Speaker 1: Kilda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page,
Speaker 1: a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. A
Speaker 1: search for answers is underway after the HM and Z
Speaker 1: S Manawanui ran aground and sank near Samoa. The one
Speaker 1: hundred million dollar ship left Auckland's devonport just over a
Speaker 1: week ago and was conducting a reef survey off the
Speaker 1: coast of Samoa, but ran aground at six forty six
Speaker 1: pm on Saturday. The ship started to take on water
Speaker 1: shortly after, and fire broke out as well, prompting an
Speaker 1: evacuation of all personnel on board. In the end, seventy
Speaker 1: five crew and passengers were rescued by Samora's Fire and
Speaker 1: Emergency Services Authority. A Court of inquiry is underway to
Speaker 1: find out exactly what happened, while cruis are on their
Speaker 1: way back, to work out how it can be salvaged
Speaker 1: and if there's an environmental concern from leaking fuel. Today
Speaker 1: on the Front Page, Dr John Battersby, a teaching fellow
Speaker 1: in the Center for Defense and Security at Massi University,
Speaker 1: joins us to discuss the historic nature of this incident
Speaker 1: and its potential impact on geopolitical relationships. John, what were
Speaker 1: your first thoughts when you heard the news.
Speaker 2: Well, being a Wellington resident, we were woken up at
Speaker 2: five oh eight with a rather nasty earthquake, so it
Speaker 2: was fearing. Shortly after that that we spotted the news
Speaker 2: that the ship had gone down, and it's a vessel
Speaker 2: that does that important survey of the ocean floor work
Speaker 2: and one of the reasons of the ocean floor changes
Speaker 2: there was an earthquake, so it sort of came as
Speaker 2: a little bit of a shock and definitely a sense
Speaker 2: of this is an important piece of capability that we
Speaker 2: could be losing here, So that was my first impression
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Are obviously saying it's too early to speculate whether a
Speaker 1: mechanical failure or human error are to blame, and we'll
Speaker 1: go along with that, but can you tell me what
Speaker 1: could have happened here? I suppose or we really just
Speaker 1: don't know until that inquiry's over.
Speaker 2: Well, we won't know until inquiries over, and there's a
Speaker 2: key piece of evidence on the bottom of the ocean,
Speaker 2: so they're going to have to get a look at that,
Speaker 2: and so there's going to be some time involved before
Speaker 2: we know exactly what's happened. The only other group of
Speaker 2: people that really know what's happened were on it, and
Speaker 2: they won't be talking to anybody other than the Inquiry.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have thought so, really, it's going to come
Speaker 2: down to was this with the vessel or the people
Speaker 2: on it? And it's going to be the Inquiry's job
Speaker 2: to work out which is what The.
Speaker 1: Dramatic scenes unfolded this morning as h Men's it is
Speaker 1: Manuwannui became a burning haze of smoke before the vessel
Speaker 1: rolled and slipped beneath the ocean.
Speaker 3: Oh love, it's gone down, it's gone. And then finally
Speaker 3: there was some big flame. For a couple of minutes,
Speaker 3: the flames were going up, and then the Bold sank.
Speaker 4: This is a ship that unfortunately is pretty much gone.
Speaker 4: This could have been a truly terrible day, but actually
Speaker 4: it's a bad day.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 1: The decision to evacuate the seventy five crew and passengers
Speaker 1: have been credited as likely to have prevented the loss
Speaker 1: of lives, which is just extraordinary. How rare is it
Speaker 1: to have an evacuation like this on a military vessel.
Speaker 2: Well, it's been inly rear to heaven evacuation like this
Speaker 2: in New Zealand because we haven't lost ship since World
Speaker 2: War Two, so it would be something that they would practice.
Speaker 2: And it sounds as if the conditions were not ideal
Speaker 2: for this type of thing, So it's really it's been
Speaker 2: really good credit to them to get I would put
Speaker 2: that down to the training that they would have regularly
Speaker 2: done for this sort of thing. So as rare as
Speaker 2: doing it operationally would be, it would something that they
Speaker 2: would have practiced, I would have expected, and that's probably
Speaker 2: part of the reason why everybody's got off.
Speaker 1: We haven't lost a ship since World War II, you said,
Speaker 1: but do we lose many other vessels?
Speaker 2: There are two sinkings in New Zealand orders that come
Speaker 2: to mind, the Wahini, which was nineteen sixty nine, and
Speaker 2: then I remember the Mikhail Lermaitov going down at some
Speaker 2: point during the nineteen eighties. So it's not a common
Speaker 2: thing anymore for large vessels to go down. We once
Speaker 2: it was far more common. So no, look, it's real.
