attrayant

I'm in Vietnam with a Vietnamese friend who presently goes to school in Australia. I noticed on this trip that he hasn't been buying many things to take back with him and when I asked about it, he said that virtually nothing would be allowed through customs. When I pressed him for details on what "virtually nothing" means, he said almost anything consumable would be prohibited. Apparently he tried to take some dried squid and a big bag of dried tea leaves with him on his first trip there and it was confiscated. I find this a bit odd for a westernized country that surely sees millions of tourists going to southeast Asian destinations every year. Can all of these tourists really not bring anything back with them? No teas, candies, dried fruits? When I returned home to the USA last year I was questioned about what I had brought back with me. I listed everything I had brought with me on the customs form: dried tea, beef jerky, preserved lemons, assorted candies, dehydrated mango slices, crystallized ginger, and more that I can't think of at the moment. The customs agent inspected all of it and everything was allowed in. He said that anything not in a factory-sealed package might be suspect, but as long as the package was sealed I was OK. He also said that preserved/dried/dehydrated foods are ok, but nothing fresh or alive is permitted. This all seems very reasonable to me, so it really puzzled me that Australian customs would be so tight about what gets in. Anyone have experience with bringing foreign consumables into Australia?