The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) has alerted customs brokers and importers to two five-minute shutdowns—between 22:00 on 13 October and 04:00 on 14 October AEDT—affecting its entire Biosecurity Import Conditions (BICON) ecosystem, including the Cargo Online Lodgement System (COLS), Maritime and Aircraft Reporting System (MARS) and online-payment platforms. Although the window is short, previous outages have produced cascading delays as queued import declarations exceed automated-assessment capacity once systems reboot. Freight peak bodies estimate that every hour of clearance backlog adds roughly AU$1.3 million in demurrage and storage fees nationally. For global-mobility teams the relevance is twofold. First, accompanied personal effects and pet imports processed through PEBS may face clearance slippage, affecting relocating staff arriving this week. Second, any supply-chain delays can interrupt new-hire equipment deliveries and office fit-outs tied to assignment start dates. DAFF advises brokers to finalise in-progress permit applications before 22:00 AEDT and warns of response lags on Full Import Declarations overnight. Mobility managers should alert relocating employees shipping household goods to build extra buffer days into temporary-accommodation bookings. The outage underscores Australia’s heavy reliance on legacy biosecurity IT infrastructure; Treasury allocated AU$88.6 million in the May Budget for a multi-year systems modernisation, but procurement has yet to commence. Similar scheduled outages are expected monthly until at least Q2 2027.
