Was the NZ Navy Ship Scuttled to ‘Auto-Correct’ Luxon’s 20% Defence Budget Cut?

The strange sinking of a New Zealand Navy ship in Samoa in October followed deep cuts to the New Zealand Defence Forces’ budget in May by the Luxon Government.

The new Luxon Administration cut the total defence budget by $1.49 billion, or 20%.

Just four months later, on October 5 2024, HMNZS Manawanui ran aground on Sinolei Reef, off Upolu Island, Samoa. Meanwhile, the Minister of Defence, Judith Collins is in the midst of a five-yearly Defence Review, for resourcing N.Z.’s Defence Forces.

The Manawanui Sinking is being investigated within an accident paradigm. This dispatch explores the possibility that the loss of HMNZS Manawanui may have been due to sabotage. Former Māori Television news and current affairs editor Steve Snoopman presents prima facie evidence that a black operation to scuttle the vessel may have occurred, with the objective to embroil the Luxon Cabinet in a cover-up.

Periodically, a catalytic event appears to be inflicted upon New Zealand (or its assets in overseas territories), to compromise key officials in each new administration, and thereby alter the nation’s mandated political trajectory. Such emotionally-charged ‘jolts’ appear to manufacture consent by alchemically processing the mass population.

Striking Coincidence: The event of the HMNZS Manawanui grounding on Sinalei Reef off the southern coast of Upolu Island, Samoa, on October 5 2024 occurred precisely 13 years after the MV Rena ran aground on Astrolabe Reef on approach to Tauranga Harbour in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, October 5 2011. [Note: Manawanui event added, Snoopman DIY History Edit]

In part 1 of the Snoopman’s “Terror Archipelago Down Under” series, he surveyed the curious coincidences of 13 calamities, catastrophes, or crises, that appear to riff off historical events. The history riffs link by thematic elements to the crisis at hand.

Each of the 13 crises occurred on potently-charged dates, as if they were conjured by dark witches and wizards to re-work anniversaries into talismans to telegraph tyranny.

Curiously, the grounding of the HMNZS Manawanui on a reef in Samoa occurred on the 13th anniversary of a container ship, MV Rena, striking rocks on October 5 2011.

The New Zealand Navy’s reporting of its interim findings on November 29, that the sinking of the Manawanui was in essence the result of pilot error, was also a striking coincidence. The N.Z. Navy’s Court of Inquiry Interim findings were released precisely 45 years to the day that the crew of a U.S. Navy Hercules radioed they had located the wreckage of an Air New Zealand DC-10 on Mount Erebus, in Antarctica.

This apparent riffing off the Erebus Disaster, which stands as New Zealand’s greatest single day peacetime loss of life, as well as seeming to riff off the Rena Disaster, which is the South Pacific archipelago’s worst maritime environmental disaster, is uncanny.

Given Luxon was Chief Executive Officer of Air New Zealand before being propelled into power as Prime Minister, the November 29 press conference seemed potent.

The danger in the Manawanui Sinking was that some of the 72 crew could have died.

Ergo, an apparent implicit threat in the naval ship’s uncanny grounding on the 13th anniversary of the Rena running aground, appears to have been deciphered by the Navy’s Rear Admiral and the Defence Minister, for the Realm’s chief pilot: Mr Luxon.

The ‘Morse Code’ in these two sinking events occurring 13 years apart, becomes more potent when a survey of N.Z.’s current prime minister and his career trajectory reveals it is peppered with this prime number, 13. This creepy peppering signals solidarity.

Signalling Solidarity: Intriguingly, Christopher Luxon’s high-octane rise from brand marketer to CEO at Air New Zealand, included intriguing drops of the prime number 13 on his signposted way to becoming PM — that revealed chess moves.

When gathered together, the thematic metaphor-laden meta-data in these crises seem to show skillful subtext to hide each plot, that on the surface looks like an unexpected disaster that was ‘waiting to happen’, or was natural, or it was a crisis that errupted out of the blue, or they were acts of rage or rebellion that needed to be ‘put down’.

But, on closer examination of the elements, inconsistencies arise that demonstrate the official narrative cannot be true, and that the ‘grammar’ has been skillfully re-arranged. And like syntax, which is the branch of linguistics that focuses on arranging words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language — the re-examined crises have features that in effect don’t adhere to the equivalent of the rules of the road for language construction, as if they happened by design with a trojan horse plot twist. N.Z.’s role as a test facility for new technologies, social engineering and political strategies may extend to the geographically-isolated South Pacific archipelago being a staging ground for novel trojan horse black operations.

