The owners of the container ship Pacific Quest were fined $180,000 in the Brisbane District Court on June 2.
The successful prosecution is the result of a joint investigation into the spill by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, Federal Police and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. Six ships were in the vicinity at the time of the incident (Christmas Day, 2002) but chemical analysis of oil samples obtained from the Pacific Quest in New Zealand and satellite images proved the case.
The International Transport Workers' Federation pointed out that it was a flag of convenience ship.
"Yet again it is a FoC vessel that is to blame for environmental vandalism," said ITF Australia Co-ordinator Dean Summers. "This is the second to date, with another Panamanian flagged vessel, Pax Phoenix, fined $85,000 last October for yet another act of deliberate pollution on the Reef in 2001."
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