Speaker 2: It's very rare for a naval vessel to go down,
Speaker 2: and it's not happened to us since World War Two,
Speaker 2: but it does happen there has been a study that's
Speaker 2: looked at the number lost between World War Two and
Speaker 2: the late nineteen eighties, and I think we're over twelve
Speaker 2: hundred incidents at sea, and a large purport of those
Speaker 2: worse sinkings accidental sinkings of naval vessels, so bigger navies
Speaker 2: than us, with bigger vessels, and a more significant constant
Speaker 2: that has happened too, So we're not entirely alone in
Speaker 2: naval history for losing a vessel in peacetime.
Speaker 1: I kind of even began to imagine how much these
Speaker 1: kind of vessels cost. This one one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 1: But does that seem quite cheap to you?
Speaker 2: I don't think anything's anything. Nothing's cheap in the in
Speaker 2: the fiscal times that we're in. It's a smaller vessel,
Speaker 2: I think, and it's a vessel there is for a
Speaker 2: set of specific, not especially military capabilities that it has.
Speaker 2: So look, I think it's a decent sum of money,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't seem to be an astronomical sum in
Speaker 2: terms of let's say we compare it to the new
Speaker 2: Into Irelander theories, which were projected to be three hundred
Speaker 2: million each, and the Air Force poseidons four of them.
Speaker 2: We paid out two point three billion, So it's not
Speaker 2: like an astronomical sum that we wouldn't be able to find.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have expect if we needed to replace that vessel.
Speaker 2: But still it's one hundred million dollars we could have
Speaker 2: spent somewhere else.
Speaker 1: This not happened, And I suppose the big question is
Speaker 1: who pays for it? Now, do you reckon it's ensured?
Speaker 2: I don't think you can ensure naval vessels. I don't
Speaker 2: know the answer to that question, so no, I think
Speaker 2: it'll come down to the government will have to if
Speaker 2: it chooses to replace it. The government, we'll need to
Speaker 2: find the money to do that.
Speaker 1: How many naval vessels do we actually have in service?
Speaker 2: I understand that we have nine ships eight now that
Speaker 2: would qualify as ships in service of the New Zealand Navy.
Speaker 2: So as a percentage of our navy, it represents a
Speaker 2: significant chunk of it.
Speaker 1: Have we always kind of had about that nine ish
Speaker 1: or so? That seems quite small to me, but we
Speaker 1: are a small country, aren't we.
Speaker 2: We are, and the levy has steadily declined over the
Speaker 2: years since War two. I can remember when we had
Speaker 2: six six frigates. We went down to four, then we
Speaker 2: went down to two. So it's we have a small navy.
Speaker 2: We are a small country. Our defense capability at sea
Speaker 2: has been declining now for fifty or sixty years.
Speaker 5: Purchased in twenty eighteen from Norway, it was used in
Speaker 5: the oil and gas industry there. It cost US one
Speaker 5: hundred and three million dollars to buy and convert into
Speaker 5: a Navy ship, which was ready for service in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 5: The guy who signed the cabinet paper to get that
Speaker 5: done was Ron Mark Garted.
Speaker 6: I'm pretty sad and oh yes, you know this one
Speaker 6: who loses ship that brought such an amazing capability to
Speaker 6: the Royal New Zealand Navy, into New Zealand as a whole,
Speaker 6: which quietly stunned a lot of our five Eyes and
Speaker 6: other partners because of its capability and the innovation and
Speaker 6: thinking that was behind its purchase. Yeah, lose that ship.
Speaker 6: We knew we should be a stopgap for about fifteen years.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine this is a great look for our
Speaker 1: defense force. Is it to have a one hundred million
Speaker 1: dollar ship sink only a few years after service?
Speaker 2: No, we've got to I think we've got to take
Speaker 2: that one on the chin that, yeah, we've taken a
Speaker 2: hit here. We've we've lost a vessel in peacetime. It's
Speaker 2: two weeks out from Choggham and some major Commonwealth heads
Speaker 2: of government meeting that's going to be right where our
Speaker 2: vessel was. We've got all three services and the police
Speaker 2: I presume also a running support for that. So it's
Speaker 2: definitely not a good look, and it's it's not a
Speaker 2: good time for this for this to happen. But then
Speaker 2: there's I mentioned before, it's not like these things don't happen.
Speaker 2: It's inherently a risky thing to heat out on the
Speaker 2: open sea, and other navies have lost vessels in peace
Speaker 2: time with far greater consequences than what we've experienced here.
Speaker 2: So it's look, it's not an unknown thing to have
Speaker 2: a cured and.
Speaker 1: We're trying to show our strength in the Pacific at
Speaker 1: the moment, aren't we a Commonwealth heads of government? And
Speaker 1: some I assume we're seeing that you mentioned. Is it
Speaker 1: fair to say that this is a little bit embarrassing,
Speaker 1: especially right before this event.
