{"id":"C2004A01917","name":"Passenger Movement Charge Act 1978","slug":"passenger-movement-charge-act-1978","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"in_force","isInForce":true,"actNumber":"118 of 1978","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":6535,"registerId":"commonwealth-C2004A01917-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-30","status":"InForce","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Short title","content":"#### 1 Short title\n\n  This Act may be cited as the Passenger Movement Charge Act 1978.","sortOrder":0},{"sectionNumber":"2","sectionType":"section","heading":"Commencement","content":"#### 2 Commencement\n\n  This Act shall come into operation on a date to be fixed by Proclamation.","sortOrder":1},{"sectionNumber":"3","sectionType":"section","heading":"Definitions","content":"#### 3 Definitions\n\n  In this Act:\n\n> Collection Act means the Passenger Movement Charge Collection Act 1978.\n\n> external Territory has the same meaning as in the Collection Act.\n\n> Indian Ocean Territory means:\n\n    (a) the Territory of Christmas Island; or\n    (b) the Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands.\n\n> installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area means a resources installation, or a sea installation, that is attached to the seabed in the Greater Sunrise special regime area (within the meaning of the Seas and Submerged Lands Act 1973).\n\n> resources installation has the same meaning as in subsection 4(1) of the Customs Act 1901.\n\n> sea installation has the same meaning as in subsection 4(1) of the Customs Act 1901.","sortOrder":2},{"sectionNumber":"4","sectionType":"section","heading":"Travel involving intermediate destinations","content":"#### 4 Travel involving intermediate destinations\n\n  (1) For the purposes of this Act, if:\n    (a) a person departs from Australia for an external Territory; and\n    (b) the person is not ordinarily resident in that external Territory; and\n    (c) the person intends, at the time of the departure, to depart from that external Territory for another country, or for an installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area, within 3 months after the departure from Australia;\n  the first‑mentioned departure is taken to be a departure of the person from Australia for that other country or for that installation, as the case requires.\n  (2) For the purposes of this Act (including subsection (1)), if:\n    (a) a person departs from Australia for another country or for an installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area; and\n    (b) the person intends, at the time of the departure, to depart from that other country, or from an installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area, for an external Territory within 7 days after the departure from Australia;\n  the first‑mentioned departure is taken to be a departure from Australia for that external Territory.\n  (3) For the purposes of this Act, if:\n    (a) a person departs from Norfolk Island or an Indian Ocean Territory for another country or for an installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area; and\n    (b) the person intends, at the time of the departure, to depart from that other country, or from an installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area, for a place in Australia other than that first‑mentioned Territory within 7 days after the first‑mentioned departure;\n  the first‑mentioned departure is taken not to be a departure from Australia for another country or for an installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area.\n  (4) For the purposes of this Act, if:\n    (a) a person departs from a part of Australia other than Norfolk Island or an Indian Ocean Territory for another country or for an installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area; and\n    (b) the person intends, at the time of the departure, to depart from that other country, or from an installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area, for Norfolk Island or an Indian Ocean Territory within 7 days after the first‑mentioned departure;\n  the first‑mentioned departure is taken not to be a departure from Australia for another country or for an installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area.","sortOrder":3},{"sectionNumber":"5","sectionType":"section","heading":"Imposition of passenger movement charge","content":"#### 5 Imposition of passenger movement charge\n\n  Charge, called passenger movement charge, is imposed in respect of the departure of a person from Australia:\n    (a) for another country, after the commencement of this Act; or\n    (b) for an installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area, after the commencement of the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment (Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty) Act 2019;\n  whether or not the person intends to return to Australia.","sortOrder":4},{"sectionNumber":"6","sectionType":"section","heading":"Rate of passenger movement charge","content":"#### 6 Rate of passenger movement charge\n\n  The rate of charge imposed by this Act in respect of the departure of a person from Australia is $70.","sortOrder":5}],"analysis":{"flash_summary":{"complexity_score":4,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"Based solely on the provided text, there is no indication that the Act’s substantive scope has been altered from its own internal statements. The Act imposes a $70 passenger movement charge on departures from Australia to other countries (s.5, s.6), defines how certain intermediate or territory‑linked journeys are treated for charge purposes (s.4), and sets commencement mechanics (s.2). The text does reference a later amendment for coverage of Greater Sunrise installations (s.5(b)), but that is a conditional activation rather than a demonstrated change of scope within the supplied material."