Let’s hope Hunted Australia gets a Logie on Sunday night

Chief Hunter Dr David Craig on the set of Hunted Australia, a hit for Channel Ten. Picture supplied

I love watching HuntedAustralia with my kids, but not sure they love watching it with me as I bellow at the screen “bloody CCTV cameras, they’re everywhere!”, “there’s no privacy anymore!”, “surely, they need a warrant to do that!”.

As a GenX-er who can still remember doing uni assignments on a typewriter and, thankfully, got well into adulthood without social media or even a mobile phone, the web of technology now thrown over almost every aspect of modern society is at once reassuring and unsettling.

Great that it can be used to catch the bad guys, not so great that almost our every move is being captured by a camera, whether it’s as you use the self-service registers at the supermarket (look up and smile next time you’re scanning the milk or bread) or walking along a street trying to discreetly dislodge a wedgie. (Come on, we’ve all done that!) Needless to say, if I was a victim of crime, I’d be saying privacy be damned and chuck whatever you can at it.

The team at Hunted Australia HQ. Picture supplied

The hunters on HuntedAustralia certainly love their technology, including chief hunter Dr David Craig, who leads a team of experts trying to capture 20 fugitives attempting to stay undetected for 21 days to win $100,000. Each pair of fugitives has $500 and is not allowed to leave Victoria. And they are up against it as the hunters use everything from phone hacking to automatic number plate recognition to, yes, cameras to get their man or woman.

Now in its second season, Hunted Australia has a loyal audience and is nominated in the Most Popular Reality Program at the Logies in Sydney on Sunday night. Let’s hope it wins, offering up genuine, edge-of-your-seat television.

The show is fascinating, not least as it reveals how simple acts such as using a mobile phone, liking a Facebook post or driving a car past a camera can lead to a capture. And how easily the hunters can see through lies.

The hunters are a mix of former defence and police personnel, led by David Craig who spent 23 years in the Australian Federal Police including stints as part of the security team for three prime ministers – Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard.

Originally from Queensland and now living in Brisbane, Craig spent a lot of time in the national capital, shadowing the prime ministers and later working on major investigations such as the suspected anthrax attack on the Indonesian Embassy and the 2005 Bali bombing.

Craig said being a bodyguard for a prime minister was tiring, not for the hours, but for the need to be constantly vigilant. And he did have a favourite.

“I enjoyed working with John Howard,” he said. “He wasn’t one for giving prepared speeches, he often spoke off the cuff. I found him to be pretty impressive.”

The on-the-ground hunters doing it the old-fashioned way. Picture supplied

Craig, who has a doctorate in law, retired from the AFP in 2013 and now has his own covert operations consultancy, often lending his expertise to the corporate world on how to uncover deceit. He is also an author, his latest book called Lie Hunter.

On Hunted Australia, Craig says there’s no scripting and the hunting is true-to-life. (Just need to imagine those pesky backroom procedures such as going to a court for a warrant.)

Craig says the recent incident in which fugitives Ben and Callum were captured because the brother of one of the on-the-ground hunters stumbled across them in a country town, was a genuine stroke of luck.

“One of the provisos of me being on the show was that it was legitimate,” Craig said.

The 59-year-old has four kids who love Hunted Australia as much as anyone. But not because dad’s on it.

“I just wish they were on my side, not the fugitives’,” Craig said, with a laugh.

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