CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 1
CUSTOMS TARIFF AMENDMENT BILL
(NO. 2) 1997 (NO. 3)
1.1 The Bill deals with three Tariff Proposals taken to
have commenced from January, and March 1997.
1.2 Items 1-5 of Schedule 4 of the Bill remove the duty
on imports of sugar and certain sugar by-products.
1.3 The amendments proposed by items 1-5 of Schedule 4
seek to validate Customs Tariff Proposal No.2 (1997) (the tariff proposal) tabled in the
House of Representatives on 26 March 1997.
1.4 The mechanism contained in the Bill is the
conventional procedure for effecting amendments to customs tariffs. A tariff proposal
reducing a customs tariff is tabled, and the Government sometime later seeks Parliament's
approval. All tariffs are legislatively based (see Customs Act 1901, ss. 273EA and
266).
1.5 The reduction of the tariff on sugar to zero, as
effected by the tariff proposal, is the final reduction in the tariff from a tariff of
$115 per tonne applied in 1989 to a figure of $55 per tonne which prevailed on 1 July
1997.
1.6 The tariff removal was recommended - inter alia - by
the Sugar Industry Review Working Party (the SIRWP)[1].
The SIRWP made 74 recommendations regarding the future of the sugar industry.
1.7 Removal of the tariff was the only SIRWP
recommendation to come within the Commonwealth's exclusive executive and legislative
jurisdiction.
Footnotes
[1] `Sugar - Winning
Globally', Report by the Sugar Industry Review Working Party (Mr Bruce
Vaughan, AO, Chairman), Brisbane, November, 1996.