},"complexity_factors":["Cross‑references to other statutes for collection mechanics (Passenger Movement Charge Collection Act 1978) and for definitions (Customs Act 1901) (s.3).","Multiple territory‑specific treatment rules with different time windows (3 months and 7 days) that recharacterise departures for charge‑purposes (s.4(1)‑(4)).","A fixed monetary rate set in the Act rather than a formula, which simplifies calculation but creates behavioural substitution incentives (s.6).","Staggered commencement features: general commencement by proclamation (s.2) and delayed/conditional coverage for Greater Sunrise installations tied to a named amendment (s.5(b)).","Definitions that rely on external statutory meanings (external Territory, installation, Indian Ocean Territory), increasing interpretive dependency (s.3).","Absence in this text of collection procedure details (delegated to the Collection Act), which requires reading multiple instruments to understand compliance duties (s.3)."],"plain_english_summary":"### What this Act does, in plain terms\n\n- The Act creates a fixed fee called the passenger movement charge that applies when a person leaves Australia for another country or, in a later commencement, for an installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area (see s.5).  The charge amount is set at $70 (see s.6).\n\n- The charge applies to a person’s departure whether or not they plan to return to Australia (see s.5).  The Act does not set out collection mechanics here; it cross‑refers to the Passenger Movement Charge Collection Act 1978 in its definitions (see s.3).\n\n- The Act contains rules that change how certain departures are treated for the purpose of applying the charge, depending on travel involving external Territories, Norfolk Island, or Indian Ocean Territories and on the traveller’s stated intentions and short timeframes (see s.4).  Those rules determine whether an intermediate stop counts as the effective departure from Australia for charge purposes.\n\n- The Act comes into force on a date set by proclamation (see s.2).  One of its charge‑triggers (departures to installations in the Greater Sunrise special regime area) is tied to a later amendment (the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment (Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty) Act 2019) and so takes effect after that amendment (see s.5(b)).\n\n### Who pays and who decides\n\n- Who pays: the person who departs Australia for another country or (after the amendment takes effect) for an installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area (see s.5 and s.6).\n\n- Who decides timing: the government chooses the Act’s start date by proclamation (see s.2).  The regime’s coverage for Greater Sunrise installations depends on the later amendment identified in s.5(b).\n\n### How the travel‑rules work (mechanics)\n\n- If a traveller leaves Australia for an external Territory but is not ordinarily resident there and intends at the time of departure to continue to a third country or to a Greater Sunrise installation within 3 months, the law treats the first departure as if it were a direct departure from Australia to that third destination (s.4(1)).\n\n- If a person leaves Australia for another country or a Greater Sunrise installation and intends to leave that place for an external Territory within 7 days, the original departure is treated as a departure from Australia for that external Territory (s.4(2)).\n\n- Conversely, departures from Norfolk Island or an Indian Ocean Territory to another country or a Greater Sunrise installation that will return to Australia within 7 days are treated as not being departures from Australia for those destinations (s.4(3)).  Similarly, departures from mainland Australia for another country or Greater Sunrise installations where the traveller intends to go to Norfolk Island or an Indian Ocean Territory within 7 days are treated as not a departure from Australia for those destinations (s.4(4)).\n\n### Testing likely policy effects against practical trade‑offs and implementation points\n\n- Revenue burden and incidence: the Act imposes a flat $70 charge on each qualifying departure; the direct payer is each departing person (s.5, s.6).  The measure’s revenue effect is concentrated on travellers; the text does not scale the charge to trip length, fare class or purpose, so the per‑person cash burden is the same across trips (s.6).\n\n- Incentives and substitution: because the charge is a fixed dollar amount per departure, travellers facing marginal travel decisions may respond by changing routes or timings.  The Act’s detailed rules for external Territories and short connecting‑periods (s.4) create concrete windows in which routing can change whether a journey is chargeable — that produces opportunities for behavioural substitution (s.4).\n\n- Administrative discretion and timing risk: commencement is by proclamation (s.2), so the executive controls when the Act starts.  Coverage for departures to Greater Sunrise installations depends on a separately named amendment (s.5(b)), introducing an additional timing dependency.\n\n- Compliance and collection burden: the Act imposes the charge but does not set out collection procedures here; it defines the Collection Act in s.3, indicating collection rules are located elsewhere.  