Speaker 2: Of course, having said that, we've got to we've got
Speaker 2: to balance that up everybody survived, nobody's died, and if
Speaker 2: we have a little bit of a dent in our pride,
Speaker 2: well that's that's probably an okay loss to take. But yes,
Speaker 2: our strength in the Pacific, I'm not sure that's the
Speaker 2: right term. I think it's our presence and influence in
Speaker 2: the Pacific as a player who is interested in the
Speaker 2: ongoing circumstances in the Pacific, the welfare of the Pacific
Speaker 2: island countries that are there, and the general geo strategic
Speaker 2: sort of setup. We're interested in maintaining our presence and
Speaker 2: our eyes on that. So there's all of that sort
Speaker 2: of stuff that that was part of, and that all
Speaker 2: of that has taken a little bit of a hit
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 1: How easy is it to replace a boat like this?
Speaker 1: I can't imagine that there's an eBay for these kind
Speaker 1: of vessels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, again, I'm not an expert in procurement. I can't
Speaker 2: imagine it's it's easy. If you just look.
Speaker 1: At look online, there's bound to be one on trade.
Speaker 1: Me doesn't It would be a long process.
Speaker 2: I asked the people who are trying to replace the
Speaker 2: Wellington depict in theories how it is to get a
Speaker 2: replacement yeah, I can't imagine it's it's that aage I
Speaker 2: would say, be a long, expensive.
Speaker 7: Process inspecting New Zealand's aging defense fleet forty years old
Speaker 7: at least before announcing a funding boost to get the
Speaker 7: defense force on a fresher footing.
Speaker 4: We have secured extra funding for defense of five hundred
Speaker 4: and seventy one million dollars.
Speaker 7: Four hundred and eight million dollars is going towards equipment
Speaker 7: and infrastructure, subject or final green light for Cabinet. It
Speaker 7: will include replacing the unimogs and pinz Alga trucks. The
Speaker 7: NZI deaf's workhorses.
Speaker 4: Oh, I can't even open it.
Speaker 1: John. We've heard in the past about the underfunding of
Speaker 1: our defense force and it's infrastructure. After this incident, should
Speaker 1: we look at further investments.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I'm not a big fan of experiencing
Speaker 2: a single incident and then making a whole lot of
Speaker 2: quite general reactions to that. I think what New Zealand
Speaker 2: needs to focus on is our defense mending, which I
Speaker 2: think roughly half per capita what Australia is, and whether
Speaker 2: that is appropriate given the changes they're going on in
Speaker 2: the Pacific. We like to think we've got responsibilities in
Speaker 2: the Pacific. We like to think that we can help
Speaker 2: those Pacific Onlming countries in the number of ways. We've
Speaker 2: got geostrategic competition starting to show itself. Is the Chinese
Speaker 2: show that they're interested there? The Americans want to come back.
Speaker 2: So we've got a whole lot of geostrategic, geopolitical kind
Speaker 2: of decisions that we need to make. And the question
Speaker 2: we've got to ask ourselves is not whether this particular
Speaker 2: incident means we've got to refocus on how much defense
Speaker 2: money we're spending. It's whether the objectives of New Zealand
Speaker 2: are met by what we are and if they are not,
Speaker 2: how much more do we need to get to those objectives.
Speaker 2: I think that's the question we've got to ask.
Speaker 1: There are already reports of a strong smell of oil
Speaker 1: in some With those geopolitical issues in mind, how should
Speaker 1: New Zealand handle this potential environmental disaster, I guess, and
Speaker 1: the impacts in our relationship?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think on that how you can't minimize
Speaker 2: impact to the environment.
Speaker 6: Right, It's.
Speaker 2: As I said, you go out to see you take
Speaker 2: the risk well of being out there. Pretty much every
Speaker 2: vessel that's that's out on the seat at the moments,
Speaker 2: full of full of fuel oil, because that's how we
Speaker 2: get around. We're an not isle nation and so are they,
Speaker 2: so it's not like we can exist without these vessels
Speaker 2: coming and going from our thoughts. So that sort of
Speaker 2: risk is the It's some There is always going to
Speaker 2: be I think a period of time after a vessel
Speaker 2: goes down where there is going to be an environmental impact.
Speaker 2: But I tend to think of the English Channel in
Speaker 2: World War Two, where you know, dozens of ships potentially
Speaker 2: could have been going down on any given day, and
Speaker 2: the environmental damage that that must have done is something
Speaker 2: that nobody ever really asks about. So I think while
Speaker 2: there will be a short term amount of environmental damage,
Speaker 2: not to minimize it all it could be. It could
Speaker 2: be quite damaging for the economy there for a little while,
Speaker 2: but things will recover. It's not a huge ship, it's
Speaker 2: not nuclear powered, so there are some I think there'll
Speaker 2: be a period of time where it's it's a concern
Speaker 2: and it may have an impact, but things will recover.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, John, That said, for this episode
Speaker 1: of the Front Page, you can read more about today's
Speaker 1: stories and extensive news coverage at enzherld dot co dot nz.
Speaker 1: The Front Page is produced by Ethan Siles with sound
Speaker 1: engineer Patty Fox.
Speaker 4: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
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