Coronavirus: Officers board to question Ruby Princess crew
NSW detectives have boarded the Ruby Princess to begin questioning the ship’s captain and crew.
NSW detectives have executed a night-time raid on the Ruby Princess cruise ship, questioning the luxury liner’s captain and crew, while also searching for key documents, in a dramatic escalation of the police investigation.
A core group of police officers dressed in personal protective gear boarded the vessel, docked at Port Kembla, south of Wollongong, about 7pm on Wednesday.
The officers arrived hours after a 15th passenger from the vessel — a 62-year-old woman — died in the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
The fallout from the Ruby Princess debacle has become a blight on the Berejiklian government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic since it docked in Sydney on March 19, under circumstances now magnified by a criminal inquiry.
About 40 detectives and support staff held an inaugural briefing on Wednesday morning before fanning out to begin interviews with “high priority” witnesses, namely decision-makers involved in granting pratique (quarantine clearance) to the gigantic 18-deck ship, or those who sought to prevent it.
These include senior officials at the Port Authority of NSW, some of whom were queried over the weekend by police before the investigation was formally launched on Monday. Among them was PANSW chief executive Philip Holliday, who declined to comment on the matter.
Based out of the NSW homicide squad, the strikeforce team is comprised of police from across the NSW State Crime Command, the Counter Terrorism and Special Tactics unit, and the NSW Police Force Marine Area Command, among others.
A separate team spent the morning seeking the requisite legal approvals to board the ship; they also sought advice from NSW Health and the NSW Police Force Workplace Health and Safety Command. Obtaining these clearances delayed the boarding by several hours, The Australian understands.
The luxury cruise liner remains hazardous for COVID-19, with NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller flagging on Wednesday that up to 200 crew members had shown symptoms of the virus, and 17 others had tested positive. “Strike Force Bast investigators are conducting inquiries onboard the Ruby Princess this evening,” a police spokeswoman confirmed on Wednesday night.
“The operation is being conducted under the strictest health and workplace safety guidelines.”
Police were expected to remain on the vessel for a number of days, a law-enforcement official said.
The ship is scheduled to remain at Port Kembla, 90km south of Sydney, until the end of next week as it resupplies before it receives formal instructions to leave NSW territorial waters.
The boarding of the vessel occurred on the same day NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian signalled that she may establish a separate, full-scale inquiry into the handling of the vessel’s arrival in order to deliver answers more quickly to the waiting public. But this would depend on the outcome of the strikeforce’s investigation, she said, and whether any criminality was determined.
“Obviously what we need to do is ascertain from police as to whether there is sufficient evidence for them to pursue the criminal investigation,” she said.
“But if for whatever reason police can’t be conclusive in those deliberations, of course we’ll have an inquiry in NSW which will involve all the authorities involved.
“I give my absolute commitment to that.”
Her remarks followed a report in The Australian on Tuesday that said any evidence gathered by the investigation was unlikely to be made public for at least 18 months, due to backlogs in the judicial system and the scale of the inquiry’s task. NSW Labor seized on the Premier’s comments to suggest that she had mismanaged the task examining the fiasco; it has persistently called for an inquiry with royal commission powers, led by a retired judge, to closely unpack the decision behind the ship’s arrival.
“The Premier all but conceded the police investigation will need to be replaced with a wider inquiry,” said Adam Searle, Labor’s leader in the NSW upper house.
Allegations surfaced again on Wednesday against Australian Border Force officials, claiming that they were pivotal in the decision-making process.
The Australian has previously reported that Ms Berejiklian blamed the ABF for the fiasco, in a confidential partyroom meeting in the days after the ship’s arrival.
ABF Commissioner Mike Outram said a conversation had taken place between an official at the Port Authority of NSW and a junior officer in the ABF’s control room on the morning of March 19.
However, he said the officer did nothing more that pass on information already logged in the computer system — that the Ruby Princess had already been cleared by NSW Health to disembark, and that ambulances had been summoned to deal with non-COVID-19 related illnesses.
“The Port Authority officer expressed concerns to a very junior officer in our control room about sick passengers aboard the Ruby Princess. He also said ambulances were required,’’ Mr Outram said. “The ABF did not seek to shape or influence any decision by the Port Authority. That’s not our job.
“They rang our office probably because they couldn’t raise anyone else.’’
Additional reporting: Paul Maley
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