That separation concentrates legal rules about liability in this Act and collection procedures in another instrument (s.3).\n\n- Cross‑reference and definition dependence: the Act relies on definitions and meanings from other legislation (for example, the Collection Act and the Customs Act for installation definitions; s.3).  This creates implementation dependence on other statutory texts for precise operational definitions (s.3).\n\n- Trade‑offs and opportunity cost: a flat per‑person charge is administratively simple (single rate at s.6) but does not discriminate between high‑value and low‑value trips, which is a trade‑off between simplicity and targeting.  The territorial travel rules (s.4) reduce some routes that would otherwise avoid the charge but add temporal complexity for travellers and administrators.\n\n### Key implementation and compliance points to watch\n\n- The effective start date (s.2) and the later activation for Greater Sunrise installations (s.5(b)).\n- The treatment of departures involving external Territories, Norfolk Island, and Indian Ocean Territories with 3‑month and 7‑day windows (s.4).  These rules determine whether particular itineraries are chargeable.\n- Collection rules are delegated to the Collection Act referenced in s.3; practical collection obligations and liable collectors are therefore set out outside this text.\n\n(References are to numbered sections in the provided Act text.)"},"kimi_summary":{"content_quality":"ok","complexity_score":4,"scope_assessment":{"changed":true,"description":"Originally enacted in 1978 as a simple departure tax for international travel, the legislation has expanded beyond its original scope. The 2019 amendment (referenced in section 5(b)) extended the charge to cover departures for installations in the Greater Sunrise special regime area following the Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty. This transformed a straightforward international travel tax into one also covering specific offshore resource installations, adding significant geographic and technical complexity."},"complexity_factors":["Multiple defined terms (6 definitions) that cross-reference other Acts (Collection Act, Customs Act 1901, Seas and Submerged Lands Act 1973)","Four subsections of conditional 'deeming' rules in section 4 that create fictional departures for tax purposes based on traveller intent and timing","Nested time conditions (3 months vs 7 days depending on direction of travel)","Geographic complexity involving distinctions between: mainland Australia, external Territories, Norfolk Island, Indian Ocean Territories, and the Greater Sunrise special regime area","Amendment-triggered commencement (section 5(b)) creating dual commencement dates for different geographic scopes"],"plain_english_summary":"This law creates a **departure tax** (called the 'passenger movement charge') that you must pay when leaving Australia.\n\n**What it does:**\n- Charges **$70** every time a person departs Australia for another country\n- Also applies when departing for certain offshore oil/gas installations in the Timor Sea (the 'Greater Sunrise special regime area')\n- Applies whether or not you plan to return to Australia\n\n**Who it affects:**\n- Anyone leaving Australia for overseas (tourists, business travellers, Australians going on holiday, foreign visitors leaving)\n- People working on or visiting specific offshore resources installations in the Timor Sea\n\n**Special rules for complex travel:**\nThe Act includes tricky rules about 'transit' travel to stop people avoiding the charge:\n- If you fly from mainland Australia to an external Territory (like Christmas Island) intending to leave for overseas within 3 months, you're treated as leaving Australia directly (so you pay the charge)\n- If you leave Australia for overseas but intend to visit an external Territory within 7 days, you're treated as going to that Territory instead (potentially avoiding the charge)\n- Similar rules apply in reverse for Norfolk Island and the Indian Ocean Territories\n\n**Why it matters:**\nThis is essentially Australia's **'exit tax'** on international travel. It generates significant revenue for the government (collected by airlines when you buy your ticket). The 2019 amendment extended it to cover the Greater Sunrise offshore gas field area following a treaty with Timor-Leste."},"summary":{"complexity_score":4,"scope_assessment":{"changed":true,"description":"The Act was originally limited to departures for 'another country' (1978). Its scope was expanded in 2019 by the Passenger Movement Charge Amendment (Timor Sea Maritime Boundaries Treaty) Act 2019 to also cover departures to installations in the Greater Sunrise special regime area, reflecting the new maritime boundary arrangements between Australia and Timor-Leste."},"complexity_factors":["Multiple layered rules about intermediate destinations requiring careful reading to determine when a charge applies","Cross-references to other legislation (Passenger Movement Charge Collection Act 1978, Customs Act 1901, Seas and Submerged Lands Act 1973)","Distinctions between different categories of Australian territory (external territories, Indian Ocean Territories, Norfolk Island, mainland Australia)","The Greater Sunrise special regime area provisions require understanding of maritime boundary law context","Time-based conditions (3-month and 7-day thresholds) create nuanced scenarios","Circular definitional dependencies between this Act and the Collection Act"],"plain_english_summary":"## Passenger Movement Charge Act 1978\n\n**What is this?