"Continued warnings by the Maritime Union of Australia about the imminent security threat posed through the lack of any oversight of the issuing coastal permits of the have been completely ignored by the Howard government" says the MUA national secretary Paddy Crumlin.
The threat has now been graphically demonstrated through an incident in Geelong on Wednesday morning when the master of the flag of convenience ship "Pos Auckland" reportedly put the security level of the ship on the highest international maritime security level "3".
The MUA has been told that the ships' captain was taking action after the 3rd engineer who is a Thai national attacked three of his crew mates and threatened to "blow the ship up" by igniting fuel in the ships engine room.
The captain has told ITF inspectors in Geelong that the ship is operating under a single voyage permit issued by the Australian government and was discharging 33,000 tonnes of the Fertiliser, Urea, before continuing on to Portland Victoria and then Bell Bay in Tasmania.
"This has all the elements for a major catastrophe and yet has not even registered on the government's radar. What is Howard doing about protecting our critical maritime infrastructure and how can he continue to trade off the security of our ports while he presides over the demise of the Australian shipping industry." added Paddy Crumlin.
The Hong Kong flagged vessel is owned in the Philippines, crewed by Thai and Filipino nationals, trades to the Indonesia and the Middle East and works on the Australian coast replacing Australian shipping and security checked Australian crews
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