4 Corners to Crucify AusSAR

[Creampuff]

Title: ADJOURNMENT: Australian Search and Rescue Date: 20 August 2001 Database: Senate Hansard Speaker: O'Brien, Sen Kerry (ALP, Tasmania) Page: 26009 Proof: Yes Source: Senate Type: Speech Context: Adjournment Size: 7K

Senator O’BRIEN (Tasmania) (10.29 p.m.) —The Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee had scheduled a hearing for tonight to inquire into the role of Australian Search and Rescue in the search for the Margaret J, a fishing boat lost in Bass Strait in April this year. However, at a private meeting of the committee at 6.30 p.m., the government again used its numbers to block this inquiry— that is, the government members of the committee voted to adjourn the inquiry. Other members of the committee opposed that proposition. In fact, the numbers were tied, and the casting vote of Senator Crane, the government chair of the committee, carried the resolution to adjourn the matter.

Government senators relied on a letter from counsel assisting the Tasmanian coroner as justification for their action. In my view, that letter did not raise any issues that had not already been considered and dismissed by the committee—and, for that matter, dismissed by the Clerk of the Senate in advice provided in response to other material put before the committee. By failing to agree to subject the role of AusSAR and the Tasmanian police to a proper inquiry by this committee, the government is ignoring the public interest. While the government may be happy to ignore the public interest, I am not.

One matter I did intend to pursue with officers from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority at tonight's committee hearing was evidence given to the committee during the estimates hearing of 31 May. The General Manager of Search and Rescue, Ms Barrell, told the committee that a search area of 100,000 square kilometres would require 104 aircraft. Initially, Ms Barrell told the hearing that the search area was 100,000 square miles, but she then corrected that measure to square kilometres. We are talking about the projected possible area in which to search for the occupants of the vessel, who might be drifting somewhere in a life raft.

Ms Barrell is the General Manager of Australian Search and Rescue. In that sense, the committee should have been able to rely on her evidence. I was somewhat surprised that she used the measure of square kilometres rather than the standard measure for search areas of square nautical miles. The area Ms Barrell identified translates to 38,600 square nautical miles. The total area of Bass Strait is 33,010 square nautical miles. Within days of Ms Barrell's evidence to the estimates hearings, I received a document through the mail. The author did not identify himself or herself. The letter read:

It was with much interest that I watched Insight—the SBS television current affairs program—and read a transcript of the recent Estimates hearing involving AMSA.
Someone is either very confused, ignorant or covering up the truth.

The letter then worked through the search effort required to cover the area identified by Ms Barrell, the 100,000 square kilometres. The author calculated that—based on the weather conditions at that time, an average search time per aircraft of three hours and each aircraft doing two sorties a day—only 19 aircraft would be required to cover the search area which Ms Barrell identified. Those calculations were based on a tracking space of four kilometres. The calculations in the correspondence that I mentioned were then redone with a tracking space of six kilometres, and the number of aircraft required dropped to just 13, not the 104 aircraft that Ms Barrell tried to tell the committee were required for such a search. The author of the letter continued:

So they are telling you 13 aircraft is too many to ask to search [searches have been bigger than this, nearly 30 in the search for a helicopter last year].
Someone is lying to you.

I receive a lot of information, and it flows from asking a lot of questions. But I always try to do an independent check of calculations such as these. I provided the calculations I have just mentioned to a second person, who has considerable expertise and experience in such matters, because I wanted to check the veracity of the first set of numbers. The calculations undertaken by the independent expert were based on a higher search aircraft true airspeed than was used in the first set of calculations. The second aircraft true airspeed was set at 150 knots, compared to 120 knots. The tracking space was set at two nautical miles. The second set of calculations, based on Ms Barrell's 100,000 square kilometres and 85 hours at three hours per sortie and two sorties a day, resulted in a figure of 15 aircraft.

Ms Barrell told the estimates committee on 31 May that a search area of 100,000 square kilometres was just not feasible in the Australian environment. I understand that her calculations were built around a tracking space of only one nautical mile. I am not sure that this tracking space number explains Ms Barrell's estimated need for 104 search aircraft. If the hearing had proceeded tonight, I would have asked Ms Barrell about the basis for the one nautical mile tracking space. I would have asked about the safe operation of search aircraft where a one nautical mile tracking space requirement was put in place. I am advised that, depending on the type of aircraft used in a search of this nature, a tracking space of one nautical mile might not only be too narrow but also be both unachievable and unsafe.

Ms Barrell's claim that the search as at 15 April would have required 104 aircraft was just not right. Such a search could have been and should have been mounted. The fact that AusSAR then, on 30 April, agreed to take over the search from the Tasmanian police when the search area had ballooned out to around 370,000 square nautical miles made Ms Barrell's claim to the Senate about the unfeasibility of the 100,000 square kilometres even more bizarre. We had Ms Barrell telling us that the search area was too big as at 15 April and we had AusSAR taking control of the search with an area that had increased by over 900 per cent on 30 April. That search located two bodies and the life raft in good time.

It is my view that, if AusSAR had acted quickly, those men may not have lost their lives. For that reason, I intend to pursue this matter until all the details of what was done or not done by both Australian Search and Rescue and the Tasmanian police is on the public record and until those responsible for what was an inadequate search effort are held to account.


