Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Anna-Marie Brennan: Waikato University Senior Law Lecturer on the Inquiry into the disappearance of Tom Phillips and his children

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Anna-Marie Brennan: Waikato University Senior Law Lecturer on the Inquiry into the disappearance of Tom Phillips and his children · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Here's a question. Did official agencies act fast enough to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: save Tom phillips children from the mattercop of Bush? That
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: is the question a inquiry, and inquiry is starting today
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: aims to find out. And so Phillips said his children
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: successfully hid from police for four years, in which time
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: police say that no contact was ever made. That is
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: until a faithful shootout came the life of Tom Phillips
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: in September, with all his children found safe. So doctor
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Anna Marie Brennan is a senior electorate at the University
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: of Waicato, enjoins me. Now, Anna Marie, good morning to you.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Good morning.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: What are the questions for having it's a pleasure? What
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: are the questions that this inquiry needs to answer?
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: There are three central questions here. Firstly, whether parenting orders
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: were properly enforced by our state agencies, whether police and
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: child protection services discharged their satary duties, was New Zealand's
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: obligations under international law observed here? And then whether interagency
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: coordination mess of those thresholds as well. So there's a
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: number of questions that this inquiry will be looking at,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: and especially why it took so long to recover these children.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's the basic question is it was international
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: law involved.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: New Zealand is a member of the United Nations Convention
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: and the Rights of the Child, and under that convention
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: the best interests of the child are at the center
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: of all decision making. So New Zealand is obliged to
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: protect children from harm, neglect and abuse. It must make
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: clear as well that children deprived of their family environment
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: must be given special protection in the systems. And the
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: case of Tom Phillips is absolutely unprecedented. And these are
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: bind emmitments. They are not aspirational goals.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, I understand it. And so what agencies are accused
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of abrogating their duties and letting this get away for
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: so long.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Well, first, there is a question about whether agencies like
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: the police and Arana Tamariki, whether the operations in isolation,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: did they coordinate over this time period to try and
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: find these children. And essentially this inquiry is trying to
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: expose those systemic vulnerabilities so that in a case as
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: extraordinary and as unprecedent as this does not happen to
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: happen again.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: All right, good stuff, and I thank you so much.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: That is doctor n Anna Maria brinnan and she is
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: a senior lecturer at the University of Wakata School of Law.
• 2:35
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• 2:38
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• 2:41
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