Safety Issue

On 28 November 2022, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (the Department) advised the ATSB that, following an investigation into the fire, the Department initiated a number of changes to the way it identifies, engages with and manages chartered ships and their managers/operators, as follows:

• The introduction of an improved process for the completion of pre-charter due diligence arrangements, including:
  • an expert physical pre-charter inspection of the ship and the tracking of inspection deficiencies through to close-out
  • a review of any proposed chartered ship’s safety management system (SMS) and historic safety performance
  • a review of resumes of key personnel to be used on the ship (completed by the Australian Antarctic Division’s shipping section for the purpose of providing assurance of each individual’s level of experience, qualifications and competencies)
  • the engagement of independent maritime subject matter expertise to support the pre‑charter/brokering and pre-mobilisation stage.
• Updates to the contractual elements of the charter party agreement used by the Department, with the revised agreement directly addressing a range of SMS requirements.
• The development of a comprehensive ‘bridging document’ that describes the functional links between the chartered ship’s SMS and the Australian Antarctic Division’s (AAD) SMS with the requirement that this document be appropriately customised and agreed to by the parties addressed in the charter party agreement.
• The completion of season and voyage specific risk assessments with the intent that the voyage specific assessments will holistically address the interactions between the chartered ship, the AAD and third parties.
• General improvements to the voyage orders provided to the vessel’s master and the AAD voyage leader by AAD management including clarification of who reports what to who and when.

On 28 November 2022, the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) advised the ATSB that, following an independent review of the effectiveness of its procurement process and shipping standard operating procedures for current and future chartering processes, several areas of process improvements were identified relating to:

• pre-qualification thresholds for tenderers/prime contractors, requiring demonstrable capability in ship operations
• incorporating workplace health and safety (WHS) requirements across the end-to-end procurement, evaluation, implementation and operation processes
• augmenting ‘due diligence’ of prime and sub-contractor experience, capability and safety performance during the tender evaluation process
• developing standard operating procedures for implementation and mobilisation of chartered ships
• AAD emergency response procedures aboard chartered ships.

The review also made several recommendations aimed at providing the AAD with a framework to ensure that ice-class ships chartered from the international shipping market were fit for purpose and delivered into service with appropriately trained crews, and robust technical support. The framework also sought to ensure that work health and safety (WHS) obligations between the AAD and chartered ships were integrated providing the AAD with visibility of safe voyage operations and assurance that risk was assessed, controlled and transparently reported throughout the deployment.

The AAD adopted, (or was in the process of adopting), several recommendations including that:

• the AAD engage a maritime subject matter expert to evaluate tenderer capability and experience, in conjunction with the technical evaluation of the ship, with the intention of providing greater depth to the legal and technical ‘due diligence’ phases of chartering/procurement processes
• the scope of the experience and capability evaluation should be expanded to include organisation structure, sub-contracting relationships, and comparable assets under management
• the AAD develop and maintain a ship inspection questionnaire for subject matter experts or appropriately qualified third-party ship inspectors to perform before delivery
• the AAD develop a standard operating procedure for the implementation of the charter party and mobilisation of the ship into service.

Additionally, the AAD also:

• introduced a biannual risk review into the Department’s WHS audit and assurance process where AAD management review risks with the potential to result in fatalities and assess the efficacy of the associated controls
• restructured the AAD shipping section to incorporate new roles including a senior person in the role of shipping manager and the introduction of compliance and technical support roles
• introduced a requirement for scheduled weekly meetings with each chartered vessel’s operator prior to and during the vessel’s deployment
• introduced a requirement in the bridging documents for the reporting of monthly key performance indicators [including incident reports and reports on the planned maintenance system] from each chartered ship’s operator
• established a requirement for experienced ice pilots to be embarked aboard commercially chartered ships in addition to the minimum manning requirements.