Maritime Security Incident Reporting

Risk Context Statements provide the specified industry sectors with information on their sector's strategic risk context and the current security environment in Australia.

Summary

This section of the website provides maritime industry participants, and other persons who have reporting responsibilities, with information to assist them in reporting 'maritime security events' and 'maritime security incidents'. There are two different sets of reporting frameworks and requirements and these are detailed below.

• a 'maritime transport or offshore facility security incident', as defined under section 170 of the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Act 2003 (the Act); and
• a 'maritime security event', as explained in clause 2.3 of the Industry Code of Practice for the reporting of Maritime Security Events 2006 (the Code).

Maritime Transport or Offshore Facility Security Incidents

A 'maritime transport or offshore facility security incident' as defined in the Act (s. 170) refers to a threat of, or actual interference with maritime transport or offshore facilities that is, or is likely to be, a terrorist act. Part 9 of the Act sets out requirements to report maritime transport or offshore facility security incidents to the police, the Secretary of the Department of Infrastructure and Transport and to other affected parties. Persons who have reporting requirements under the Act include:

• port operators and port facility operators;
• ship masters and ship operators;
• offshore facility operators;
• maritime security inspectors;
• duly authorised officers;
• maritime security guards;
• screening officers; and
• other maritime industry participants, e.g. port service providers.

A maritime transport or offshore facility security incident must be reported by all maritime industry participants and persons with incident reporting responsibilities on becoming aware of its occurrence. Incident reports must be made in accordance with the MTOFSA and the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Act Notice About How Incident Reports Are To Be Made(No.3) (the Notice). The Act creates an offence, punishable by penalty, for failing to report incidents as soon as possible after becoming aware of them. The Notice sets out the requirements for what information must be included in a report and how reports must be made when reporting a maritime transport or offshore facility security incident (as provided for in subsection 182(1) of the Act). A copy of the Notice is available on the Federal Register of Legislative Instruments (FRLI) website.

Maritime Security Events

Maritime Security events are an occurrence or occurrences, which threaten the security of a maritime industry participant's facility and/or operations AND is not a maritime transport or offshore facility incident under section 170 of the Act. Part 3 of the Maritime Transport and Offshore Facilities Security Regulations 2003 (the Regulations) require that the maritime security plans of maritime industry participants are to include procedures for reporting occurrences which threaten the security of the relevant port, port facility, port service provider, ship, offshore facility or offshore service provider.

To assist industry participants in complying with the requirement to include procedures to report other maritime security events, the Department published the 'Industry Code of Practice for the Reporting of Maritime Security Events' (the Code). The purpose of the Code is to provide non-binding guidance to maritime industry participants on how to report other maritime security events to the Department.

Maritime industry participants should note that the Code only covers the reporting of security occurrences to the Department and not other relevant authorities. Procedures for reporting to other relevant authorities will also need to be set out in the participant's security plan. The Department recommends that the Code's reporting framework also be used as the basis of procedures for reporting to other relevant authorities.

It is also important for maritime industry participants to be aware that if they voluntarily choose to adopt the Code into their security plans then the participants adherence to the procedures outlined in the Code may be subject to the same compliance auditing as all other matters addressed in their maritime security plan.

Guidance Material

The Department has developed guidance material to assist maritime industry participants, as well as persons with incident reporting responsibilities, with fulfilling their reporting requirements.

• 'Guidance Paper For Reporting Of Security Incidents And Events By Maritime Industry Participants' [PDF: 538 KB]
• 'Industry Code of Practice for the Reporting of Maritime Security Events' [PDF: 272 KB]
• Maritime Security Incident Report Form

Note: Reports can be made in any form- use of the Maritime Security Incident Report Form is not mandatory. However, not using this form to report an incident creates a risk that not all information required under section 4 of the Notice will be included. Where not all information is included, the report is deemed not to have been made (subsection 182(3) of the Act).