27 March – 20 April 2007

It appears John Key of National and Bradford of the Greens are meeting
on ANZAC Day, Wednesday 25 April, to talk about Bradford’s Bill to usurp
parental authority by making it illegal to use any kind of reasonable
force to correct your own children.

Key appears to have swallowed Bradford’s first and foremost piece of
propaganda: that there is something wrong with Section 59.

Let us be clear about this: there is NOTHING wrong with Section 59. It
is a brilliant piece of legislation: simple, clear, flexible,
understood by each succeeding generation according to the social
attitudes of the times, not like Bradford’s proposed re-write of
Section 59, confused by too many undefined words and concepts.

If prevention of child abuse is the objective, why do they not deal
with the out of control bullying at schools which produces out of
control parents? Why do they not deal with the other causes of abuse:
household dysfunction due to temporary and transient relationships,
welfare dependency, lack of education even after at least 10 years of
compulsory school attendance, alcohol and drug abuse?

In every case wherein Section 59 was used to justify a parent’s use of
force with a child, the jury found, after examining carefully and
repeatedly all the facts, that the parent had been motivated by a
desire to correct the child (not to harm, beat, vent anger, humiliate,
get back) and that the force used was reasonable in the circumstances.
Bradford to this day continues to call violence and abuse what juries
of 12 of her peers determined to be “reasonable force.” We now see,
from the way Bradford and the Select Committee re-wrote the Bill, that
it is not the “reasonable force” to which Bradford objects, for it is
still in the Bill: she is out to ban parental authority to correct
their own children.

Section 59 doesn’t promote abuse and violence toward children: it is
one of the laws AGAINST violence and abuse toward children because it
only allows parents to use “reasonable force” and then only “by way of
correction”. When Bradford says Section 59 has let people off for
using violence and severely beating children, she is using an extreme
perversion of the normal understanding of the English language to
communicate her particular take on it, a take that is not shared by
the vast majority of New Zealanders. This is a form of deceit, a way
of giving a false impression on purpose. Most people, concerned
parents in particular, call this for what it is — telling lies — and
do not let their children get into such dishonest habits of speech.

I trust that Key at least, if not every reporter in the country, will
demand that Bradford answer the following mysteries about her ridiculous
anti-parent, anti-family Bill (both the present Section 59 and the
Proposed Re-write are included below for reference):

Number One: What Is Meant by Correction?
A. Define “Correction” as it is used in this Bill.

B. Does the forbidden purpose of “Correction” include “discipline”?

C. Does it include “training”?

D. Does it include “chastisement”?

E. Does this bill mean that parents will be forbidden by law to use
“reasonable force in the circumstances” to discipline, train or
chastise their children?

F. Will Bradford’s definition of “correction” obviously fall outside
of what most parents would say is “incidental to good care and
parenting”? If not does that mean she is trying to redefine what
constitutes “good care and parenting”?

Number Two: What Is Meant By Reasonable Force?
A. Does the “reasonable force in the circumstances” of Sub-Sections 1a
through 1d of the re-write mean parents can employ smacking to
accomplish the purposes listed in those Sub-Sections in the same way
as that phrase in the present Section 59 allows parents to employ
smacking if it is used for the purpose of correction?

B. Does it mean parents can smack their children using implements as
it does in the present Section 59?

C. If this re-written Section 59 does not allow Parents to use either
smacking or implements, could you please explain what part of the
statute actually forbids such things and how it forbids their use?

Number Three: What is Wrong with Correcting Children?
A. Please clarify: It appears that Bradford does not object to the
“reasonable force in the circumstances” idea as it exists both in the
present Section 59 as well as in her re-write of Section 59. Is it
true that she objects to parents using reasonable force to correct
their chidren? What is it about correcting children to which Bradford
objects so strongly?

B. Please clarify: what is it about using “reasonable force” when it
is used for the purpose of correction that makes it so bad in
Bradford’s thinking that it must be legislated against when this same
“reasonable force” can be used in the multitude of other circumstances
allowed in Sub-Sections 1a through 1d?

C. Please clarify: is it possible to define WHEN reasonable force used
by parents is not legally forbidden in the following way: “As long as
the force is used on the child BEFORE or DURING the child’s act of
harm or crime or disruption or offense the force is justifiable (as
long as it is also reasonable in the circumstances). But if any force
is used on the child AFTER the child’s act of harm or crime or
disruption or offense THEN it is more likely to be understood in terms
of correction and is therefore illegal.”

D. How does Bradford intend to re-educate all those parents who view
“correction” (and “discipline” and “training” and “chastisement”) of
children as integral parts of “performing the normal daily tasks that
are incidental to good care and parenting”? How does Bradford intend
for the law, the police, the judges and the juries to deal with such
parents? Will Bradford write these intentions into the Bill itself as
part of the statute or just hope that everyone involved will adopt her
as-yet unpublished intentions in these areas?

Number Four: Isn’t “Reasonable Force” still “Reasonable Force”?
Bradford has consistently said that the “reasonable force for the
purpose of correction” provision of the current Section 59 has allowed
violent child abuse to take place where parents who severely beat
their chidlren with horse whips, planks of wood and hosepipes, leaving
welts, were let off. The re-write of Section 59 does not change the
“reasonable force” provision in any way except to forbid it for the
purpose of correction and to specifically justify it for the multitude
of purposes mentioned in Sub-Sections 1a thorugh 1d. How does this in
any way discourage parents from severely beating their chidlren with
horse whips, planks of wood and hosepipes, leaving welts, if they do
it for the purposes of preventing harm, crime, offensive or disruptive
behaviour? And how does this new wording discourage juries from
letting them off? The words justifying the use of force are precisely
the same; the only difference is that “correction” is now forbidden,
but a huge multitude of other actions are justified. As Simon Maud of
the NZ Law Society said, this re-write of Section 59 appears to allow
for more use of force against children, not less.

Number Five: So If There Is Reasonable Doubt, Parents Are
Automatically Guilty?
A. Please clarify: Sub-Section 3 says Sub-Section 2 must prevail over
Sub-Section 1. Does this mean that if it is unclear to a jury whether
a parent’s use of force was preventative or corrective that the
corrective interpretation must prevail? Does this not mean that,
contrary to normal understandings of justice wherein one is only
guilty when it is proven beyond reasonable doubt, juries will be
required to return a guilty verdict when there is reasonable doubt?

B. Please clarify: If I come up unnoticed by my son as he is stealing
apples from the neighbour’s tree and slap his hand as he picks another
one so that he doen’t actually detach it, and confesses he was
stealing without the neighbour’s permission, this is justified by
Sub-Section 1b?

C. If I then take him by the shoulders and forcefully march him to the
neighbour’s, with him protesting every inch of the way, to give back
the apples he did pick, this is probably corrective but might be part
of good parenting. But since there is a doubt about whether the force
used to march him to the neighbours was good parenting or corrective,
Sub-Section 3 kicks in and the force used is therefore not justified
and I’d be guilty of assault?

D. If, after marching him to the neighbour’s and forcing him to give
the apples back, I then force my son to apologise to the neighbour and
offer to pay for the two he ate while picking the others. Since he
didn’t was not going to do either, I said he’d be banned from any TV,
Video or any other electronic entertainment for two weeks unless he
did. So he apologised and offered to pay and the neighbour asked for
$3.00 in reparation. When we got home, my son adamantly refused to
fork over $3.00 saying the apology was more than enough. At this point
I physically take $3.00 from his piggy bank in his room (and later
give it to the neighbour) and also ban him from electronic
entertainment for one week (not two) for not complying with what I
required of him in front of the neighbour. He never agreed with any of
this. During the next week there were four instances where I had
physically to wrest remotes and an ipod from him in order to enforce
the ban I laid down against him. Since these actions are clearly to
correct my son’s actions and their downstream implications, the force
I used would not be justified but in fact condemned by Sub-section 2,
is this not correct?

Section 59 as it stands today:
Domestic discipline-
(1) Every parent of a child and…every person in the
place of the parent of a child is justified in using force by way of
correction towards the child, if the force used is reasonable in the
circumstances.

The proposed re-write or replacement for Section 59:
Parental Control
(1) Every parent of a child and every person in the place of a parent
of the child is justified in using force if the force used is
reasonable in the circumstances and is for the purpose of —
(a) preventing or minimising harm to the child or another
person; or
(b) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage
in conduct that amounts to a criminal offence; or
(c) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage
in offensive or disuptive behaviour; or
(d) performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to
good care and parenting.
(2) Nothing in subsection (1) or in any rule of common law justifies
the use of force for the purpose of correction.
(3) Subsection (2) prevails over subsection (1).

Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity
PO Box 9064
Palmerston North
New Zealand
Ph: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
Family.Integrity@xtra.co.nz
www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz

Our Home….Our Castle

Section 59
MEDIA RELEASE
21 APRIL 2007

Cases Prove Child Abuse Not Being Protected by Section 59

Three cases of assaults on children over the past fortnight have proved that the claim that section 59 is protecting child abusers is totally false.

A Hawkes Bay woman faces a jail term for taking to her son with a wooden spoon and leaving him with 4cm welts. A Tauranga mother who admitted she slapped her 10-year-old daughter about the face and body at least five times to discipline her for back-chatting has also been convicted of assault.

And yesterday, an Invercargill mother was convicted of assault of a child after she used the child’s folder to hit him across the arms and used her open hand to hit him across the buttocks. The boy received extensive bruising to his hands, arms, lower buttocks and upper thighs.

“Section 59 did not protect these parents – and nor should it have,” says National Director Bob McCoskrie. “But what these cases do show is that the current law is working.”

“These assaults are quite obviously not reasonable – and are quite different to light smacks which over 80% of NZ’ers support as being appropriate for the parental guidance and correction of children. Kiwis understand the difference between reasonable correction of a child and child abuse.”

Mr McCoskrie says these cases prove it is time to ditch the Bradford ‘Anti-Smacking’ Bill and start tackling the real causes of child abuse – family breakdown, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty and stress.

“A ban on smacking is simply a failure to deal with the real causes of child abuse,” says Mr McCoskrie.

ENDS

For More Information and Media Interviews, contact Family First:

Bob McCoskrie JP – National Director
Tel. 09 261 2426 | Mob. 027 55 555 42

Smacked kids hurt animals says MP
MARTIN KAY – The Dominion Post | Friday, 20 April 2007

Key Labour ally Jim Anderton says men who were smacked as children are far more likely to abuse animals.

In a speech to the SPCA, the Progressives leader – who is in coalition with Labour – cited a United States Justice Department report in 1999 that said nearly 60 per cent of men who admitted mistreating animals had suffered corporal punishment from their fathers.

About a quarter said they had abused animals, but had not been physically punished as children. Corporal punishment was defined in the survey as “spanking, slapping or hitting”.

Mr Anderton supports Green MP Sue Bradford’s bill, which removes the statutory “reasonable force” defence for parents who smack their children for the purposes of correction. Polls show more than 80 per cent of voters are against a change to the law.

Mr Anderton said the study showed that people “emotionally damaged through violence” were more likely to be violent or have no empathy for others.

His reference to the US research was dismissed as a desperate measure by National MP Chester Borrows, who has drafted an amendment to the bill that would allow light smacking. Mr Borrows said yesterday that the research Mr Anderton used – which was based on interviews with 84 university undergraduates – was demographically flawed and inferior to other studies that showed no effects from smacking. The research “wasn’t anywhere near as clear-cut as he says it was”.

Mr Borrows said research from the groundbreaking New Zealand longitudinal study, which has tracked participants since birth for more than 30 years and covered a range of backgrounds, painted a much different picture.

“What you find is that children who are raised in a loving, nurturing home and who are lightly smacked are indistinguishable from those who weren’t smacked.”

