Recommendation Date
Recipient Name
MNZ
Text
On 15 May 2025, the Commission recommended that Maritime New Zealand work with the Ministry of Transport to continue to develop and then implement a more comprehensive maritime incident response strategy that includes a risk assessment to identify areas most susceptible to very serious marine casualties, particularly mass fatality events, and strengthen the long-term salvage and rescue capability in those areas.
Reply Text
Recommendation 022/25
On 15 May 2025, the Commission recommended that Maritime New Zealand work with the Ministry of Transport to continue to develop and then implement a more comprehensive maritime incident-response strategy that includes a risk assessment to identify areas most susceptible to very serious marine casualties, particularly mass fatality events, and strengthen the long-term salvage and rescue capability in those areas.
Maritime NZ partially accepts this recommendation
As part of Maritime NZ’s lead agency role for maritime incident response, we already have a comprehensive Integrated Maritime Incident Response Strategy, along with processes, systems, and risk assessment, that sits under it, that we regularly update. We are currently at Version 5 of this strategy with the last version done in 2022. See: Integrated Maritime Incident Readiness and Response Strategy - Issue 5
Under our strategy we have a risk assessment we have a clear idea of areas most susceptive to serious marine casualties and have previously signalled through the strategy the gaps in salvage and rescue capability.
Our next version of this strategy and plan is currently underway taking into account of lessons of various responses since 2022. As part of this we have developed a refreshed Maritime Response Model, an updated Notification, Escalation and Activation (NEA) procedure and generation of a formalised lessons management policy and procedure. Future work includes the refresh of an updated exercise programme that aligns with the updated response model and includes focus on reducing and preparing for new and emerging risks whilst maintaining the existing readiness and response capability at the regional and national level. We are currently, or will be, working with all of our key partners on this. For example, regional councils, ports and operators and also will engage with the Ministry of Transport as part of this work.
Maritime NZ has contracted the provision of services for emergency ocean response and salvage capability (EORC) provided by MMA Vision for up to 20 days per month in the vicinity of the Cook Strait until June 2026. With the ability to extend another year. Additionally, the government has directed continued work between Maritime NZ and the Ministry of Transport to undertake the next phase of work to explore procuring an enduring emergency ocean response capability, on a predominantly user-pays basis.
On 15 May 2025, the Commission recommended that Maritime New Zealand work with the Ministry of Transport to continue to develop and then implement a more comprehensive maritime incident-response strategy that includes a risk assessment to identify areas most susceptible to very serious marine casualties, particularly mass fatality events, and strengthen the long-term salvage and rescue capability in those areas.
Maritime NZ partially accepts this recommendation
As part of Maritime NZ’s lead agency role for maritime incident response, we already have a comprehensive Integrated Maritime Incident Response Strategy, along with processes, systems, and risk assessment, that sits under it, that we regularly update. We are currently at Version 5 of this strategy with the last version done in 2022. See: Integrated Maritime Incident Readiness and Response Strategy - Issue 5
Under our strategy we have a risk assessment we have a clear idea of areas most susceptive to serious marine casualties and have previously signalled through the strategy the gaps in salvage and rescue capability.
Our next version of this strategy and plan is currently underway taking into account of lessons of various responses since 2022. As part of this we have developed a refreshed Maritime Response Model, an updated Notification, Escalation and Activation (NEA) procedure and generation of a formalised lessons management policy and procedure. Future work includes the refresh of an updated exercise programme that aligns with the updated response model and includes focus on reducing and preparing for new and emerging risks whilst maintaining the existing readiness and response capability at the regional and national level. We are currently, or will be, working with all of our key partners on this. For example, regional councils, ports and operators and also will engage with the Ministry of Transport as part of this work.
Maritime NZ has contracted the provision of services for emergency ocean response and salvage capability (EORC) provided by MMA Vision for up to 20 days per month in the vicinity of the Cook Strait until June 2026. With the ability to extend another year. Additionally, the government has directed continued work between Maritime NZ and the Ministry of Transport to undertake the next phase of work to explore procuring an enduring emergency ocean response capability, on a predominantly user-pays basis.
Related Investigation(s)