Biosecurity expenses for the SAC pathway

Question

DAFF has confirmed through an administrative release that actual biosecurity expenses for the SAC pathway were $37.1 million in FY24-25, across 150.3 million declarations: an actual cost of 25 cents per declaration. Yet you charge commercial carriers 37 cents. That's 48% above your own actual costs. How can you justify charging 48% above the actual costs? What external auditing or checks are done to validate your costs? Will the department commit to offsetting the over-recovery by reducing the SAC charge rate for FY26-27 to reflect actual costs of 25 cents per declaration? How will this be credited back to industry? You have released planned cost increases for FY26 - 27 including increasing the SAC charge to 38 cents (up from 36 cents initially, and then more recently 37 cents): How can you justify this cost increase? Given the SAC pathway is largely digital, wouldn't the cost per unit decrease as volumes increase as you get efficiencies of scale? Given inspection costs are charged separately and on top of the SAC charge, how can you justify increasing the SAC rates?

Answer

Please see PDF attachment.

Documents

• Question with answer (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• SQ26-000465.pdf (opens in a new tab)