News.com.au reports:
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt yesterday said
[…]
“We will be seeking full cost recovery through insurers for the up to $2.4 million costs incurred by the Australian government,” he said.“We have a duty to protect life at sea and we do that willingly.
“However, what we see here is that there are some questions as to whether or not the ship was detained by the action of those on board within an area the captain had identified as potentially being subject to being frozen in.
“I think we have a duty on behalf of taxpayers to seek full cost recovery.
So that’s one group involved in rescue that is going to seek restitution.
Looks like the Curse of Mawson is not yet lifted.
If they are it will be policitally motivated.
The Australian Navy has spent millions on resuing a lunatic lone sailor before and not requested payments. Other ships are resuced regularly on Antarctic voyages, I have put the links up before, no payment requested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Bullimore
That sounds defamatory to me.
@John M
It was a solo sailing race around the globe. To make the distance shorter, solo sailors would go as far south as possible. That is, they deliberately sailed a small boat in the most remote ocean on earth to win a race. That’s exactly what Bullimore did, and he came to grief. It was only a Naval ship that was going to go down there and save him, which cost a fortune.
Bugs said
“If they are it will be policitally motivated.”
Surely preferable to being unmotivated by politics. Politics is very important.
Bugs,
That has nothing to do with your defamation of him as a “lunatic”.
Are you a licensed psychiatrist, or are you practicing a “takes one to know one” defense?
HR
Agreed. Moreover, the level of available resources, and living conditions change over time. Bugs is discussing something that happened 30 years ago. There is nothing wrong with a government changing policies on which costs will be born by the public and which by individuals. In the US, we change which things are free and which things we pay fees for all the time. Heck, different communities pay for somethings out of taxes; others don’t.
For example: most incorporated villages pay for fire departments out of taxes. But unincorporated areas have private fire companies and individual home owners subscribe to the fire fighting company. Some places have volunteer fire departments and so on. We have similar situations with water and sewer. In some communities every home is required to be on municipal water. In others, people have wells. In some you can chose.
The method of choosing the water system or fire protection system is “political” in all cases. It’s just that some groups like one decision, some prefer a different one. And it’s ok a community changes their system over the course of 30 years.