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Departure of departure cards


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Departure Cards and, later, Arrival Cards are to be discontinued. But they won't say exactly when.

 

Electronic enhanvpced passports will allow us to just move on through the special readers and on our way.

 

http://www.news.com.au/travel/end-of-the-departure-card-overseas-travels-most-annoying-item-to-be-phased-out/news-story/1e3aa0da84a090e8b67b1e9c8df6989f

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Departure Cards and, later, Arrival Cards are to be discontinued. But they won't say exactly when.

 

Electronic enhanvpced passports will allow us to just move on through the special readers and on our way.

 

http://www.news.com.au/travel/end-of-the-departure-card-overseas-travels-most-annoying-item-to-be-phased-out/news-story/1e3aa0da84a090e8b67b1e9c8df6989f

Interesting. I am not sure if it will speed up anything but back office work.

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Interesting. I am not sure if it will speed up anything but back office work.

 

Making changes to help the public has been out of vogue for about 20 years now. Changes like this are normally either to improve their own knowledge, or cut costs. Any public benefit is just a side effect, if it happens.

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It will benefit travellers as they will not have to take their time filling them out.

 

Agreed. Whilst I don't mind filling them so much when travelling for pleasure (cruise or even flight to cruise :) ) it does become a pain to fill the forms so many times for me with business travel, especially when they just go in the box!

Now if only they could fix the problem for me with Smartgate rejecting me when departing I would be doubly happy - always works on return?????

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I believe the green departure cards will not be required as of either June 1st or June 30th ( can't remember :eek:) but obviously will be in place by the start of the Cruise Season in October.

Sadly the orange arrival cards are not scheduled to be eliminated till the following season (2018/19) so another season of telling guests, with their brains switched( OFF) to holiday mode, that no passports required for customs.... .only the orange card ....which slows the debarkation process considerably as they either stop immediately and dig the cards out of their luggage and/or walk five steps and put them back in their bags :mad::mad::mad::mad:

Edited by gbenjo
typing errors
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I believe the green departure cards will not be required as of either June 1st or June 30th ( can't remember ��) but obviously will be in place by the start of the Cruise Season in October.

Sadly the orange arrival cards are not scheduled to be eliminated till the following season (2018/19) so another season of telling guests, with their brains switched( OFF) to holiday mode, that no passports required for customs.... .only the orange card ....which slows the debarkation process considerably as they either stop immediately and dig the cards out of their luggage or walk five steps and put them back in their bags ������

LOl, I think a mandatory registration of travel done on line would be much more effective. Currently Smartraveller's voluntary registration of someone's travel is easy enough.

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The departure cards will disappear from 1st July 2017. On the new arrival cards there is an extra section that residents returning to Australia do need to complete, the purpose of the trip.

Looks the same as the one I filled out back in May.

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especially when they just go in the box!

 

As someone who utilises the data content of the cards daily I can assure you they dont just "go in the box".

 

The boxes are emptied multiple times through the day and fed into bulk scanning machines where the data is then shared live same day with at least 9 government agencies.

 

It is used for all manner of things - tracking child traffickers, absconding/returning criminals, tax cheats, welfare cheats etc. Then all the additional statistical usages.

 

The changes simply mean you will be making the declarations electronically - at the smart gates. Once the systems are updated.

 

Decisions are still being made regarding incoming quarantine & cash declarations - they may still end up being a hand written card as the signature is the declaration. The legislation would need to be changed to allow for electronic signatures.

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We flew out of Sydney on June 9 and still had our card when we boarded our flight. I didn't notice any bins for them either like last time we left, last year. BTW the US now have electronic declaration on arrival at LAX but we still needed to hand in the printed card.

We already have our Oz arrival cards completed for our return next week. Will be interesting to see if they are collected.

Greetings to y'all from American Queen Steamboat on the Mississippi.

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We flew out of Sydney on June 9 and still had our card when we boarded our flight. I didn't notice any bins for them either like last time we left, last year. BTW the US now have electronic declaration on arrival at LAX but we still needed to hand in the printed card.

We already have our Oz arrival cards completed for our return next week. Will be interesting to see if they are collected.

Greetings to y'all from American Queen Steamboat on the Mississippi.

Hope you are enjoying your cruise.

BTW, there is normally a box just after going through the smart gates and just before the roped section of security.

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As someone who utilises the data content of the cards daily I can assure you they dont just "go in the box".

 

The boxes are emptied multiple times through the day and fed into bulk scanning machines where the data is then shared live same day with at least 9 government agencies.

 

It is used for all manner of things - tracking child traffickers, absconding/returning criminals, tax cheats, welfare cheats etc. Then all the additional statistical usages..

 

I'm sure there is a use for these processes. Hard to imagine that data captured as a result of the bulk scanning of the cards can be so very different to what is obtained by pre-departure on-line registration, scanning of passport by check-in agent & scanning at either smartgate or border officer. As has been posted on here, people have passed thru without surrendering their cards, & apparently they weren't tracked down, so not foolproof I guess. Anyway I will fill until told otherwise.

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  • 2 weeks later...
We flew out of Sydney on June 9 and still had our card when we boarded our flight. I didn't notice any bins for them either like last time we left, last year. BTW the US now have electronic declaration on arrival at LAX but we still needed to hand in the printed card.

We already have our Oz arrival cards completed for our return next week. Will be interesting to see if they are collected.

Greetings to y'all from American Queen Steamboat on the Mississippi.

Arrival cards collected at SYD. I suppose more for quarantine and customs than for immigration. No electronic declarations - yet.

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  • 3 months later...

We left Brisbane on 5 October 2017 (Sun Princess) and were NOT given departure cards. Our cruise disembarked in Sydney on 8 October and arrival cards were placed in our cabin. We filled them in but there was no-one from Immigration/Customs in the terminal at White Bay to ask for them or a place to drop them off when we left the ship.

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We left Brisbane on 5 October 2017 (Sun Princess) and were NOT given departure cards. Our cruise disembarked in Sydney on 8 October and arrival cards were placed in our cabin. We filled them in but there was no-one from Immigration/Customs in the terminal at White Bay to ask for them or a place to drop them off when we left the ship.

Usually they look at the customs section of the arrival card to see if you have declared any timber items, food or excess alcohol etc.

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Hate to rain on anybody's parade but Departure Cards were still the flavour of the day according to my Bro inlaw who has just returned from a cruise.

 

The green" departure "card has been made redundant but the orange " arrival" is still required. As you said, your Bro in law was " returning" from a cruise so he would still have had to fill it the incoming passenger card

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We left Brisbane on 5 October 2017 (Sun Princess) and were NOT given departure cards. Our cruise disembarked in Sydney on 8 October and arrival cards were placed in our cabin. We filled them in but there was no-one from Immigration/Customs in the terminal at White Bay to ask for them or a place to drop them off when we left the ship.

 

You were not given departure cards because they don't use them any more. No-one collected your arrival cards in Sydney 3 days later, because you didn't need them as you didn't "leave Australia" on your cruise, at least in terms of customs & immigration regulations. The ship crew gave them out by mistake it seems.

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