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5:30 pm, May 6th, 2026 - 17 comments
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Daily review is also your post.
This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Don’t forget to be kind to each other …
Would you mind a pay-cut of almost $28k? The choice isn’t yours – tough.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2605/S00029/new-figures-show-home-support-workers-have-lost-27728-one-year-on-from-pay-equity-betrayal.htm
Thanks Brooke van Velden and Nicola Willis!
"Thanks Brooke van Velden and Nicola Willis!" – they're probably quite pleased with themselves & being high-fived in the Koru lounges up & down NZ.
High-clawed.
Gordon Campbell ‘On The Political Panic Over Immigration’.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2605/S00014/on-the-political-panic-over-immigration.htm
As I commented yesterday in DR, National is in cahoots with its ugly Coalition partners, a point also made today by Joel MacManus at The Spinoff.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/06-05-2026/new-zealands-immigration-debate-is-like-something-out-of-the-1870s
Has anybody heard from Labour????
Is that Labour's new logo design – a line of round-shouldered pictograms, illustrating Labour weighed down with their responsibilities to the common man and woman in society. I'm getting more common every day, help, soon I'll be an unnoticeable as well as unmentionable.
Just in case your contempt for Judith Collins has abated at all, this should do the trick.
An overview of the report on the Manawanui sinking.
The incoming President of the Law Society and several senior naval personnel have important questions to answer for having a Captain of the lost vessel "not platform endorsed". Military cover up speak for not qualified.
Claiming the captain was a "DEI hire" is peak bro-speak seeking to suggest that if a man had been in her place, the vessel would not have sunk. The DEI angle is being pushed on rightwing commentary sites, alongside anti-Ardern articles. Quoting from ODT 25 April 2025.
"The Manawanui had been conducting hydrographic surveys of the reef… something neither the ship nor the crew were properly equipped to do, when it ran aground.
There was no one on board who was qualified enough to carry out the hydrographic surveying that the ship was tasked with doing and the ship itself was not cleared for that work, the court found.
There were not enough people on board to be able to have an effective watch rotation to prevent fatigue during the prolonged survey task, the Court found. Out of 45 people on board, there were "20 personnel deficiencies," it found.
There were weaknesses in training – that enabled some people to hold posts on the ship without the necessary levels of proficiency or experience." Admittedly, the captain was possibly one of them.
The boat's propulsion systems were tricky, and the NZ Navy had installed a cheaper system than what the non-military vessel usually came with.
Sounds like multiple failure points to me. Gray had extensive sea experience on many different naval vessels. She was given command of a tricky vessel that was understaffed, and travelling a day behind schedule. Her superior officers were the ones who chose captain, vessel, degree of training and task. The grounding had multiple points of failure, none directly attributable to the fact its captain was a woman.
Thanks for that tWig, sounds as if the ship was set up for failure. And why the hydrographic survey so suddenly? There was that thing about King Charles being nearby. Were we obliged to search for hostile comms?
We managed to sink the Mikhail Lermontov too, and down the plane at Erebus. We must step back from involving ourselves in a she'll be jake approach.
The Navy is to be commended for looking at organisational failures and not just those on the ship, as per the usual case in these enquiries.
A similar failure to changeover from autopilot on a rail ferry, and other incident reports from overseas, points to todays maritime training practices and culture, rather than any lack of conscientiousness by the crews. It is actually a simple process. A single switch, clearly marked. The first thing you check if the ship is not responding. And one of the first things to show in familiarising a new OOW.
The CO wasn't even on the bridge during the initial sequence of events leading up to the grounding. Whether she should have been depends on the SOP for that operation. Noting that the CO has to rest sometime. Also in the navy the CO doesn't have to be a navigation specialist.
Overreliance on electronics and lack of practice in using manual backup systems is a common theme. Training! As we keep telling our junior officers at sea. Look out the bloody window!
It was lack of adequate training, a "get the job done" attitude and lack of familiarity with systems that caused it. And, we feel, a failure to learn from civilian expertise and training methods in DP ships. Like most accidents it is rarely just one cause.
Nothing to do with DEI. In fact all the female officers I've had the privilege of sailing with, have been exceptional.
Infrastructure maintenance and replacement risk in the land that once prided itself on being able to get stuff done.
I guess they had better hope they can get the army to construct a new wooden bridge then.
They are lucky they have a local MP that is Minister of Transport and Infrastructure and all over the issue of the legal relationship between government and local councils.
Such as, will previous funding agreements with former councils be binding on government?
https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/05/06/clip-on-walkway-to-lower-hutt-rail-bridge-design-unworkable/
The USA civil society decay was led by the decline in its media landscape.
The end result is attacks on public media (USA, UK and now France) from the political right, as if they were some legacy of a bygone era and an orchestrated oligarch takeover of MSM outlets (recently CBS and CNN)(as well as the Washington Post reboot as a neo-liberal outlet for right wing "thinking" from inside a gold fish bowl)
This begins by reducing regulatory accountability of media to maintain standards.
In times past journalists would become media advisers to politicians, today they run so called right wing friendly media – aka propaganda fronts funded by their (oligarch) sponsors.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/05/06/political-risk-reaction-to-broadcasting-standards-authority-axing/
NZ went down 6 places in the World Press Freedom Index 2026.
https://rsf.org/en/country/new-zealand
The base report makes pretty stark reading. It's been an ugly year
https://rsf.org/en/2026-rsf-index-press-freedom-25-year-low
One side of the equation
The funding model for a sole GP general practice or multiple GP health centre.
The other
Having everyone enrolled, rather than a majority.
The rural and regional/provincial access is not a sufficiency of doctors (whether trained here or migrants) but support for those in such roles.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/health/594361/broken-funding-model-and-anti-gp-ideology-causing-gps-to-leave-jobs-doctor-says
Paperwork is the bane of all professional passion – many professionals I know spend only a fraction of their time & energy on their actual profession.
@ twig @ 3.1
I think we are largely on the same page about this.
"Claiming the captain was a "DEI hire" is peak bro-speak seeking to suggest that if a man had been in her place, the vessel would not have sunk."
That is inaccurate. The truth is the captain was woefully out of their depth pun intended, lacked the qualifications and training and lacked experience on the ships propulsion systems.
Collins at the time acted as usual when caught out. Created a distraction, lashed out, attacked the messenger and told fibs.
There are plenty of questions unanswered for the higher ups that made the appointment to answer and their motivation.
In the aftermath, Collins was seemingly waving the flag for women saying their voices must not be silenced. Sickening really when you look at Willis and van Velden's actions cancelling pay equity claims.
Not primarily the Captain. Have a look at my comment above.
Look in the enquiry at who was on the bridge before they hit.
By the time the Captain was called, it seems, the situation was irrecoverable. Every Masters nightmare!
The OOW was likely a man…..? ROFL.
“Setting up for failure”, having to do too much with too little, is pretty much standard with merchant ships. It seems the navy is no different.