Australian Institute of Project Management


Australian Maritime Identification System (AMIS) Capability Development Program

Australian Customs and Border Protection Service
2009
PMAA Results: National Category Winner,State Winner,State Category Winner
Email the Support Office or call (02) 8288 8700 for media and project enquiries.

Australia's maritime economy is large and is highly dependent on maritime trade. In 2004/05 Australia recorded:

  • $214 billion in international sea freight;
  • 680 million tonnes in maritime trade;
  • more than 2 million containers imported through Australia?s five principal ports;
  • 4,737 vessels conducting 11 465 separate voyages to Australia;
  • 2,256 Australian registered fishing vessels greater than 24m in length and many thousands of smaller vessels; and
  • 211,018 cruise ship passenger movements.

    Australia's strategic environment and economic position exposes it to a number of threats and challenges in the maritime environment. Potential threats include:
  • the use of a vessel or its cargo to transport individuals or materials for terrorist purposes;
  • hijack of vessels for terrorist purposes;
  • attacks on shipping, including vessels carrying passengers, valuable or high risk cargo in Australian waters, foreign vessels of political significance (including military vessels);
  • attacks on port or offshore facilities;
  • illegal fishing/immigration;
  • smuggling of drugs, arms, weapons of mass destruction;
  • piracy, robbery and violence at sea;
  • quarantine risks; and
  • environmental damage.

    Although Australian government agencies have invested significantly in capabilities to gather, analyse and assess huge amounts of maritime security related data, prior to AMIS collaboration was limited due to an inability to compile and access an holistic view of Australian's maritime domain. Information collected by individual agencies typically provided only partial visibility of the actual situation, centred around the dominant purpose for which the information was collected. Furthermore, because of legislative constraints, information could not be shared between government agencies. Therefore a comprehensive and shared picture of maritime activity and threats could not be constructed and adequate maritime domain awareness was rarely achieved. The lack of adequate maritime domain awareness almost certainly constrained the government?s understanding of maritime threats and the range of response options available to deal with them.

    This resulted in the following problems:
  • thousands of vessels operating in Australian waters with anonymity;
  • undetected threats and illegal activities;
  • inefficient use of resources in performing threat analysis and profiling based on incomplete and inaccurate data;
  • inefficient use of resources due to multiple agencies duplicating detection, identification and assessment efforts across the maritime domain;
  • suboptimal prioritisation of surveillance assets; and
  • suboptimal prioritisation of response assets.



    Email the Support Office or call (02) 8288 8700 for media and project enquiries.

    Return to ALL 2009 PMAA Winners

    Return to All PMMA Submissions Archive
    Return to PMAA Homepage