Marine incident data 

A total of 758 serious incidents were reported to AMSA between 2020 and 2022 on foreign-flagged and regulated Australian vessels. The top 5 reported serious incidents (Figure 1) included: 

  • seafarer injury (27.7%)  
  • collision or contact (5.5%) 
  • vessel disabled (4.6%) 
  • fire (4%) 
  • hull failure/damage (3%).
Figure 1 – Top 5 reported serious incidents


Seafarer injuries make up most of the reported serious incidents, which suggests safe working conditions and associated practices is an ongoing issue on board vessels visiting Australia. 

The 2022 Marine Incident Annual Report contains further details on serious injuries in Australian waters.

Port State control (PSC) deficiencies

This issue is further evidenced in the PSC data. There is an increase in the number of Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC) PSC deficiencies recorded against Regulation 4.3 - Health and safety protection and accident prevention as shown in Figure 2.

Graph showing deficiencies per PSC inspection increasing from 0.11 in 2018 to 0.24 in 2022, and percentage of total PSC deficiencies trending up from 6.3% in 2018 to 9.4% in 2022

Deficiencies against Regulation 4.3 accounted for 58.5 per cent of the MLC-related PSC deficiencies in 2022. For more information about MLC-related PSC deficiencies refer to the 2022 Inspections Report and 2022 MLC Annual Report.