Originally published in the Canberra Times
Close to half a million prohibited items could have evaded Customs mail screening in 2012-13, allowing guns, drugs and quarantine risk items into the community. The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) says Customs’ seizure of 67,123 prohibited imports represented around 13 per cent of potential prohibited imports.
In a 2012 report on its own performance, Customs cited the increasing number of successful seizures and concluded that this demonstrated “low level of leakage of a small number of prohibited imports of a minor nature.”
But the ANAO said Customs really didn’t know as it had never calculated its leakage rate.