
Choose from 5 options:
Our range of resources and educational activities will help you understand and comply with your obligations. Explore this website, including these guides and tools. You can also call or email us with your questions and ask for a face-to-face meeting. Other awareness raising measures include training events and stakeholder newsletters and targeted emails.
The IC Act places obligations on:
We don’t regulate:
The general guidance about the IC Act on this site sets out:
It is not possible to provide detailed guidance tailored to each regulated entity’s specific circumstances. We encourage all introducers of industrial chemicals to seek their own independent legal advice to determine their obligations under the IC Act.
Take a look at our getting started: registration, importing, manufacturing page
The IC Act triggers a number of provisions of the Regulatory Powers (Standard Provisions) Act 2014 (the Regulatory Powers Act), aligning the monitoring and enforcement powers of AICIS with those of other Commonwealth regulators.
The Regulatory Powers Act provides for a standard suite of provisions in relation to monitoring and investigation powers, as well as enforcement provisions through the use of civil penalties, infringement notices, enforceable undertakings and injunctions.
The standard provisions of the Regulatory Powers Act are an accepted baseline of powers required for an effective monitoring, investigation or enforcement regulatory regime, while providing adequate safeguards and protecting important common law privileges.
*Text on this page about the Regulatory Powers Act is taken directly from the Attorney General’s Department website.
Our aim is to make it as easy as possible for people to meet their compliance obligations. We use a range of tools and principles to achieve this.
Consistent with other Commonwealth regulators, we use legislated and non-legislated options for promoting compliance and addressing non-compliance with the IC Act. These options range from providing information so that regulated entities understand our time frames, processes and how they need to meet their obligations under the IC Act. This includes emphasising the cost of not meeting obligations, such as our power to enact the various sanctions available under the Regulatory Powers Act to punish serious non-compliance.
Many Commonwealth regulators provide representations of the “Braithwaite Pyramid” (Ayres and Braithwaite (1992) “Responsive Regulation: Transcending the deregulation debate”. New York: Oxford University Press) to illustrate these options. Examples include Biosecurity, ATO, and ACMA.
As illustrated in this diagram, risk to human health and environment increases as non-compliance increases.
Below, we explain each level of compliance and our approach in each instance.
This is where businesses:
Our approach to voluntary compliance is through education and raising awareness about compliance obligations.
We do this by:
This is where businesses:
Our approach to inadvertent non-compliance is to provide specific advice and information. We do this by:
This is where businesses:
Our approach to opportunistic non-compliance is one of correction and deterrence. We do this by:
This is where businesses:
Our approach to serious non-compliance is enforcement action. We have a range of enforcement powers depending on the situation which include: