P&O says sorry – full and detailed report – P&O says they are changed forever

In what could be described as a very unusual and what surely has to be an unprecedented occasion, P&O called Australia’s media together yesterday [Thursday] in Sydney for Peter Ratcliffe, [Pictured] a main Board director of Carnival Corporation, based in Los Angeles and CEO of the P&O Princess division of Carnival Corporation, with responsibility for the operation of P&O Cruises in Australia as well as Cunard Line and Princess Cruises in the United States, and P&O Cruises and Ocean Village in the United Kingdom, to do what he described as…………taking this opportunity to meet with you to discuss the steps we have taken since the tragic death of Mrs Brimble aboard the Pacific Sky in 2002.

Mr Ratcliffe, said, “I am conscious that some considerable time has passed since the death of Mrs Brimble and since the start of the Inquest and whilst we have extended our sympathies to the Brimble family and explained the changes we have been making to the Company’s operations in a number of formal statements, I think the time has come for me to address you personally.

In an outstandingly honest, but bearing in mind the ongoing nature of the inquest into Mrs Brimble’s death, rather amazing announcement, Mr Ratcliffe said, “Firstly, on behalf of all of us at P&O Cruises, both directors, management and employees, I want to express our heartfelt sympathies to the children and family of Mrs Brimble.”

“Not only have the family had to suffer the terrible loss of a loved one, but they have also had to deal with the sometimes distressing testimony offered at the Inquest, and also the public airing of the circumstances around Mrs Brimble’s death.”

“No family should have to go through this sort of pain.”

“We deeply apologise for the contribution P&O and its employees have made to their grief.”

Mr Ratcliffe told the assembled media that he had met with Mr Michael Brimble and Mr David Mitchell for a few hours in Brisbane, adding, “I said how sorry we were for what had happened and talked about how the family was coping”.

“I explained to them that we understood the family had been through a lot and that, in my opinion, the law, which focuses on legal liability, and not on the suffering of the family, is not really adequate in recognizing their unique situation.”

“For our part, we feel we have a moral obligation to do what we can to ensure that the family, particularly the children, are properly provided for and I agreed with Mr Brimble and Mr Mitchell a process which puts legal issues to one side, and focuses on the needs of the family.”

“I expressed our sincere hope that through this process we may help bring some form of closure to the family, for their tragic loss.”

Mr Ratcliffe confirmed to media that this process, which sets aside the formal legal process, included financial payment to the family to deal with the pain and suffering the family had endured, recognising and understand their needs and ensuring that they are properly looked after, particularly the children. 

When questioned by media about financial compensation, he answered that money was the only way a major corporation could help the family but when questioned by The Mole if this meant that the cash settlement with the family was intended to avert the potential of civil action, Mr Ratcliffe would only comment that it was not P&O’s purpose.

The Mole asked if the Australian operation was being run so “badly”, why global best practice from other Company operations had not been replicated into Australia, with his response being that they had, they had recognised the need to improve things in Australia and that is why such significant changes had been made in the last four years including moving the hotel management aspects to Los Angeles, adding, “the inquest has been a wake up call to us all”.

Mr Ratcliffe referred to the Inquest, but firstly prefaced his comments with him needing to continue to respect the process, and not to comment on specifics.

He did say though, “Let me say, the death of Mrs Brimble was a tragedy and the Inquest has been a real wake up call for the Company.”

“Over the last four years, there have been many changes in P&O Cruises, with the shoreside management of the hotel operations of the vessels transferred to executives based in Los Angeles in early 2005, and the local hotel management operation here in Sydney disbanded”.

“We reorganised on board management with previous management being replaced with senior management redeployed from other lines within the division and there have also been extensive changes in Australian senior management, with the majority of senior management currently employed having been with the Company for less than four years.”

Referring to the inquest once again he repeated, “Notwithstanding all these changes, as I said, the Inquest has been a real wake up call for us all.”

“What we’ve heard at the Inquest has really brought home to us both the need to ensure our safety and security procedures are at the highest possible standard, but also the need to accelerate the pace of cultural change both ashore and at sea.”

“As the Inquest has progressed, our immediate focus has been on the safety and security of our passengers and we fully understand we are responsible for the safety of 150,000 Australians who cruise with us every year…………this is particularly important, as 55% of our passengers are families travelling together.”

He confirmed that P&O as a result had completely overhauled their procedures and training for the responsible service of alcohol and had sought the advice of the Department of Liquor, Gaming and Racing in New South Wales to ensure their procedures conform to best practice here in Australia, in addition to stopping paying bar staff commission on sales, stopping passengers bringing alcohol on board, closing bars in the early morning hours and strengthening procedures for making sure under age passengers are not served alcohol.

