The licence is the smallest part of your legal position. As master you carry a positive, continuing duty for the vessel and everyone on it — and a set of speed, distance, alcohol and reporting obligations that differ in every state.
The master's duty
Queensland states it most plainly, in the General Safety Obligation under the Transport Operations (Marine Safety) Act 1994: a ship must not go to sea unless it is safe, properly equipped and maintained, crewed and operated in line with its proposed operating environment. It binds owners, masters and crew together — liability does not sit only with whoever is holding the wheel. Every other state carries a materially equivalent duty in its own marine safety legislation.
"The master" means the person with actual command at the time — not necessarily the owner, and not necessarily the licence holder if someone else is driving. That person is responsible for the safety of everyone aboard, for compliance with the collision regulations, for incident reporting, and in several states explicitly for the passengers' alcohol consumption as well as their own.
There is also a duty to render assistance to any person found at sea in danger of being lost, drawn from UNCLOS and SOLAS and given domestic force through the Navigation Act 2012. It is qualified: you are not required to put your own vessel, crew or passengers in serious danger, and a small boat in worsening weather is not expected to attempt what it cannot do. But you are expected to raise the alarm and stand by if you safely can.
| JURISDICTION | LIMIT | NOTES |
|---|---|---|
| NSW | under 0.05 | Under 18: 0.00. Commercial vessels: under 0.02. Testing powers apply under way, at anchor or drifting. |
| VIC | under 0.05 | Under 21: 0.00, including when merely "in charge" at anchor. |
| QLD | under 0.05 | Saliva testing for methamphetamine, MDMA and THC. Conviction can suspend or cancel your marine licence. |
| SA | under 0.05 | Extends to skiers, observers and towed persons. Compulsory blood test if anyone over 10 is hospitalised after a boating accident. |
| WA | under 0.05 | Graduated penalties at 0.05 / 0.08 / 0.15, mirroring road law. First offence at 0.05 is a $1,000 infringement. Applies to PWC, sailing boats, dinghies and electric hydrofoils alike. |
| TAS | under 0.05 | Enforced by MAST and Tasmania Police. |
| NT | No limit | The genuine outlier. Boats are not "vehicles" in NT law, so there is no prescribed BAC and no random breath testing power on the water. A 0.05 limit was recommended by the 2017 Riley Review and deferred by the NT Government in 2019. Reckless or dangerous operation remains an offence regardless. |
Speed, distance and your wash
Every state sets a low-speed limit that applies within a set distance of people, moored vessels and structures — but neither the speed nor the distance is the same anywhere.
- Queensland: 6 knots within 30 m of a person in the water, a vessel at anchor or made fast, or a jetty, ramp or pontoon — and throughout harbours, marinas and canals, signposted or not.
- New South Wales: 30 m from moored vessels, jetties, bridges, markers and the shoreline; 60 m from people in the water, swimming areas and dive flags; a 200 m caution zone around divers. Naval vessels get 200 m from the bow under way.
- Victoria: 5 knots within 50 m of any person, vessel, structure or shoreline, 100 m of a dive flag, and 200 m of the shoreline on enclosed and coastal waters.
- Western Australia: 8 knots within 15 m of a vessel under way, or 50 m of a moored vessel, a person in the water, a jetty or the riverbank — and through bridge arches, mooring areas, and water less than 3 m deep.
The point everyone misses: obeying the speed limit is not a defence to your wash. Queensland and WA both say so explicitly. You remain liable for damage or injury your wake causes, whatever the sign said.
Towing skiers and wakeboarders
An area of genuinely inconsistent law, and one where a boat crossing a state border changes its legal obligations mid-river. The minimum observer age is 13 in Queensland, 12 in Victoria, and in New South Wales the observer must hold a licence or be 16 or over. South Australia requires both skipper and observer to be 16 by default (12–15 as observer only, with a special permit and an adult skipper), mandates an approved Level 50 or 50S lifejacket for the person being towed, and bans towing between sunset and sunrise outright. Queensland requires the ski pattern to run anticlockwise unless signage says otherwise. Everywhere, the observer's sole job is watching the person being towed and relaying their signals — which is why the hand signals (thumb up for faster, thumb down for slower, pat the head to return, throat-cut for stop the engine, hand raised for "I'm OK") are part of the test.
Reporting an incident
Reporting is mandatory, and the thresholds and deadlines vary. New South Wales requires a Vessel Incident Report for death or injury, property damage over $5,000, or environmental damage. South Australia requires reporting within 48 hours, exempting minor injury and damage under $1,000. Western Australia requires it within 72 hours, with penalties for missing the window. Regardless of the paperwork deadline, the immediate duty everywhere is the same: stop, render assistance, and exchange details.
For domestic commercial vessels, AMSA runs a two-stage process: Form 18, the incident alert, as soon as reasonably practicable — within four hours for regulated Australian and foreign vessels — then Form 19, the full report, within 72 hours. The definition of a reportable "marine incident" is deliberately broad: death or injury, loss of a vessel, collision, grounding, sinking, flooding, capsize, fire, loss of stability, structural failure, close-quarters situations and near misses, and any event that could have caused death or injury even though it did not. The duty falls on owner and master both.