Did New Zealand shortchange Samoa over HMNZS Manawanui wreck compensation?

Source: Radio New Zealand

Concerns are being raised that the New Zealand government has shortchanged Samoa since HMNZS Manawanui sank off the south coast of Upolu last year.

Letters released under the Official Information Act show the Samoa government has agreed it will not seek further compensation from New Zealand.

The letters, released by Winston Peters’ office, show Samoa’s Foreign Affairs Ministry proposed compensation of 10 million tala – about $NZ6m – which the then- Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa signed off.

The $10 million tala was paid “in the context of the friendship between New Zealand and Samoa” and the letters include “New Zealand’s deep regret regarding the sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui and New Zealand’s gratitude to Samoa for search and rescue efforts that helped avoid loss of life.” They say New Zealand will “work with Samoa to assess and address any environment risks.”

In his letter to Fiamē on 19 May 2025, Winston Peters explains the compensation “resolves all issues arising from the sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui between the government of New Zealand and the government of Samoa” and “the government of Samoa will not seek further payment from New Zealand”.

The New Zealand government announced the $NZ6m/ $SAT10m compensation on the first anniversary of the sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui on 6 October.

Read the documents:Letters released from the office of Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters under the Official Information Act 1982.

(Peters’ office noted the letter dated 19 May 2025 from New Zealand was bound and printed on parchment, which is why it is not on letterhead here.)

Auckland University of Technology law professor Paul Myburgh thought this amount was a “first down payment” to look after impacted villages: “But reading these letters it becomes apparent that they are attempting to ring-fence all of their liability, apart from a reference – a fairly obscure reference – to ongoing reef assessments, whatever that might mean.”

It was difficult to say what an appropriate compensation amount would be, he said.

• Read more: NZ strikes compensation deal with Samoa over Manawanui sinking

“I’m not across all the details, but one thing I’ve learnt from comparative collisions and groundings etcetera is that it is very difficult to assess and cap the damages because they tend to be ongoing. In other words, while that wreck is still on the reef it will continue to cause damage, so any sort of legal attempt to cap the damages indefinitely means that somebody along the line is going to be short-changed.”

• Read more: ‘The job hasn’t been completed’ – Manawanui wreck still causing concerns one year after sinking

The wreck of the HMNZS Manawanui lying on its side under about 30m of water (about 98 feet) on the Tafitoala Reef, on the south coast of Upolu, in August. New Zealand Defence Force

Senior lecturer and Pacific Security Fellow at Victoria University’s Centre for Strategic Studies, Dr Iati Iati, was surprised that the letters reference Samoa’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs as having set the compensation figure at 10m tala.

“I hadn’t heard of any process for an independent inquiry for how much the costs would be,” he said.

“I was a little taken aback by the figure of 10 million tala only because I’ve seen a study done by Massey University over the Rena, and it was done I think around 2021 and they estimated costs for the Rena – direct costs that is – around 46 million (NZD). That wasn’t including indirect costs.”

• Read more: Ten years on from the Rena disaster

Iati noted the Rena had sunk much further out at sea in comparison to the Manawanui, and the impact would have been different and probably less than what was experienced in Samoa.

“So it’s left me with a lot of questions as to how they determined that $10 million tala figure,” he said.

The ship sank in early October 2024, after running aground on a reef. All crew escaped to safety, with locals helping the rescue efforts. Supplied / Profile Boats

Winston Peters’ letter to then- Samoa Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa, dated 19 May 2025, refers to “the long established and respectful bilateral relationship between New Zealand and Samoa founded upon sovereign equality and governed by a spirit of close friendship, underpinned by the significant Treaty of Friendship.”

“To be honest it leaves me with more questions than answers. This looks like to me just a very diplomatic way to bring this situation to an end without addressing alot of issues that should have been addressed,” Iati said.

“I’m curious as to whether there’s more to this than just New Zealand sending the Manawanui to do some kind of reef surveying. I’d be interested to know if there were any other actors involved and what their reasons were for the Manawanui to be conducting these exercises on the coast of Samoa, especially given that the order for the Manawanui to conduct this exercise was finalised just as it was leaving port so it seems to me like there’s a wider story here that hasn’t been looked at.”

• Read more: Samoan villagers still waiting for compensation more than a year after Manawanui disaster

Iati questioned whether other parties should also be liable for some part of the cost of the impact of the Manawanui that was born by the Samoan people.

With 40 years experience as an oil spill response scientist, Paul Irving was in Samoa soon after the Manawanui sank, for SPREP – the Secretariat of the Pacific Environment Programme.

“My role and function was to work with and for the Samoan government as much as possible. I was effectively loaned to them by SPREP to provide, to organise advice, to seek international support and to give them the best advice possible given that they were not the spiller, their country was the victim.”

• Read more: ‘We’re eating tinned fish’ – Samoa villagers plead for Manawanui wreckage compensation

Irving said the correspondence between Winston Peters and Fiamē was diplomatic, rather than a letter of compensation or insurance usually associated with one country causing another country injury or harm due to the actions of its sovereign citizens.

“I think six million New Zealand dollars – ten million tala – is a relatively small amount given that the estimate to remove the vessel from the area was around, between 75 and 100 million New Zealand dollars, so I think New Zealand got away with about 10 percent of the cost of cleaning up,” Irving said.

“The New Zealand government certainly was not thinking the same way when it required more than 500 million dollars to be spent by the owners of the Rena to clean up the reef in the Bay of Plenty.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand