In a letter recently published in Daily Cargo News, a pilotage provider expressed concern over reports in this and another publication relating to alleged breaches of pilotage regulations at the Port of Melbourne, and suggested that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) should investigate those alleged breaches.
However, the ATSB is not a regulator, and our remit does not include investigating to ensure regulatory compliance. Instead, our primary role is the independent ‘no blame’ investigation of transport safety incidents and accidents, with the view of identifying any safety factors, and influencing safety action, to help ensure those incidents and accidents do not re-occur in the future. For that reason we are completely separate to and independent of regulators.
Several recent ATSB marine investigations have had a focus on pilotage, and where applicable the ATSB has made findings, highlighted safety issues, and issued safety recommendations around pilotage of ships into and out of Australia’s ports.
I would also remind industry of the ATSB’s confidential reporting system, REPCON, which exists for individuals to report any safety concerns, under condition of anonymity. When the ATSB receives reports through REPCON, relevant parties are notified of the concern, and must respond to it. The resulting REPCON reports are then published – de-identified – to the ATSB’s website.
The ATSB encourages industry members to make these confidential reports to us, if there are any concerns about practices, observed or suspected, in the marine sector.
Angus Mitchell,
Chief Commissioner / CEO, Australian Transport Safety Bureau
This letter to DCN was submitted by a reader. Any views or opinions expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect those of DCN.
