McGowan Government exploring barring coronavirus-infested commercial ships from picking up cargo in WA

Commercial vessels battling COVID-19 infections would be barred from collecting their cargo in a policy being investigated by the WA Government. Premier Mark McGowan floated the idea today when speaking about outbreaks on board livestock carrier Al Messilah — where 25 crew have tested positive — and bulk carrier Key Integrity (two positive crew). “One of the measures we are looking at is turning the ships around and saying you can't take on board your cargo,” Mr McGowan said. “The downside of that is that the ships may not then tell us that they have sick people on board and that then creates a whole other series of issues. “We're looking at whatever options we can put in place to make sure we discourage these ships from arriving in this condition.” Coronavirus outbreaks have been detected on four cargo ships arriving in WA waters in the past month, in three cases requiring some crew members to be removed from the vessels and quarantined on land while the ships were cleaned. In Queensland, commercial vessels have been banned from entering ports if any person on board has been in any country outside of Australia in the past fortnight. Health Minister Roger Cook told a budget estimates hearing yesterday the WA Government was “awaiting advice from the State Solicitor’s Office” on “the better management of these vessels”. “It does stick in our craw a bit that these vessels come in with crew members who are unwell… expect us to bear the cost of assisting them and then load up millions and millions of dollars’ worth of iron ore and ship themselves off,” he said. “That is a bit galling, to be perfectly frank.” Crew changes in the Philippines — which supplies around a third of the world’s mariners but does not strictly enforce quarantine measures — have been identified as a likely source of virus outbreaks. But Mr Cook denied banning ships from individual countries was under consideration. “We are not awaiting advice about how we can stop them coming altogether. We are a State Government and we are obviously bound by national laws.” Cargo vessels carrying COVID-19 positive crew will be raised by Mr McGowan at tomorrow’s National Cabinet meeting, with the Premier pressuring Prime Minister Scott Morrison to “be more forceful in international forums and with foreign governments about ensuring the ships are clean”. “What's clearly occurring in other parts of the world is crew members are getting on board the ships who are COVID positive and there isn't appropriate quarantine being put in place,” Mr McGowan said. “I'm not blaming the Commonwealth but I’d seek their support to make sure that we have further measures overseas to prevent this from occurring.”