Maintenance of Australia’s critical maritime shipping and navigation network under threat

IN QUESTION

Crispin Hull

Guest Columnist

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The maintenance of Australia’s critical maritime shipping and navigation network is under threat. Picture: Submitted

The maintenance of Australia’s critical maritime shipping and navigation network is now under threat because the Australian Maritime Safety Authority has refused to renew the contract of the existing maintenance provider, AMS Group.

AMS Group says the decision is inexplicable and threatens Australia’s defence, trade and environmental national interests.

In 2001, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority out-sourced the task of maintaining the network – which includes things like tsunami warning; tide monitoring; and navigation hardware, including a string of essential navigation aids on the Great Barrier Reef.

AMS Group won the contract in 2001 and has had it renewed ever since, until now.

The authority told AMS Group that the tender would not be renewed because AMS Group was “unsuitable” for technical-capability reasons.

This is despite AMS Group’s 22-year record of maintaining the shipping and navigation network with a 99.98% uptime of navigational aids and a 91% KPI award from AMSA. The authority said that that previous record had deliberately not been considered.

AMS Group was the only tenderer. There appears to be no Plan B. 

Without a renewal, AMS Group will begin losing many of its critical 53 staff; the skill set will be lost to Australia; and national, international and military shipping will be exposed to deteriorating critical navigation aids.

“Forty percent of Australia’s navigation aids are on the Great Barrier Reef. The ramifications of an incident caused by a failure of the network appear to have not been considered in AMSA’s decision-making process," AMS Group pointed out.

More than 18,000 commercial ships transit the Great Barrier Reef each year.

“We are out there 24/7. We tow in distressed vessels," Marine Rescue president Ross Wood said.

"Without us lives are at risk. Without the navigation aids, beacons and buoys and the infrastructure behind them, a GPS system is simply not enough."

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