Supporters of Ms Bradford’s bill say it will remove the protection for parents who thrash their children. Opponents say it will criminalise good mothers and fathers.

The bill is set to pass comfortably with support from Labour, the Maori Party, National MP Katherine Rich, NZ First MPs Brian Donnelly and Doug Woolerton, and United Future leader Peter Dunne.

Anti-Smacking Bill Reveals Liars, Fence-Sitters
Thursday, 19 April 2007, 2:42 pm
Press Release: Libertarianz Party
Anti-Smacking Bill Reveals Liars, Fence-Sitters
“It is heartening to see John Key take a stand on the anti-smacking bill by refusing to meet with Sue Bradford. But what he hopes to gain by a wording change to the bill is unclear as we already have legislation outlawing assault on children,” said Peter Osborne, Libertarianz Social Welfare Spokesman. “Then again, changing the wording to the bill will also allow John Key to do what he does best; compromise and fence sitting.”

He says, “The only good thing to come from the anti-smacking bill is that it has shown us what bare faced liars Helen Clark and Sue Bradford are. Prior to the public outcry both Clark and Bradford were clear that this bill outlawed smacking of any kind. When they realised the unpopularity of their interference into our lives they both changed their spin. Of course the bill remains clear: the Police will be forced to arrest good, loving parents for smacking their children.”

Mr Osborne continues, “People must question why, with the ever increasing political interference into our private lives, assaults and murders of children are becoming more vicious and common! Libertarianz understands only too well that it is because of the insidious New Zealand welfare system. When people are paid systematically to do nothing; to aspire to nothing, their lives are altered from a future of possibilities and aspirations to an easy option of subsidised nothingness. In the guise of ‘helping’ people, politicians have created a system which brings out the worst in many.”

In conclusion Osborne says, “Libertarianz believes that if people are left to peacefully live without the burdens and interference of the state then human resourcefulness will allow everyone the opportunity to improve their lives and to strive for the best within themselves. What a wonderful environment that would be for raising children! Our constitution would ensure that the Bradfords, Clarks and Keys of this world would have no power to erode the freedom that is ours by right.”

“It’s Enough to Make you Vote Libertarianz!”

ENDS

Scoop Full Coverage: Section 59 – Ouch!
Friday, 23 February 2007, 7:33 am
Article: Scoop Full Coverage
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0702/S00195.htm

Scoop Full Coverage of Anti-Smacking Bill
Wednesday, 14 March 2007, 11:13 am
Article: Scoop Full Coverage
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00231.htm

Full Coverage (Part2) of Section 59 Bill
Thursday, 29 March 2007, 9:09 am
Article: Scoop Full Coverage
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00511.htm

Key looks for smacking compromise
18/04/2007 16:23:00

Newstalk ZBs Larry Williams speaks with National leader John Key about his bottom-line on the anti-smacking bill.

Listen in the link above

Accept anti-smacking bill is flawed says Key

Wednesday, 18 April 2007, 3:06 pm
Press Release: New Zealand National Party

National Party Leader John Key says backers of the anti-smacking bill need to accept that the way the bill is currently drafted will make it illegal to use light smacking for the purposes of correction.

“I will not support a bill that leaves otherwise good parents at the mercy of the police and the judiciary.

“The Greens and Labour now have an opportunity to get closer to the public they serve, by agreeing they’ve got a major problem with the current wording.”

Mr Key says his offer to get around the table with Sue Bradford and Helen Clark remains open.

“But there’s no point in proceeding unless Sue Bradford and Helen Clark will accept that light smacking for the purposes of correction will be illegal under their proposals.

“That is the first step towards finding some common ground.”

Mr Key has laid down a counter-challenge for Labour to explain how it is that the bill in its current form won’t criminalise parents.

“If Labour really believes that ‘light smacking for the purposes of correction’ will not be outlawed, then they need to explain that. But no matter how you read this bill in its present form it will be illegal to ‘lightly smack for the purposes of correction’.

“The way to send a strong message on child abuse is to make the law clear and precise and then to police it strongly and vigilantly. This bill as it stands does the opposite.

“So again I say to Helen Clark and Sue Bradford, if you are genuine in your statements, and genuine in your intentions, then let’s get around the table and come up with a set of words we all agree on.

“For me, a result that sees the criminalisation of parents for a light smack is simply not on the table.”

ENDS

Greens happy to talk to Nats over smacking
by MAGGIE TAIT – NZPA | Tuesday, 17 April 2007

Green Party MP Sue Bradford has welcomed National leader John Key’s call to get together to talk about her bill to change the law around smacking.

However the Government response was cooler.

In a speech today Mr Key said he would like to talk to Prime Minister Helen Clark and Ms Bradford about her controversial member’s bill.

The bill changes the Crimes Act and removes the statutory defence of “reasonable force” against assault on a child.

Opponents say it will turn parents into criminals for smacking children but supporters say the aim it will only stop people using the defence for serious assaults against children.

Mr Key said most MPs wanted:

**To prevent violence against children being protected by the defence of reasonable force;

**not to criminalise good parents who occasionally gave their children a light smack;

**to lower the threshold for what was considered acceptable physical discipline.
Ms Bradford said she was “absolutely delighted” Mr Key saw the issue as important.

“I welcome very much his offer to play a constructive role in the debate,” she said.

She made her own offers – to talk to National’s caucus and to organise a meeting for Mr Key, herself and a few groups like Plunket, Barnardos, Save the children and Unicef.

“I’d like to do both those things, I’d like to make that offer back to Mr Key,” she said.

Ms Bradford said she was willing to move on her position “if there’s anywhere to move” but would not accept defining a level of violence against children.

National MP Chester Borrows previously proposed an amendment to allow parents to use limited force to correct their children.

Ms Bradford said she could not see why there needed to be any defence in the law for assaults against children.

“I want to remove the defence of reasonable force which allows people a defence when they assault their children that is not available when they assault other adults. That is different from creating a new offence of smacking which is what my opponents have painted this as.”

Social Development Minister David Benson-Pope said Mr Key’s comments about where he stood on the issue were confusing and vague; “but do appear to show that his position now mirrors that of the Government”.

Mr Benson-Pope said Mr Key and National had scaremongered about the bill rather than properly debate it.

“I want to assure John Key that the Government would not support any measure that would criminalise good parents,” he said.

“It’s now up to John Key to put his money where his mouth is and prove to the country that he and his party are serious about addressing child abuse in New Zealand, and that it’s not just another case of him shifting his position to suit the audience and trying to get back into the news.”

United Future leader Peter Dunne said Mr Key’s call for multi-party talks was sensible.

“A common ground discussion between parties might just be able to bring together a package that can gain the support of the vast majority of Parliament and I, for one, would be keen to be involved in such a process,” he said.

Mr Dunne said the talks should be for parties, not lobby groups, and the bill put off until they were held.

Debate on the bill is to be held on May 2. At this point it has the numbers to pass.

Mr Key later said that he would take Ms Bradford up on both her offers.

“If there’s some common ground that would be a very positive step forward.”

Mr Benson-Pope said he was willing to meet and Mr Key said he would contact him to arrange a meeting.

Mr Key did not accept the criticism that his comments were confusing.

“I think they were extremely clear – we spelled out the three points,” he said.

“I think it’s an indisputable fact that the law will make criminals of parents that lightly smack their children for the purposes of correction – something that both Labour and the Greens publicly say they don’t want to happen.”

Mr Key said the bill had to change and National was happy to work with Labour and the Greens on that.

Greetings all,

Things around the Section 59 debate are getting very heated, very confused, somewhat scary and way off topic.

The pro-repeal side have taken the lady from Timaru wielding the horse crop as their “poster girl” to advertise why parents should be legally forbidden to use a Section 59 defense, or any defense, to correct their children using reasonable force, regardless of how light it might be: because, they claim, it too easily leads to horrendous acts of violence and abuse against children that are subsequently “let off” by the courts when the parents and their clever lawyers bring up Section 59 and plead something along the lines that parents have a right to discipline their own children.

This kind of explanation is clearly a mix of truth and error.

First, the pro-repeal lobby (Bradford and her mates) only ever look at the actions of the parents toward the child: in this case, the mum gave the boy six of the best with an 18 inch bamboo pot-plant stake and later two or three strokes with the riding crop. They do not look at the wider context of family history, events leading to the corrective action, the results, etc. (The jury did…that’s why she was acquitted so quickly.) We all would be horrified to hear of a parent striking a child in this way FOR NO REASON. So Bradford and Kiro and Clark and Edridge et al all play on this and always completely ignore the context of the disciplinary actions. One must suppose that to them, whatever the child has done can in no way justify a disciplinary smack, not ever, not for any reason, no matter how light the smack, no matter how horrible and damaging the child’s actions, no matter how reasonable the force used. This is precisely the tact taken by the UN Committee for the Rights of the Child in a comment on this issue they published in June last year (see http://tinyurl.com/fvrwo). This is a modern philosophy that has very little support or currency among parents anywhere in the world. That is certainly what Labour and the Greens are finding out here: 85% of Kiwis do not agree with a ban on smacking children for corrective purposes as part of the parenting tool kit.

Second, if the Swedish experiment is any indication as to why this philosophy is pushed so vehemently by virtually ALL government departments and virtually ALL so-called child and family welfare groups (virtually ALL of whom are also heavily funded by the state), it is because this philosophy CAUSES family dysfunction. As family dysfunction increases, so does social dysfunction. A chorus goes up, “Why doesn’t somebody DO something?” Up step the state agencies and those groups funded by the state: social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors, lawyers plus all their secretaries and office staff have vested interests in seeing the dysfunction continue and increase, for it means more money for them. Such bureaucracies ALWAYS tend to grow, for their focus very quickly becomes one of self-preservation rather than working themselves out of a job by finding permanent solutions to the social problems they were supposedly set up to solve.

Third, Bradford and her mates are strongly implying that they think the juries in such trials, 12 of their peers, are thick as bricks or somehow otherwise intellectually deficient and unable to tell the difference between “reasonable force to correct” and “abuse”. Or they are simply saying they don’t like the decision made by the juries. These things are implied, but what Bradford and co are really trying to do is impose their own philosophy on everyone else by saying that juries should not have to decide such things, that the law should always clearly rule any use of force, regardless of how light or reasonable, outside the law if that force is used for the purpose of correction. What Bradford has never told us is why she so hates the perfectly natural idea, one practised for thousands of years, of parents correcting their children.

Fourth, the one group solidly against this bill is parents. Contrary to what Bradford and Kiro claim, parents are not clamouring for the “right” to beat their children…how ridiculous can you get, Bradford. Parents are proclaiming that they have natural duties and responsibilities toward their children and resent the state – especially a radically feminist and childless Prime Minister and an even more radically feminist Sue Bradford of the highly dysfunctional lifestyle track record – parents resent the state and thoroughly unqualified people like Clark and Bradford interposing themselves between parents and their children claiming they have to protect the child’s rights from being denied and trampled on by the parents.

This denigration and bullying of parents by the state has to stop. Only parents will ever love and be as committed to their children as they routinely are…certainly Clark and Bradford and state social workers have little to offer children in the areas of love and commitment. Parents also have most to lose by this legislation: their own children, their own family harmony and peace, their own authority within their own families and over their own children to correct, train and discipline using any degree of reasonable force. This Bill is clear evidence of the state claiming for itself the posterity of us all, our children, and wanting the best shot at determining the future by indoctrinating our children in its schools and allowing only its agents (police and social workers), not the parents, to force them to behave in certain ways approved by the state.

The Present Debate
I’ve cut and pasted three items below.

