Customs Act 1901

PART XII - OFFICERS  

Division 1 - Powers of officers  

Subdivision J - General powers to monitor and audit  

SECTION 214AB   WHAT ARE MONITORING POWERS?  

214AB(1)   Monitoring powers.  

For the purposes of this Subdivision, the following are monitoring 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 power to secure a thing that:

(i) is found during a search of premises; and

(ii) a monitoring officer believes on reasonable grounds affords evidence of the commission of an offence against a Customs-related law and may be lost, destroyed or tampered with;

until a warrant is obtained to seize the thing or 72 hours elapses after the securing of the thing, whichever first occurs;

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

214AB(2)   Power to operate equipment to check information.  

For the purposes of this Subdivision, monitoring 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 assessing:

(c) whether a person is complying with a Customs-related law; or

(d) whether a person ' s record-keeping, accounting, computing or other operating systems of any kind accurately record and generate information to enable compliance with a Customs-related law; or

(e) the correctness of information communicated by a person to the Department (whether in documentary or other form).

214AB(3)   Power to copy information found by operating equipment.  

For the purposes of this Subdivision, monitoring 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 facilities at the premises to put the information in documentary form and copy the documents so produced;

(b) the power to operate 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;

(c) the power to remove from the premises a disk, tape or other storage device to which the information has been transferred in exercise of the power under paragraph (b).