Regime of ‘intrusive’ checks needed to halt Ruby Princess debacles

Cruise ship operators may be required to conduct more rigorous checks of their ­passengers.

Australian National University’s National Security College director Jacinta Carroll. Picture: ANU

Cruise ships must be subject to more “intrusive’’ inspection ­regimes by border security auth­orities if Australia is to avoid a repeat of the Ruby Princess debacle.

The director of the Australian National University’s National Security College, Jacinta Carroll, said cruise ships had generally been subject to a lower level of checking by authorities because of a ‘’trusted partner’’ arrangement between operators and the ­government.

Under this arrangement, larger operators that sailed regularly in Australian waters were relied on to provide information on the identity and health of passengers.

In the case of cruise ships, which had doctors and medical ­facilities on board, authorities were more likely to be guided by assurances from the operators concerning the health of passengers. “The trusted partner ­relationships generally work ­really well,’’ Ms Carroll said.

“This (Ruby Princess incident) has shown there’s a problem with that. You’d need to put in a mechanism in to deal with that. At the least you’d like to see an inspections regime that is more regular and more intrusive, just to provide assurance that everyone understands what is happening.’’

The Ruby Princess docked in Sydney on March 19, disgorging hundreds of passengers who would go on to develop COVID-19.

NSW Health authorities gave permission to disembark the passengers despite several displaying flu-like symptoms consistent with the coronavirus.

A number of swabs had been taken from affected passengers but the results did not come back until after the passengers left the boat.

The Ruby Princess has since become the largest single source of COVID-19 contagion in the country, with more than 400 passengers and crew afflicted with the disease and 16 deaths.

The circumstances around the incident are now the subject of a criminal investigation by the NSW Police Force amid concerns the boat’s operator, Carnival Cruises, may not have disclosed all relevant information.

On Monday, Australian Border Force Commissioner Michael Outram questioned the lack of ­accountability around Australia’s biosecurity arrangements, saying responsibility for who does what was spread across the states, the commonwealth and different agencies, making it difficult to ­pinpoint.

“In a pandemic like this, the federated arrangements that we have around our seaports and airports need to be significantly ramped up and hardened,’’ Mr Outram said. “To do that, you need somebody in command of resources to create the hard border and as little as separation as possible between the decision points.”

Ms Carroll said in the future, it might be that cruise ship operators themselves would have to conduct more rigorous checks of their ­passengers. “If there is no vaccine, it may be that taking temperatures as a check is part of any transport operator’s regime, or it could be there’s some kind of quick test,’’ she said.