New Zealand’s defence minister has hit out at “armchair admirals” who have criticised the female captain of one of the country’s naval ships that sank last week.
HMNZS Manawanui, a specialist diving and ocean imaging ship, got into difficulties off the Samoan island of Upolu while surveying a reef on Saturday night, local time.
It later caught fire before capsizing.
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All 75 people on board escaped on lifeboats and were rescued early on Sunday, New Zealand’s Defence Force said.
Confirming she had launched an inquiry into the disaster, Judith Collins told reporters on Thursday that, while the cause of the incident was unknown, it had nothing to do with the captain’s gender.
Ms Collins, who is New Zealand’s first female defence minister, said she was appalled to see online comments from
“armchair admirals”, calling them people who will never have to make “life or death” decisions.
She called critics of Commander Yvonne Gray, the British-born officer who was in charge of the vessel, “just vile”, accusing them of “making comments about people that they do not know, about an area they do not know”.
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“Where’s a bit of decency?,” she asked, calling it a “deeply concerning, misogynistic narrative”.
Ms Collins said she investigated one of Commander Gray’s critics, who, she said, turned out to be a male truck driver from Melbourne who she told to “stick to commenting about driving trucks rather than driving ships”.
Women in uniform were being abused in the street following the incident, she said, calling those reports “outrageous”.
New Zealand has long been known for its progressive stance on gender equality with the country’s female population the
first in the world to gain suffrage.
But women in authority, including former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, have often come in for much worse treatment than their male counterparts by members of the public – a topic that has been hotly debated in parliament and local media.
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Around 20% of New Zealand’s uniformed defence force personnel are women. In 2023 the navy said it reached a new high of more than 24%.
The loss of the Manawanui – first ship New Zealand’s Navy has lost to the sea since World War Two – leaves it with just five working vessels and would cost 100m NZ dollars (£46m) to replace, reports said.
On Thursday, Samoa’s Marine Pollution Advisory Committee (MPAC) said the ship was “leaking oil from three separate locations”, but that there continues to be “no trace” of oil washing up onshore.
Most of the ship’s fuel had burnt off during the fire onboard, MPAC said, while oil in the sea had been seen dissipating quickly.
