Australian airports will begin lifting the 100ml restriction on packing liquids, gels and aerosol sprays in your carry-on bags from the middle of this year.

Passengers will once again be able to carry bottles of water, more sizeable cosmetics as well as wine, spirits, perfume and other toiletries without fear of them being pulled from your luggage and tossed into a bin behind the security scanning stations.

The bans will be lifted in two stages, beginning with international transit lounges from July 1st.

"Passengers transiting through Australia's international gateway airports will be able to keep their duty free items if they are cleared by the technology" a spokesman from the  Department of Infrastructure and Transport told Australian Business Traveller.

"This arrangement will apply only to passengers who arrive from an overseas airport with duty free liquids contained in a sealed plastic bag and who are transiting through one of our eight major gateway airports as part of an international flight."

By early next year the advanced scanners will be "introduced at main screening points at the eight international gateway airports for all passengers departing Australia at the commencement of their international journey.

This second stage aims to permit the screening of a wider range of LAG items beyond duty free liquids." It's expected that similar technology will be introduced across the EU and other nations in 2013, leading to a global relaxation of the 100ml rule introduced in 2006 after a plot to detonate liquid explosives on several flights from the UK.

The new airport scanning equipment -- comprising multi-view explosive detection x-ray machines and bottled liquid scanners -- has already been trialled at Sydney and Melbourne airport, with staff wearing distinctive purple uniforms to highlight their presence and explain the process to passengers.

Multi-view x-ray machines can examine baggage at more than one angle, and have the ability to detect different liquids' densities. Explosives are measurably more dense than, say, water or juice.

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