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May-Jun 2008
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Slick, Slop, Slap: Crude Oil won't protect your skin from cancer
Crude oil does not protect your skin from sun cancer. Protect our surf Blockout plans to expose our coast to pollution
TELL THE LIBS TO CLEAN UP THEIR ACT!
Write to the PM:
John Howard
Prime Minister
Parliament House
Canberra, ACT, 2600
SLICK
- Rustbuckets, coffin ships, substandard, ships of shame account for more than 50% of the world’s oil pollution.
- One in five ships (but over half of the world's tonnage) are Flag of Convenience vessels, ships flagged out to tax havens like Panama to avoid safety & labour standards.
- FOC ships are twice as likely to sink as national flag operators. Two FOC livestock carriers (the Uniceb & the Guernsey Express) went down at sea in 1996, carrying Australian sheep & cattle exports.
- The FOC tanker Diamond Grace ran aground in Tokyo Bay in July, 1997, spilling 13,400 tons of crude oil, 25 square kilometres close to populated areas & a major fishing ground.
- Lightening never strikes in the same place twice? Not so with shipping disasters. Within three years there was another major oil spill off Singapore.
- The Panamanian registered tanker Natuna Sea ran aground eight kilometres southeast of Singapore, on October 3 , 2000, spilling 7,000 metric tons (2 million gallons) of crude oil into the ocean. A total of 42 anti-pollution craft were deployed as oil seeped towards Singapore’s main beaches. The spill also fouled the shorelines of small islets just south of the mainland.
- The Malaysian flagged Bunga Teratai Satu & its crew of convenience grounded on the world heritage Great Barrier Reef in November, 2000.
- At the same time the FOC vessel XL caught on fire off our west coast killing two seafarers and an explosion on the FOC Kota Wirawan, killed three off the coast of NSW.
SLOP
Ships of Shame: Flagged out in one country, owned in another, managed in a third. So when things do go wrong, the owners are usually impossible to track down & you, the taxpayer, cop the bill to clean up the mess.
SLAP
A law called cabotage ensures Australian ships & Australian crew – all working to recognised international safety standards, carry most of our coastal trade.
But since taking office the Coalition Government has dealt our marine environment a blow by...
- permitting foreign vessels to carry our coastal trade without mandatory safety checks
- axing funding which made our merchant fleet competitive
- selling off our Australian National Line
- revoking ILO conventions, redrafting the Navigation Act
&
- introducing a bill to the House of Reps which would allow foreign manning agents to crew Australian ships with untrained, 3rd World labour
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