**\nThis law imposes a charge (tax) on people who **leave Australia** for another country. You've almost certainly paid this — it's commonly known as the **departure tax** and is currently set at **$70 per person**.\n\n**Who does it affect?**\nEssentially anyone departing Australia for an overseas destination, whether or not they plan to come back. This includes tourists, business travellers, emigrants, and Australian residents.\n\n**The tricky parts — intermediate stops:**\nThe law includes special rules to prevent people from dodging the charge by routing their trip through Australian territories (like Christmas Island or the Cocos Keeling Islands):\n\n- If you leave Australia for an **external territory** (e.g. Christmas Island) but plan to then travel to another country within **3 months**, you're treated as if you left Australia directly for that other country — the charge applies.\n- If you leave Australia heading overseas but plan to stop in an external territory within **7 days**, you're treated as departing for that territory instead (which may affect whether the charge applies).\n- Special rules also apply to travel **from** Norfolk Island or the Indian Ocean Territories (Christmas Island, Cocos Keeling Islands) — short trips via overseas destinations don't automatically trigger the charge.\n\n**The Greater Sunrise area:**\nThere's also a provision covering departures to oil/gas installations in the **Greater Sunrise special regime area** — a maritime zone between Australia and Timor-Leste. This was added in 2019 following a treaty with Timor-Leste.\n\n**Bottom line:** If you're flying or sailing out of Australia to another country, you're paying $70 in departure tax. The complex rules mainly matter if your journey involves Australian island territories as stopovers."},"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[{"type":"circular_definition","section":"4(1) and 4(2)","severity":"medium","reasoning":"Section 4(2) states it applies 'for the purposes of this Act (including subsection (1))'. This means a departure already fictionally reclassified under 4(1) as a departure 'for another country' could then satisfy the conditions of 4(2) — the person has departed 'for another country' and intends to then go to an external Territory within 7 days — causing it to be re-reclassified back as a departure for an external Territory. That reclassified departure could then re-trigger 4(1) again if onward international travel is intended within 3 months. The mutual cross-reference creates a logical circularity with no termination rule.","confidence":0.72,"description":"Circular reclassification loop: subsection 4(2) explicitly applies 'including subsection (1)', creating a potential infinite definitional loop where a departure reclassified under 4(1) could then be re-reclassified under 4(2), which feeds back into 4(1) again."},{"type":"impossible_compliance","section":"4(1)(b)","severity":"low","reasoning":"Ordinary residence is a legal conclusion requiring assessment of intention, duration, and pattern of life. Carriers and authorities must determine this at the point of departure with no objective test provided in the Act or definitional guidance. A person transitioning residency status could be simultaneously arguable as ordinarily resident or not, making it structurally impossible to reliably determine charge liability.","confidence":0.6,"description":"The condition 'not ordinarily resident in that external Territory' is an entirely subjective and temporally unstable fact that must be assessed at the moment of departure, yet it determines whether a charge is imposed — a fact that may be unknowable or disputed at the relevant time, rendering compliance uncertain."},{"type":"impossible_compliance","section":"4(1)(c) and 4(2)(b)","severity":"medium","reasoning":"The Act imposes or removes charge liability based on what a person 'intends at the time of departure'. Intention is purely subjective and self-reported. A person could truthfully or dishonestly assert any intention, and there is no mechanism in this Act to verify, challenge, or correct a stated intention after the fact. The charge is thus practically self-assessed based on unfalsifiable mental states. This is structurally absurd in a charging Act.","confidence":0.78,"description":"Both subsections impose charge liability based solely on subjective intention at the time of departure, which is inherently unverifiable and can be retrospectively reconstructed, creating an absurd enforcement regime where the taxable event depends entirely on an internal mental state."},{"type":"other","section":"4(3)","severity":"low","reasoning":"Norfolk Island and the Indian Ocean Territories are external Territories. A person departing from them for an overseas country is departing from an external Territory, not from mainland Australia. Section 5 imposes charge on departure 'from Australia'. Whether these territories are 'Australia' for this Act's purposes is defined by reference to the Collection Act, not this Act. The negative deeming in 4(3) presupposes these departures would otherwise be chargeable departures 'from Australia', which may already be false without any deeming, making 4(3) potentially operate on a null set.","confidence":0.55,"description":"Section 4(3) deems a departure from Norfolk Island or an Indian Ocean Territory 'not to be a departure from Australia for another country' — yet for a departure from those territories to have occurred at all in the context of this Act, the person must already have departed Australia (mainland) to reach them. The deeming provision may operate on a departure that was itself never legally characterised as a chargeable departure, making the negative deeming redundant or impossible to apply."