The first is a blog from July last year revealing details of a pending court case which will not happen until November 2007 apparently. This involves the Timaru riding crop lady and an older son in a separate incident in which she is again being charged with assault.

The second item is a news story from last Friday about this very court case. Note how different the two accounts are. The first apparently is based on a chat with the Timaru lady herself, the second is based on the testimony of the son.

The third item is one blogger’s go at knitting the two together….and this is the scary part: it looks as if the Police and the Justice System are being manipulated by CYFS and maybe the Labour-led Government for the purely pragmatic ends of achieving their political social-engineering agenda. Truth and justice are quite possibly being trampled upon for the higher “good” that our “ever-so-wise” and “benevolent” leaders in Parliament have determined we need, even though we are apparently too thick to see it for ourselves.

There is clearly something going on with this Bill, for Labour has revealed that they are particularly committed to it and prepared to take a lot of very damaging hits (sustained criticism from media, disapproval of voters, the embarrassment of trying to push it through urgency and then trying – and failing – to make it a Government Bill) if only they can secure its passage into law.

And here is where the debate has gone off topic: smacking is a peripheral issue. This bill will criminalise parents using reasonable force – any force – to correct their children, thus prohibiting the most basic expression of their authority: the use of reasonable force. If you have no ability to use force, you have no authority, for you cannot enforce anything. Police and the courts would be reduced to making suggestions only if they could not use force (arrest, fines, imprisonment) to enforce the laws. The use of force is basic and inseparable from authority.

In addition, since the word “correct” is not defined in NZ law, it can be made to mean a huge range of things including any attempt by parents to train or discipline or improve or coach their children. Why is Bradford so vehemently against parents doing such things? And forbidding the use of any reasonable force is not just a ban on smacking…it is totally illogical to ban what is reasonable, and since “reasonable force” is also undefined in law, it can surely apply to any effort by the parents to impose, force, their will upon the child, however they might attempt to do this: time out, restrain, threaten, withhold affection or privileges, grounding, argue, yell and scream, humiliate, emotionally manipulate, negotiate, demand, appeal to conscience or religion or tradition or culture, etc. This effectively forbids any imposition of parental requirements or prohibitions upon children, unless one of two things can be established: the role of parents is to impose their best set of standards and attitudes and understandings upon their children; or the role of parents is to merely care for their children’s physical needs and impose as little moral guidance upon them as possible unless the children have agreed or have given their permission.

Bradford’s Bill appears to be totally committed to that second option. This is precisely what Bradford and Clark mean when they talk about children being given the same rights as adults. Certainly the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC) is pushing this idea of children being considered as individuals separate from their families, with their own rights which will be proclaimed, defined and defended by the state against those who are most likely to deny the child those rights: the child’s parents.

Conclusion
Anyway, please do not make any judgements about the latest media and blog-land revelations and discussions of the Timaru riding crop lady’s situation: we may well not have the full facts until the end of the year, after the trial. But we will get the facts; and they already promise to be a lot more complicated and involved than we’re likely to read in the media’s sensationalised pulp.

Please also do not assume that we or anyone else is holding the Timaru lady up as a sterling example for us all to follow, encouraging us all to go out and buy a riding crop to have handy. I know she would not wish her life’s story and family context on to anyone else. But do recall that in the original riding crop court case, the jury unanimously acquitted her within one hour of deliberation without her or any other witness saying one word in her defense: the prosecution did all the talking! Many people are striving to clarify the facts of this case (facts that Bradford, Murry Edridge of Barnardos, Kiro, Pillay and others steadfastly and creatively obscure rather than elucidate). They strive to make the facts clear because they feel she is being unfairly, maliciously and unjustly caricatured by the repeal lobby for their own political agendas, and not for the good of her, her family or the many other families whose peace and security and integrity will most definitely be threatened by Bradford’s Bill. And the press demonise her and misreport the facts for the low-life purpose of creating sensational headlines to artificially boost sales.

And don’t forget that the real issue is the state usurping from parents their natural authority over their own children. This will of necessity deliver to the state and its agents the only legal authority to correct children by using any degree of force, these state agents being the police, social workers and to a lesser degree, school teachers. (Though have you heard that in the UK, school teachers have re-gained the authority to use force with children not just in the classroom, but on the streets as well? It is a very logical step in the totalitarian agenda to gain complete control over “our” children since they are increasingly considered to be “the nation’s” children).

Regards,

Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity
PO Box 9064
Palmerston North
New Zealand
Ph: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
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Our Home….Our Castle

Item One

http://big-news.blogspot.com/search?q=broke+nose
Saturday, July 01, 2006
son breaks “riding crop” mum’s nose

post has been updated 6pm
The woman who was acquitted in court of physically disciplining her 12-year-old son with a riding crop was visited by her six-foot 16-year old son in January. He kicked his stepfather in the head and broke his mothers nose. The last time the mothers nose was boken was when she was assaulted by an ex-husband who was charged with assault. However the police have not laid assault charges against the boy, despite his parents pressing for this.

The mother had access rights after the son was told to live with his father because she was deemed an unsafe parent by Child, Youth and Family, because she disciplined the younger one with a riding crop and a cane.

But this older son is a brat. Since living with his father he has had free access to alcohol and party pills and, according to his mother, has been breaking into cars and has appeared before the youth court on 13 charges.

As well as breaking his mothers nose, and kicking his stepfather in the head with his size 15 shoes (his stepfather has a serious head injury, remember) he repeatedly spat at them both while travelling with them in the car. The stepfather had to physically restrain the boy, and pull him off his mother. He was punching her and repeatedly calling her a f…….. arsehole, f….. whore, and a few other things. So she physically disciplined him and his stepfather tied his feet together to stop him from kicking him in the head again, before calling the police, who handcuffed the swearing boy and took him away.

Now, this mother along with her husband is facing an assault charge laid last month after the boy went to CYFS the following week. That is why it is now in the media. Perhaps CYFS, or its supporters, has released information on the case.

More sadly, CYFS Dunedin manager Peter Guest has now stopped the younger sons unsupervised access to his mum specifically because of the charges. He did this just two days before the holidays, without even telling the boy. The boy was going to stay with his mum over the holidays next week. Instead he found out from his mother that he is to stay with his grandmother, who was the approved CYFS caregiver that physically disciplined the boy and gave him Risperdal and Ritalin.

Guest is also trying to take the woman’s daughter away from her again. The mother has complained to the police and laid charges of assault against her son but has been told that she has to prove that she was assaulted before the police would do anything. This is despite the fact that CYFS did not have to prove charges against the parent, and that case is before the courts.

Perhaps the ACC claim form for the broken nose may be proof.

Anyone with half a brain can now find out this woman’s name through the media,as one paper has named her on the assault charge and then linkedthe two cases together on anohter report – but her name is permanently suppressed by the courts. For obvious reasons I have not provided links to the papers concerned.

Do you think the older boy should be charged with assault?

Item Two

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4024349a10.html
Horsewhip case mum accused of new attack
The Timaru Herald | Friday, 13 April 2007
The woman acquitted of assaulting her son with a cane and horsewhip, in a case cited as a justification for the anti-smacking bill, is to face trial on charges of assaulting another of her sons.
The woman and her husband appeared in Timaru District Court yesterday. After depositions, the man pleaded guilty to two charges of assault and not guilty to a charge of assault with intent to injure. His wife pleaded not guilty to three charges of assault and one of assault with intent to injure.
Justices of the peace Kevin Dey and Margaret Cosgrove remanded the pair on bail to April 30 for the setting of a trial date.
In May 2005 a Timaru jury found the woman not guilty of two charges of assaulting a son, then aged under 14. She admitted giving him “six of the best” with a cane for misbehaving at school, and striking him three to four times with a horsewhip after an incident in which he waved a baseball bat at her partner.
Yesterday, her teenage son told the court he was punched, kicked and hog-tied by his stepfather after he agreed he had no respect for him.
All the charges arose out of a journey the three made in January last year. The night before the trip, it had been agreed they would leave at 9.30am, but the following morning the man was shouting and swearing because he considered they were running late, even though they were on the road at 9.15.
The man swore at the boy frequently and the boy responded the same way. At one stage his mother suggested he had no respect for the man. When he agreed he did not, he said his mother slapped and punched him in the face at least three times.
A few minutes later, he punched his mother once on the temple. The man stopped the vehicle and got out. The boy got out too, and started walking away. The man punched him with a closed fist. The boy was also kicked in the chest and kidneys.
The man told his wife to get some tape from the vehicle. He bound the boy’s arms and taped them to his leg.
The man told his wife to call the police. Instead, she suggested they take the boy to Geraldine police station. It was closed, so they decided to drive to the Timaru station.
The boy managed to call his birth father on his cellphone, but his mother grabbed the phone.
His mouth was filling with blood from his bleeding nose. He spat it out, further angering his stepfather.
The vehicle stopped and the boy ran into the road, in front of a vehicle driven by Geraldine man Colin Hobbs. Mr Hobbs told the court the boy’s arms were tied together. There was blood around his nose and mouth.
Mr Hobbs saw the man kick the boy two or three times and then grab him by the scruff of the neck, pulling him toward the vehicle, and put both his knees into the boy’s ribcage.
“He was putting everything into it,” he said. The woman did nothing to stop the assault.
When Senior Constable Graeme Walker arrived at the scene, all three family members were visibly upset. In an attempt to defuse the situation, he took the boy home and sent the couple on their way.

Item Three

http://big-news.blogspot.com/search/label/riding%20crop
Friday, April 13, 2007
Riding crop mother has her day in court, again

NB this post has been updated
As some people are expecting me to write about the riding crop mum of Timaru (and I wish people would stick to the facts and desist from calling it a horse whip), who was back in court on assault charges, I may as well.

As readers will know, I was a aware of the charges, in fact I blogged about them in July last year. That’s how long it has taken to come to court. Public Address blogger Russell Brown criticises my earlier post:
the account of the third-party witness, who has no reason to lie, directly contradicts the account relayed by Dave Crampton on some key points. Hopefully he’ll now stop depicting these people as victims of their terrible children and think a bit harder about the violence in this family.
Actually, the account of the witness doesn’t contradict my key points. Thats because the witness didn’t witness the woman assaulting the boy. Neither did he witness the boy punching his mother in the face and breaking her nose at the start of this whole sorry episode. He witnessed the father assaulting the boy, and that father pleaded guilty to assault, as he should.

What Russell Brown hasn’t mentioned is the following, much is (apparently) in the summary of facts but not in the media report he relies on: The teenager (aged 16 or 17) was on an access visit. He punched his mother in the face and broke her nose prior to all this happening, resulting in his mother getting ACC. He was was charged with assault but Police decided not to pursue it and let him off with a formal warning, reasons of which are suppressed. Charges were laid against the mother but police withdrew the charges when they found out what her son had done, but the crown relaid them after what was most probably political and CYF pressures after the boy got his warning.

Furthermore, the man who witnessed the stepfather’s assault on the boy has said that the woman didn’t exactly do anything to stop the assault – but would you if your nose had just been broken? Russell has criticised the woman, alleging that she is a bad parent for not doing anything to stop the beating, even questioning why she did not call out for her partner to stop. [This has since been refuted in comments by the woman herself].

Russell has criticised the actions of both parents, but not the teenager. Why? I don`t condone the actions of the stepfather either, but if Russell’s son was in the care of a former partner or CYFs and came home on an access visit, broke his nose, spat blood in his face, assaulted his partner, kicked him and swore at him, what would he do – give him a hug and play this http://www.amplifier.co.nz/video/17174/welcome_home.html on his stereo?

posted by Dave at 3:52 PM http://big-news.blogspot.com/2007/04/riding-crop-mother-has-her-day-in-court.html

CIR Petition Passes Half-Way Mark In Only 6 Weeks

CIR Petition coordinator Larry Baldock announced today that the petition to force a referendum on the Sue Bradford’s Anti-Smacking Bill had passed the halfway point towards the required target of 300,000 signatures.

As of today, 150,745 signatures had been received on Sheryl Savill’s Citizens Initiated Referendum on the question, “should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?

The law allows twelve months to collect the required 300,000 signatures.

“To have arrived at the halfway mark after only six weeks must make this the fastest petition gathering exercise in the history of the CIR Act, and needless to say all of us involved are very encouraged by the support we have received from all over the country,” he said.

“While the supporters of Sue Bradord’s HOME INVASION, ANTI CORRECTION, ANTI-SMACKING Bill continue to argue about the accuracy of all the polls that have been conducted that show an overwhelming majority of opposition to her bill, we can confidently say we are going to be able to require a referendum to be held at the next election. There will be no disputing that result and politicians would be unwise to continue to ignore the voice of those who elected them into parliament,” said Mr Baldock.

ENDS

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0704/S00205.htm
For better reading of the charts please go to this link above to read this opinion piece.

Ron Law: Section 59 for Dummies
Friday, 13 April 2007, 10:09 am
Opinion: Ron Law

Section 59 for Dummies: A Critique of Sue Bradford’s So-called ‘Anti-Smacking’ Bill

By Ron Law
Contrary to popular belief, Sue Bradford’s so-called ‘anti-smacking’ Bill has already been defeated by the parliamentary process.

Having been the recipient of numerous “anti ‘anti smacking’” or “anti ‘pro beat your kids’” emails I thought it prudent, as a risk & policy analyst, to look at what all the fuss was about so I could make an informed decision myself.

My first port of call was to the Parliament website to look at the Bill being debated and in Hansard, the transcripts of the debates. What I discovered surprised me and is quite odds with what is being debated in public through the media. On Campbell Live on Monday 2nd April, for example, the nation was told that the Bill before parliament was simply about the repeal of section 59 from the Crimes Act; but is it?

Section 59, one of forty-five defenses in the Crimes Act, is about domestic discipline and states;

s59 Domestic discipline
(1) Every parent of a child and, subject to subsection (3) of this section, every person in the place of the parent of a child is justified in using force by way of correction towards the child, if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances.

(2) The reasonableness of the force used is a question of fact.

(3) Nothing in subsection (1) of this section justifies the use of force towards a child in contravention of section 139A of the Education Act 1989.

Bradford’s short private member’s Bill simply proposed the abolishing of the above section 59. The “Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill” passed its first reading in Parliament in 2005 and was referred to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee where over 1,700 submissions were received and in response the Bill was totally rewritten.

So what was changed in the Bill referred back to Parliament and now supposedly the subject of intense public debate? Well, actually, nearly everything; the beginning bit, the end bit, and most of the meat or tofu in the sandwich. The public appears to be debating the old version of the Bill that has already been rejected by parliament.

The Bill before parliament now will make it illegal for parents to smack (or use other reasonable force in the circumstances) in order to discipline or correct their child, but it will permit parents to smack their child for a variety of other reasons. So the Bill being debated is not anti-smacking at all… it doesn’t even shift the goal posts, it just turns the goal posts around! It replaces one excuse for smacking with another.

The Bill being debated in parliament now is compared to Sue Bradford’s original ‘anti-smacking’ Bill {{with comments in curly brackets}}.

Bradford’s Original Bill
Bill Being Debated By Parliament

Clause 1 Title

This Act is the Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Act 2005.
This Act is the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2005.

{{Sue Bradford’s wording in the title “(Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline)” was struck out by the Select Committee and replaced with the words “(Substituted Section 59)”.}}

Clause 2 Commencement

This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.
{{No changes made.}}

Clause 2A Principal Act amended

This Act amends the Crimes Act 1961.
{{No changes made.}}

Clause 3 Purpose

The purpose of this Act is to amend the principal Act to abolish the use of reasonable force by parents as a justification for disciplining children.
The purpose of this Act is to amend the principal Act to make better provision for children to live in a safe and secure environment free from violence by abolishing the use of parental force for the purpose of correction.

{{Bradford’s wording “abolish the use of reasonable force by parents as a justification for disciplining children” was struck out by the select committee and replaced with “make better provision for children to live in a safe and secure environment free from violence by abolishing the use of parental force for the purpose of correction.”}}

Clause 4 Domestic discipline
Clause 4 New section 59 substituted

Section 59 is repealed.

Section 59 is repealed and the following section substituted:

59 Parental control

(1) Every parent of a child and every person in the place of a parent of the child is justified in using force if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances and is for the purpose of;

(a) preventing or minimising harm to the child or another person; or

(b) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in conduct that amounts to a criminal offence; or

(c) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in offensive or disruptive behaviour; or

(d) performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting.

(2) Nothing in subsection (1) or in any rule of common law justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction.

(3) Subsection (2) prevails over subsection (1).

{{Bradford’s attempt to prohibit smacking to discipline children by repealing s59 was trumped by a substituted section that appears to allow smacking to control naughty children. The only other clause in the Bill is a technical matter and that was amended too.}}

One set of legal defense criteria needing interpretation by lawyers is to be replaced by another set of legal defense criteria also needing interpretation by lawyers. The new subsection 3 says subsection 2 prevails over subsection 1. So, if there is doubt over whether a parent’s smack or use of reasonable force was corrective or preventative or incidental to good care and parenting, the corrective interpretation must prevail. Does this mean that where there is doubt about the intent, the parent must be seen to be guilty of planning correction for the child so must be convicted. Reasonable doubt usually acquits but this Bill means that reasonable doubt might require a conviction. Is there legal precedent for that?

Now
Proposed

59 Domestic discipline

(1) Every parent of a child and, subject to subsection (3) of this section, every person in the place of the parent of a child is justified in using force by way of correction towards the child, if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances.

(2) The reasonableness of the force used is a question of fact.

(3) Nothing in subsection (1) of this section justifies the use of force towards a child in contravention of section 139A of the Education Act 1989.

59 Parental control

(1) Every parent of a child and every person in the place of a parent of the child is justified in using force if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances and is for the purpose of—

(a) preventing or minimising harm to the child or another person; or

(b) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in conduct that amounts to a criminal offence; or

(c) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in offensive or disruptive behaviour; or

(d) performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting.

(2) Nothing in subsection (1) or in any rule of common law justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction.

(3) Subsection (2) prevails over subsection (1).

Both the current ‘bad’ section 59 and the new ‘good’ section 59 allow the use of force in relation to parenting that is “reasonable in the circumstances.”

In other words, if the Prime Minister is to be believed, the Bill, supported by the Government, will still permit parents to ‘thrash and beat’ their children… it’s just that they’ll have to learn how to do that with the goal posts turned around.

The difference is that, as the ‘bad’ law currently stands, force is only able to be used to discipline/correct children, whereas in the proposed ‘good’ law it will be perfectly legal to use force that is reasonable in the circumstances to protect them or to prevent them from being naughty. What is not clear is whether that includes preventing similar naughty behaviour in the future, surely the objective of discipline.

Now:

A smack on a naughty child’s bottom accompanied by the (corrective/discipline) words, “That’s for being naughty” is currently legal, but could soon be illegal.
Soon?:

A smack on a naughty child’s bottom accompanied by the (preventative and ‘incidental to good care and parenting’) words “stop being naughty” is currently illegal, but could soon be OK as that means that you are exercising good care and parenting skills by preventing naughty behaviour.

So, in the New World, Mum Bloggs, has a young child who is pulling items off the shelves, throwing them on the floor, and yelling for a big bag of lollies. Currently, in attempting to save face for herself and the child, she might say to the child, “If you don’t stop that naughty behaviour I will smack you when we get home.” The child continues being naughty, so Mum bites her lip, cuts short the shopping trip, takes the child home and ‘corrects/disciplines’ the child with a smack on the bottom. Soon it could be illegal to do that.

However, soon she will be able to say to the child in the supermarket, “I am going to smack you now to prevent you from engaging or continuing to engage in conduct that amounts to a criminal offence (eg; destruction of property),” and/or, “I am going to smack you to prevent you from engaging or continuing to engage in offensive or disruptive behaviour,” and/or “Given that 80 percent of New Zealanders believe that smacking is a tool that a normal parent should be able to use incidental to good care and parenting, I am about to perform a normal parenting task, called smacking, that is intended to stop you being naughty,” and smack the child there and then in the heat of the moment.

So, what’s changed? Well, nothing really, except mums and dads will now have to rehearse how they hold their tongue and what they say when they shame their child and themselves in public as a result of the child’s offensive or disruptive or criminal behaviour.

Of course, they could always reward their child’s offensive or disruptive behaviour and shut them up by giving them those obesity inducing lollies that the child wanted in the first place.

Discipline is a wider concept than physical punishment. Discipline involves the use of a variety of techniques or strategies with the aim of teaching the appropriate way to behave. Physical punishment is one discipline technique. Others include explanations, praise, role-modelling (showing by example), distraction (particularly for young children), withdrawal of treats or privileges and removing the child from the situation (‘time-out’). The use of force in any of these circumstances would now be illegal.

If you send your child to their room for time out for offensive or disruptive behaviour and they refuse, will it be reasonable in the circumstances to take hold of them and forcibly take them to their room? If not, then what protection does the Bill provide if someone then claimed that you had used force?

The defense team in court would argue that you legally used reasonable force in the circumstances to prevent offensive or disruptive behaviour; the prosecution would argue that you illegally used force to discipline or correct offensive or disruptive behaviour.

A question that society needs to address is, “should it be lawful in ANY circumstance to use ANY force (however that might be defined) to manage one’s child? If the answer is yes, then surely our parliamentarians should define what is/is not acceptable force.

Perhaps the Prime Minister addressed the core of the issue when, having bagged opponents of the Bill as people wanting to “thrash and beat” their children, she went on to say, “The issue is how to empower police so that they can get a conviction where someone is clearly beating a child.” I doubt that even the Prime Minister’s most bitter opponents would disagree with her on that. Let’s state that in the purpose of the Act.

Perhaps the Police aren’t the only ones requiring a Code of Practice; maybe Parents do too! Perhaps parents need guidelines as to what is acceptable/unacceptable force in given circumstances. Let’s say that the use of reasonable force excludes the use of things like belts, canes, hosepipes, jug cords, pieces of wood, horse crops and closed fists. Let’s say that the use of smacking with an open hand is/isn’t acceptable force ‘in the circumstances.’

There are two debates taking place. Parliament is debating one Bill, and the public is debating a Bill already archived in the history books. The fact is that the so-called ‘anti-smacking’ Bill does not repeal section 59 as believed. No one appears to win with the proposed changes; apart from lawyers. The proposed changes don’t even shift the goal posts. All they do is turn the goal posts around and create confusion.

*************
Ron Law – Risk & Policy Analyst, Juderon Associates (Juderon@gmail.com)

Unchecked, uncorrected – are you getting the picture, Sue Bradford?

April 4th, 2007

As posted on CYFSWATCH NZ

Unchecked, uncorrected – are you getting the picture, Sue Bradford?
Wednesday, 04.04.2007, 07:55am (GMT12)

Bad kids make unhealthy adults
5:00AM Wednesday April 04, 2007

Unchecked youthful bad behaviour creates later health risks, a long-term study has discovered. Photo / Greg Bowker

Unchecked antisocial behaviour in childhood leads to poor health in later life, new findings from an internationally-acclaimed long-term New Zealand study show.

The latest results from the Otago University study, which has followed 1000 people since they were born in Dunedin in 1972 and 1973, has found links between antisocial behaviour and poor physical health in adulthood.

