One of the fundamental roles of governments during the COVID–19 Pandemic has been to assist the movement of goods through the international and domestic supply chain as well as to support those providing services in that supply chain. While there has been an understandable focus on movement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and related equipment and medication needed to assist in treatment of those affected by the Pandemic, that focus has not excluded the adoption of measures to assist trade in other goods adversely affected by the significant reduction in air and sea cargo options.

In the Australian context, some of the measures adopted by our Federal and State governments and their agencies are summarised below. The general intent has been to “keep the borders open” but we are now at a stage of planning what additional measures may need to be adopted to assist the recovery of the international supply chain and the position of Australian exporters and importers. In this commentary (as at 5 June 2020) I have focused on measures affecting the movement of goods in the Australian and international supply chain.

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