Now, I've got a huge amount of respect for the police, and I very much, almost weakly appreciate what it is that they do for us, but I think we have to call it.

Tom Phillips is embarrassing them.

I mean, the fact that he is still out there with his kids coming up 4 years now is embarrassing for the police because it looks like they're having rings run around them by a skinny guy from Mara Koppa.

He makes a mockery of them every single time he pops up to nick milk from a dairy or shop in full view of the public in Bunnings, or do a job on a bank.

Every time someone in the family pleads for him to come home, every time an international media outlet writes another fascinated piece about him being out there.

Every winter, when our own media remember that the family are still out there and draw attention to it again, every time that happens, we are reminded that our police cannot find a guy and his kids in the bush around Mara Koppa.

Now, I don't know what's going on here.

I have a suspicion, I've shared it with you before, that the police are deliberately just leaving him to it.
Cause if they wanted to, they could get him out. And you know that.

We're a country of people who understand the bush, he's not the only guy in New Zealand with bush skills.

The cops have got specialist teams, and if they don't want to use those teams because they don't wanna have a shootout, well, then we've got the Defense Force.

The defense force can be used here - they've actually been used in the search beforehand.

And you cannot tell me that our SAS can handle the Taliban, but can't track down a guy in the bush and be on him before he knows that they're there.

You cannot tell me they can't do that.

I suspect the police have made the decision to not find him, which, by the way, I actually think may be the right decision given how messy I think the family court business could in fact be in this case, but they are not trying to find him.

And I just wonder if maybe they should say that out loud.

Maybe they should just be upfront that he is out there until the day that Tom Phillips decides to come back, just so that every single passing winter doesn't make the police look like they're being beaten by Tom Phillips.