The findings, a collaboration between the Dunedin research unit and colleagues at the University of London, appear this week in the American journal Archives of General Psychiatry.

Unit director and paper co-author Professor Richie Poulton said other studies had shown that childhood antisocial behaviour led to adult crime and mental disorder, but this was the first study to show a link to poor adult physical health.

That included injury, sexually transmitted diseases, dental disease, reduced immune function, and an increased risk of heart disease.

The study has tracked 526 males through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

The most recent assessments were done when they were 32.

Boys whose antisocial behaviour persisted into adulthood were more than three times as likely as others to have symptoms of chronic bronchitis and gum disease, 2.9 times more likely to show markers for later heart disease and stroke, and 2.2 times more likely to have the herpes virus.

Males who exhibited high levels of antisocial behaviour as children, but reduced this behaviour in adulthood did not have the same level of poor health, said Professor Poulton.

“You’re talking about kids in the sandpit at preschool fighting and bullying each other, and by 13, these kids are converting cars and by 18, they’re bashing people and raping people.

“That’s the sort of development of this hard core antisocial behaviour.

“It’s early onset and persistent – in order words, there’s a whole bunch of kids who are naughty during childhood but they don’t persist. They grow out of it.

“We’re talking about the 10 per cent of males who are identifiable early, with a whole bunch of risks, and who continue to behave in an antisocial way over their life.”

Professor Poulton said these findings were consistent with other indicators of poor health, such as being in a low socio-economic grouping.

The findings could help the justice and health systems, as reducing antisocial behaviour early could help combat future crime and violence, and reduce the overall health burden.

“You have this hard core of 10 per cent males, and then you’ve got the 25 per cent who exhibit antisocial behaviour during childhood but grow out of it.

“It’s the real tough test – if you want to intervene early, which ones are the ones that are going to go on [to offend in adulthood]? We’re really at the pointy end of that particular research endeavour.”

http://www.maxim.org.nz/index.cfm/Media/article?id=950

Think again: family violence

John Fox | 4 April 2007

Printed in Joy Magazine, April 2007

The campaign against 59 of the Crimes Act, otherwise known as the “anti-smacking Bill”, arouses strong feelings. Those who support the Bill draw attention to New Zealand’s violent culture, and our damningly high rates of child abuse. It is natural to feel that something ought to be done, even if it is just a gesture; a step in the right direction to prevent tragedies like the Kahui twins occurring and to tackle our culture of violence. We should, we must, do that. But this Bill will not achieve it.

Ms Bradford and the Prime Minister chime together that the Police will use their discretion and leave good parents and families alone, however, the Bill will still put good loving parents on the wrong side of the law and leave them open to investigations and prosecution. In the process it will undermine parents’ authority over their children.

Child abuse is already illegal. We have laws which punish family violence already. This Bill would criminalise “reasonable” corrective force such as the light smacking used by thousands of Kiwi parents as a disciplinary technique. The best research available, Dr Jane Millichamp’s, suggests that such light smacking (differentiated from beating, or hitting, or child abuse, which is illegal), is not harmful to children, and most Kiwi parents would agree.

The common argument the supporters of the Bill are mustering, is that the Bill will “send a message” that violence against children is unacceptable. But that message is already sent by laws against abuse.

If criminal law “sends a message”, it is about the kind of behaviour we as a society find wrong, unacceptable, and criminal. Things like murder, rape, and child abuse come into that category. By passing the Bill, we would be putting light smacking into the same category, something to be prosecuted in a Court.

Our politicians are right to be concerned about family violence, but they should not be passing a law that they do not want the Police to enforce simply to “send a message”. There are speeches and soap-boxes and press releases and TV cameras for that. Law is for crime, and for behaviour that is harmful and criminal and should be prosecuted.

Further, the Bill would do nothing to address the root causes of child abuse and family violence. UNICEF has said what some of the risk factors for abuse are: family breakdown, alcohol, drugs, poverty, low education and so on. The Bill does not tackle these risk factors for family violence.

The State and the Police should certainly intervene when there is crime or severe dysfunction, domestic violence and child abuse. There are decisions under the current law that we don’t all agree with, and they show the need to improve and tighten the situations where parents can use discipline, but banning all reasonable correction goes too far and good parents should be left alone.

We are all attracted by a vision of the kind of society we can be; a country without violence, where children are safe. But after we have all agreed on the destination, it comes time to chart the path to take us there. Our MPs could have begun a deeper look at why our society is violent, why families and lives are broken, and the risk factors for family violence. Instead, they are choosing to make thousands of parents into criminals and license interference in good families. That is a wrong turn, the wrong path, and the wrong way.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

The Thin End of the Wedge?

It seems the anti-smacking bill that is being fronted by Sue Bradford may end up passing. She certainly seems to think she has the numbers. There are two drawbacks to this though:

1) The failed efforts by Labour to introduce it under urgency, and separately as a government bill, indicate a degree of worry by the ruling cabal. They KNOW it is burning them up. Problem is, it will linger until the budget, and more than likely beyond. What a shame……..

2) This bill could potentially do more to undermine the pro-abortion movement than any other form of legislation. How so? First, if Sue Bradford’s bill passes, it make all forms of violence and contact against children illegal. Now, in the courts, unborn children have been granted the same rights in law as born children. There has been legal precedent for an individual being prosecuted for deliberately harming an unborn child.

This situation exists because in 1981, in response to a complaint, the Courts declared that the unborn child had no legal statutory rights and it also ruled that the decisions of certifying consultants were immune from the law. Naturally, many thought this unsatisfactory and the issue went to Parliament where the Contraception Sterilisation and Abortion bill, embracing nine separate acts, went to a third reading and passed by 40 votes to 26. It was the first legislation in the Western world to re-introduce legal protection for the unborn child. Thus, unborn children in NZ have rights enshrined in law.

If s59 is repealed, be ready for a lawsuit against a DHB or abortion provider, on the grounds of legal precedent and demonstrable violence towards an unborn child. Such court action may or may not succeed, but if it did, watch all hell break loose.

Sue will really be spitting then, because she will be responsible. Good on ya mate!

Posted by MrTips at 4:16 PM

Exaggeration by ‘anti-smacking’ bill supporters

Monday, 2 April 2007, 10:32 am
Press Release: Society for the Promotion of Community Standards
For immediate release ……. Political comment

The Society for Promotion of Community Standards Inc.

P.O. Box 13-683 Johnsonville

Press Release

2 April 2007

Gross Exaggeration by ‘anti-smacking’ bill supporters

Sue Bradford’s ‘anti-smacking’ bill supporters are guilty of gross exaggeration and deliberate distortion of the known facts in their frantic efforts to convince parents that ‘nanny state’ knows best when it comes to the discipline of their children. They argue that of the many parents who have been charged with assaulting their children, large numbers have wrongly escaped conviction by successfully appealing to s. 59 of the Crimes Act (1961). Such persons should not have been allowed to “get off the hook” by successfully appealing to the defence of “reasonable force” and juries in such cases got it wrong. They ignore the facts that s. 59 defences for assault are extremely rare (about 1.4 cases per year). The Prime Minister, Rt Hon. Helen Clark, has publicly stated that to allow parents facing charges of assault against their child to use a s.59 defense, including cases where juries have acquitted the accused, is “silly” and “ridiculous”. Over 80% on New Zealanders, based on consistent poll results, disagree with Helen Clark’s position. They do not want s. 59 repealed and they oppose Bradford’s flawed bill.

Examples of gross distortion of the facts include the case of a 41-year old Hawkes Bay man, who was acquitted in a jury trial in the Napier District Court in 2001. Cabinet Minister, Hon. Mark Burton, misrepresented this case in his recent speech to parliament supporting Bradford’s bill by referring to a man [not named] who was charged with having assaulted a child with a “plank of wood” and got off under a s. 59 defence. This is such a high profile case that anyone who has been following the s. 59 debate would have known that he was referring to the Hawkes Bay man whose 8-year son’s bruised bottom was pictured in the Hawkes Bay Herald (now called Hawkes Bay Today). Many of Bradford’s supporters have incorrectly referred to the use of a “4 by 2” by the Hawkes Bay man.

The SPCS contacted Mr Burton’s office and pointed out to his staff that the Minister, like many of Bradford’s bill supporters, has again, not told the truth. Prime Minister, Helen Clark, and her Deputy, the Hon, Michael Cullen, have both incorrectly referred to this case as involving a plank of wood, as have the Green Party and Sue Bradford.

Actually, the man used a small piece of wood, the same dimensions as a child’s ruler (dimensions recorded in the Hawkes Bay Herald reportt) NOT a “plank of wood”. Neither of the Dominion Post reports (22/02/01 and 21/12/01) refer to a “plank of wood” or a “4 by 2″ wooden plank of wood.

The father disciplined the 8-year old boy by smacking him on his clothed bottom, as punishment for stealing $40 off an adult friend of his, and lying about it (the boy denied stealing the money). The boy had been given a number of warnings about stealing and lying by his father, and knew what the consequences would be for his wrongdoing. The father desisted from his smacks when the boy started to cry.

The father had attended a few parenting courses in the Hawkes Bay over the years prior to the incident and had genuinely sought help in the upbringing of this boy who proved quite unruly after being transferred to his care, in the course of an ongoing custody battle for the boy involving his ex-female partner.

Parent-Line, a well-respected child advocacy agency, had advised him at one of these courses that corporal punishment was OK to use when appropriate. He had tried all methods other than corporal punishment to bring to an end the boy’s stealing and wilful lying, before the incident of ‘assault’ for which he was charged by the police. All other methods had been to no avail.

In court he was charged with assault under s. 194(a) of the Crimes Act (1961) – :assault against a child under 14 years of age”. He was acquitted by a jury of his peers after his lawyer Tony Welsh, was able to establish, beyond reasonable doubt, the true facts he set before the jury. The abrasions over parts of the boy¡¯s buttocks and back had been caused by an accident he had had some days earlier while roller-skating. He had fallen off his skates onto a hard abrasive surface while being dragged on his skates by other children.

It was argued that the distinctive grazing and ‘pot marks’ revealed in photographs shown to the jury could not have been created by the actions of the father in smacking his boy with a tiny piece of wood. The boy confirmed the cause of the injuries (grazes etc.) as the accident.

The doctor conceded that injuries from the accident would have left the boy’s buttocks very vulnerable to further bruising should he have had further force applied to the sensitive areas some days after the accident. The father candidly admitted in court that he had forgotten about the earlier accident and certainly did not appreciate that his son’s buttocks would have been so vulnerable. As the boy had been shunted from one parent the other in the course of the custody battle, it appears that the father may not have been privy to all the facts concerning his son’s prior injury before the smacking incident.

The father was acquitted by the jury who were quick recognise that the attempt to link the injuries with the level of force used in discipline, as put forward by the prosecution, could not possibly be established without reasonable doubt; and that other events (surrounding the accident) could be established beyond reasonable doubt, to have been caused the injuries.

The prosecution case fell apart based on the facts, not on the basis of a s. 59 defence. Furthermore, the prosecution failed to establish that there was any intention on the part of the father to deliberately cause injury to his son. Those who knew him the father recognised that he is a very mild-mannered man.

Mr Mark Burton has not told the truth in parliament. However, the continuing misrepresentation of this case serves the interests of Sue Bradford’s supporters, to ram home this bill against the wishes of over 80% of New Zealanders.

The Green Party, while admitting to the SPCS that the implement used was not a “plank of wood” or a “4 by 2” have continued to use the distorted shock value of this case to push their flawed bill. They regularly refer to the man using a piece of timber or a hunk of wood to “thrash” and “assault” his boy. What utter piffle! The Prime Minister should be ashamed that she and her Ministers have been telling so many lies about this case.

