Safety issues

On 13 August 2025, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) advised that it had accepted the ATSB’s recommendation to take safety action to adequately address the safety issue and was committed to its vision of safe and clean seas, saving lives.

In addition to the proactive safety action that it had previously taken and detailed in the ATSB’s final investigation report, AMSA advised that it proposed to take further action to complete the work underway. According to AMSA, the range of safety action taken has and will continue to improve:

• intra and inter agency communication and coordination, both in preparation for and during an incident response
• understanding of roles and responsibilities during an incident
• capability to issue directions in a timely manner.

In addition, AMSA provided details of the action taken, which is spread across the inter-related subjects of incident escalation, incident management, interagency coordination and emergency towage.

The AMSA annual internal escalation exercise program is intended to test and continually refine incident escalation and maritime assistance procedures, and to build whole of agency preparedness and professional development of staff. The 2025-26 program includes:

• fortnightly response discussion exercises covering recent incidents, upcoming or past exercises, procedures and checklists
• six scenario-based, 30-minute incident escalation exercises to test incident escalation procedures
• two longer duration response arrangement exercises that build on a previous exercise that resulted in escalation and consider the appointment of an incident controller and incident management team (IMT), including priority and objective setting
• monthly incident training activities covering various subjects, including powers of intervention assessment being conducted at least every quarter
• an annual 1-day exercise, which includes establishing an IMT, full evaluation and involvement of external consultants and partners, where appropriate
• two education sessions to cover changes to AMSA incident management protocols, systems or plans
• annual program evaluation. 

Safety action for incident management includes a review of the National Plan for Maritime Environmental Emergencies (National Plan), improved capability to issue directions (intervention) and improved procedures. In summary:

• The 2023-24 review of the National Plan made 11 recommendations to better enable Australian governments and industry to respond to current and future maritime hazards. The National Plan Strategic Coordination Committee (for which AMSA is the Secretariat) is progressing the implementation of those recommendations.
• The review identified that the provisions of the Protection of the Sea (Powers of Intervention) Act 1981 (POI Act) are restricted to the risk of pollution by oil or other hazardous and noxious substances and may not necessarily address public safety or maritime safety posed by emerging alternative fuel types, particularly fuel releases in gaseous form. While legislative reform is being considered, AMSA has taken action to improve its capability to issue directions under the current POI Act. This includes templates for issuing directions, legal training and guidance for staff, and providing legal representation within IMTs.
• Incident management procedures have been improved and regularly exercised, including trialling a proactive approach to establishing an IMT in line with the National Plan principle of over-escalation (for example, during significant weather events). The draft trial evaluation report identified improved situational awareness and preparedness. The effectiveness of the trial will determine whether AMSA adopts a proactive approach for establishing an IMT during severe weather events. 

Safety action for interagency coordination includes further steps to improve collaboration and communication with response partners. Monthly meetings are held between AMSA and states, the Northern Territory and the Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre, to discuss implementation and review of the National Plan, exercises, learning and development and recent response activities. The outcomes from these meetings include:

• further development of strong inter-agency partnerships
• shared understanding of roles and responsibilities under the National Plan. 

In addition, AMSA facilitates National Plan coordination workshops, the most recent of which (Marine Pollution Controller workshop, June 2025) targeted senior managers responsible for interagency coordination with a focus on coordination across jurisdictional boundaries.
Finally, the future emergency towage capability contract tender specifications aim to increasing the capability to support larger ships in more extreme weather events to complement incident management. The contract tender process is expected to be finalised by October 2025.

The ATSB welcomes the broad range of safety action taken by AMSA to address this safety issue. In this regard, AMSA’s incident escalation program and its annual evaluation together with the trials to assess improvements to incident management procedures are directly related to the issue and key safety action measures.

The ATSB considers this safety issue should be adequately addressed when the key measures noted above have been effectively implemented and evaluated as such. The ATSB will monitor the issue and seek an update from AMSA in January 2026 on the implementation of these measures and the progress of other related safety action.