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New Zealand Navy ship h M n Z S Mono and Nui sank this morning after running aground on a reef off the coast of Summer last night. Excuse me, the ship caught fire, but the Chief of Navy says it's too soon to speculate and watch what has caused the incident. Defense Minister Judith Collins is with me now. Good afternoon, good after Have you slept it all? It happened last night before eleven. You must have had a pretty horrendous It's been a pretty pretty busy time for you, hasn't it.
I was surprised by the Chief Defense Force about twenty or maybe minutes past seven last night and kept updated. Yeah. I do tend to sleep pretty well, and I got up using me early to get the next update. But the update was there. It was looking like it was going to keel over, and of course it did.
What was it doing there, It was.
Doing survey work for that reef. So, as you will be aware, some more, like many other Pacific nations, has been subject to tsunami and earthquakes and all sorts of other things, and those reefs. That releaf was last surveyed in nineteen eighty seven. So therefore what there is, it's very little information. It's it is not safe at the moment, and so that's what it was doing, was trying to surveying that reef as it in doing other places as well.
Is that what mano Wanoui's principal purposes.
It's also been involved with helping to deal with ammunitions, you know, World War two ammunitions, diving all those sorts of things that you need around the Pacific. I mean, we've still got a lot of that stuff in the Pacific, and so it's been working on that recently. I think the last pace it was somewhere was Vanuatu dealing with those sorts of issues. So it's not worship. It was
never built as a worship. It was a it was an all rigged tender for Norway and it was fifteen years old when the Government of the day brought it about five years ago. But it's not a worship, but it is you know, it's painted gray and it's pretty much it.
Of course, you can be a hugely relieved, as we all are, that crew and passengers are all okay in a successful evacuation.
I guess if that's the right word, I can't think of.
Well.
I think it's a big saving grace O of the entire terrible incident is that nobody actually lost their lives, and it could have been gone from a terrible situation into a massive tragedy. So I'm just pleased that everyone
got off. And though it was touch and go in the early hours this morning, as one of the ribs, one of the boats on basically it's on the Amanahanui capsized over the reef because apparently it's very heavy seas and in the middle of the night, and those people who are in that got themselves up and onto the reef and walked across to land, so they were no doubt have some cut, some bruises.
And from that as well, I do assume that based on that that weather conditions or the sea conditions played a part in whatever happened.
Oh, I don't know. And that's what we do know is that it wasn't good this morning when they were you know, there's going to be a quarter of inquiry has already been set up now hasn't been that's being set up and that will come to look at all the evidence, and so that can put an end to the speculation, because frankly, I think there's so much speculation because of course naturally people want to know what's happened, as do I. But I haven't got the effects and we need to have those.
Can you tell us what a court of inquiries processes and sort of timeline broadly from any particular precedence or no.
Well, what I can say is that the Chief of Navy said that it starts setting itself up and it will take whatever time it takes to get to the bottom of it. But you can imagine the Navy does keep very good records, and you can also imagine that they will be straight onto this. This is a big deal for Navy. They are really upset about it. And as I say, the only saving grace is that nobody actually died.
I mean common sense or would help us.
It would allow us to infer that given they were surveying the reef they were they were probably in a position where they had to be in close proximity to it. Anyway, Is that right?
Well, I don't think that it's speculation. I think that's pretty clear. You need to be in order to survey it, obviously, But look, I just I can't go to any other detail because number one, you know, I can't bridge this an inquiry, and secondly I don't really have the facts.
But okay, well you can just say no if you can't answer each question. Was it actually engaged in the survey when trouble hit?
I can't tell you that, but I can say that that was a job to do that. So whether they had already started or not as no matter.
Do we have a lead on whether it was human or technical error or mechanical.
No, we have veryous speculative comments on social media, but we don't have a lead. I think we simply can't. And it's understand that these matters are treated very seriously. I imagine that it will all come out in the I wouldn't say full of the time. I'll say as soon as it is able to What sort.
Of briefings do you get on what the Navy know compared to what you know? Obviously maybe you can or can't share that stuff with us, but do you get a briefing about information that you just simply have to keep to yourself because of the court inquiry?
