Safety
General safety duties Fishing trawler at sunset: Image source: iStock.com/BoValentino
The maritime industry is diverse, covering everything from kayaks to tugboats, barges, fishing vessels and large passenger vessels carrying hundreds of people. All commercial vessels are required to operate to a safety standard that is consistent across Australia. By Sam Cardwell
Because no two operations are alike, various standards of construction, equipment requirements and crew qualifications exist to address the basic safety requirements across the commercial vessel fleet around Australia. But that is not enough. General safety duties provide a framework that ties all the standards together and assigns legal responsibilities to different people associated with vessels and the operations. The general safety duties apply to all commercial vessel operations—even those that are grandfathered or operating under an exemption. There are general safety duties for vessel owners, masters, crew, vessel designers, builders, service providers and even passengers and visitors. For 15
Working Boats July 2019
example, the first general safety duty— which applies to all vessel owners—is to ensure the safety of the vessel, marine safety equipment that relate to the vessel, and the operation of the vessel. Vessel owners can address this requirement by arranging vessel survey and inspections, doing regular vessel maintenance, having appropriate safety equipment and by implementing a safety management system.
is covered under two general safety duties—one that requires vessel owners to implement and maintain a safety management system, and another that requires the master to implement and comply with the safety management system.
Grandfathered vessels may not be in survey, but the vessel must still be fit for purpose, and this must be addressed through the safety management system. Read more about this on page 17.
This applies to owners and masters of all domestic commercial vessels, no matter how big or small. In small operations, the owner and the master are often the same person so the safety management system is created, maintained, implemented and complied with by the same person.
Developing and maintaining a safety management system is fundamental to meeting general safety duties. It involves identifying the safety risks unique to an operation and putting mechanisms in place to manage or minimise those risks. This process
If an incident occurs, owners, masters and others need to be able to demonstrate that they did what was reasonably practicable to prevent and prepare for that type of incident—see inset the key elements of the legal definition of ‘reasonably practicable’.
