The long drawn out emergency involving the Singapore based cargo ship Eline Enterprise , with its leaking flammable ethylene gas cylinders being moved in and out of Darwin Harbour, action delayed by the drawing up of a recovery contract- PAPERWORK!!! - must surely ring alarm bells . Once again, it showed the Territory is neither properly prepared or equipped to handle an emergency . The Chief Minister, Paul Henderson, remained exceptionally quiet throughout , early in the piece saying on TV he preferred to leave the matter in the hands of the experts. Can you imagine the premier of any state in which a ship with the potential to explode at or near the capital’s port of entry would maintain such a low media profile?
The media coverage of the situation was patchy, shallow, the obvious follow up questions never asked . Where are the news editors, chiefs of staff ? Incredibly, there were days when the NT News hard copy did not mention the drama , one day on page 9 , further evidence that the town would benefit from another paper, one not obsessed with crocs, cyclones , cocks, bonking , low flying UFOs. If , as the News described the vessel as being “stricken”- overcome or strongly affected by an illness, grief, fear ,etc,according to the dictionary , then it was surely a story that demanded close attention , investigative reporting , daily coverage, a major follow up when the drama was finally over.
How did the crew feel throughout the drama, who was the skipper , what was the storm like which dislodged and damaged the gas cylinders, how many of these cylinders are shipped into port, how is the gas used , what is the anticipated number of cyclinders that will be required when the Inpex project kicks off, where and how will the cylinders be stored ? -just a few questions that the media could have asked. No follow up,however, is evident at all by the scribes. So far, the matter has not been raised in the current sitting of the NT Legislative Assembly .
The ship vanished rapidly from ABC TV’s news radar. Channel 9 gave better coverage and extracted the fact that there was other possibly explosive cargo in the hold . The Sunday Territorian, P8, quoted Port Corporation’s acting chief executive Melissa Reiter as saying she could not legally disclose details about the ship’s movements. The Maritime Union of Australia statement about ships flying under flags of convenience, not abiding by conditions and requirements of Australian vessels , plying Australian waters and getting involved in scrapes got little coverage by the local media.
If Darwin intends to become a major gas hub, it had better ensure that its capacity to cope with emergencies in the harbour are far better than has been exposed by this latest fiasco. ( See earlier Little Darwin post for details of Halifax shipping disaster which caused the largest man- made explosion before the advent of the atomic bomb).
