Papers reveal Defence tried to dismantle its own watchdog
Cabinet papers reveal the defence agencies tried to kill off the independent military watchdog recommended by the inquiry into the ill-fated Operation Burnham SAS raid in Afghanistan.
Defence Minister Judith Collins confirmed last week the appointment of an inspector-general of defence would go ahead, despite her efforts and the National Party’s election policy to disestablish the nascent office. NZ First had blocked the move.
But before Collins’ attempt to repeal the law setting up the inspector-general failed, a Cabinet paper and “talking points” for a Cabinet meeting were prepared.
The papers, obtained under the Official Information Act, show both the Ministry of Defence and Defence Force advocating for the inspector-general’s disestablishment – despite the Defence Force previously accepting the inquiry’s recommendations, and its damning findings into how allegations of civilian deaths were handled.
Journalists Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson, who wrote the 2017 book Hit & Run which sparked the inquiry, said the Defence Force was resisting needing oversight and misrepresenting the inquiry’s findings.
“The Defence Force has fought a determined rear-guard action that demonstrates they've failed to learn,” Stephenson said.
As did Labour MP David Parker, who as attorney-general during the Labour Government appointed the inquiry.
“They said they accepted the findings and they were supportive of what was being proposed, and now we see that they're trying to knock over what they've previously agreed.”
In 2018, Parker appointed “two persons of the highest repute”, former Supreme Court judge Sir Terence Arnold and former prime minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer, to lead the inquiry into allegations that civilians were killed in a 2010 raid by the Special Air Service (SAS) in Afghanistan, dubbed Operation Burnham. The inquiry took more than two years and cost $7 million.
Though the inquiry absolved SAS soldiers of acting unlawfully during the raid, including the possible death of a young girl, the handling of the aftermath by senior defence staff was deemed “woeful”.
Both Cabinet ministers and the public were misled through “surprising level of ineptitude and disorganisation”. The inquiry said there was an “indisputable” need for an inspector-general of defence to provide independent scrutiny and promoting civilian control of the military. Such a watchdog already exists for the spy agencies.
However, a Cabinet paper prepared in February by the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Force said the Defence Force was “already subject to considerable oversight internally and by civilian offices across the public service” and responding to a watchdog would divert key personnel from their jobs.
The paper said the inspector-general office would cost $2.25m a year to run.
The Defence Force has an annual budget of more than $3 billion, and Treasury officials in a previous policy paper advised the cost of being overseen would be “low to moderate and inconsistent unquantifiable cost, expected to be met within baselines”.
“To use a tiny annual allocation of money out of a huge defence budget is really a very weak argument,” Hager said.
The Cabinet paper also contained an “analysis” of the inquiry’s findings, which characterised the Defence Force’s “significant shortcomings” as “related largely to information and process” – for which it said improvements had already been made.
It then detailed various errors and inaccuracies the inquiry found with Hit & Run.
Hager, Stephenson, and Parker all criticised the characterisation of the inquiry’s findings.
“If I was the commissioners of the inquiry [Arnold and Palmer], I would be really annoyed at the Defence Force for the way, first of all, that it’s misrepresenting their inquiry, and then ignoring almost their main recommendation – or trying to,” Hager said.
He said Collins, as minister, should have been insisting the defence agencies create an oversight system, as other modern agencies have.
Stephenson said some outstanding men and women served in the Defence Force, but it was “abundantly clear” the organisation had serious issues with transparency and accountability.
Parker said the paper was “very light on their wrongdoings” and, while there were errors in the book, he pointed to the inquiry’s commentary that the book was right in important respects and performed “a valuable public service”.