Gisborne Herald – 25 Mar, 2025 11:18 AM4 mins to read
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HMNZS Manawanui in its home port of Gisborne. The vessel ran aground and sank off Samoa last year and will not be replaced by the Royal New Zealand Navy. Photo / Gisborne Heald
Defence Minister Judith Collins says the Samoan Government is about to announce the fate of Gisborne’s home ship HMNZS Manawanui, which sank off Samoa’s coast in October.
But the vessel, which could be salvaged or left in the sea, will not be replaced by the Navy.
Collins was in Gisborne to meet local National Party members with the next general election about 18 months away.
Manawanui is Gisborne’s third home ship after the frigate HMNZ Blackpool, which served in the Royal New Zealand Navy from 1965 to 1971, and the hydrographic vessel HMNZS Resolution, which served in the Navy from 1997 to 2012. On the Blackpool’s last visit to Gisborne in 1971, past and present crew members gave $5000 to endow a scholarship to assist the education of a Gisborne boy or girl each year.
Manawanui, a 100m hydrographic and deep diving support vessel commissioned in 2019, was officially welcomed for the first time at Gisborne on November 27, 2020.
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A Commission of Inquiry is due to be released shortly although an interim report attributes the Manawanui incident to a series of human errors when the ship’s autopilot was not disengaged when it should have been.
Collins said it was up to the Navy to decide when another ship would have Gisborne as its home port.
The loss of the Manawanui, which currently is lying on its side under 30 metres of water, meant frigate HMNZS Otago would now have a crew.
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Three navy vessels were in “care and custody”, which “essentially means being tied up because of a lack of crew”.
But the Otago was almost ready to return to sea.
“We’ll have a crew for it now (from Manawanui). It will be great to see Otago back at sea as a proper warship. Our people need to be deployed. They get to do what they want to do.”
Collins said there had been “a massive hollowing out of our defence work in the critical trades”.
That lack of defence staff had not been a long-term issue but happened “around Covid” under the previous Government.
The “massive” problem had basically been resolved. Attrition rates had fallen from about 15.5 to about 6.7%. The staffing issue was not about numbers, but the critical trades.
Collins said it would take billions of dollars to reach the much-discussed 2% level for defence expenditure. The current defence spend was close to 1%.
The Defence Force (NZDF) did not have enough people in uniform, able to be deployed, or enough equipment or “platforms” (such as vehicles or facilities used to deploy equipment or personnel).
Many platforms needed to be replaced — every navy ship, bar one, needed to be replaced by 2030. The Government had gone out for tender on replacements for the Boeing 757s.
Collins said she did not want to get into specifics, financial- or time-wise, about future defence spending. She would not do that until the Defence Capability Plan, which was before Cabinet, was released.
The plan will describe specific investments planned for major capabilities within the air, maritime, land and information systems for the next 15 years. Electronic warfare, including drones, will also be covered.
“It’s a lot of money and it needs to be spent.”
When asked if such increased defence spending would result in less spending elsewhere, Collins replied: “There’s no security without national security. Anyone who thinks that we can continue our lives doing nothing is mad”.
Asked about the possibility of having troops in Ukraine in the event of a peace settlement, Colins said discussions were ongoing with Britain and other countries about what could be done to support Ukraine. But it was premature “because we’re all waiting to see what happens”.
Since Collins spoke to the Gisborne Herald, the NZDF has announced proposed cuts of 374 civilian positions.
Collins told RNZ the job cuts were an operational matter for the NZDF.
“I trust the NZDF is ensuring taxpayer dollars are being spent to achieve maximum effect while prioritising military outputs.”
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