The Chief of Army has described the extent of safety reforms that followed the death of an NZSAS soldier. An inquest closed with criticism of NZDF. David Fisher reports.
The Chief of Army has defended sweeping internal safety reforms following the 2019 death of an NZSAS soldier, while rejecting claims the Army’s training system was “fundamentally defective or unfit”.
Major General Rose King said the reforms were the most concentrated and wide-ranging effort to improve safety and training processes in recent times.
King has also said: “We strongly refute any characterisation that the entire system is fundamentally defective or unfit.”
The comments follow criticism from Coroner Tania Tetitaha over perceived delays in safety and training changes following the death of NZSAS soldier Lance Corporal Nicholas Kahotea in 2019 and the inquest into his death last week.
The statement from King set out the breadth and significance of the changes that have taken place.
Kahotea died in a 2019 training incident when he fell to his death while attempting to step from a helicopter to the rooftop of a building. Subsequent inquiries into his death found extensive failures around basic safety processes.
NZDF was exempt from health and safety laws after the Chief of Defence produced a waiver allowing it to bypass prosecution when soldiers were on operational duties in the defence of New Zealand.
The Army Safety and Training Review - later “Regeneration” - project was revealed by the Herald in reporting this year and showed systemic issues had been identified in the wake of Kahotea’s death that led to systems-wide changes.
Documents describing the ASTR emerged after the intervention of the Office of the Ombudsman, almost 18 months after NZDF claimed the information was too sensitive to release and had to be withheld on national security grounds.
The documents showed then-Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, ordered the review in mid-2020 as he was considering the outcome of an investigation into Kahotea’s death.
NZDF had told the Herald last year that the ASTR had nothing to do with Kahotea’s death. The release of the ASTR documents show it was one of three incidents that sparked the review. NZDF has now conceded it was incorrect to say there was no link.
The reference to Army training being “fundamentally unfit for purpose” came from a 2021 Army document that was part of the wide-ranging Army Safety and Training Review - later “Regeneration” - project.
The term was referred to during the inquest into Kahotea’s death by his partner Dr Sophie Walker, a former military scientific adviser who worked alongside the NZSAS.
The Army has told the Herald that the term was “internal advice” that was the “subjective opinion of staff officers” and “not an organisational position”.
In a statement, King said the Army would continue to support the coroner with the remainder of the inquest.
She said Kahotea’s loss continued to be carried by family, whānau, friends, colleagues and comrades.
“For some, I acknowledge that pain may never truly go away.”
She said Kahotea had led a life of service to the Army and New Zealand. She said he was an NZSAS operator at the peak of his career who had been decorated for his overseas deployments to Afghanistan.
King said NZDF’s Court of Inquiry and Assembling Authority findings into his death identified deficiencies in the planning and authorising of the training technique, in which the helicopter braced itself against the rooftop by leaning a wheel at the top of the building.
She said action had been taken on all recommendations made by the Court of Inquiry.
Beyond those changes, she said the wide-ranging reforms had led to the Army creating new centralised safety and training functions and putting significant effort into managing the risk of death or serious injury on exercises.
King’s statement said internal assurance functions had been changed to look across the whole training system.
It said this was taking place at the same time as the Army sought to improve training policy, doctrine, risk management processes, and understanding of risk at all levels.
“We are confident that with the steps already undertaken, along with our continuous efforts to improve our systems, so far as reasonably practicable in a military setting, it is fit to safely train our people for the increasingly agile and evolving strategic environment demanded of them.”
King said the training required to operate at the NZSAS’s elite levels was inherently dangerous.
“These exercises carry a higher level of risk than routine exercises to best prepare our people to not only achieve successful outcomes, but also to best protect them when they are deployed. In military training, it will never be possible to eliminate all risks.”
The inquest was closed on Friday with Coroner Tetitaha questioning whether the Army had provided it with sufficient information to show that the failures that led to Kahotea’s death had been fixed.
While not her final findings, she said she would be making comments over NZDF’s delay in answering whānau questions, delays in putting change in place and its lack of transparency - including with coronial staff.
“Seven years and we still don’t have a completed training manual. It is still under review. That seems unconscionable.”
The inquest heard that there had not been a fatal incident since 2019 and that serious injuries had fallen since 2022.
However, it was unclear as to the reason why this had happened because software used to capture incident data had yet to be installed.
Kahotea’s whānau had not asserted that the training should be risk-free but questioned how NZDF avoided prosecution when it had bypassed many of its usual risk assessment and mitigation processes.
David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004.
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