Mr Ratcliffe also confirmed that P&O have been making changes to on board security arrangements, including, making one senior officer responsible for all on board security, creating a new security department headed by the division’s Chief Security Officer who is based in Los Angeles, appointing a new Sydney based shoreside management to report to him, introducing improved training programs dealing with crime scene preservation, response and investigation, increased the number of on board security personnel from 10 to at least 20, making sure their security specialists are licensed in either Australia or New Zealand, and implementing more rigorous random drug search procedures.

He added, that as the Inquest has progressed, P&O has also fitted their Australian ships with a Closed Circuit Television surveillance system costing $1m each, with over 300 cameras and twenty four hours recording capability, introduced enhanced medical and security procedures for dealing with allegations of drink spiking and introduced sniffer dogs and random drug searches.

When asked by The Mole if the company now accepted that the Ch7 Today Tonight coverage was an accurate portrayal of what occurred on P&O’s vessels, he said that the Company carried a hundred thousands passengers with the majority families, who have had great holidays, but he accepted that there had been excessive behaviour by a minority of people and that P&O had tolerated that, saying, “But we now have to completely stamp that out and stop that behaviour, adding, ”Ch7 had concentrated on the behaviour of a minority of people and the coverage and the inquest were not a fair reflection of our business.”

When asked by media if P&O’s business had been impacted by these scenarios, he would only respond a number of times that the ships were still sailing full, refusing to add any further comment, except that every executive in the company wished they had done things differently over the last four years,

The Mole also asked Mr Ratcliffe if P&O agreeing to compensate the Brimble family mean that accepted full responsibility for what happened, with Mr Ratcliffe responding that they had not followed up very quickly, the testimony had extended the time, that P&O had made the grief for that family greater than it should have been and what he was doing was outside the judicial process, saying to them that P&O understood, they would like to do the right thing and make sure that they are adequately provided for.

Mr Ratcliffe said that P&O has also accelerated the process of cultural change within the Company, but he would not accept that this may be so ingrained, not necessarily in the Company as it is now consists of new management, but in some of its clients, with cheap, cheerful, fun and sex in the sun being P&O’s core marketing message from the days of the earliest P&O and Sitmar vessels operating in Australia.

In terms of changing P&O’s marketing, he said that the Company has introduced new marketing and advertising protocols that prevented tasteless and unacceptable advertising, they had introduced a policy of zero tolerance for excessive behaviour which provided that any person involved in such behaviour was taken off the ship, flown home to Australia and reported to the police where appropriate, the introduction of a new customer service training program for onboard personnel, the stopping of “schoolies” cruises, and improving the way they respond to complaints, including putting in place a 24 hour hotline so people can contact the company.

He also said that P&O is also focusing its attention on the proposals from the ICV advocacy organization headed in Australia by Mr Brimble, recognizing that these proposals reflected the legitimate interests of the people involved in the safety and security of passengers onboard their  vessels.  He added that when he spoke to Mr Brimble on Monday, they discussed the ICV’s proposals and agreed that suitable experts within the Company would meet with Mr Brimble to ensure that P&O fully understood his perspective on the proposals adding that they are also talking to the Australian Authorities in Minister Bailey’s department on these issues.

He took the opportunity of mentioning the formation of the recently appointed Advisory Council under the Chairmanship of Katie Lahey, which has been formed because the main centres of operation of the P&O/Princess Division are remote from Australia and the company now recognized that it needed a locally based group of independent minded and experienced non­-executive people who would oversee and advise on all aspects of P&O’s Australian operations.

Mr Ratcliffe also confirmed that a new Managing Director of Carnival Australia would be appointed with executive authority for all of Carnival’s Australian business and that this was seen as a very senior appointment within his division, but until the appointment was made, the position would be filled by Dean Brown, a Los Angeles based Executive Vice President of Princess Cruises who has been with the Company 25 years and will be based in Sydney until the new appointment is made.

This appointment means that Gavin Smith will no longer be the most senior Carnival person in Aus and while he is continuing with P&O, he has been sidelined becoming responsible to Dean Brown for marketing, sales and reservations.

When asked if this move was any reflection of a lack of confidence in Gavin’s skills or performance Mr Ratcliffe would only say that it was not, but that they needed to bring in more experienced management.

He concluded his comments by making four points, namely, “We fully understand our responsibility for the safety and security of our Australian passengers and have made significant changes particularly in the last year; while we have progressed the cultural change process within P&O Cruises, we fully recognize the need to continue that process both ashore and at sea and we are absolutely committed to doing just that; while we will do all we can to create a safe and secure environment for our passengers, we recognize that if, despite all our measures, someone does behave in an unacceptable way, we will be judged quite rightly by how we respond; and Mrs Brimble’s death, and the scrutiny of the Inquest, have both changed us forever and we are doing all we can to ensure that we have learned from that.”

Report by The Mole