opened a new special forces academy in Sydney last year, called the Special Operations Training and Education Centre (SOTEC). We asked them for details of any accidents there in the first 12 months of operation, where mistakes are most likely to occur as recruits and instructors alike adjust to new surroundings. It emerged that there had only been seven accidents in that time period, although three people were hospitalized and several require ongoing treatment. One soldier broke his legs from hitting the ground too hard during some kind of descent that went wrong. Several of the injuries involved nasty rashes, probably from the hot weather.

The Australian special forces seem to take heat related injuries, understandably, very seriously, which is something their British friends might learn from. On OctoberDefence Force was one of the most transparent jurisdictions we investigated, with help from Green Party activist Umesh Perinpanayagam. Within a day of filing the request, he had a signed response from the Chief of Staff, an Air Commodore. Admittedly, there was not much data to trawl, or the true figures were revised downwards, but nonetheless records were available to the public. It turns out that New Zealand’s Special Operations Forces only suffered four accidents that required hospital treatment between 2015 and 2017. Half the accidents occurred in military training, and half during sport and physical conditioning. Three out of four accidents were in 2017, suggesting a slight rise in risk, but still very little to worry about.

Although New Zealand has had an Official Information Act (OIA) since