Mark Knoff-Thomas: Newmarket Business Association CEO on the Crowded Places Strategy

The country's getting up to scratch on teaching Kiwis how to manage possible lone wolf attackers in crowded spaces. 

Police are promoting the mantra 'escape, hide, tell' to show the public what to do during an attack.  

The Crowded Places Strategy includes information on how to detect possible attackers, and how to conduct security audits.  

Auckland's Newmarket Business Association CEO Mark Knoff-Thomas told Kerre Woodham there have been situations where people freeze or start filming, which isn’t ideal. 

He says they want to make sure people are armed and educated with the best knowledge possible, as even if it’s not applicable in New Zealand, it may come in useful overseas. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Kerrywood and Morning's podcast from News
talks'd B.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Mark Thomas is the CEO of the New Markets Business
Association and a founding member of the Crowded Places Business
Advisory Group, one of the key figures driving the creation
and roll out of the Escape Hide tail campaign, and
Mark joins me, now, very good morning to you.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Good a Kerrie, how are you good?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
To thank you? Is the Escape Hide to tell pretty
much what people would do anyway?

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Well, actually no, and a lot of people from overseas
events they don't know what to do. And we've even
had a few situations in New Zealand where people frozen
or they've just got out their phones and started filming
a situation as it's unfolding, which is really not necessarily ideal.
And so we just want to make sure that people

(01:00):
are armed and educated with the best knowledge possible and
it doesn't always necessarily meant to apply it in New Zealand,
but even when you're traveling overseas, so you know what
to do. If you find yourself in airport or somewhere
and something's going down, you'll know that you've got to
escape and hide and TWLS you can do those two things.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Knowing what to do and actually being able to do
it when the adrenaline is coursing and the like. It's
quite another matter. Doesn't it take practice to be able
to be instinctive in how you respond?

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, it probably does. And that's something that we could
look at, you know, rolling out in time. But I
think when you think of you know, in the sun,
we slip, slop, slap and wrap, and that is that
is a mantra that every New Zealander since Adam was
a cowboy knows. That goes right back. I mean, God,
I remember that when my childhood in the seventies and stop,
drop and hold, stop, drop and roll if it's long

(01:55):
and strong, get gone. So those things they become part
of the normal, normal parlance in the country if we
can get to that stage where it's just an automatic thing.
So most of kids these days, if you said to
any child what you do in an earthquake, they all
instinctively know what to do, even with the adrenaline going.
And if there's somebody there to give them a bit
of instruction as well, that can go a long way
to help. So I think when I think back and

(02:18):
I remember back in the nineties when I was on
my OA working in London and the IRA were rampantly
bombing sort of every other week. That be your bomb scam.
We had to do all kinds of crazy things, and
I think New Zealand's been really preserved from that sort
of experience for a very very long time. And this
whole campaign is not to say there is something specific

(02:40):
that the government knows is going to happen. It's just
to say that we haven't really done anything in this
space to educate the population around what to do if
God forbid it does actually happen.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Ultimately, though, isn't it about fate, you know, if you
are the one that is next to the bag with
the bomb or it's just it's just your law when
it comes to that kind of that kind of lone
wolf attack.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Well, I guess you could say the same thing every
time you put your keys in the car, right, you
never know anything.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Like you you start to get petrol and you miss
the methed out driver because of that, you know it's fake.
There's not a lot we can do except go on
living our lives as richly and as fully as possible.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
I fully endorse living life to the fullest. I think
you have to do that take every day because you
never know what's coming tomorrow. But this is really just
a baseline education program to help people have an instinct,
and we tried to launch it as far and wide
as possible yesterday concurrently with lots of places. We had
stadia and shopping malls and town centers and big box retailers,

(03:52):
as well as the police coming out at the same
time with the campaign, and so people will get used
to seeing the expressions or the words escape I TEL
and hopefully won't won't find it confronting. They'll just find oh, yep,
that's a reminder of something go down. If I'm in
New Zealand or if I'm traveling overseas, I will know
exactly the three things that I'm supposed to do. And

(04:12):
when you see some of the horror stories of what's
going on in the States where mums and dads are
buying their kids backpacks which are bulletproof, you know that
sort of thing. We're nowhere, nowhere in that sphere, and
New Zealand remains one of the safest countries on the planet,
and long may that continue. This is just one step
we can take to help educate people as much as

(04:34):
possible if in the in the off chance it does
something does happen.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yes, Okay, well, I mean there's nothing nothing wrong with
with with telling people and getting that mancher through to them.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
No.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
I think it's great and I think, you know, if
it becomes normalized and then then as time passes, generations
of the kids will come through and on the earthquake, tsunami,
fire and active undefender situation which is which is a
sad state of affairs, but it is a reality and
we are not immune and we know that from you know,

(05:11):
reasonably history. We're not immune to that. And you know,
there's a whole lot of crazy things happening around the
world Jeo. Politically, the world's in a bit of a
state at the moment, and that's due to a whole
bunch of things. And I think this is another layer
to help people do the best they can for themselves
and others as and when it ever happens.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
I thank you very much for your time. Mark NORV Thomas,
new Market Business Association but also founding member of the
Crowded Places Business Advisory Group, one of the key figures
behind the Escape Hide Tel campaign.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
For more from Kerry Wood and Mornings. Listen live to
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