Editorial: Army's role needs to be defined

Questions abounded when Army light armoured vehicles arrived outside the Napier house where gunman Jan Molenaar was the subject of a police siege. Some wondered whether they should be there. Others assumed they would be used to smash into Molenaar's house, thereby bringing a quick end to matters. Not the least of those asking questions were the police. They pondered how far they could go in using the armoured vehicles. In the end, they erred on the side of caution, using them only as protected transport.

The police's uncertainty has prompted the Defence Minister to ask for a report to clarify the law. This is wholly appropriate, but Wayne Mapp has followed that up by suggesting there should be no such limitations on the use of Army assets in future. The police, in other words, would be in no doubt they could use the armoured vehicles as offensive weapons. There, the minister goes too far. The review should, in fact, lead to the enshrining in law of the approach used by the police in the Napier siege.

In what seems to amount to an oversight, the 1990 Defence Act fails to specify this. It merely defines the use of the armed forces to provide public service or assist civil power. These encompass emergencies in which one or more persons are threatening or trying to kill or seriously injure, or to destroy or seriously damage property. Pertinently, however, these emergencies must be events that cannot be dealt with by the police without the help of the armed forces. That is a strong pointer to the legislation's intent, even if there is no precise reference to the use of the armed forces' weapons. Presumably their employment for relatively straightforward police work, as now touted by Mr Mapp, was not envisaged as an issue.

It is customary, of course, for the police to use the Air Force's helicopters for transport, and for the two to work closely together in anti-terrorism activities. The armed forces also provide manpower and support when summoned under the 2002 Civil Defence Act by local bodies whose own emergency services have been overwhelmed by a disaster. But it would be a significant step for them to be involved in future Molenaar-type scenarios.

There are good reasons why this should not happen. The use of a country's armed forces against its own citizenry is not a matter to be considered lightly. It raises the spectre of times when armies were employed routinely to put down political dissent. There is a line here that need not be crossed. The police understood this when they declined to use the armoured cars' offensive power. They grasped that, indeed, the establishment of forces such as their own, starting in Britain in the mid-19th century, was part of a process that redefined the role of the Army and its arsenal.

The Defence Minister might have more of a case if it could be shown the police would have benefited from the armoured cars being used as assault weapons during the Napier siege. But their response was copybook, so much so that no one else was injured after Molenaar's initial onslaught, despite his impressive array of guns and his training as an Army territorial. The police operation was restrained, responsible and successful.

Mr Mapp has also pointed to the convenience of the Army's overstocked armoured-vehicle depot. But that is a commentary on an absurd purchase by the previous Government, not a justification for a new and inappropriate use for the cars. The minister is on firmer ground in suggesting the police may need their own armoured transport. That would represent a far more reasoned response than any loosening of the law governing the police's conscripting of the armed forces' weaponry.