The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) announced
that it is launching a focused inspection campaign on the maintenance and
operation of livestock ships exporting animals from Australia. Following the
widely publicized incidents with livestock carriers in the past, AMSA says
these vessels will be under the intense compliance spotlight over the next six
months.
Australia has a reputation for enforcing some of the
strictest safety standards in the world with a diligent inspection and
enforcement regiment. While the Gulf Livestock 1 sailed from New Zealand, its
loss in September 2020 intensified the calls for stricter safety standards and
outright bans on live export. Three months later, AMSA was involved in another
incident when a livestock carrier in Australian water was found at sea listing
with a hole in its side.
“As a result, we decided to increase the intensity of our
focus on ensuring that livestock ships are compliant with international
conventions and the requirements of Australian law when they carry livestock
from Australia,” says AMSA General Manager Operations Allan Schwartz. “We need
to know if these were isolated incidents or indicative of more systemic issues
with ship maintenance and stability.”
The new program will be in addition to AMSA’s normal
inspection and certification regime for foreign-flagged livestock ships. Under
Australian law, livestock ships operating from Australian ports are already
required to undergo pre-loading inspections and be certified for carrying
livestock.
AMSA surveyors will use a checklist when they conduct the
inspections and will focus on issues including the maintenance and repair
requirements of livestock ships in relation to international conventions and
compliance with Australia’s existing requirements for the loading and handling
of livestock.
Addressing some of the issues that were believed to have
contributed to the loss of the Gulf Livestock 1, they will review the crews’
familiarity with determining the ship’s stability and the use of accurate
information for the livestock cargo carried when calculating stability. They
will also check the maintenance as per schedule for the tanks and pumps, the
power sources and the crews’ familiarity with procedures. As part of the normal
port state controls, they will also check the mechanisms for the watertight
doors and look for any signs of structural changes without sanction.
AMSA says where a surveyor finds a deficiency with the items
in the checklist, the surveyor will discuss the deficiency with the master, and
their intentions with regards to rectifying the deficiency.
The program is set to launch next week on March 1 and runs
through the end of August 2021 to ensure that all livestock carriers calling in
Australia will be inspected once. AMSA plans to publish the results of its
inspection campaign before the end of 2021.
Australia’s efforts come after New Zealand instituted new
policies last fall after the loss of the Gulf Livestock 1. They were designed
to reduce density and improve safety but animal rights activists called for an
outright ban on all live export activities.