Back on deck , the hornpipe dancing Shipping Reporter files another scoop.
If there was any real knowledge by local media of what transpires in the Townsville docks , last month's report that there had been an outbreak of 17 cases of COVID-19 aboard the bulk carrier Patricia Oldendorff in Western Australia waters, reporters would have chased up obvious local angles .
See , in giant letters , Oldendorff is often seen in Townsville's Ghost Fleet - see Emma Oldendorff below which slipped in recently , as usual, unnoticed by the scribes .
In the case of the Patricia Oldendorff outbreak ,West Australian authorities were concerned about a two-tier system of quarantining crewmembers in the Philippines before they set out for Australia . Ordinary crewmembers, it seems, quarantined aboard ; officers, on the other hand , were allowed to spend their time home .
Western Australia has called for a tightening of crew restrictions in the Philippines
Now another vessel, the Vega Dream ,an iron ore bulk carrier ,is off WA with COVID -19 in the crew. The International Transport Federation (ITF) said the crew must have brought the virus on board during a crew change in the Philippines earlier this month.
ITF National coordinator Dean Summers has reportedly lambasted the Federal Government saying it needed to step up to help sort out the situation and engage all states and Australia's international neighbours to ensure seafarers entering the country's waters had already isolated.
"It's not up to the State Government to work out what went wrong and deal with the government of the Philippines," he added
In light of this, questions should be asked of the Townsville Port Authority, the Queensland Government and the Feds in the hope that the virus is not shipped into the Queen City of the North and elsewhere due to what appears to be shortcomings in the Philippines.
The Townsville media failed to raise this important issue with PM Scott Morrison when he dropped in for a photo opportunity supporting the LNP election campaign, wearing his cool Hawaiian secret holiday clobber, badmouthing the Queensland government over the border closure...just as the virus is on the rise in New South Wales.
