Sydney Harbour oil spill:
It's ships of shame ... again

The big media coverage of the oil spill in Sydney Harbour last week 
omitted one crucial piece of information: the ship involved, the Laura 
D'amato, is a flag of convenience ship — one of the many ships of 
shame currently plying the oceans and seas crewed by cheap, non-union 
labour. The oil spill at the Shell refinery, originally estimated at 80,000 
litres but now revealed to be 300,000 litres, was a "shipping and 
environmental disaster in the making", says the Maritime Union of Australia 
(MUA).

The Sydney Coastal Councils Group has also weighed into the disaster 
pointing out that it is less than six years since the last major oil spill 
at the Shell refinery. The Group has called on the Carr Government to take 
steps to ensure such an incident is never repeated.

"The Laura D'amato was a shipping and environmental disaster in the 
making — a foreign flag vessel, with a third world crew of convenience", 
said MUA Acting National Secretary, Paddy Crumlin. "It [the ship] was about 
as Italian as fried noodles."

The union says the Sydney Harbour spill conformed to the same sort of 
scenario which has been repeated over and over again in all major maritime 
disasters. "Last night's debacle is just another example of how cheap, 
cost-cutting measures can backfire", said Mr Crumlin.

"Here we have an Australian refinery importing foreign crude oil when 
Australian-produced crude oil is available. They do this for no other 
reason than that the ship is providing rock-bottom bargain basement freight 
rates."

Before the decline in Australian shipping, brought about by Howard 
Government funding cuts, Australian harbours were largely insulated from 
maritime disasters.

Before the election of the Howard Government Australian shipping had been 
run and assisted through funding, operating in the national interest, 
economically, environmentally and socially.

"Now we have a government that has suspended all funding to the industry 
and is advocating the abolition of cabotage (cabotage restricts foreign 
vessels carrying our domestic coastal trade)", said Mr Crumlin. He said the 
Government is also considering ways to crew Australian ships with cheap 
"guest" labour.

Even the Government's own commissioned reports have recommended 
reinvestment in the Australian shipping industry, but the Government 
refuses to act on them.

Disgrace

Sydney Coastal Councils called the spill a disgrace. "We acknowledge that 
the harbour has always been a working port, but these facilities [oil 
storage and refineries] are stretching their welcome", said Councillor 
Patricia Harvey. "Control systems must be fail-safe."

The Group is calling on the Carr Government to take the lead in auditing 
all potential hazardous storage facilities adjacent to Sydney Harbour.

Councillor Harvey said there has been at least 11 oil spills in Port 
Jackson alone, ranging from the major oil multinationals such as Caltex and 
Shell to numerous other commercial and naval installations, in addition to 
a number of other liquid storage facilities.

"The Group is very concerned with the reported response delays and 
confusion that transpired on Tuesday [August 4] night in the harbour", said 
Clr Harvey.

"It is very alarming that it took more than 45 minutes for any official 
notification of the spill to authorities. The NSW Fire Brigade had to rely 
on their own investigations to determine the source of the foul odours."

The Group says it is not good enough to have pollution management plans; 
they must be able to be put into action, whereby staff at potential 
pollution facilities are properly trained and contingency processes are put 
in place and adhered to.

"Why weren't they implemented on Tuesday night? With a huge fleet of 
vessels expected in 2000 we must act now to prevent such pollution and 
ensure contingencies are in place."

The Group points out that Sydney Harbour is already being significantly 
polluted via sewage overflows and stormwater pollution.

In light of the oil spill the Australian Institute of Marine and Power 
Engineers have called for the compulsory deployment of oil containment 
booms for all oil tankers before they load or discharge oil.

"Oil companies must be compelled to roll out their own oil containment 
booms around the visiting tankers every time they tie up in our ports", 
said the Institute's Sydney Branch secretary, Martin Byrne.

"No matter how many precautions are put in place on board these foreign 
flag tanker ships, there is always the possibility of an accident as 
occurred on the Laura D'Amato last Tuesday night."

Mr Byrne said it makes little sense requiring the emergency services to 
respond to spills after they have happened as the spill will spread rapidly 
even in favourable conditions.

The Institute believes the oil companies should be forced to take the 
obvious precautionary step of rolling out their own booms around the 
tankers before any oil cargo pumping commences.

"Indeed, this precaution should apply to the bunker barges which move 
around our ports supplying fuel oil to ships at the various wharves", said 
Mr Byrne. He said Japan had introduced such controls over a decade ago.