Australia’s rules regarding crew changes remains “unclear”, according to a major ship agency company, despite government plans for a consistent policy.
Earlier this month, the Australian national cabinet agreed that the nation's federal government and all states and territories would implement a “consistent and immediate” exemption for non-cruise maritime crew to provide for the transiting to and from their places of work, within and across jurisdictions with agreed documentation.
“Whilst the federal government has put reasonable restrictions in place which do allow for crew changes, Australia is a federation of states and each state has their own Government and makes their own individual laws. Each state has put additional restrictions for crew changes in place,” said GAC.
In general, it said on-signing crew are required to be isolated in a hotel at the airport of arrival into Australia for 14 days at the owner’s expense.
However, GAC said some states, such as Queensland and Western Australia, as well as the Northern Territory have closed their borders.
“If crew arrive to another city but need to transit into these states, they would need to be quarantined on arrival in Australia for 14 days before travelling to these states,” it said.
“They would then be quarantined in Queensland, Northern Territory or Western Australia for another 14 days.”
The situation for crew disembarking a vessel is less complex, according to GAC.
“If the vessel has been more than 14 days from its last overseas port, there will be no issues with crew signing off,” it said.
“If the vessel has been less than 14 days from its last overseas port then crew will require to serve the remainder of the 14-day isolation either ashore in a hotel or before leaving the vessel.”
However, GAC said there are very limited internal flights in Australia following the nation's second-biggest airline — Virgin Australia — recently going into administration and others reducing the number of flights.
