Editorial: SAS shift welcome

OPINION: The decision to release more information on the activities of the New Zealand Special Air Service is a welcome one and, in many respects, inevitable. The service itself has been courting greater understanding, with a recent television documentary and history. And the high-profile celebration of Corporal Willie Apiata, when he received the Victoria Cross, gave it a public face.

Given that the head of the New Zealand Defence Force, Lieutenant General Jerry Mateparae, served with the SAS, it is clearly a deliberate strategy. However, Mateparae could never have imagined himself giving a room of journalists a step-by-step account of an SAS operation, as he was required to do earlier this week. That is when politics – and, in this case, the protection of the Prime Minister's credibility – shows that a reluctant force can indeed be moved.

John Key is well aware that the communications game has been changing rapidly when it comes to maintaining secrecy around the SAS. The New Zealand public knew more about the SAS's latest responsibilities in Afghanistan from the Norwegians than their own government. When the New York Times then provided further details on the latest incident, the game was up. It was then, with Key's public admission that a certain soldier photographed on the streets of Kabul really was Apiata, that it was inevitable the policy would have to be changed.

An interesting revelation at the Tuesday press conference from Mateparae was that the SAS was already in Afghanistan in August last year before the Prime Minister announced a new deployment. Press reporter Alex van Wel knew this; he bumped into them at the airport, but he was bound by rules of confidentiality agreed as part of his assignment with the army in Bamiyan province.

Were he not bound to confidentiality, or had another Western journalist been there instead, the incident would have been thoroughly embarrassing for the Government. The nation's police commissioner knew members of the SAS were there – they were protecting him on a short visit – but the Prime Minister was just another victim of SAS secrecy.

There are some interesting parallels with Australia in this debate. There, too, an SAS trooper has been awarded a VC for saving the lives of colleagues under direct fire in Afghanistan. He was also publicly identified and feted, the first Australian to receive a VC in 40 years. The recipient before him was denied permission to return to Vietnam to complete his tour of duty, but Trooper Mark Donaldson has been allowed to go back to Afghanistan.

When concern was raised that he would now be a greater target, the head of the Australian Returned Services League, Major General Bill Crews, dismissed the threat. "When you're fully equipped, you can't tell one person from another. That reason for privacy is more to protect them within Australia."

Apiata has become a pin-up boy for the New Zealand Army – quite literally, given some of the responses to his photograph. In a country that is not militaristic, that is a significant advantage for the defence force. It would be a welcome development if the NZDF also relaxed its approach to its recruitment statistics, releasing these regularly, rather than requiring the media to jump through bureaucratic hoops.

- © Fairfax NZ News