As the turbulence created by the COVID pandemic continues to settle, our focus for 2023–24 and the following three years – the period of this Plan – will be on consolidating the lessons learned from this disruption, responding to emerging challenges in our operating environment, and transforming that experience into new ways of working, consistent with the intent set out in AMSA’s Strategy 2030. 

While organisations, including AMSA, continue to pivot their business models in response to the pandemic and the consequent expectations of staff around flexible work, our operating environment continues to evolve – and we must respond. We must also ensure that, regardless of the changes required, we continue to deliver on our vision of safe and clean seas and saving lives.

Operating environment challenges

Working cooperatively in the Asia-Pacific region to enforce standards and improve ship safety, has never been more critical to ensure we are protecting the maritime trade on which Australia so heavily relies, and in doing so, contributing to Australia’s overall engagement in the area. Collaborating with our international partners at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to advocate for achievable and sustainable environmental goals for the maritime industry is also important for the sustainability of our environment, and our industry.

The increasing intensity and frequency of weather events continues to place additional demands on our resources and challenge our thinking. As an example, AMSA provides critical aids to navigation infrastructure for foreign and domestic vessels operating in Australian waters, and weather events like cyclones can damage, and if severe enough, destroy these critical assets – placing additional demand on our infrastructure repair and maintenance program, and over the longer term, driving the redesign of many of our infrastructure assets so they are more resilient in the future.Many Australian entities have been victims of cyber-attacks. We will ensure we are protecting personal and sensitive data and minimising the risk of data breaches. Last year we invested in establishing a centralised data capability. In 2023–24 this capability will work across the organisation to mitigate data risks at a technological and operational level.

Building our foundation for transformation – people, systems, and processes

We have refined and consolidated our strategic priorities to five – (1) risk-based regulation, (2) incident management, (3) environment protection, (4) engagement and (5) business transformation. Grouped by strategic priority, the initiatives detailed in this Corporate Plan will establish the regulatory and technological foundation to transform AMSA into a more innovative regulatory and response agency. 

2023–24 will be a year of action, focusing on the delivery of business transformation projects. We will embed new ways of working in a post pandemic environment by implementing a new regulatory model and platform. The delivery of our business transformation projects will use the breadth of AMSA’s capability to ensure the solutions delivered are fit-for-purpose for both our regulated community and AMSA.

Critical to the success of our transformation initiatives will be the Government’s response to the Independent Review of Domestic Commercial Vessel Safety Legislation and Cost and Charging Arrangements. We will partner with our portfolio Department¹ to implement the recommendations endorsed by the Government. We are keen to resolve funding arrangements for delivery of the National System for Domestic Commercial Vessel Safety (the National System), and to provide certainty for our regulated community.

AMSA will negotiate a new Enterprise Agreement in compliance with the Australian Public Service (APS) wide collective bargaining framework.² AMSA’s focus will be to ensure our agreement remains fit-for-purpose, provides operational flexibility, and considers the challenges and capabilities identified in AMSA’s Strategic Workforce Plan. Enterprise bargaining can be challenging, however, I am confident that our team will conduct the process with respect and in good faith and will achieve the desired outcomes – an agreement that will attract and retain AMSA’s best and brightest talent; deliver a diverse, inclusive, and capable workforce; and continue to make AMSA an attractive and rewarding place to work. 

This financial year AMSA will move its Canberra head office to a smaller footprint to realise the benefits of flexible work, technology capability and digital service delivery improvements and provide an integrated work environment for our staff to collaborate with greater effect. We will also continue to explore opportunities to expand our regional office presence to support delivery of services to our regulated community.

Our core business

Reflecting on our role as a safety regulator, we still have work to do. Whilst the safety of our industry is improving, too many avoidable incidents are occurring.

Our strong reputation for implementation and monitoring compliance with international standards for shipping continues to drive down the number of deficiencies and detentions of foreign vessels visiting our shores. We will continue to address high risk vessels through international advocacy for improved safety standards for general cargo and container ships. These types of vessels receive the highest rate of deficiencies per vessel type visiting Australia. 

We will continue to work closely with domestic commercial vessel owners and operators. In 2022 AMSA conducted the largest number of inspections since the introduction of the National System in 2018 – and there was a significant jump in the number of domestic commercial vessel detentions from previous years. This is reflective of the maturing of AMSA’s inspection processes; the importance AMSA places on protecting crew, passengers, and the marine environment; and delays to the completion of scheduled maintenance arising from COVID restrictions. Our collaboration with our industry and broader community stakeholders is also maturing and we will invest in enhancing the effectiveness of those partnerships. 

And lastly, our commitment to incident response – including coordinating search and rescue – will not waver. AMSA plays a significant role in saving lives and given Australian’s love of the great outdoors and the sea, we anticipate constant demand on our search and rescue capabilities. We remain vigilant and ready to respond.

Jennifer Clark
Acting Chair

Footnotes

¹ Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communication, and the Arts

² AMSA staff are employed under the AMSA Act 1990. However, the new APS bargaining framework applies – capturing Commonwealth public sector employees employed under legislation other than the Public Service Act 1999 (non-APS employees).

As Australia’s national maritime safety regulator, we are responsible for the maritime safety of international shipping and domestic commercial vessels, protection of the marine environment from ship-sourced pollution, and search and rescue services, for maritime and aviation, nationally.

Vision

Safe and clean seas, saving lives.

Mission

Ensuring safe vessel operations, combatting marine pollution, and rescuing people in distress.

Values

Collaborative

We value and respect others and work together to achieve our objectives.

Professional

We act with integrity and are pragmatic in our approach.

Dedicated

We are committed to AMSA’s mission and responsive to the needs of our customers and stakeholders.

Accountable

We take responsibility for our decisions and actions.

AMSA is a statutory authority established under the AMSA Act. Reflecting the purpose of the AMSA Act, and the functions of AMSA under the Act, our primary role is to:

• promote maritime safety and protection of the marine environment
• prevent and combat ship-sourced pollution in the marine environment
• provide infrastructure to support safe navigation in Australian waters
• provide a national search and rescue service to the maritime and aviation sectors
• provide, on request, services to the maritime industry on a commercial basis.

AMSA is structured into divisions to deliver our functions. Three of our divisions – Operations, Policy and Regulation, and Response – deliver our core business of: promoting maritime safety and environment protection, combating ship source pollution, providing navigation infrastructure and a search and rescue service. As a small agency employing approximately 470 staff in 20 locations, the support provided by our Corporate Services division is a key enabler to helping us achieve our functions.

Our Operations Division:

• implements the regulatory framework developed by AMSA’s Policy and Regulation division and provides support to AMSA’s Response division when an incident occurs 
• ensures domestic and international shipping in Australia is operating in accordance with the regulatory framework administered by AMSA, primarily the Navigation Act 2012 and the Marine Safety (Domestic Commercial Vessel) National Law Act 2012
• ensures vessels are maintained in good condition, have appropriate working and living conditions on vessels, operated safely by people with the required skills, all passengers onboard are safe and cargoes are handled and stowed appropriately to ensure safe transit
• undertakes a range of compliance functions, including communication and education, providing information and advice, certification and targeted monitoring activities, incident management and investigations and issue of compliance notices
• provides an enforcement capability encompassing investigations, issuing of infringement notices and prosecutions. 

Our Policy and Regulation Division:

• influences international standards and makes regulations to give legal effect to those standards in relation to maritime safety and marine pollution
• develops policy, regulations and standards for domestic commercial vessels operating in Australian waters
• engages with industry stakeholders to ensure our regulations and standards are fit for purpose and will achieve intended outcomes
• cooperates with Australian government agencies and maritime administrations to consistently implement global standards for international commercial shipping
• is developing a data analytics capability for the organisation to ensure decisions are data driven and risk based.

Our Response Division:

• coordinates search and rescue, intervention and pollution response operations 24/7 consistent with Australia’s obligations under international conventions 
• engages with states and territories to ensure consistent approaches to maritime casualties, marine pollution and search and rescue incidents
• contributes to safe navigation by maintaining our network of aids to navigation
• manages service contracts and resources that we need to support our response operations.

Our Corporate Services Division:

• ensures we are equipped with fit-for-purpose data, information and communications technology to meet our service delivery and business needs
• ensures we have a dynamic and well managed workforce to meet our responsibilities
• provides organisational-wide governance support and financial management and
• ensures we deliver effective customer service and communication activities to inform, educate, consult and collaborate with our key stakeholders and the regulated community, enabling them to meet their maritime safety and environmental obligations.

The activities, outputs and outcomes depicted over the page are indicative of our core business outputs, based on 2021–22 data. Please refer to AMSA’s 2022–23 Annual Report for detailed information on AMSA’s performance in 2022–23.

The delivery of initiatives listed in this Plan are prioritised and balanced against our resource capacity to ensure we continue to deliver a high-level of service across our core functions.