ENDS

Watch Campbell Live here

The Smacking Debate
The “anti-smacking” bill – anti violence or anti human rights? Who should decide how best to discipline your children? A Campbell Live special.

Part 1
http://www.tv3.co.nz/Home/Video/CampbellLive/tabid/261/articleID/24378/Default.aspx?articleID=24378#vidlist24378

Part 2
http://www.tv3.co.nz/Home/Video/CampbellLive/tabid/261/articleID/24379/Default.aspx?articleID=24379#vidlist24379

Part 3
http://www.tv3.co.nz/Home/Video/CampbellLive/tabid/261/articleID/24380/Default.aspx?articleID=24380#vidlist24380

Gov’t will not adopt ‘anti-smacking’ bill
Mon-02-Apr-2007 5:13pm

In a shock move, the Government says it will not adopt the so-called ‘anti-smacking’ bill as its own.

Green MP Sue Bradford’s bill aims to remove the defence of reasonable force if parents are arrested for assaulting their children.

The Government was controversially considering taking the bill on in order for it to be debated more frequently.

However Parliament goes into recess this Thursday, and the Prime Minister admits they have run out of time to get the bill passed before then.

Monday, 2 April 2007, 10:42 am
Press Release: Family Integrity

Naked Grab for Power

The Bill to repeal Section 59 is a clumsy and naked grab by the state to usurp the natural authority of parents over their own children.

It forbids parents from correcting their own children! Correction, changing bad behaviour and attitudes and language into good, is a core responsibility and expectation of all parents.

This Bill goes way beyond banning smacking. It removes parental authority. It forbids parents from correcting their own children. Correction of children is then legally authorized only by the agents of the state: the police, teachers, social workers.

This is home and family invasion on a gross scale. It is doing massive political and administrative violence to families. By interposing itself between parents and children, by rendering children’s parents impotent, it is doing great psychological and emotional damage to children. When parents are under constant threat of legal action by both Police and CYFS, the stress hampers their parenting and renders it less effective.

This Bill will combine with the law of compulsory school attendance to give the state political machine the major role to legally control and influence the children of this country. Why? Because the Bill transfers from parents to the agents of the state the authority to correct children; and the schooling system serves as the state’s major tool of social engineering, a channel for political propaganda.

And once we give the state bureaucrats our children, we might just as well give them everything else…they will come for it soon enough anyway. Once we make the big compromise with regard to our children, nothing else matters any more.

Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity

ENDS

United Future proposes amendment to ‘anti-smacking’ bill

Mon-02-Apr-2007 1:17pm

United Future is proposing an amendment to the smacking bill to ensure parents can still to put a child in time-out without attracting police attention.

The bill by Green MP Sue Bradford would remove the defence of reasonable force if parents are arrested for assaulting their children.

United Future’s Gordon Copeland claims the bill will make parents criminals when they simply pick a child up to take them to a ‘naughty mat’.

He will put forward the amendment the next time the bill is heard, which may be tomorrow if the Government decides to adopt the legislation as its own.

Smacking bill takes a hit

The Press | Monday, 2 April 2007

By COLIN ESPINER
From feats of foreign policy to hubris at home, such is the lot of a prime minister.

When Helen Clark left for the United States two weeks ago it seemed Sue Bradford’s bill removing a legal defence of reasonable force for those charged with assault on a child was set to sail through Parliament.

Now, supporters of the legislation are simply hoping to stagger across the line, battered and bruised by an onslaught of negative public reaction to the so-called anti-smacking bill.

For all the outrage and the lobbying, the thousands of emails and the threatening telephone calls and dark threats against the children of one MP supporting the legislation, the bill is still almost certain to pass.

This is because Labour, the Greens, the Maori Party, New Zealand First MPs Brian Donnelly and Doug Woolerton, and United Future leader Peter Dunne have made up their minds to vote in favour. If anything the level of vitriol over the bill has made them even more resolute.

But calculations are being done across Parliament about the level of political capital the bill’s supporters are using up on this one. The Greens will probably escape unscathed since their voters are firm supporters of the bill anyway. But Labour electorate MPs in particular are really being asked to take one for the team.

How has it all gone so bad so fast? How have Labour and the Greens managed to snatch near-defeat from the jaws of a sound majority?

The simple answer is that the bill’s promoters and supporters relaxed after the Maori Party pledged to vote for it, securing its majority through Parliament. They took their eye off the ball and allowed opponents to dub it the anti-smacking bill and claim it would criminalise law-abiding parents.

Of course, this won’t happen. Police will use their discretion, as they do at present, and prosecute only those who have committed a serious assault on a child.

Smacking is already illegal – there is simply a defence under Section 59 of the Crimes Act if parents are arrested and charged with assault. That almost never happens, except when a parent is brought before the courts for beating their child with a riding crop or a piece of hose pipe.

Presumably, most people would want such parents prosecuted. However, public trust in the police is not high at the moment, and the public probably view assurances that the police would use their intelligence and judgment on any prosecution under the law change with some suspicion.

There is no point in the Government and its support parties blaming the Opposition for whipping up hysteria over the legislation. It has only itself to blame. The bill should never have been sold as anything more than a minor amendment to the Crimes Act – a sensible, international best-practice move to close a loophole that allowed child abusers to escape prosecution.

Instead, the Government has ended up taking on the vast majority of blue-collar New Zealand; Kiwi battlers with large mortgages, two jobs apiece and a couple of irascible brats who occasionally get a clip around the ear, and who do not want the Labour Government in their living rooms.

It seemed to take Labour a while to realise this. The Government has appeared smug in its conviction that most of the opposition to the bill was coming from a small but noisy minority, which according to Michael Cullen is led by Right-wing fundamentalist Christians who want the right to beat and thrash their children.

There may well be such people at the vanguard of the fight against the bill, but lumping the majority of opponents in with religious zealots is not smart politics and will only inflame voters further.

There are signs the Government is starting to panic. It tried to find enough support to push the bill through under urgency but its support parties were not keen. Now it is talking about making the bill a Government motion to enable it to push it to the top of Parliament’s order paper and hasten its progress.

Private member’s bills are only debated once a fortnight, which, added to the three-week Easter recess, would push the bill’s passage into mid-May.

That’s Budget time, and the last thing Labour wants is for its legislative showpiece to be overshadowed by wrangling over the Bradford legislation.

There are risks associated with taking over the bill. Labour’s support parties will not like it, seeing it as a bid to subvert the normal democratic process. It also removes any ability for the Government to blame the Greens for the legislation at a later date.

Labour is so closely associated with this bill that making it a Government motion is unlikely to inflict any more damage on it.

The Government appears to have two choices now – persuade Bradford that the political climate has got too hot for this legislation or shove it through quickly. The loss of face associated with a backdown is likely to be too great for Labour, however, and it has probably come too far to turn around now.

Instead, it is pinning its hopes on the public’s usually short memory when it comes to unpopular legislation, citing examples such as the anti-smoking legislation, prostitution law reform, and civil unions – all of which were unpopular at the time but now largely accepted.

This might work, but it might not. The difference with these other laws is that the Government was able to specify a group of people who would benefit manifestly from the law change – same-sex couples, prostitutes, non-smokers who wanted to drink in bars. It could also argue that it made no difference to most people.

On the Bradford bill, proponents seem torn between arguing that it will provide shelter for children from abuse and claiming that it will have little impact at all. It is also a topic perfect for political exploitation by National at the next election campaign. It fits neatly into the nanny state folder and plays to the public view that Labour has a social-engineering agenda.

Some senior Labour MPs are privately angry that the party has been forced to take such a hammering over a bill not even in its name at a time when it can ill-afford such hits. They had wanted some clear air to let the dust settle after last year’s furore over the pledge card expenditure and the embarrassment over MP Taito Phillip Field.

This week does not look any better for the Government. The long-running commission of inquiry into police conduct is due tomorrow and is expected to be severely critical of police culture. Labour will be worried that it could get caught up in the wider public backwash from such bad news.

Police are also likely to release their decision on whether to lay charges against Field this week. If the MP is charged that will reflect badly on Labour, despite the fact that he is now an independent MP.

For the Government, the Easter recess cannot come fast enough.

< a href=”http://www.nzherald.co.nz/feature/story.cfm?c_id=1501165&objectid=10432090″>http://www.nzherald.co.nz/feature/story.cfm?c_id=1501165&objectid=10432090

I’m not pro-smacking, it’s just a flawed bill, says Chester Borrows
5:00AM Monday April 02, 2007

Sue Bradford’s ‘anti-smacking’ bill has divided the nation. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Time is against him and the numbers are against him, but National MP Chester Borrows is still hopeful he can muster support for his amendments to Sue Bradford’s “anti-smacking” bill.

On Wednesday, the first of Mr Borrows’ amendments to the controversial legislation was defeated 63-58. When debate resumes MPs will consider Mr Borrows’ next amendment, which seeks to permit a light smack with the hand, causing a trifling and transitory impact.

Ms Bradford’s bill, if passed, will strike down a provision under section 59 of the Crimes Act which allows parents to defend themselves from an assault charge by saying they were using reasonable force while disciplining their child.

The debate could resume as early as tomorrow if, as expected, Labour adopts the Green MP’s private member’s bill as a Government measure. Mr Borrows is hoping two New Zealand First MPs who support the bill will be made to follow the lead of party leader Winston Peters, who opposes it, and that they could bring some Labour MPs along with them.

Mr Borrows’ main hope is that Ms Bradford’s bill remains her concern rather than the Government’s. That would see debate on it resume in early May, during which time he hoped the Maori Party could be convinced to withdraw its support. “I believe in the process; the process is that if you make a strong argument that people may listen,” Mr Borrows said.

“It may sound a little naive, but people may decide to find some conviction and decide that if they are going to be a parliamentarian that they weren’t sent here to sit on their hands.”

The debate has catapulted Mr Borrows, a first-term MP for Wanganui, into the national spotlight. Raised in Nelson, he spent 24 years in the police before becoming a lawyer.

“I have prosecuted people for beating their kids, I have considered section 59 and how that would apply to situations,” Mr Borrows said.

“I have probably done more to protect children in this sort of area than anyone else who is in the Parliament, and I don’t want to see it trivialised.”

Mr Borrows served as a police officer in Auckland, Wellington and Nelson, before becoming a sole charge officer in the South Taranaki town of Patea.

A crucial point in his journey to Parliament was becoming a detective and investigating a series of child abuse cases.

“That experience has been life-changing, and made me want to make things better for victims of crime.”

It has also made more hurtful the comments from some supporters of Ms Bradford’s bill that by opposing it, Mr Borrows supports the hitting and abusing of children. “I think I’ve got quite a strong understanding of the nature of abuse, how it works within the heads of victims and how it works in the heads of offenders. I don’t like that label, I don’t think that’s fair.”

Mr Borrows, a 48-year-old father of three, also resents any assumption that he supports smacking.

“I have never advocated smacking. I don’t want to be labelled the pro-smacker. What I am is the defender of parents and children. This whole debate is about whether or not parents who smack their kid should be liable for prosecution.

“It’s not about whether smacking works, and it’s not about whether good parents smack and bad parents don’t. It’s solely about whether parents who do smack their kid should be liable for prosecution.”

radford’s Bill Supporters Guilty of Distortion

Monday, 2 April 2007, 9:42 am
Press Release:
The Society for Promotion of Community Standards Inc.
P.O. Box 13-683 Johnsonville
Press Release
30 March 2007

Bradford’s Bill Supporters Guilty of Gross Distortion

MPs supporting Ms Bradford’s flawed anti-smacking bill have been guilty of grossly exaggerating the facts in order to try and convince the New Zealand public that many people, who should have been (in their view) convicted of child abuse, have “got off the hook” by appealing to the defence of “reasonable force” found in section 59 of the Crimes Act (1961).

