The Australian Government has finalised a review of natural casings. As a result of the review, some changes will be made to import conditions. These changes include:

•  Removal of the requirement for an import permit. The goods will still have to meet Australia's import conditions, which will continue to be available through the department's Biosecurity Import Conditions system (BICON) at: https://bicon.agriculture.gov....;

•  To simplify the accessibility of this information in BICON, the existing pathways have been streamlined into the following three pathways:

o  Bovine casings;

o  Ovine/caprine casings; and

o  Porcine casings from approved countries;

•  Removal of the departments approved countries for bovine and ovine/caprine casings. Disease freedom recognised by the OIE and FSANZ has been retained for diseases of biosecurity concern;

•  The requirement for packing containers to contain casings from a single species of animals has been removed; and

•  Scrapie requirements have been removed for natural ovine and caprine casings.