Wharfies to stay in Howard Springs quarantine facility after iso court challenge fails

A group of 13 stevedores forced into quarantine after a PPE breach during the unloading of a cargo ship from Singapore will see out 14 days at Howard Springs following a failed court challenge.

• WHARFIE BATTLE: Company goes to court to seek release of 13 workers forced into Darwin quarantine
• PPE breach at Darwin Port sees 13 wharfies sent to Howard Springs

A GROUP of 13 stevedores forced into quarantine after a personal protective equipment breach during the unloading of a cargo ship from Singapore will see out 14 days at Howard Springs following a failed court challenge.

The group’s employer, LINX, backed by the Maritime Union, sought to overturn a ruling that they should have been wearing face masks while unloading the ship that left the city state for Darwin less than a week earlier.

The company argued the foreign crew was temperature tested and displaying no symptoms and that wharfies had been unloading similar vessels without face masks for months without catching Covid-19.

But chief health officer Hugh Heggie told the court the Singapore sailors could have been asymptomatic but still contagious and he only became aware dock workers were not wearing masks when the group was dobbed in by an Australian Border Force officer last week.

AUSMAT staff at the Howard Springs quarantine facility. Picture: Glenn Campbell via NCA NewsWire

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In affirming Dr Heggie’s quarantine order, Local Court judge John Neill said the inconvenience of the stevedores having to spend a fortnight in Howard Springs did not outweigh Dr Heggie’s assessment of the risk to the wider public from the PPE breach.

“Unlike Dr Heggie, I have worked as a stevedore at the docks in Darwin – I did so for a couple of months in 1973 in the build-up – and I can’t imagine what it would be like trying to carry out that work wearing a mask. It would be onerous in the extreme,” he said.

“That is not a sufficient reason for these protections not to be in place; they’re simply a part of the difficulties which all of us who come into close contact with our protective health measures have to put up with.

“Most of us, thankfully, can go about our daily business without any concerns of that sort, simply because of the health measures … that we have been protected by.”