Nothing To Declare
 

I love watching this show, but it comes to mind(and I think I saw somewhere before with the same thought)It can come across as racist.

As I said I love watching it, but they can grill the life out of people sometimes.
Can an Asian fruit seed really create so much damage!

Maybe it can!

Re: Nothing To Declare
 

Yes it can, if its on the list of prohibited items especially if it contains any diseases and/or pests. Thats what customs and excise are there for to protect our borders and to ensure that seeds, plants, fresh fruit, meat, etc, etc which may contain diseases and/or pests do not cross our borders and therefore can't effect and/or wipe out our own industries.

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Is this due to the heat conditions in Oz? that these items can morph into a type a disease that can spread and cause havoc in the agricultural industry?

My mam was wondering about it as well, cos there is no such extremes to these items coming into Ireland from abroad.
So was wondering is it down to the heat and vast landscape, for disease to travel?
And is it proven historically?

It is great though, every Country should be as strict as this.

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it is because Australia is a fair way from any other land mass and its agricultural conditions are pretty unique. Like the wildlife, the pests here are unique (mostly) to Aus. So they are strict...even confiscated some cat treats we brought for our moggy.

Flying from UK we always pass through Asia, so arrive in Aus on an Asian flight. The red channel is always miles long. I guess they know the types which bring though the wierd Chinese foods.
H is Asian, but we never get stopped as we always declare and mostly it is chocolate. Perhaps you think it is racist because the Chinese peeps are stopped but they are the ones who bring in soooooo much food!

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Quite simply there are a lot of diseases that affect plants and animals which aren't found in Australia as yet, and the aim is to keep them out. Some of the Asian diseases that affect plants spread very quickly and can decimate crops very fast, doing untold damage to the economy and to people's livelihoods.
There are more pests in Asian countries than there are in places like the UK and Ireland, and also more people from Asian countries try to bring in their own foods - possibly partly because of the language barrier, they often don't understand the restrictions so well.

However, I remember the last big foot and mouth outbreak in the UK - at that time ALL people arriving here from the UK had their luggage checked and their footwear disinfected, so it isn't a racist thing at all.

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I don't remember the big foot outbreak. Did they catch him??

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That said, I do always fine it amusing you have to wash your boots and loads of other stuff when you ship stuff to Australia, yet your own footwear you take on the plane could carry all these bugs and dirt too, yet it never gets checked at all. I'm surprised we don't all have to walk through a sheep dip to enter the country...

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I like to bring in a rucksack full of apples just to annoy customs.

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Nice - next time chuck in a cheeky banana, and when they open the bag, express shock and horror at their being a banana in with all your apples. That's get them...:rofl:

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What I don't get is that you can't bring fruit in but if you eat it before you go through customs it's ok.

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Which, when you think it through, could be concerning. You eat fruit, you go through customs, and working on the principle of what goes in must come out, get caught short on the way home, stop off for a cheeky 'dropping the kids off at the pool (without the pool though)', and assuming you go into the woods, you have just seeded the perfect terrain and breeding ground for dodgy international seeds.

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This time last year i was obsessive with this show.
In the UK it was on at 11am every day and with me being off for the 6 week holidays.....:o
Doing it for real in a month! I do not wish to appear on the show though!
J x

Re: Nothing To Declare
 

yep on till they smile and say I'm very sorry but that amount of fruit will be a fine of up to $20,000 once you mess up once they watch out for you again so when your passport comes through they will immediately pull you and if any one post to your address.

How do I know :rofl: we had to fly to NZ to validate our visa and we did it with 4 kids one of which was only 2 and 1/2 weeks old ( I don't recommend it, not the baby now the Trip so soon after one ) but we were pretty tight on money so we made some lunch to take with us to eat in the airport before we left for Australia and we had a 1 kilo bag of apples and drinks packed in to our hand luggage. now in the airport our eldest son was after getting very pale and complains of pain in his stomach he looked awful and we were looking very worried and stressing over was he a going to start getting sick all over the place or B just have a few runs to the toilet ! I was hoping for B,
any way the poor lad fell asleep on top of the bags on the trolley as we ate our lunch and tried to keep our other two quite for the 1 hour wait before we went through the gates to wait to board. so we dumped all our food and off we went relieved that our eldest seemed a little better but all he wanted to do was sleep and I was panicking that they would come over and say we couldn't fly if he was sick. so off we went eventually and landed in Australia relieved to be there at last worn out me especially with the baby, who while we are going through immigration had opened her lungs to the world protesting for food ,as I was feeding her my self I wasn't whipping out a boob there. but we were both saying oh hurry! up hurry up! get our bags through, when we were pulled to one side. I wasn't worried , he then asked us are you bla bla, did you fill out these cards(you know the ones cant remember what they are called sorry) we answered yes,( was getting a bit worried now as he seemed serious) then he asked have you any food in your bag we said no, we ate it in Newzealand and he was very nice saying, ah its probably something else so do you have candles or any thing in the bag, I said no nothing like that at all. so after a few more questions and us sure we had nothing in the bag, thinking did one of the kids put something in may be, he was about to open the bag stopped and said are you sure you have no food in the bag any fruit, oranges any thing like that. yep light bulb moment, it clicked, I just said oh F***K the apples! there is a bag of apples we forgot them,

he was very nice to us and said that because, I remembered the apples before he opened the bag we wouldn't be fined, but that much fruit could of landed us with a $20,000 fine and may be a prison sentence. I nearly died, he said if we ever came in to Australia again we would be pulled and any mail being sent to our address would be checked. but thankfully we got no fine.
They did check our mail as well, friend's sent us post cards that were checked, so was a parcel for the baby, we changed address after that so we were OK then.

he did say welcome to Australia though, Think we were very lucky that day,:lol:

I want to send some chocolate and crisps to a friend in Australia are they allowed. Ive checked the web site and it Say's no dairy is that chocolate out.

Thanks :)

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Chocolate and crisps are fine, declare what they are on the customs label and you won't have a problem even if AQIS open the package and inspect it :) Done it many times myself :)

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If you ever actually tried to do that you would find it does more than "annoy" customs.