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Commonwealth act
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).
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).
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.
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)).
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).
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Direct links to the current provisions in Passenger Movement Charge Act 1978.
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View on official registerSourced from the Federal Register of Legislation (legislation.gov.au), CC BY 4.0.
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).
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)).
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)).
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)).
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).
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).
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.
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).
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).
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.
(References are to numbered sections in the provided Act text.)