New Zealand’s closest international neighbour, Australia is identified as a pivot state for its ‘military strategic goods’. Pivot states are located at the seams of the international system sandwiched between the rival great powers and super powers.

Since the Anglo-American Empire remains in the closet about the fact that it is an expansionist imperial project, the Snoopman reasons a closet empire needs a closet pivot state to act an ‘influence-multiplier’. As such, he explores a creepy logic that such an oceanic power alliance would require a closet pivot state to fulfil a trojan horse function, by acting as its lightening-rod, its lab-facility and its light-house.

Elephant in the Beehive Press Conference Room: Christopher Luxon asserted the Naval Court of Inquiry was a very robust, trustworthy investigation with a high standard of process, but press gallery reporters asked the Prime Minister whether hecfound it odd that a survey vessel sank just four months after he oversaw a cut of nearly $1.5 billion, or 20% of the Defence Force’s total budget; the Manawanui ran aground 13 years to the day that the container ship, MV Rena aground on 5 October 2011 [Footage: New Zealand Herald, 2 December 2024]

These findings suggest that behind closed doors, key players in the national security state either meet with key officials of the new government or they talk via secure phonelines, to communicate that a coup has been inflicted to achieve certain aims.

While such a proposition may seem proposterous, the post-sinking rhetoric by Defence Minister Collins shifted to how the Government tends to buy second hand military hardware. The Manawanui may have been selected because it was relatively easy to sink, since it was a coverted commercial oil survey ship, meaning it did not have the level of redundancy that naval vessels are built with to withstand flooding.

Moreover, the associated discourses mentioning New Zealand’s partnership in a NATO framework occurs with a myopia that fails to take into account the military alliance is a slickly marketed mechanism for a brutal expansionist empire. Yet, N.Z.’s media missionaries are like empty-headed plastic dolls, that ask recorded questions when they are pressed with a button located where a backbone would usually be found.

There is also systemic poor institutional knowledge in the media about a secret low-grade war that was inflicted by all NATO countries, on their own citizens, under the auspices of ‘Operation Gladio’, starting in Italy in 1947 and spreading across Western Europe, until its exposure in 1990. The purpose of this low-grade war was to shift the political center of gravity to the ‘right’ and away from socialism by blaming left-wing communist groups for terrorism, and associating peace with right-wing politics.

Elephant in the Press Room: Defence Minister Judith Collins and Chief of Navy Rear Admiral Garin Golding fronted a media conference in Auckland on Sunday October 6, on the sinking of HMNZS Manawanui off the coast of southern Samoa, while ignoring the $1.5 billion budget cut on May 30th.

In his 2015 book, Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia, Paul L. Williams sketched the history of Vatican-CIA-sponsored terrorism, drug-running and arms trafficking since World War II. Williams maintains that ‘Gladio’ continues in mutated forms, globally, to displace freedom with security.

Ironically, there are similarities to New Zealand’s ‘long waltz’ back into the Western Alliance — after the rift over the ANZUS military alliance widened into a chasm following the 1985 Rainbow Warrior Bombing — and that of France’s ‘long waltz’. In a series of chess moves, following WWII, President de Gaulle had asserted France’s military autonomy by spearheading the development of French-manufactured nuclear weapons. He didn’t want France to be under NATO military command. De Gaulle’s independent-mindedness culminated in NATO’s headquarters being expelled from France in 1966. The explusion of NATO’s HQ from Paris occurred after de Gaulle learned that the CIA had conspired with NATO’s secret units to assassinate him. During WWII, de Gaulle organized the French Résistance to Nazi occupation.

Humiliation Ritual? The sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui may have been a staged scuttling to resolve plot issues whose narrative roots stretched back to the 1980s, when the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior opened a chasm that led to a drawn-out theater to re-wed New Zealand back into the Anglo-American Empire.

The hidden purpose of the Rainbow Warrior Bombing was to signal to members of the Western Elites that the Alliance could ill-afford anymore defections. The potency that it was French that inflicted Opération Sataniqué, was all the more significant.

