In today's headlines with Chereè Kinnear, leaked documents reveal autopilot error behind Aratere grounding, Chris Luxon gears up for key meetings and building costs decline.
The speculation heightened on Wednesday when New Zealand First made a social media post at 2.52pm suggesting the party had been told the June 21 incident had happened “when someone put the autopilot on, went for a coffee, and then couldn’t turn the autopilot off in time when that someone came back”.
As is customary, journalists sought out Peters in his capacity as NZ First leader to explain where the information had come from.
However, Peters and the party gave no further comment and the claim was soon reported by several media orgainsations, including the Herald.
Interislander executive general manager Duncan Roy released a statement shortly after, which appeared to contest NZ First’s claim. It stated the “regulated number of qualified people” had been on the ship’s bridge on the night of the incident. It did not address any use of the autopilot, nor the alleged coffee run – Roy saying he wouldn’t be commenting further.
Maritime NZ branded NZ First’s speculation “unhelpful”, Maritime Union of New Zealand national secretary Carl Findlay said it was “terrible”. Union lawyer Troy Stade “categorically” ruled out the involvement of beverages.
By the morning, NZ First was still refusing to engage with journalists. Labour leader Chris Hipkins took the opportunity to challenge Peters to prove his party’s claim, believing the man who favoured the catchphrase, “words matter”, was showing some hypocrisy.
Peters chose to speak to The Country radio show at midday, when he sought to distance himself from the social media post, saying it had been made by the party and while he was the leader, he didn’t have enough time to be across all party matters.
A Maritime New Zealand press statement that afternoon spoke of the agency’s investigation into the grounding and in its final sentence, said “preliminary inquiries have found that the incident was not due to a crew member leaving the bridge to make a coffee”.
However, later that evening, a leaked Interislander safety bulletin was reported across several media, which included how Aratere crew had mistakenly pressed the “execute” button on the autopilot and they couldn’t take back control before it was too late. Coffee was not mentioned in the bulletin.
Peters at this point appeared happy to claim his party’s post as his own, writing on one of his personal social media accounts, “If you can keep your head when all about you are [losing] theirs”, with a link to a news article.
Roy, breaking his earlier commitment not to comment, released another statement saying the bulletins were designed to inform crew after a serious incident but it didn’t replace the three ongoing investigations by KiwiRail, Maritime New Zealand and the Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC).
More than 14,000km away in Washington DC, Luxon fielded questions early this morning from Kiwi journalists about the bulletin.
“There’ll be a lot of stories and rumour around what actually did or didn’t happen,” Luxon said.
“I’ll wait to see those formal reports [following the investigations] before I pass any comment.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon talks to media outside the Capitol building in Washington DC.
Asked directly about Peters and NZ First’s comments, Luxon claimed he hadn’t seen them – despite Peters making them as acting PM and the comments being public for more than 24 hours.
“I appreciate there [are] lots of stories and rumours and reckons as to what people think has happened,” Luxon reiterated.
Not two hours later, Peters’ reticence to speak to journalists had vanished as he appeared on the Newstalk ZB and RNZ morning shows.
On ZB, Peters claimed the party had received information from “people who would know”. Asked whether he stood by the coffee aspect of the claim, Peters avoided the question.
On RNZ, Peters was asked if the coffee aspect was made up. He responded: “No, we know workers on the boat.”
He was then asked if he thought KiwiRail was covering it up. “I don’t think it. I know it,” Peters declared.
“I’m asking KiwiRail to front up. Right here, right now.”
NZ First leader Winston Peters initially tried to distance himself from his party's post on Wednesday. Photo / Tim Cuff
Roy, forced to comment yet again, responded to Peters’ latest claim this afternoon.
“There are two independent investigations under way which will share their findings in due course, and KiwiRail is doing its own internal investigation.
“A button on the autopilot was inadvertently pushed which resulted in the change of course. We need to find out why this happened, and why the situation couldn’t be recovered, to make sure it can’t happen again.”
Adam Pearse is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team, based at Parliament. He has worked for NZME since 2018, covering sport and health for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei before moving to the Herald in Auckland, covering Covid-19 and crime.
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