Australia's Antidumping Regime: Rules and Practice

Antidumping has long occupied an uneasy place in trade policy: governments commit to opening markets while retaining instruments to protect domestic producers from certain forms of import competition. In this chapter, I examine how Australia has managed that balance and how its antidumping system works in practice.

Published in the Guide to International Anti-Dumping Practice, edited by Derk Bienen, Gustav Brink and Dan Ciuriak, my contribution traces the development of Australia's regime before turning to the substance and procedure of investigations. I look at how authorities establish dumping, assess injury to domestic industry and determine whether there is a causal link between the two. The chapter also covers the calculation and collection of duties, reviews and the avenues available to challenge decisions.

The focus is on how international rules translate into domestic administrative practice. These details matter for producers seeking relief, exporters defending their access to the Australian market, and businesses that depend on imported inputs. The chapter places those competing interests within the wider question of Australia's industrial competitiveness and the costs of protection.

Read the chapter

Simon Lacey, “Australia”, Chapter 3 in Derk Bienen, Gustav Brink and Dan Ciuriak (eds), Guide to International Anti-Dumping Practice, Kluwer Law International, 2013. The chapter describes the regime at the time of publication.

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Photo: Parliament House, Canberra, by Mark Ehr / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Displayed with a square crop.