},{"type":"self_contradicting","section":"4(4)","severity":"medium","reasoning":"Under 4(1), a departure from Australia for an external Territory can be deemed a departure for another country if onward international travel is intended within 3 months. Under 4(4), a departure from Australia for another country is deemed NOT a departure for another country if the person intends to then travel to Norfolk Island or an Indian Ocean Territory within 7 days. If a person departs mainland Australia ostensibly for another country, then to Norfolk Island, then internationally — 4(4) first removes the charge characterisation, but 4(1) (if the Norfolk Island leg is the external Territory) would potentially re-impose it. The interaction between these provisions produces inconsistent outcomes depending on the order of application.","confidence":0.67,"description":"Section 4(4) deems a departure from mainland Australia 'not to be a departure from Australia for another country' where the person intends to continue to Norfolk Island or an Indian Ocean Territory within 7 days. However, Norfolk Island and the Indian Ocean Territories are themselves external Territories under the Collection Act. A departure from Australia 'for an external Territory' is the very scenario addressed in section 4(1), creating a structural redundancy and potential conflict between 4(4)'s negative deeming and 4(1)'s positive reclassification."},{"type":"circular_definition","section":"3 — definition of 'external Territory'","severity":"low","reasoning":"Definitional bootstrapping through cross-reference to a companion Act creates fragility. While common in drafting, the total absence of any fallback definition means this Act's core operative provisions depend entirely on the continued existence and consistent interpretation of the Collection Act's definition. This is a structural dependency that could produce absurd results if the Collection Act changes.","confidence":0.5,"description":"The definition of 'external Territory' is entirely circular within the legislative scheme: this Act defines it by reference to the Collection Act, and the Collection Act presumably defines it by reference to general law or another instrument. If the Collection Act is amended or repealed, 'external Territory' becomes undefined in this Act, potentially rendering sections 4(1), 4(2), 4(3), and 4(4) inoperable."}],"contradictions":[{"severity":"high","section_a":"4(1)","section_b":"4(2)","confidence":0.75,"description":"Sections 4(1) and 4(2) can simultaneously apply to the same departure in opposing directions. A departure from Australia for an external Territory can be reclassified under 4(1) as a departure for another country. That reclassified departure can then satisfy 4(2) (departure for another country, with intent to go to an external Territory within 7 days), causing it to be reclassified back as a departure for an external Territory — which in turn re-engages 4(1). There is no rule of priority, no iteration limit, and no tie-breaker."},{"severity":"high","section_a":"4(4)","section_b":"4(1)","confidence":0.7,"description":"Section 4(4) deems a departure from mainland Australia for another country to NOT be a departure for another country where the person intends to proceed to Norfolk Island or an Indian Ocean Territory within 7 days. However, section 4(1) operates on departures from Australia for an external Territory (which includes Norfolk Island and Indian Ocean Territories) and can re-deem such a departure as one for another country if further international travel is intended within 3 months. Applied sequentially, 4(4) removes the charge and 4(1) restores it, with no provision resolving which deeming prevails."},{"severity":"medium","section_a":"5(a)","section_b":"4(3)","confidence":0.58,"description":"Section 5 imposes charge on departure from 'Australia' for another country. Section 4(3) deems certain departures from Norfolk Island and Indian Ocean Territories to not be departures from Australia for another country. However, if these territories are already outside 'Australia' for the purposes of section 5, then section 4(3)'s negative deeming is superfluous and internally contradicts the implied assumption in 4(3) that such departures would otherwise be caught by section 5."},{"severity":"low","section_a":"5(b)","section_b":"5(a)","confidence":0.62,"description":"Section 5 imposes charge on departure for 'another country' after commencement of the Act (paragraph (a)), and separately on departure for an installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area after the 2019 amendment Act (paragraph (b)). This implies installations in the Greater Sunrise special regime area are NOT 'another country' for the purposes of paragraph (a). However, section 4 consistently treats departures 'for another country or for an installation in the Greater Sunrise special regime area' as equivalent alternatives, implying functional equivalence. The structural separation in section 5 contradicts the functional equivalence assumed throughout section 4."}]}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/passenger-movement-charge-act-1978","history":"/api/acts/passenger-movement-charge-act-1978/history","analysis":"/api/acts/passenger-movement-charge-act-1978/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/passenger-movement-charge-act-1978/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/passenger-movement-charge-act-1978/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/passenger-movement-charge-act-1978/documents"}}