Image credit: AMSA


Marine incident data


A total of 758 serious incidents were reported to AMSA between 2020 and 2022 on foreign-flagged and regulated Australian vessels. The top five reported serious incidents included:


- seafarer injury (27.7%) - collision or contact (5.5%) - vessel disabled (4.6%)


- fire (4%) - hull failure/damage (3%).


How acceptable is unacceptable?


Image credit: AMSA


Over time, seafarers may develop informal practices and shortcuts to circumvent deficiencies in equipment design, poor procedures or policies that are incompatible with the realities of daily operations. If seafarers are continuously exposed to these practices, they are more likely to perceive the risks as low. This leads to a situation where poor practices and risky activities repeated over time are perceived as being normal.


Additionally, if supervisors and operators allow risk-taking behaviour to continue unchecked and have not effectively addressed these poor practices or shortcuts, these practices will often be deemed as acceptable behaviour by seafarers. This can create unsafe and poor working conditions onboard.


Seafarer injuries make up most of the reported serious incidents, which suggests safe working conditions and associated practices is an ongoing issue on board vessels visiting Australia.


Port State control (PSC) deficiencies


This issue is further evidenced in the PSC data. There is an increase in the number of Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC) PSC deficiencies recorded against Regulation 4.3 – Health and safety protection and accident prevention.


30 | ISSUE 106 | DEC 2023 | THE REPORT


Importance of safety culture


Safety culture broadly refers to the shared perceptions of safety policies, procedures, behaviours and practices of seafarers and the companies in which they work. It is now well known that safety culture is a significant determinant of


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