tested" thing is about the part being new and unused. If the actual part you are importing has been tested before being put up for sale, then Australian quarantine considers it is used, and therefore not new and unused. Note- this refers to the actual part you end up with in your hand. Of course, most automotive parts are not tested like this. Some samples are tested by the manufacturer, but not the actual ones they sell. With some parts, though, every one is tested before being put on sale. Watch out for these, as they are considered used by customs, and therefore more likely to get your shipment quarantined, with all the fees that go with that situation.

[jools]

I've been told by a bloke who knows (connected to a major manufacturer) that customs are having a blitz on asbestos content on imported bikes and parts at the moment. Many countries have no restrictions on asbestos content - in brakes, gaskets etc as Jon says. Apparently one importer is dropping out of business because of a 50k inspection cost on a container of (used) bikes.

[Joonya]

Yeah, the guy I know who imports bikes is in roughly the same position. He hasn't copped any massive inspection fees yet, but he has stopped his containers of import bikes to avoid having to pay these massive fees.
I have also heard a story (from a source I very much trust) of somebody who is being taken to court by the department for not disclosing asbestos on import paper work for some parts. Problem is, he did disclose that there might be asbestos. While there may be more to the story, I have seen a copy of the paper work, and it clearly discloses that the parts might contain asbestos.
Update on DAWR - Its 12 days since I was first made aware of my quarantine issue. The shipping company cleared it for me at a cost of $90. However, I am still not clear if I could done my own clearance. I can't get anything useful info out of DAWR. If they haven't got back to me by the end of this week, I'm going to take it to the minister's office. Its crazy that it has come to this. All I want to know is if I can do my own clearance, and if so what the process is.

[hybrid]

I'm not sure how it works, but the inspection can be done overseas.
Here is an example:
http://www.bosskraft.com/

Maybe this is only a US thing - It may be that Aus Customs has an agreement with US Customs for "Asbestos Free" certification.

[Joonya]

Final Update on DAWR - So I finally found the right person to speak to and got some useful info. Note that this info only applies to single shipments that are brought in by air or sea freight and valued at $1000 or less.

If your shipment is quarantined, the shipping company should let you know. At this point, you can organise to get the shipment cleared yourself (emailing declarations etc to DAWR), but given that this has to be matched up with other paperwork from the shipping company, it can slow the process down. You will need to balance the cost of getting the shipping company to do clearance vs. storage costs from the shipping company if you do the clearance yourself and it takes longer than expected. However, if you can get a signed and dated declaration from the parts supplier, on their own letter head, stating the parts are new, unused, and untested (assuming they are new parts), then this will greatly increase the chances that your shipment will sail through customs without being quarantined.