Body cameras for Australian military are the latest idea in the ongoing campaign to make our troops ‘behave properly’ in operations. Here are some thoughts on the proposal.

1) I served in a war zone where we got mortared and rocketed and so on without warning at any time.

On occasion this was at night while you were trying to get a sleep, and suddenly it was on. The first thing was to scramble into your body armour and helmet, and then grab your rifle to engage with any attacking enemy. Will there be charges for not putting your camera on and activating it while the bad guys are coming over the walls?

2) Will a member get into trouble when they go into a bathroom; turn off the camera, and then the building gets blown up? Or is it the case the camera will be on all the time and can’t be turned off? How awkward, given showering. Given the falling debris, is there going to be monetary charge for damaging Defence equipment in such cases?

3) Presumably the footage from any cameras will have to be kept forever. Who will gather all of this from everyone and store it? What happens if the hard drive gets blown up in a subsequent attack? And as the recent TV series The Capture explores, what guarantee is there that any stored footage cannot be digitally manipulated to incriminate?

4) Presumably the camera lens is the aiming point for enemy snipers, or if it’s a helmet model just down half a metre? Let’s hope it doesn’t come with a red light saying it’s on. By the way, does this camera work at night, or are we going into shutdown at sunset while the bad guys build new stuff; tunnel under our walls, and lay improvised explosive devices with impunity?

5) Soldiers in combat tend to spend a lot of time lying down, so as not to get shot. However if the camera is on your chest it’s not going to see much. A helmet model would need adjusting – not something one tends to want to do with a spare hand. Of course ensuring your camera is pointing in the right direction would be just another thing to remember while also dealing with incoming fire.

6) Will naughty bits get deleted? I remember one attack where our ‘bedroom’ building got hit, and one bloke scrambled into his top armour and helmet, while over his bottom half he only had a towel. Then we got hit again – bang! – and all the lights went out. Then they came back on again and his towel had fallen off. How we laughed! But presumably with our body cams on we would have been filming his embarrassment. Would we get charged for filming nudity?

7) Will there will be a waterproof model so that when Navy people get accused of torturing potentially illegal boat people this footage can be brought to the court? Presumably as one can be nasty to such a passenger at any time all of the crew will have to wear one 24/7?

And given it’s a tradition to call the cook a bastard, would such footage get one into trouble? What about in one of those Navy-ulp! moments? Such as where you’re on the bridge and see the seabed’s shoaling fast, but you manage to slow down, change course, and avoid running your ship aground? Will there be now be a new charge – borne out by the bridge team’s camera evidence – of nearly running your ship aground?

8) Presumably this camera comes with a whole heap of kit to keep it going in the field. Spare batteries, a lens-cleaning kit and a nice pouch – all of which will add to the complication and weight of one’s equipment.

9) What about being back in Oz? Presumably all ADF members will have to wear cameras all the time. After all, what if you’re attacked in the street in uniform? Poor Fusilier Lee Rigby was attacked by extremists in 2013 and died in London after being hacked to death with machetes.

Don’t think such scenes happen here? The perpetrator of the Lindt Café siege targeted ADF people before his final attack. I also remember being told to change into uniform only when getting to work a few times, due to an ‘increased threat’ so this one needs to be thought out.

10) What about all the naughty words and so on? I recall in ‘tactical descents’, which is where a huge aircraft you’re sitting in descends in a corkscrew spiral to avoid surface-to-air missiles, those new to it a) often threw up, and b) swore mightily, and c) threw up some more. Can someone beep out the bad bits? Also do you get into trouble for vomit-filled electronics? Many would be grateful to know this.

11) We know that no Aussie humour will make its way onto camera footage. But if does, are you allowed to show it back at base for a laugh? Will there be an annual ‘Best of ADF body cam’ on TV? If there is, are you allowed to sign up for a Special show, or does the money go to the Christmas party kitty?

Finally though, war fighting is not policing, and expecting the footage to be as understandable as a confrontation on an Australian street is not to understand the incredible demands and difficulties of house-clearing in a war-torn city, or outside in a land of dust, rocks, and the urgent need for cover. Is all of this to be analysed and critiqued by analysts in offices days later and thousands of kilometres away?

Body cameras will do little to solve any ethical problems in the field. Perhaps instead of going for easy solutions which in fact aren’t, we could just continue training our military to act properly – as they usually do – and that would be sufficient.