Complexity in leadership: Australia’s response to the floating crisis – lessons not learnt

ABSTRACT

When Coronavirus boarded the Carnival cruise ship Ruby Princess in 2020, Australia’s leaders and the maritime industry responded with technical fixes to the most complex adaptive challenge ever to face Australian Federal and State authorities. As they struggled to make sense of the evolving pandemic, a similar situation had unfolded in the Northern Hemisphere port of Yokohama Japan, where Japanese authorities had already responded to another infected Carnival cruise ship, the Diamond Princess. All eyes should have been on the response to the Diamond Princess, and especially on the lessons learnt. In navigating complex chaotic environments, leaders need to make sense, probe and find a course of action suitable to meet the needs of a concerned community. This paper explores the evolving maritime pandemic and how Australia’s leaders attempted to navigate the challenge and the opportunity lost in experimenting to make progress against the adaptive leadership challenge, and why meta-leadership could have been exercised in response to these types of crises.

KEYWORDS:

• Maritime
• leadership
• VUCA world
• Ruby Princess
• coronavirus on cruise ships

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See Moriarty et al. (2020) for a discussion of the Grand Princess as an example of the acceleration of the spread of the Coronavirus between crew members across multiple consecutive cruise voyages.

2 WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at the media briefing on Covid-19 March 2020.

3 Previously referred to as the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE).

4 According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, “biosecurity is a strategic and integrated concept that encompasses the policy and regulatory frameworks (including instruments and activities) that analyse and manage risk in food safety, public health, animal life and health, and plant life and health, including associated environmental risk” (FAO 2007, p. viii).

5 Human biosecurity refers to the management of risks relating to human health and infectious human diseases entering Australia (Department of Health and Aged Care 2024).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Supt Joe McNulty

Superintendent Joseph (Joe) McNulty APM has over 30 years of maritime law enforcement command leadership and emergency management expertise. He is currently the Commander, Marine Area Command, New South Wales Police Force. During 2022, he was a visiting fellow at the Australian Institute of Police Management, facilitating and delivering Executive leadership programs.

His experience extends to international projects for United Nations Maritime Crime Program, Indian Ocean Commission and INTERPOL, developing operational marine capacity through strategic procurement projects.

In 2020, Joe coordinated the removal of foreign cruise vessels from NSW state waters and Ruby Princess by applying international maritime law in support of a local emergency management operation. Joe navigated the complex international shipping and port environment to deliver solutions to a highly complex problem.

Joe holds a Bachelor of Professional Studies, Masters in Maritime Policy/law, Grad Cert in Applied Management, and more recently a Master of Business Administration (MBA). Joe is currently a senior honorary fellow at the University of Wollongong.

Jenny Cartwright

Dimitra (Jenny) Cartwright attained her PhD from the University of Melbourne, Victoria Australia in 2003. Her doctoral research examined over 470 cases where women committed homicide in Australia over an 11-year period. In 1998, Jenny commenced at the Australian Institute of Criminology, Canberra. For over a decade, she managed research-led monitoring programs on homicide, drugs, armed robbery and firearms. Her research experienced is extensive, and she has published widely and presented her findings both nationally and internationally (under her current name and former married name Mouzos). She has given expert evidence in a high-profile serial murder trial in Victoria.

In 2008, Jenny joined the Australian Federal Police (AFP) where she has been instrumental in the operationalisation of public policy. This includes the creation of the Cyber Crime Prevention function within the High-Tech Crime Operations portfolio; and Diversion Operations within the Counter Terrorism Command in 2014. In November 2018, Jenny moved to the Professional Standards Command where she led the AFP’s efforts in safeguarding integrity through early intervention.

In January 2022, Jenny was selected as the Visiting Fellow (VF) at the Australian Institute of Police Management (AIPM), where she facilitated executive leadership development to police and public safety professionals. In January 2024, Jenny was appointed at the Director, Foundational Leadership Programs at the AIPM.