Australia continues ship ban

Australia continues ship ban

SYDNEY (Reuter): The Maritime Union of Australia's bans on Indonesian cargo and shipping would continue, Terry Buck, joint secretary of the Fremantle, Western Australia, branch, told Reuters yesterday.

"The Bogasari Empat is loading today. When it completes loading it won't sail for 24 hours," he said.

Bogasari Empat is scheduled to carry 32,500 tonnes of wheat to Indonesia from Fremantle, Western Australia.

A container vessel due in Fremantle next week would meet with similar bans, Buck said. A cattle vessel had been held up since Wednesday in Darwin, he added.

"Any other cargo vessel from Indonesia will meet with the same fate," Buck said. "What we're going to do is determine case-by- case, issue-by-issue, vessel-by-vessel, cargo-by-cargo just how we're going to meet the bans," he said.

"It may well be, for example, next week a container vessel coming into port, we will not load it for 24 hours," he said.

"The vessels (also) require the services of mooring gangs and tug crews. They just withhold their labor," he said, outlining the various ways the bans could be enforced.

The union has imposed bans on Indonesian ships to protest against the arrest of two independent labor leaders in Indonesia, Muchtar Pakpahan and Dita Sari.