Feeds, blogs, group chats and private message boards lit up with three politically charged letters: DEI. For those unfamiliar, they stand for diversity, equity and inclusion.
The gist of the commentary goes like this: Did you hear the captain who sunk that ship was a woman? Typical. I bet she was a DEI hire! Why else would they put a woman in charge of a $100 million Navy asset?
Actually it is more like: why else would they put someone who was not competent to be in charge of (what was) our Navy’s biggest ship?
[…] Firstly, Commander Yvonne Gray is not a DEI hire. Far from it. Beginning her Navy career as a warfare officer in the UK back in 1993, Gray worked her way up the ranks and eventually landed on our shores, where she has served as Commanding Officer of the Royal New Zealand Navy’s Mine Counter Measures Team and for the past two years as Commander of the HMNZS Manawanui.
Except she had never even commanded a dinghy before, let alone a naval ship. Do you really expect anyone to believe that there was nobody better qualified?
[…] Personally, one of the reasons (there were several) why I didn’t come out publicly in my job as a broadcaster was for the simple fact I wanted to be known first and foremost as a good political interviewer.
[…] [DEI] is a hot-button political issue in the United States in the lead-up to next month’s election. It cropped up after the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Everyone looked at the female Secret Service agent struggling to re-holster her gun and screamed ‘DEI hire’.
And why not? Secret Service agents should at least be able to re-holster their guns!
“[…] While our Defence Force has excellent programmes encouraging role models of diverse backgrounds to lead by example and on merit, I understand it has no strict DEI quotas.
And what they’re doing is clearly working. There are more Māori serving at all levels of our armed forces, including leadership roles, than exists in the general population.
Our Army is led by Brigadier Rose King. Our Defence Minister is Judith Collins, who, it must be agreed, no matter your political persuasion, certainly didn’t box-tick her way into Cabinet on a DEI bandwagon. More like boxed her way to the top like Conor McGregor on steroids.
And how does this mean that “what they’re doing is clearly working”? What if our army were made up of 50 per cent women? How do you think it would go up against an army of just men?
Oh, and before you go accusing me of misogyny, I’d just like to say that women make better jet fighter pilots than men, as women handle the g-forces better. So give me an air force with more female jet fighter pilots than male any day of the week.
[…] God help us there’s a next time a Navy vessel runs aground or a company reports a bad result or a Prime Minister leaves us in debt. I hope the first question that’s asked is not to do with gender or sexuality but rather to do with competence.
DEI is about competence, you idiot.
Here we have someone, I don’t care if they were male or female, lesbian, straight or gay, who was put in charge of the largest ship in the New Zealand Navy when they had zero command experience.
You really want to tell me that she was the best choice?
Kevin is a Libertarian and pragmatic anarchist. His favourite saying: “There but for the grace of God go I.” This article was first published HERE
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