New Zealand’s ‘long waltz’ back into the Western Alliance appears to have involved a sinister faction of the national section state staging catalytic shocks of varying scale, sometimes in cahoots with ‘international partners’, it seems. The Christchurch Mosques Massacre appears to have been the climatic event to teether the left-wing faction of the Wellington Political Élite back under the reins of the national security state. Luxon et al didn’t get the memo; they have been served a stiff lesson, it appears.

The sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui may have been a staged scuttling to resolve plot issues whose narrative roots stretched back to the 1980s, when the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior opened a chasm that led to a drawn-out theater to re-wed New Zealand back into the Anglo-American Empire. That is to say, because the pedigree of ambitious naricissistic marionettes such as Luxon are from outside the Establishment, they need to be ‘managed’. It appears Luxon never thought that cutting the Defence budget by nearly $1.5 billion was going to be met with a catalytic shock to reset the trajectory of his Administration. Perhaps, Luxon’s advisors let him make the mistake, so that he could be ritually humiliated and captured by a cover-up.

In the aftermath of the Christchurch Shooting of March 15 2019, N.Z.’s Defence Budget spiked with approximately $6.8 billion allocated, up from approximately $4 billion in 2018. The 2019 budget injection towered above the years either side.

Uncannily, the mass shooting wed New Zealand’s left-wing faction with the Western Alliance, under a Labour-led Cabinet in the 33rd year after the Warrior Bombing.

With an awareness of how ‘Gladio’ has metastisized into a subversive low-grade war around the world, the Snoopman has tracked 13 calamities, catastrophes, or crises, in a New Zealand setting from Erebus to Corona. They all appear to be staged destabilisations designed to transform the nation into a technocratic police state.

The Manawanui Sinking fits this ‘Terror Archipelago’ thesis, like it was custom-made.

After all, the grounding of the HMNZS Manawanui on Sinalei Reef in Samoa on the 13th anniversary of the Rena running aground on Astrolabe Reef, appears to be ‘too stupid to be stupid’. The apparent navigation metaphors seem too uncanny too. The name Astrolabe derives from an early navigational instrument, the astrolabe, a precursor to the sextant — used by Captain James Cook. The day that Manawanui sank, October 6, was the same day in 1769 when ‘Young Nick’, aboard the Endeavour, sighted the New Zealand coastline. Ergo, the lessons appear to be subtextual.

Another striking coincidence, was that a Cook Strait ferry, Aratere, had run aground recently, as well. It turned out both events involved apparent bridge crew incompetencies regarding autopilot buttons, suggesting poor training is systemic.

Or, the Manawanui’s survey course was coded to stay in autopilot mode after the last turn, to over-ride switching off the autopilot button to cause a collision with the reef.

The uncanny coincidences seem to signal the survey ship was placed in a precarious position where it would run aground, sink and require a rescue in order to embroil the Luxon Administration with a cover-up. Such metaphor-laden shocks can act as ‘jolts’ to alter the mandated trajectory of the ‘ship of state’, to manufacture public consent for more resources, without the inquiries ever getting to the ‘bottom’ of the crises.

Interim findings of a Cook Strait ferry stranding, the Aratere — which ran aground shortly after departing Picton at 9.45pm on 21 June — revealed the crew did not know how to disengage the autopilot button; while the Navy Court of Inquiry into how HMNZS Manawanui ran aground on October 5, reported the piloting supervisor did not realize the ship was in autopilot mode.

Furthermore, the submerged ‘signals intelligence’ in the Manawanui Sinking appears to communicate that the Luxon Cabinet, cannot over-ride the national security state’s auto-pilot mode and any attempts to steer the Realm in manual mode will be humiliating. Over the course of hacked time, each new government administration seems to undergo a reset that alters the mandated political trajectory of New Zealand.

The apparent navigation metaphors in the Manawanui Sinking seem too uncanny.

Especially, when it is recalled that precisely one year ahead of the 30th Anniversary of the Mount Erebus Disaster, an Air New Zealand-owned Airbus A320 crashed into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Perpignan, France. The sudden demise of Flight 888T was uncanny not only because it occurred one year ahead of the 30th anniversary. This crash occurred barely a fortnight after John Key was elected as PM, on 10 November 2008. The ‘coincidental’ crash appeared to telegraph caution.

What are the Odds? On the 29th Anniversary of the Mount Erebus Disaster, an Air New Zealand-owned Airbus A320 crashed into the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Perpignan, France, during a handover ‘acceptance’ test flight; the crash appeared to be inflicted as a warning to NZ’s ruling families, as well as to airline officials, to stay on script at the 30th anniversary.

Such telegraphing is consistent with game theory, whereby players make their moves like synchronized swimmers; failure to perform will be taken as defections from the game. Such moves are termed ‘hostage posting rituals’. Hostage exchanges can take many forms, including attending elite summits, sitting on multiple corporate, government and think-tank boards, and holding cross-ownership stakes.

Power crimes can be deciphered with an event cluster modelling technique designed for naval intelligence, to decipher submarine intelligence reports. News reporting of elites, their activities, linkages and objectives can be likened to the uncertainty of submarine group activities. Uncertain information that is sourced from each event cluster, and that cannot be adequately partitioned to a particular event, is escalated to a metalevel. Like subtext, this collated data can yield the overarching meta objective(s).

Élites can be expected to refer to past events that have nothing to do with the current event cluster, or their commentary is not directly related to an event in a cluster.

The news reports from the Manawanui Sinking event clusters: (1) Run Aground and Rescue; (2) Fire and Sinking; (3) Crisis Rituals; (4) Operation Resolution; (5) CHOGM, Samoa; (6) Interim Inquiry Findings, generated much data that could not be partitioned adequately. Information that either did not refer to a specific event or that referred to an event that belonged to another event within the cluster or to another event cluster, or to historical events or to future planned events, or the general state of the world, were mentioned in the reports. This data was escalated to the meta-level, and their propositions were interpeted within a geopolitical paradigm.

Deciphering the Meta-Conflict in Manawanui Sinking: The event clusters: (1) Run Aground and Rescue; (2) Fire and Sinking; (3) Crisis Rituals; (4) Operation Resolution; (5) CHOGM, Samoa; (6) Interim Inquiry Findings, generated much data that could not be partitioned adequately; this data was escalated to the meta-level, and their propositions were interpeted within a geopolitical paradigm to yield a meta-conflict that appears to convey the defence budget is above the cabinet’s paygrade because New Zealand is in a process of police state formation, amid the ongoing Third Hundred Years’ War.

The meta-conflict in the Manawanui Sinking appears to convey the defence budget is above the cabinet’s paygrade because New Zealand is in a process of police state formation, amid the ongoing Third Hundred Years’ War, which began around 1900.

Since the timing of the Manawanui Sinking coincided with the Defence Capability Review being prepared for the Defence Minister, it would appear a faction of N.Z.’s Defence Force, including the Royal New Zealand Navy, sent Judith Collins ‘signals intelligence’ to convey a message to expand capacity with new hardware. It appears Mrs Collins deciphered the encoded threat packaged into the coincidence of the Manawanui Sinking, while in the midst of the Defence Capability Review cycle.

After all, the Luxon Administration’s electoral mandate to implement across the board expenditure cuts, which extended to the military, in effect reversed the expansion in the defence budget for procurement that followed the Christchurch Mosques Massacre. The Pacific Reset was all about building the defence capacity.

In this psychodrama, New Zealanders have been ‘processed’ to accept the solution is brand new naval vessels, following the return of the crew to the far-flung colony in a C-130J Herculesessentially a deus ex machina plot device, manufactured by Boeing.

The ‘signals intelligence’ appears to communicate that the Luxon Government, cannot over-ride the national security state’s auto-pilot mode and any attempts to steer the Realm in manual mode will be humiliating. Luxon’s Cabinet, it seems, was served Morse Code: Vote Budget Up, or Buy Body Bags. Cue Pink Panther theme tune.


See full article “Manawanui Sinking ‘Morse Code’ to Luxon Cabinet — Vote Budget Up, or Buy Body Bags?” at The Snoopman Files.

Back when Steve Snoopman was ‘Snoopboy’, he delivered the Auckland Star during the dark days of the Reagan White House. Later he forged his superpower to ‘Thunk Evil Without Being Evil’ while writing a thesis on the Global Financial Crisis. Upon quipping that Batman failed to bust any Gotham banker balls  since his ass is owned by DC Comics  he consequently realised New Zealand needed a Snoopman.

Editor’s Note: If we have made any errors, please contact Steve ‘Snoopman’ Edwards with your counter-evidence. e: steveedwards108[at]protonmail.com

Steve Snoopman also posts on Snoopman News [at] https://snoopman.net.nz/

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