Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority announces cost recovery arrangements

The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) is funded by fees, charges and levies imposed on the industry it regulates.

Applicants pay fees so the APVMA can evaluate their applications, and registrants pay a levy based on the wholesale value of chemical products sold.

This ensures full cost recovery of all regulatory functions the APVMA provides to industry, and supports the agency to fulfil its statutory function to ensure agricultural and veterinary (agvet) chemicals sold within Australia are safe and effective to use.

The revised fee structure outlined in the APVMA’s Cost Recovery Implementation Statement (CRIS) will commence on 1 July 2020.

Background

An independent review of the APVMA’s cost recovery arrangements was undertaken by Pricewaterhouse Coopers in 2017. The key finding of the review was that the costs of the APVMA’s activities were not being covered by the fee structure implemented in July 2013.

Following this review, a number of discussion papers and consultation sessions were held with key stakeholders.

In November 2019 we published the draft CRIS for public consultation, which outlined three options for revising the APVMA’s cost recovery arrangements.

Following this consultation and a discussion forum held in December 2019, option three, which provided for a staged increase in the registration renewal fee and an increase in some Item and Module application fees, emerged as the preferred option across the majority of key stakeholders.

The Minister for Agriculture, the Hon David Littleproud MP, approved the revised CRIS in April 2020.

The Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Amendment (Cost Recovery) Regulations 2020, giving effect to the revised CRIS, received the Royal Assent on 14 May 2020.