For example, the case of a 41-year old Hawkes Bay man, who was acquitted in a jury trial in the Napier District Court in 2001 was misrepresented by Cabinet Minister, Hon. Mark Burton, in his speech in parliament supporting Sue Bradford’s bill. Mr Burton argued that too many people had successfully used a s. 59 defence to avoid prosecution for child abuse and referred to a man [not named] who was charged with having assaulted a child with a “plank of wood” and got off under a s. 59 defence. This is such a high profile case that anyone who has been following the s. 59 debate would have known that he was referring to the Hawkes Bay man whose 8-year son’s bruised bottom was pictured in the Hawkes Bay Herald (now called Hawkes Bay Today).

The SPCS contacted Mr Burton’s office and pointed out to his staff that the Minister, like many of Bradford’s bill supporters, has again, not told the truth. The Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Helen Clark, and her Deputy, the Hon, Michael Cullen, have both referred to this case as involving a plank of wood, as have the Green Party and Sue Bradford, despite the fact that they must know the true facts by now.

The man used a small piece of wood, the same dimensions as a child’s ruler (dimensions recorded in the Hawkes Bay newspaper report) NOT a “plank of wood”. Neither of the Dominion Post reports (22/02/01 and 21/12/01) refer to a “plank of wood” or a “4 by 2” wooden plank of wood.

The father disciplined the 8-year old boy by smacking him on his clothed bottom, as punishment for stealing $40 off an adult friend of his, and lying about it (the boy denied stealing the money). The boy had been given a number of warnings about stealing and lying by his father, and knew what the consequences would be for his wrongdoing. The father desisted from his smacks when the boy started to cry.

The father had attended a few parenting courses in the Hawkes Bay over the years prior to the incident and had genuinely sought help in the upbringing of this boy who proved quite unruly after being transferred to his care, in the course of an ongoing custody battle for the boy involving his ex-female partner.

Parent-Line, a well-respected child advocacy agency, had advised him at one of these courses that corporal punishment was OK to use when appropriate. He had tried all methods other than corporal punishment to bring to an end the boy’s stealing and wilful lying, before the incident of ‘assault’ for which he was charged by the police. All other methods had been to no avail.

In court he was charged with assault under s. 194(a) of the Crimes Act (1961) – :assault against a child under 14 years of age”. He was acquitted by a jury of his peers after his lawyer Tony Welsh, was able to establish, beyond reasonable doubt, the true facts he set before the jury. The abrasions over parts of the boy’s buttocks and back had been caused by an accident he had had some days earlier while roller-skating. He had fallen off his skates onto a hard abrasive surface while being dragged on his skates by other children.

It was argued that the distinctive grazing and ‘pot marks’ revealed in photographs shown to the jury could not have been created by the actions of the father in smacking his boy with a tiny piece of wood. The boy confirmed the cause of the injuries (grazes etc.) as the accident.

The doctor conceded that injuries from the accident would have left the boy’s buttocks very vulnerable to further bruising should he have had further force applied to the sensitive areas some days after the accident. The father candidly admitted in court that he had forgotten about the earlier accident and certainly did not appreciate that his son’s buttocks would have been so vulnerable. As the boy had been shunted from one parent the other in the course of the custody battle, it appears that the father may not have been privy to all the facts concerning his son’s prior injury before the smacking incident.

The father was acquitted by the jury who were quick recognise that the attempt to link the injuries with the level of force used in discipline, as put forward by the prosecution, could not possibly be established without reasonable doubt; and that other events (surrounding the accident) could be established beyond reasonable doubt, to have been caused the injuries.

The prosecution case fell apart based on the facts, not on the basis of a s. 59 defence. Furthermore, the prosecution failed to establish that there was any intention on the part of the father to deliberately cause injury to his son. Those who knew him the father recognised that he is a very mild-mannered man.

Mr Mark Burton has not told the truth in parliament. However, the continuing misrepresentation of this case serves the interests of Sue Bradford’s supporters, to ram home this bill against the wishes of over 80% of New Zealanders.

The Green Party, while admitting that the implement used was not a “plank of wood” or a “4 by 2” have continued to use the distorted shock value of this case to push their flawed bill. They regularly refer to the man using a piece of timber or a hunk of wood to “thrash” and “assault” his boy. What utter piffle! The Prime Minister should be ashamed that she and her Ministers have been telling so many lies about this case.

ENDS

Winston’s choice: NZ First or Labour First
Monday, 2 April 2007, 8:07 am
Press Release: New Zealand National Party
Winston’s choice: New Zealand First or Labour First

Winston Peters has a very important choice to make on the anti-smacking bill on his return from overseas, says National’s Shadow Leader of the House, Gerry Brownlee.

The Bill to repeal Section 59 is a clumsy and naked grab by the state to usurp the natural authority of parents over their own children.

It forbids parents from correcting their own children! Correction, changing bad behaviour and attitudes and language into good, is a core responsibility and expectation of all parents.

This Bill goes way beyond banning smacking. It removes parental authority. It forbids parents from correcting their own children. Correction of children is then legally authorized only by the agents of the state: the police, teachers, social workers.

This is home and family invasion on a gross scale. It is doing massive political and administrative violence to families. By interposing itself between parents and children, by rendering children’s parents impotent, it is doing great psychological and emotional damage to children. When parents are under constant threat of legal action by both Police and CYFS, the stress hampers their parenting and renders it less effective.

This Bill will combine with the law of compulsory school attendance to give the state political machine the major role to legally control and influence the children of this country. Why? Because the Bill transfers from parents to the agents of the state the authority to correct children; and the schooling system serves as the state’s major tool of social engineering, a channel for political propaganda.

And once we give the state bureaucrats our children, we might just as well give them everything else…they will come for it soon enough anyway. Once we make the big compromise with regard to our children, nothing else matters any more.

Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity
PO Box 9064
Palmerston North
New Zealand
Ph: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
Family.Integrity@xtra.co.nz
http://www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz

Our Home….Our Castle

John Armstrong: Clark whip spurs voter backlash

5:00AM Saturday March 31, 2007

As a general rule, prime ministers shouldn’t mess with private members’ bills. And normally they don’t.

Private members’ bills which deal with matters of morality are usually big trouble. Prime ministers usually have enough of that heaped on their plates without putting up their hands for more by taking sides on something provoking strong emotions.

To then take the step of wielding prime ministerial authority to direct how MPs should vote on what many people believe should be a conscience issue is to invite a public backlash.

Despite the already overwhelming opposition to the so-called anti-smacking bill initiated by Green MP Sue Bradford, Helen Clark ignored those unwritten rules. Labour is copping the backlash.

National’s polling is apparently registering a voter exodus from Labour of astonishing proportions – so astonishing National is querying whether its figures are right.

Labour is confident that once the bill is passed, public fury will subside. The world did not end the day the ban on smoking in bars came into force. Likewise smacking.

But for now things are a mess. National is puzzled why Labour got itself embroiled in something with so little political upside.
It must be presumed Clark ignored the unwritten rules because of her personal conviction that smacking to correct a child’s behaviour is wrong and should be outlawed.

It is a principled stance. It would have been more so had she allowed her MPs to exercise their principles through a conscience vote.

But that would likely have condemned Bradford’s bill to defeat.

That has been Labour’s quandary. Labour may have acted out of principle. It has contrasted Clark’s “leadership” on the bill with John Key’s “expedience”. But saving the bill meant incurring damage. Labour has got caught in a vortex where its attempts to stem the damage have only made things worse for itself.

Leaving the bill to sink or swim on its own would have been the easy option, however.

Given National’s lead over Labour in the polls is solidifying and with Key nipping at her heels in the preferred prime minister stakes, Clark must have been tempted to wipe her hands of the measure.

She didn’t. In her view, the defence available under section 59 of the Crimes Act for those who beat their children had to be wiped from the statute books. That belief overrode Clark’s usual caution and previous intention for Labour to steer clear of legislation which might be mislabelled as “social engineering”.

There may also have been an element of defiance; a desire to show that while her minority Government may be constrained, it is not going to be browbeaten into paralysis.

However, Clark also weighed in behind Bradford’s bill because the public mistakenly regard it as a Labour bill. Labour was taking all the blame. The Greens were not.

The bill plays beautifully to their constituency. But that has meant the measure never got the intensive political marketing necessary when pushing controversial legislation through Parliament.

A belated selling job has seen Clark and other Labour ministers assuring parents they have nothing to fear from the bill and it is really targeted at altering the behaviour of those who “thrash and beat” their children.

However, as a One News-Colmar Brunton poll vividly illustrated this week, the vast majority of New Zealanders do not believe the bill will help curb child abuse.

What the bill might or might not achieve on that front is anyway irrelevant to them. Their fix on the bill is very clear and very simple. The bill would stop them smacking their children when they are being naughty.

That was the bill’s original intent. That was modified by a compromise at the select committee stage. The current wording means a child could not be smacked for the purpose of “correction”, but “reasonable force” could be used to protect a child from harm, preventing a child from harming others or engaging in offensive or disruptive behaviour.

As the Prime Minister keeps saying, the bill does not outlaw smacking. But it does mean parents cannot smack their children simply to discipline them when they are being naughty. Smacking can no longer be used as a behaviour-modification tool.

Much of the public opposition to the bill flows from the feeling “Nanny State” is barging through the front door of the family home.

The bill’s proponents can argue such a view is misguided. They can argue the state crept in under the floorboards long ago. They can argue good parents are never going to face prosecution for the occasional mild slap. But it is what people believe that matters in politics, not what politicians think they should believe.

For the great majority, the bill deals with a moral question – whether it is right or wrong to smack a child.

The expectation is that moral issues are conscience issues for Parliament and MPs would have a free vote. But that was dashed by Labour whipping its MPs into line.

Clark insists the Bradford bill falls outside the scope of conscience issues which, to use her description, are confined to legislation dealing with “sex, gambling and booze”.

If the bill is about curbing child abuse, it logically follows the Labour caucus should take a collective position on a measure combating a social problem.

But the public does not see it that way. It sees a governing party losing the argument and then whipping its MPs to get the result it wants.

In applying the whip, Labour immediately lost any claim on the moral high ground.

Its subsequent frenzied attempts to get the bill off the political agenda have only compounded public indignation. It flirted with urgency when it had little chance of securing it.

It is now contemplating turning the private member’s bill into a Government bill so it can be debated and passed next week.

The procedural sleights of hand are a measure of Labour’s desperate desire to rid itself of the measure. But the bill’s opponents see them as further examples of a cynical Government manipulating the system.

Even the sweetener offered by the Government – a Ministry of Social Development review of how the new law is working two years after it comes into force – will be treated with suspicion. There is no obligation on the Government to act on the review.

Ostensibly, Labour is waiting for Winston Peters to return from South America so NZ First has some input into discussions on whether the measure should become a Government bill.

Labour’s other support partner, United Future, has already expressed strong reservations.

But Labour does not have much choice. The furore over Bradford’s bill has already completely overshadowed Labour’s highlighting of social measures which come into force on April 1. These include the $10 family tax credit, a boost in the minimum wage and four weeks’ annual leave.

Labour cannot afford a repeat episode when Parliament resumes in May following the three-week recess in April. Why? Let’s just say two words – the Budget.

Smack could be reported to CYFS police tell mother

By GRANT MILLER – Manawatu Standard | Friday, 30 March 2007

Police have told a Feilding mum that if she is caught lightly smacking her children after Section 59 of the Crimes Act is repealed, she will be reported to the Child Youth and Family Service (CYFS).

