Customs Act 1901

PART XII - OFFICERS  

Division 1 - Powers of officers  

Subdivision JA - Powers to monitor and audit - Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement  

SECTION 214BAC   AUSFTA VERIFICATION POWERS  

214BAC(1)    
For the purposes of this Subdivision, the following are the AUSFTA verification powers :

(a) the power to search premises;

(b) the power to take photographs (including a video recording), or make sketches, of premises or anything at premises;

(c) the power to inspect, examine, count, measure, weigh, gauge, test or analyse, and take samples of, anything in or on premises;

(d) the power to inspect any document or record in or on premises;

(e) the power to take extracts from, or make copies of, any document or record in or on premises;

(f) the power to take into or onto premises any equipment or material reasonably necessary for the purpose of exercising a power under paragraph (a), (b), (c), (d) or (e);

(g) the power to test and operate record-keeping, accounting, computing or other operating systems of any kind that are at premises and may be used to generate or record information or documents of a kind that may be communicated to the Department;

(h) the powers in subsections (2) and (3).

214BAC(2)   Operation of equipment.  

For the purposes of this Subdivision, the AUSFTA verification powers include the power to operate equipment at premises to see whether:

(a) the equipment; or

(b) a disk, tape or other storage device that:

(i) is at the premises; and

(ii) can be used with the equipment or is associated with it;

contains information that is relevant to the verification of information relating to the export, production or transportation of textile and clothing goods that are exported to the US.

214BAC(3)   Removing documents and disks etc.  

For the purposes of this Subdivision, the AUSFTA verification powers include the following powers in relation to information described in subsection (2) that is found in the exercise of the power under that subsection:

(a) the power to operate equipment or other facilities at the premises to put the information in documentary form and remove the documents so produced;

(b) the power to operate equipment or other facilities at the premises to transfer the information to a disk, tape or other storage device:

(i) that is brought to the premises for the exercise of the power; or

(ii) that is at the premises and the use of which for the purpose has been agreed in writing by the occupier of the premises;

and to remove the disk, tape or other storage device from the premises.