The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA)has published its National Compliance Plan 2026–27, outlining a risk-based approach to improving maritime safety, strengthening compliance and protecting seafarers across Australia’s shipping industry. The plan sets out how AMSA will target high-risk areas over the next 12 months, including conducting at least 2,400 Port State Control inspections on foreign-flagged vessels and 2,300 inspections on domestic commercial vessels.
The plan follows the reporting of 46 serious crew injuries across regulated Australian vessels and foreign-flagged vessels in 2025. While this was fewer than in 2024, the continued occurrence of serious injuries highlights the need for targeted action on occupational health and safety, crew fatigue management, safety management system implementation and electrical safety.
For the first time, AMSA has committed to conducting 15 inspections under the Occupational Health and Safety (Maritime Industry) Act 1993 (OHS(MI) Act), reinforcing its focus on improving workplace health and safety at sea.
The 2026–27 compliance program will focus on:
- Risk-based inspections of foreign and Australian-flagged vessels, with an emphasis on navigational safety, pollution prevention, and cargo securing and stowage.
- Seafarer safety and welfare under the Maritime Labour Convention, including occupational health and safety, and hours of work and rest.
- Domestic commercial vessel safety, with priorities including electrical safety, watchkeeping, lookout practices and fatigue management.
- Pollution prevention through inspections of exhaust gas cleaning systems and support for safe environmental practices.
- Strengthening safety management system implementation and safe operations among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander operators.
Compliance activities that will be applied as part of this plan include:
- Education: This may include a range of activities, including the development and dissemination of guidance material through various communication and engagement channels.
- Inspections: These include both scheduled and unscheduled inspections of vessels carried out by marine inspectors to ensure compliance with maritime legislation. Vessel inspections also seek to detect systemic performance issues within the accredited surveyor scheme and other associated entities.
- Safety compliance: This includes a combination of education, focused inspections and audits. We will generally commence with an education campaign followed by focused inspections to identify and measure the level of compliance. This will help identify what further compliance activities are necessary.
- Compliance checks: Compliance checks and monitoring activities are combined with education programs. We have compliance partner arrangements with State and Territory agencies across Australia. Monitoring activities can be undertaken with our compliance partners.
The authority said the plan reinforces its zero-tolerance approach to breaches of Maritime Labour Convention requirements for seafarer health, safety and welfare, while ensuring maritime employers meet their obligations under Australian and international law.