Statements by transport minister Anthony Albanese this morning about how it is “time to get tough” over foreign shipping calamities such as the grounding of the Chinese bulk carrier Shen Neng 1 within the Great Barrier Reef look laughable beside a report issued by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau on the grounding of another Chinese vessel, the tanker Breakthrough, in Australian waters in February 2008.
It recounts an epic stuff up in which an incompetent and inexperienced crew of 15 was left adrift for 21 days in the Indian Ocean on the delivery voyage of the flag of convenience (Sierra Leone registered) vessel while attempting to make it to the home port of its new owners, Jevkon Oil and Gas, in Nigeria.
The vessel eventually ran aground in the Cocos Islands after nearly running out of food and water, being hammered by seas that were rolling it 25 degrees to either side, experiencing an outbreak of knife fights, threatened mutinies by the officers as well as the crew, and total confusion among a largely English-speaking crew trying to decipher engineering manuals written in Chinese.
The new owners refused to send supplies and clean oil to the ship mid-ocean because of the cost. Three days before it reached a point where it dropped anchor in the Cocos archipelago (only to break free and run aground destroying its steering control) the Breakthrough’s master received instructions that “all keep faith in God and not lose hope”.
Funny? No. The only reason Breakthrough never broke headlines was that neither oil nor blood was spilled, and Australia never had to deal with tens of millions of dollars in environmental clean-ups or rescue missions.
The sting for the Australian government is that although the ATSB has identified serious faults on the part of the owners, their crew, and in the issuing of flag of convenience certificates for this particular voyage, there is very little, other than maybe jailing illiterate seamen, that it can do to change the essentially lawless and dangerous state of maritime safety in foreign vessels using our seas.
The strongest words in terms of recourse in the entire report are “the ATSB advises that Jevkon Oil and Gas should consider the implications of this safety issue and take action where appropriate”.
It hands out this flogging with a lemon meringue several times in its conclusions.
The truth about maritime commerce is that successive Australian governments since the Gorton administration have repealed, undermined or dismantled almost every provision that once existed to ensure there was safety on the national high seas, and to ensure there was an effective national shipping industry.
The administrative indifference in Canberra to maritime issues has been relentless under Labor and coalition administrations, reflecting pressure from global shipping interests and bureaucrats advising governments on maritime “reforms” considered crucial to having a competitive export sector.
Heavy shipping company fines and jail terms for hapless crews are variously of questionable use under weak Australian maritime laws or just for show.
As seen in the recent PTTEP oil spill calamity in the Timor Sea, Australia will roll over and cop it, in the national economic interest, whenever and whatever it is that happens in its so-called spheres on influence or sovereignty in the seas.
If Albanese was genuine about the Barrier Reef situation, he’d deploy a few RAAF Orion maritime reconnaissance aircraft to constantly monitor the vulnerable sea routes. They cost as much to fly as leave idle on the ground and we have almost two dozen of them. But we could have done that with the Japanese whaling fleet too.
The ATSB inquired into the grounding, which ended with the ship being towed to Singapore for repairs, because of its responsibility under what passes for international maritime law to investigate incidents within its territorial waters.
Ben, the problem with controlling ships transitting the Barrier Reef is that the ships there are mainly in international waters so they can basically do what they like. We only own out to 12 nm with some limited jurisdiction out to 24 nm. A fine of $2 million is nothing to owners and they are happy for the ship to be lost there a plenty of cheap replacements out there and insurance covers the cargo.
Sorry Bakerboy, you are completely mistaken. The entire Great Barrier Reef is a Marine Park contained completely within Australian waters. The “international waters” are way further out.
Sorry Hugh, but you are wrong. If what you say is true, then why don’t we ban ships from coming inside the reef at all.
BakerBoy, I may be “wrong” and you are entitled to your opinion (although I won’t die in a ditch to defend your right to blah, blah, blah) but rather than offering another opinion, let me give you a reference (the first one that falls to hand from my bookcase) so that you can inform yourself. In the Nomination of the Great Barrier Reef by the Commonwealth of Australia for inclusion in the World Heritage List (GBRMPA, Jan 1981), in Section 2, Juridical data, a) the “Owner” is specified as – “The Great Barrier Reef is the subject of public title…”, b) Legal Status – “All parts of the Great Barrier Reef lie within the outer limits of the territorial sea of Australia, or on the Continental Shelf of Australia.” In Section 3 Identification a) Description and inventory. “The GBR is not a continuous barrier but a broken maze of coral reefs, some with coral islands called cays. The Reef comprises some 2500 individual reefs which range in size from less than one hectare to more than 100 square kilometres. In some places the reefs are separated by channels of no more than 200 metres width, while elsewhere they may be as much as 20 kilometres apart”.
Now to the second part of your internally convoluted statement (“…you are wrong, but if what you say is true…?). There are about twenty different ports along the GBR coast where international shipping MUST pass through the reef to get to the coast. eg. Cape Flattery (sand), Cairns (cruise ships), Mourilyan, Lucinda etc. (raw sugar), Townsville (zinc, lead, nickel, copper, fertilizer etc), Abbot Point (beef, coal), Dalrymple Bay etc.(coal). There are some major channels (kilometres wide) between reefs at various places where shipping can choose to make entries from outside the Reef.
You may have noticed that Heron Island (on the GBR) is mentioned in the news today because oil has turned up there – presumably from the stranded coal carrier. Do you think that Heron Island is in international waters? I don’t think so.
Sorry, North West Island, not Heron Island.