Thursday, 25 September 2025 12:25

Zero, not hero

Written by The Hound

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OPINION: If the comments about the deceased Tom Phillips posted on social media by keyboard warriors were representative of parenting standards in NZ, your old mate would be worried about our collective future.

Fortunately, most Kiwis don’t think a Barry Crump novel (Wild Pork and Watercress) is a good blueprint for parenting and can recognise that taking little kids bush for four years, involving them in crimes and putting a child in danger by starting (and losing) a gun battle with police is not the resume of Dad of the Year.

There are no winners in this tragedy, particularly not those three kids, and the efforts of a few to canonise Phillips as some sort of rebel-hero could set a dangerous precedent; nobody wants to see any feral copycats trying this sort of thing ever again.

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