Title: ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON NOTICE: Questions Nos 3695, 3696 and 3715
Date: 21 August 2001 Database: Senate Hansard Speaker: O'Brien, Sen Kerry (ALP, Tasmania) Page: 26039 Proof: Yes Source: Senate Type: Speech Context: Question On Notice Size: 8K

Senator O’BRIEN (Tasmania) (3.06 p.m.) — Madam President, I move:

That the Senate take note of the minister's response.

I note that on this occasion again we have been given an assurance that an answer will be provided if not today then tomorrow. That has occurred before. I take the minister at his word; I note that he is representing the Deputy Prime Minister and no doubt would not make such a promise if he did not have the assurance of the Deputy Prime Minister or his office that that could be the case.

I am aware that these questions are just outside the 30-day period for providing answers as set out in the standing orders. The reason I am seeking those answers at this time is that they are relevant to the circumstances surrounding the loss of the fishing boat the Margaret J and three lives in Bass Strait in April this year. I have been seeking answers to these questions so that those answers could be considered as part of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee inquiry into the role of Australian Search and Rescue in the search for the Margaret J. I note the government again used its numbers on the committee to defer this important investigation, but I am still seeking answers to these questions. I wrote to the chair of the committee, Senator Crane, about these questions on 10 August. I also asked that Senator Crane seek an answer to question 3784, which was not outside the 30-day limit but had direct relevance to the inquiry. I copied that letter to Mr Anderson's office on that day. I then, through the committee secretariat, put in a request to AMSA for answers to those questions. In that letter, I also sought other material relating to the Margaret J, some of which has now been provided. I specifically requested copies of all internal and external emails relating to the lost boat, but they have not been provided. I will continue to pursue that material because it is important that the committee have access to all material held by AMSA or AusSAR relating to the Margaret J.

Question 3695 relates to legal opinions provided to both the Department of Transport and Regional Services and the minister, Mr Anderson. My office was advised last Wednesday that the answer to this question had been cleared and would be provided to the table office and a copy faxed to me in Launceston. I was later advised that that answer had in fact not been cleared and would not be available until some time this week. There was a strange discrepancy between those two contacts. The government has in its possession more than one set of legal advices in relation to the Senate inquiry into the Margaret J. I am given to understand that the department has legal advice that gives AMSA little or no comfort as far as cooperation with the Senate is concerned. This is in sharp contrast to the legal opinion from Mr Bell QC that AMSA is relying on to protect it from proper scrutiny by this chamber. AMSA was quick to provide the Senate with the Bell legal opinion because it suited the authority to do so; but, in doing so, it removed any basis on which it can deny the Senate access to other legal advice on the same matter.

That question also goes to the issue of the role of Mr Anderson in this matter. He is, after all, the minister responsible to the parliament for the performance of the Commonwealth search and rescue function. If that search and rescue effort is found wanting, then it is Mr Anderson who should be called to account for that failure in this parliament. However, given that Mr Anderson's profile is not so much low as subterranean in relation to issues such as the Margaret J, I do not expect him to act to ensure organisations such as CASA or AMSA do the job required of them by their charter. As far as the transport portfolio is concerned, that administrative oversight falls to this place generally and Senator Crane's committee in particular. Mr Anderson's advice to the CASA board in 1998 said it all. He told the board its job was to ensure that he was not asked any questions in parliament about aviation safety. All he wanted to ensure was that air safety was not the subject of public debate. In contrast, his charter is that we enjoy a safe aviation system in Australia. Self-interest beats public interest yet again.

Question 3696 relates to the search for a yacht off the Queensland coast that commenced on 8 July, and question 3715 relates to a missing motor cruiser called Just Cruising that was travelling from Mooloolaba in Queensland to Swansea in New South Wales. The information I am seeking in relation to these two matters relates to the role of both the state authority and Australian Search and Rescue. I want to know—and I am sure my colleagues on the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee would also like to know—what level of effort was required by AusSAR of the state authority before it involved itself in those searches. AusSAR was advised by the Tasmanian police that the Margaret J was missing on 13 April, and I understand that the police requested that AusSAR take over the search at that time. I am advised that AusSAR told the Tasmanian police it would not take over the search until the state had exhausted its own resources. I want to know whether the same conditions were imposed on the state authorities involved in the search for these vessels as were required of the Tasmanian authorities. I want to know exactly what resources Queensland and/or New South Wales were required to commit to these searches before AusSAR took an interest in the searches. I am further advised that the Tasmanian police search and rescue had exhausted its resources by late on 14 April or early on 15 April and had advised AusSAR accordingly. But, despite the AusSAR advice of 13 April, the authority refused a second request to search the greater Bass Strait area again because it considered the search area to be too large.

I would like to know—and the answers to question 3696 and 3715 should tell me—exactly what the search area was over the period of the search for the missing yacht and what the search area was over the period of the search for the vessel Just Cruising. I also want to know what intelligence was available to AusSAR in relation to the search for the yacht and the cruiser when it took control of, or put resources into, the search effort for those missing boats. I understand that AusSAR told the Tasmanian police on 17 April that, without further information about the whereabouts of the missing fishermen, the search should be abandoned. I want to know what intelligence was available to AusSAR in relation to both these vessels so that we can compare that with the information available to AusSAR in relation to the Margaret J.

Finally, I thank Senator Ian Macdonald for his cooperation in this matter to date. I again note that he is representing Minister Anderson in relation to these matters.