Australian Tanker Crew Refuse to Leave Ship
The tanker Tandara Spirit is sat and anchor in Melbourne, Australia, as the angry crew refuse to sail the vessel to Singapore as requested by the company they work for.
They’ve hung a banner from the ship: “Viva Sanctions: Demise of Aussie Jobs”. Foreign labor is stealing Aussie jobs, they say, and it has implications for national fuel security, human safety and protection of the environment.
The 18 crew members have been staging a sit-in for the past 18 days after being ordered to sail to Singapore, where they would be made redundant.
Tandara Spirit is one of just five Australian-crewed petrol tankers left, reports The Age. It is to be handed back to its owners after Viva Energy, the company that bought Shell's refinery in Geelong, Victoria, said it had no need for it.
Viva Energy had chartered an alternative Vietnamese-crewed tanker to transport fuel on the same route as the Tandara Spirit. When International Transport Workers Federation inspectors boarded the vessel Vinalines Galaxy earlier this month, they found that its crew are paid about $2 an hour or $20 a day.
The Age reports that the Vinalines Galaxy has been inspected three times by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) since December 2011 and has been hit with a total of 49 defect notices, including "pollution prevention", "fire safety" and "working and living conditions" breaches.
In contrast, none of the five Australian-crewed petrol tankers have been detained by AMSA over a serious defect for the last 10 years.
Australia now imports 91 per cent of its petrol and diesel – up from 60 per cent in 2000. NSW has no refineries left open and groups like the NRMA have flagged concern that the country has less than 12 days of diesel stock.
In a statement, Viva Energy confirmed its intention to hand back the fuel tanker once its lease expires in January and said it "will not be replacing the vessel".
Fairfax Media says that two foreign-flagged tankers – both twice the size of the Tandara Spirit – were loaded with fuel product at the Geelong refinery on Thursday. They will be anchored in Port Phillip Bay to store the fuel for a month, according to sources.