I sometimes get information that would be I need to keep quiet about. But then I've also got other agencies that I'm pretty used to doing that with security agencies. So I just my view is I'll speak about what we can publicly say, otherwise will wait.
For the r And look, I I have read comments that you've said that you've referred to avoiding the loss of life as a triumph, and also you said you could never be embarrassed by the defense force. But to be honest, this incident surely is embarrassing, isn't it. The incident itself, Losing a ship in war is one thing, but in peace time, well, I.
Just I think it is really unfortunate. I'm just grateful nobody died, and when it comes to just wait till the inquiry to see whether there's anything there. But I know that there are around fifteen thousand New Zealand defense personnel, civilian and uniform who will be utterly gutted about this today. And I'm not someone who's going to put the boot into my team ever.
Good on you.
Now, look in terms of the Navy's inventory, what gap does this lead leave and with what urgency do we need to fill it?
Well? It means we don't have the sort of craft that can go around and do surveys. I mean, that's important work. I'm wondering whether you know what we need to do now, because obviously we're doing our defense capability pant a moment, Do we now need to look at this area as well, or is there something that is not necessarily our core business. I'm not sure about that. That's something that Defense needs to discuss with me and
work out themselves. Everyone's just dealing with the situation right at the moment, and right now we're very worried about any environmental impact on the Savon reef and some more so we're focused on that one, and so which comes next? Everything else?
We'll just wait, are you concerned or I mean, this is probably stuff that's within cabinet, But everyone wants more money. How much more money do we need for the defense? Does it place a strain on our budgets?
Again, well, it's quite clearly that New Zealand, like many other Webster nations, decided in about nineteen ninety to cut the amount of their defense budget. So that was a decision made after the end of the fall of the Berlin Wall. You sort of see that all Western nations, so clearly we live in very difficult times. We've got a lot of old kit We've got some new ones just turned up in the pectories and the p eights, but we're constantly having to make do an old pit.
And it's like the burrowing seven five sevens that gets a lot of stick. Were teen years old and they're bought. This particular ship was fifteen years old when it was bought.
Look, I do really appreciate your time and stuff, and it just had a slightly lighter I don't know if we can change channel on this sort of but on a lighter topic. Has there been I loved that you were ranked at number five in the mood of the boardroom, about a hundredth of a point ahead of the Prime Minister.
Has there been much banter within the cabinet about the rankings and the mood of the boardroom.
No, we're doing the job. That would be freake seriously doing the job and our zeriaware. This is a team effort. One of the great things with mister Christopher Lutson is let me and our team just get on with the job. We've got our KPIs get onto them and he's incredibly supportive, as he has been a freak with all this matter last night and today.
Yes, indeed, well actually I did think that he would be happy to see his team doing so well.
And that's the whole point. That's I think that's a stick, isn't it.
Yeah, yeah, it is. He's really good. He understands not just one person, that's the whole team.
Yeah, Judith, Look, I do really appreciate your time because I know it's been a it would have been a fraud sort of, you know, not coming up to twenty four hours for you. So thank you so much for your answers and best wishes. Thanks very much, Thanks very much to bye yeers, bye bye.
Difficult.
You know, I think it's it is difficult for Judith because she has Minister of Defense and as she said, I'm not going to have a crack at my team and things and that's the job of the Court of Inquiry and so yeah, but it was interesting just to hear, you know, that couple of consequences that we don't think of and Judith was talking about.
You know, there's a lot of speculation on social media, but of course the next thing that they're concerned about is the environmental impact. I know that the expression environmental impact is a red rag to a ball for someone, but seriously, a ship has just run around and caught fire and in samar and so it'll be interesting to see how that story develops as well. We're going to be doing some talkback shortly on eight hundred and eighty
ten and eighty and look. Two things you can your response to the interview with Judith Collins there and any questions. I don't think she could have answered any other questions I was I was dying to asked her. You ask her, you know, do we know who was at the helm and all that sort of stuff, but she was never going to be able to answer that.
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