Trolling of NZ ship’s woman captain criticised

WELLINGTON: New Zealand’s defence minister on Thursday publicly criticised online trolling of the female captain of a naval vessel that sunk at the weekend, saying while the cause of the incident was unknown, it had nothing to do with the captains gender.
The Manawanui, the New Zealand navy’s specialist dive and hydrographic vessel, sank on Sunday on a reef off the coast of Samoa that it was surveying. Its 75 crew and passengers were ordered to abandon the vessel in life rafts and were later rescued.
“A court of inquiry has been stood up to establish what caused this terrible incident. The one thing that we already know did not cause it is the gender of the ship’s captain,” said Judith Collins, who is New Zealand’s first female defence minister.
She said she was appalled to see the comments online from “armchair admirals, people who will never have to make decisions which mean life or death for their subordinates.” “I thought seriously in 2024 what the hell is going on here with people who are sitting there in their armchair operating a keyboard making comments about people that they do not know, about an area they do not know and they are just vile. Where’s a bit of decency,” she said.
Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2024