10,000 business people lose APEC travel card privileges

Around 10,000 Australian businesspeople have been unknowingly stripped of their APEC Business Travel Cards, a Senate Estimates hearing was told yesterday.

The cards are for business owners and managers trading in other APEC countries and allow executives access to a participating country for up to three months without a visa.

But with other APEC nations becoming concerned about the number of business travel cards, which was previously near 30,000, has lead to the eligibility criteria being tightened.

Under changes introduced last July, card holders need to be in the top tiers of management at their company, and need to be able to show they are trading or investing $5 million with APEC nations.

Around one third of pre-existing cardholders haven’t met the new criteria and thus, have been stripped of their previous benefits.

The decision was made suddenly, with no consultation and no communication of the decision from the department to business groups and card holders, the head of border security at the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Garry Fleming told a Senate hearing yesterday.

Immigration Department secretary Andrew Metcalfe told the hearing the APEC business travel cards were “substantially underfunded.”

“I suspect a review would need to take account (of the cost),” Metcalfe said.

Liberal Senator Russel Trodd was unhappy with the process, yesterday telling the department the lack of disclosure seemed like a “failure of communication with an important part of your constituency.”

Lisa McAuley from the Australian Institute of Exports says that these business travel cards are “highly valued by their owners”.
 
“They make business travel a lot easier. They’re treated (by customs) as a national citizen for which ever country they are arriving in.”
 
But one fault of the scheme is that only one person per business, normally the principle business owner, can be issued one of these business travel cards. McAuley says it’s quite normal for businesses to send multiple people to important trade meetings.
 
The travel cards allow just one person to skip through the queue, but then inconveniently must wait on the other side of the customs barriers while their colleagues fill out the paper work.