Lifting the injunction could allow responsible media to address important questions and reassess Phillips’ actions.
Video / NZ Herald
THE FACTS
Key details of the Tom Phillips case will remain suppressed for now following a hearing on an urgent injunction application.
Lawyers involved in the high-profile case flocked to the High Court at Wellington on Thursday to argue over heavy restrictions blocking media, police and Oranga Tamariki from sharing certain information about the matter.
Tom Phillips was killed in the early hours of Monday after entering into a shootout with police, during which he critically injured an officer.
Surely the temporary Tom Phillips injunction is pointless.
It won’t stop the chatter spreading.
It’s trending all over social media. It’s been picked up by international media. The guy on Ponsonby Rd knows about it because his brother told him. The neighbour knows because someone in the policetold him. That’s also how the senior nurse knows.
The Auckland office worker heard it on Thursday because someone in the office told her. The mum from the Hibiscus Coast heard it on Wednesday through the grapevine.
It’ll probably be back on international websites again because they’re not bound by NZ court rulings. And one day when some streaming service like Netflix - inevitably - does a hideous, invasive “documentary” it’ll be either the opening scene or the twist at the end.
Documentary filmmakers follow Acting Deputy Commissioner Jill Rogers and Detective Senior Sergeant Andy Saunders at the Te Anga Road / Waipuna Road police checkpoint where Tom Phillips died. Photo / Michael Craig
I’m sure the motivations of everyone involved in this legal wrangle are honourable - Tom Phillips’ mother who is the one wanting the information suppressed, Linda Clark her lawyer, the media lawyers arguing against her, the judge presiding over what is ultimately probably an exercise in futility.
All of them, I’m sure, believe they’re on the side of the angels. But surely every one of them - the legal brains at least - must realise it is pointless.
This can’t be suppressed. The public interest in this case is too high.
Ask UK footballer Ryan Giggs how good his court-ordered injunction was at stopping the news of his affair spreading on Twitter. The answer is, not good at all. Which is why he consented to the information being reported eventually. Because Twitter - or X as it is these days - doesn’t care about court orders. Not in 2011 when Giggs was bonking someone who wasn’t his wife. Not in 2025.
A court-ordered injunction in the age of social media is like controlling the sale of vinyl records in the age of Spotify.
Good luck. The suppression request is probably doing the opposite of quietening the rumour mill. It is creating the Streisand Effect - the phenomenon of drawing attention to the information trying to be concealed.
Having said that, this is not an argument for the indiscriminate release of suppressed material. Legally, there are strong arguments. There is an even stronger moral argument.
There’s an equally strong argument to do the opposite, mainly because Tom Phillips doesn’t deserve to have any information withheld. To some - probably not for much longer - he’s become a Ned Kelly-like figure. A good dad trying to escape the injustice of the law. He is not. As Police Minister Mark Mitchell said on Thursday, “He is a monster”.
The information may also change the public view of how long the police eventually took in getting the kids out of the bush. Were they too complacent about the risk that Tom Phillips posed to his children when he went bush with them in 2021? Did they too, initially sympathise with the idea that he was an odd but well-meaning dad who’d just gone bush? As the situation developed, and the years went on, did they go too slow?
They were careful because Phillips was prepared to start a gunfight, but do we now - all things considered - think a shootout might have been a risk worth taking? Should they have risked losing lives to go in sooner?
Tom Phillips' campsite was hidden in deep bush but not far from the main road.
I lean towards believing the injunction should be lifted, and responsible media outlets allowed to do their job, within the existing legal and ethical framework we operate in every day.
Because it allows at least some questions to be asked and answered. It allows the man to be assessed completely. It probably won’t hurt these children any more than they already have been. For them to have any real chance at a normal future, they will have to change their names and grow up somewhere other than Marokopa.
And because it can’t be stopped. The courts can either acknowledge reality or pretend it isn’t happening. And we’ve clearly done enough of that.
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