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Speaker 1: Togever Do for ce Ellen.

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Speaker 2: Now it's being suggested that the right team to track

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Speaker 2: down the missing medical for a dad and his kids

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Speaker 2: are not the police, but actually the essays. The family

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Speaker 2: has been missing since about twenty twenty one and despite

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Speaker 2: a few cracks out of the cops haven't been able

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Speaker 2: to track them down yet. Now. Grant Fletcher is a

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Speaker 2: barrister and military lawyer. High Grant good.

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Speaker 1: An evening, I think, how are you?

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Speaker 2: I'm very well, thank you, Grant. Listen, Why can't the

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Speaker 2: n ZT essays just be sent in right? If these

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Speaker 2: guys can track the family down, why haven't we done it?

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Speaker 1: It's a good question. And the reality is that in

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Speaker 1: a constitutional democracy like New Zealand, like the United States,

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Speaker 1: like the United Kingdom, the military is designed to be

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Speaker 1: dealing with external situations, where it's the police and conventional

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Speaker 1: law enforcement that deals with internal situations. And if we

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Speaker 1: think about a banana a public say, you've got the

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Speaker 1: vision of soldiers patrolling in the streets, an armored personnel

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Speaker 1: carriers on every corner. That's why in most democracy is

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Speaker 1: the use of the conventional military eternally is very very

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Speaker 1: tightly constrained. It's okay, for the New Zealand Army, for example,

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Speaker 1: to assist with civil civil defense, disaster relief, and the

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Speaker 1: defense that allows that it's called a public service. It's

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Speaker 1: when they start to get into actual law enforcement that

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Speaker 1: it starts to get constitutionally quite murky. And under New

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Speaker 1: Zealand's framework, it's very very tightly constrained, right.

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Speaker 2: And so what you need prime ministerial sign off?

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Speaker 1: Do you pretty much? So for effectively disaster relief, no,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't need Prime minister prime ministerial sign off because

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Speaker 1: that's a civil service. But if it is for the

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Speaker 1: military to have the power of the police, which would

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Speaker 1: include the ability to detain someone, then that needs prime

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Speaker 1: ministerial approval. Now, obviously there's a slightly murky area between

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Speaker 1: what is a public service and what is a law

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Speaker 1: enforcement role. And I think a thing that's also going

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Speaker 1: to affect the decision makers in relation to this is

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Speaker 1: that this is really stepping into law enforcement role, which

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Speaker 1: is not the job of the military.

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Speaker 2: Do you reckon that the cops can't track this family down?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, to be quite honest, what their capabilities

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Speaker 1: they've got to bring to barrs. So I can't really comment,

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Speaker 1: but I could certainly say that the New Zealand military

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Speaker 1: would easily have this capability under their belt, because I.

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Speaker 2: Would have thought the police would. I mean, they have

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Speaker 2: the Eagle helicopter available to them. The Eagle helicopter has

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Speaker 2: a heat sensor and surely you just have to shoot

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Speaker 2: that thing around the place and eventually you'd see four

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Speaker 2: warm bodies in the bush, wouldn't it.

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Speaker 1: Again, I don't know. I mean, anyone who does any

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Speaker 1: hunting at all will will have it looked through. Thermal capabilities,

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Speaker 1: and the modern thermal equipment is pretty god but in

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Speaker 1: some situations it doesn't work thack bosh or if there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of heat signature in the background. I genuinely

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Speaker 1: don't know the level of capability that the police would have,

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Speaker 1: So I can't really speculate.

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Speaker 2: Now that we've got the media from around the world

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Speaker 2: who are interested in this, and I mean fascinatingly actually

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Speaker 2: lead the Daily Mail apparently a couple of times over

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Speaker 2: the weekend in the UK, do you think it's going

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Speaker 2: to put pressure on authorities to step the efforts up

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Speaker 2: to catch us this family.

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Speaker 1: I hope not. And the reason I say that is

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Speaker 1: that the decision makers within the police and indeed within

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Speaker 1: wider government shouldn't be influenced by public opinion and media pressire.

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Speaker 1: With all due respect to your profession, they need to

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Speaker 1: be the calmest heads in the room and work towards

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Speaker 1: a peaceful and a peaceful resolution.

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Speaker 2: And I agree with you because there may be things

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Speaker 2: that we do not even know. They're having to consider

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Speaker 2: it right that they may have it. They may be

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Speaker 2: having to weigh up all kinds of weird stuff that

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Speaker 2: we're not aware of.

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Speaker 1: I think they would be right. And you know, I

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Speaker 1: hate to quite Donald Rumsfeld, but any person planning any

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Speaker 1: sort of activity needs to bear in mind three things.

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Speaker 1: There is no knowns. This blokes in the North Island.

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Speaker 1: There's known unknowns. We don't know where he is. But

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Speaker 1: the most dangerous thing that a decision maker has to

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Speaker 1: deal with in what should enter every single planning process

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Speaker 1: that they're doing, is unknown unknown. I mean, there may

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Speaker 1: be things out there that they literally do not know,

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Speaker 1: and they need to have contingency planning for that.

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Speaker 2: Grant, this is really fascinating. Hey, thanks for talking us

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Speaker 2: through it. Really appreciated. That's Grant Fletcher, Barrister and military lawyer.

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