Entry & progression
This lesson does not teach basic safety training. The library's Basic Safety courses cover PST, FPFF, EFA and PSSR. This lesson tells you what Australia does with them — and why your overseas BST certificate will not convert.
Australia bundles five elements, not four
Most administrations package basic training as four elements. Australia folds a fifth into the same certificate.
- Personal survival techniques — A-VI/1-1
- Fire prevention and fire fighting — A-VI/1-2
- Elementary first aid — A-VI/1-3
- Personal safety and social responsibilities — A-VI/1-4
- Security awareness training — STCW VI/6, Table A-VI/6-1 ← the fifth element
Security awareness is not a separate card in Australia. It is inside the CoST. That matters when you are asked to prove it and you go looking for a certificate that does not exist as a standalone document.
It must be done in Australia. Full stop.
WARNING — Overseas basic training cannot be converted into a CoST AMSA, verbatim: "Only AMSA can issue a CoST. If you completed basic safety training overseas, you cannot use it to obtain an Australian CoST."
There is no conversion, no bridging module, no gap course. You must be trained in Australia with an AMSA-approved provider. A crew member with a valid MCA or USCG basic training certificate who wants an Australian STCW ticket sits the training again, in Australia. Budget for it.
The mechanics
- Minimum age 16
- Apply on seafarer form 419
- Fee $112
- Valid 5 years
- No AMSA medical fitness certificate is required to apply for a CoST
The trap that costs people time
AMSA states that sea service completed before your CoST is issued may not count as qualifying sea service. Read that again. If you spend a season accruing what you believe is qualifying time and only then apply for the CoST, that season may be worth nothing toward an international certificate.
The CoST is the gate to the entire international system. AMSA puts it plainly: you will need a Certificate of safety training before you get any other qualification. Deck or engineering, yacht or merchant — it comes first, and it should come first chronologically, not just administratively.
But it is not required for domestic work
This is the part people get backwards in the other direction. A CoST is not required by regulation for domestic commercial vessel work. AMSA: some operators of domestic commercial vessels require crew to complete basic safety training and obtain a CoST. Check with your employer or vessel operator if this applies to your role.
That is an employer requirement, not a regulatory one. Domestic safety training is instead built into the VET qualification — the Certificate I, II, III or IV in Maritime Operations — plus a standalone HLTAID011 'Provide first aid' certificate. No STCW units. No CoST.
NOTE — "Elements of Shipboard Safety" is not an AMSA term It appears nowhere on AMSA's domestic qualifications pages. It is a training-package term used by RTOs. Do not use it in anything you send to AMSA, and do not assume a certificate bearing that name satisfies an AMSA requirement — check what AMSA actually asks for.
So: domestic crew may never need a CoST. Anyone going international needs it before anything else, needs it done in Australia, and should get it before the sea service — not after.