Doubts rise that government's biosecurity levy will ready by July 1

The comments were made by Nationals Senator Matt Canavan who said to senior Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry officials, including deputy secretary Justine Saunders and first assistant secretary Bronwen Jaggers, that "you said you had a plan to get this rolled out" after they revealed to not yet having spoken with some of the 84 commodities to be roped into paying the levy and so far only fully progressing discussions with 21.

It is intended that established industry levy collection processes will be used to collect the BPL, but the process is made more complex as 26 of 84 commodities, or 30 per cent, do not currently pay levies.

"You are asking us to vote on something within weeks and you really are, and I am sorry to be blunt, struggling to convince me that if we sign off on this legislation, that gives the Minister and the government enormous powers, that you actually have a proper plan," Mr Canavan said in questioning whether the collection points would be finalised prior to July 1.

The levy legislation was referred to a Senate committee on March 21 after Coalition, Greens and other lower house crossbench MP's took aim at the policy, including calling for a container levy to be introduced to help fund the national biosecurity response.

In its submission to the inquiry, DAFF said hitting the advertised start date was contingent on the passage of the Bills, Governor-General approvals and collection processes to be finalised by Agriculture Minister Murray Watt.

It also said an information campaign for industry must commence before it becomes operational on July 1.

However, the submission added that planning the campaign could not begin immediately as the information required "will not be able to be confirmed until the legislation is in place".

Before any of that, however, the Senate inquiry report must be tabled by May 10, just 52 days before July 1.

Negotiations then need to be finalised between the crossbench and Labor to allow the legislation to progress through parliament.

Meanwhile, the DAFF senior officials said they were working to a plan and were confident the fundamental policy settings would be finalised within designated timeframes.

They also confirmed that they intended would attempt to speak to all commodities they had not yet approached about the new levy in "the next two to three weeks".

However, they did concede that while the mechanism might be in place on July 1, collection may not actually start on that date due to complications with commodities that already have multiple collection points and those needing an entire collection system to be created.

DAFF also said in its inquiry submission that if the levy were to be delayed, "all provisions would have a prospective effect, and there would be no retrospective application".