I think the Chief of the Army hit the right note.
(Transcript of media conference at Holsworthy Barracks, Sydney 1445K 30 July 2023)
JOURNALIST: Sir, can you tell us a bit more about these soldiers, their experience, how they were regarded by their colleagues and, of course, how their families are holding up?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIMON STUART: Yeah, look, you've really got to feel for their families and their mates, and I would ask everybody to keep that in the front of their minds as they think and comment and speak about what has occurred. They're part of a really tight team in a very highly professional, highly skilled aviation unit. This is the aviation unit that supports and performs our special operations set of missions. I couldn't be more proud of them as professionals, as soldiers, and as people.
JOURNALIST: Sir, can I ask you about software upgrade issues on the Taipan helicopter? Is that going to be part of this current investigation that you're talking about? And also, is it part of the previous probe into the Jarvis Bay crash, similar with the Taipan helicopter?
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIMON STUART: Alright, so the Air Safety Investigation team arrived in Queensland today. They will do their work. It's very thorough investigative work, and the aim is to understand exactly what happened and why it happened. Speculation between now and them doing their work is really unhelpful. I'm not going to speculate, and I would ask others just to consider the families, the other aviators that are involved, and let's let that team do its work. We will find out what those outcomes are in due course. And the aim of being armed with that knowledge is to ensure that we understand what happened and we can prevent it happening again. As you probably know, we are not flying the MRH today, and we wait until we think it is safe to do so.