“CYFS seems to have so much power,” said mother-of-eight Sandra Elliott.

She fears CYFS will treat parents who smack their children as child abusers.

Green MP Sue Bradford is promoting a bill in Parliament that will remove “reasonable force” for correcting children as a possible defence for assault.

Mrs Elliott rang Feilding police to clarify the effects of the bill.

She says she asked: “If I lightly smacked my three-year-old for correction and my neighbour saw it and called police – would you have to come out and investigate?”

The answer was yes.

Police national headquarters confirmed this for the Manawatu Standard, but added the call would be prioritised, as all police calls are. It would come under the category of domestic violence.

Mrs Elliott then asked if police would pass on the information to CYFS. The answer again was yes.

She was told that if police believed the child was in no immediate danger they would not notify CYFS within 24 hours, but they meet fortnightly about family violence and that’s when information would be passed on, Mrs Elliott said.

“That’s the bit that scared me – having CYFS on your doorstep,” Mrs Elliott said.

“I’ve got nice neighbours, but not everyone does.

“A light smack for correction is not abuse,” she added.

Police national headquarters spokesman Jon Neilson said there is a notification process that involves CYFS, but its involvement could depend on the seriousness of the incident.

He said it would be “difficult to say, categorically” if CYFS would be notified after a child is lightly smacked. Whether a child was frequently hit in the past would also be a relevant factor.

However, Police Association president Greg O’Connor said reported assaults on children would “almost invariably” end up with CYFS.

“If a parent admits to smacking a child, that’s clearly an offence. Even if a warning is administered, it will still be reported,” he said.

Under the existing police policy, reporting the alleged assaults would be “basically mandatory”.

Supporters of the bill argue smacking is already technically illegal. Removing S.59 will stop people from getting away with it.

Opponents argue the bill will criminalise loving parents and the state should not interfere.

“Our concern is that the political debate is taking place in a vacuum of understanding about what action police are likely to take on receipt of a complaint of assault,” Mr O’Connor said.

“Police are not going to go around looking for it,” he added.

Using their discretion not to report assaults could backfire on police, however.

“The first time a child is seriously hurt or worse following police inaction, I imagine there will be very strong policy about what police should do.”

What a fantastic debate last night with some excellent speeches from our side. Most of those supporting the bill were contradicting themselves and appealing to emotion.

The announcement of a review after two years shows the Govt is not so confident that things wont go horrible wrong as we have been saying. Putting the review in the hands of CYFS and DWSD is like asking a fox to report on whether there have been any chickens stolen from the hen house!

If the law is passed we will have to look at setting up our own 0800 help line to receive complaints that we can carefully record so we can try and help those being affected. More about that later.

The link below is to a couple of speeches from the Wellington March.

What I saw of the Christchurch march on TV was great and Simon Barnett’s interviews was superb. What a great spokesmen he is for the cause.

After the debate last night we now know that it will be at least May 16th before the bill could have its final vote if it continues on its normal course. However if the PM makes it a Government Bill as being rumoured on the news, it could pass next week. This has been a constant changing scenario.

More update son signature numbers at the end of the week!

Warm regards
Larry Baldock

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0703/S00360.htm

Bradford’s Bill will create new criminals

Wednesday, 28 March 2007, 10:46 am
Press Release: Ruby Harrold-Claesson
Bradford’s Bill will create new criminals
Ruby Harrold-Claesson
Attorney-at-law
President of the NCHR

In an attempt to ridicule the Sensible Sentencing Trust, Anne Else writes in her piece, “Get It Straight: Repeal Section 59 And Cut Crime”. She continues: “Wilful stupidity is really hard to deal with”. I agree with her 100 per cent.

Being a lawyer and researcher I usually use neutral, sober language, otherwise I would use Anne Else’s own words that she “has just managed to pull off a difficult feat. In a strong field of stupid statements, its [her] latest one on Sue Bradford’s Bill stands out for its utter idiocy.”

How can someone who wants to appear to be in his or her right mind equate smacking with child abuse? The research that she cites from The US indicates that “child maltreatment, which includes both child abuse and child neglect” lead to children becoming criminals. This research is not about smacking; it is about child abuse. (http://www.nber.org/papers/w12171)

There are two very important historical Swedish sources that Swedish professor in Legal history at Uppsala University, Mats Kumlien, referred to in his PhD thesis (1994) on the subject “Upbringing and punishment”. The sources are Havamal and The Hälsinge Law.

Havamal says: He who lives lawless and without smacking, he dies without honour. (Den agalös lever och laglös, han ärelös dör). A section in The Hälsinge Law says: He who lives without smacking, he dies without honour. (Den agalös lever, han ärelös dör).

Mats Kumlien showed historical examples of unpunished children who ended up as criminals. One mother was compelled to be present at her son’s execution, and he spat on her and accused her of not giving him a good upbringing ie she had not smacked his bottom when he did wrong.

Anne Else is certainly not aware of the errors in logic in her piece. “Repeal Section 59 and cut crime”, she writes. Well, the result will be the opposite. Repealing Section 59 will not cut crime but it will create young criminals and also a whole new category of criminals: the parents who take their responsibility and smack their unruly children when words and admonitions prove insufficient to correct their deeds or omissions.

Paul Craig Roberts wrote the article “Targeting parents”. I recommend careful reading of the article.
http://web.archive.org/web/20020402053319/http://www.townhall.com/columnists/paulcraigroberts/pcr20001213.shtml
I also recommend reading of the Newman weekly “The Smacking Bill A Con job” http://www.nzcpd.com/weekly74.htm

In all human societies parents have – during the history of our different civilisations – smacked their unruly children. Had smacking been detrimental to children and turned them into criminals, then the world would have been full of criminals. Instead the great majority of people in the world are sensible, well-behaved and responsible people. The greatest problems with some so-called modern societies for eg Sweden, is that they have too many undisciplined children. Their parents have no control over them at home, their teachers have no control over them at school and very few adults have enough courage to talk to them when they display disruptive behaviour in public.

In Sweden schools are being shut down because of violence and threats among the students. The first one was in Malmö in April 2006. http://mobil.svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=22620&a=577543&lid=puff_577985&lpos=extra_0.

A second school, this time in Gothenburg was closed in February 2007
http://www.svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=22620&a=757430&lid=puff_757367&lpos=extra_3

A third school, also in Gothenburg, was closed on March 21, 2007
http://www.sr.se/Ekot/artikel.asp?artikel=1267485

These are unprecedented happenings.

Here is a little more info. about the chaos that reigns among children and young people in Sweden: Yesterday, the newspapers published a news item about a school stabbing in Olofstorp, where I live and two of my children were pupils. According to Gothenburg Newspaper (Göteborgs Tidningen, GT) it started with a fight between two boys. One was kicked in his face! and another boy (16 yr old) intervened and stabbed the other 16 yr old in his leg. See http://www.gt.se/nyheter/1.611855 and http://www.gt.se/nyheter/1.613601 and http://www.gt.se/nyheter/1.613601. Please note that in 1988 Sweden enacted a law forbidding knives and other cutting weapons in public places, in schools etc.

The Swedish smacking ban did not create a peace-loving, non-fighting generation. Instead it has created societal problems with unruly and even dangerous children. The recently published UNICEF Innocenti report gives Sweden 15th place in family and peer relations. See http://www.unicef-icdc.org/presscentre/presskit/reportcard7/rc7_eng.pdf

If New Zealand wants to be at the forefront of civilisation then you should learn from the mistakes that have been made by Sweden – not strive to make similar mistakes.

Gothenburg, Sweden, March 28, 2007.

ENDS

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0703/S00365.htm

Another non-smacking cause of child aggression

Wednesday, 28 March 2007, 11:11 am
Press Release: Family Life International
PRESS RELEASE
A press release from Family Life International, New Zealand

Wednesday 28.03.07

New comprehensive US study shows yet another cause of child aggression that isn’t smacking

A new study in the March/April 2007 of Child Development shows that the more time that children spend in centre-based care before kindergarten the more likely they are to display aggressive and disruptive behaviours during later stages of development.

The study, led by Jay Belsky, Ph.D., Director of the Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues and Professor of Psychology at Birkbeck University of London, focused on 1364 children who had been tracked since birth as part of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development.

The study showed that teachers reported more frequent problem behaviours such as: argues a lot; cruelty, bullying or meanness to others; destroys things belonging to others; disobedient at school; gets into many fights; lying or cheating; and screams a lot from children who had been in day-care.

The study confirms the findings of research conducted in Canada last year which showed that children in day-care were 17 times more hostile than children raised at home, and research conducted in the UK in 2005 which showed that day-care was linked to “higher levels of aggression.”

“This research adds to a large and growing body of research which shows that child aggression and disruptive behaviours are not linked to smacking; contrary to the unscientific claims continually promoted by many supporters of Sue Bradford’s anti-smacking bill” says Family Life International media spokesperson; Brendan Malone.

In today’s edition of the NZ Herald the Prime Minister states that “New Zealand has it on its conscience that our rate of child death and injury from violence, including in the home, is appalling.”

“If the Government is really is so concerned with child welfare then why are they targeting loving physical discipline of children, when research clearly shows us that is has nothing to do with child violence?” says Mr Malone.

ENDS

Government may pick up Bradford’s bill, predicts National

Posted at 7:46pm on 27 Mar 2007

The National Party says it would not be surprised to see Sue Bradford’s child discipline bill picked up by the government.

If that happens, the legislation could be passed before the Easter recess.

The government abandoned its bid to pass the bill under urgency this week, saying it believes it would have had the numbers but the bill was causing ructions within other parties.

Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen refused to comment when asked if the government might pick up Ms Bradford’s bill.

This would result in its being debated on usual sitting days, rather than the fortnightly members’ day, and its passing as early as next week.

National says it would be a cunning way of getting legislation off the agenda by passing it more quickly.

Bradford unfazed by delay
However, Green MP Sue Bradford says she is relaxed about the failure of the bill to pass this week.

Ms Bradford says that as long as the parliamentary support she has obtained for the bill stays solid she is happy to wait.

The bill passed a second reading by 70 votes to 51 on 21 February. Consideration of amendments began on 15 March when one clause was debated for almost two hours by 23 speakers. By the time the House rose for the day, only the name of the bill and its start date had been voted on.

May date
Because Parliament is in recess for much of April, the final vote will not take place until May. Opponents say will give them valuable time to lobby MPs.

National MP Chester Borrows says the government’s decision not to debate the anti-smacking legislation under urgency is a victory for his party. He says National’s position is vindicated by polling that suggests 83% of New Zealanders oppose the bill.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/466/story.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10430966

Michele Wilkinson-Smith: Bradford’s own people will lose most in smacking law

5:00AM Tuesday March 27, 2007

One of the great ironies of the anti-smacking debate is Sue Bradford’s touching faith in the police and the justice system – and even more ironic given her former life as a protester and champion of the powerless, during which she certainly clashed with police on occasions.

I have two perspectives on the debate. As a mother of pre-schoolers I have my personal views, which have changed since I had children.

But whether I choose to smack or not to smack – or whether anyone does – isn’t the issue. I know that as a middle-class woman in a happy marriage my chances of being prosecuted for smacking are practically nil.

I have another perspective. As a criminal lawyer who has both prosecuted and defended people charged with assaulting a child I think the repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act will have disastrous and unnecessary consequences for a small group of people.

The people who will eventually suffer from the repeal of section 59 are the most vulnerable and powerless members of our community – and their children.

I say the repeal of section 59 is unnecessary because in my experience it is just that – unnecessary. I never lost a case which I prosecuted on the basis of section 59.

I drafted an indictment against a man who was convicted of smacking his 4-year-old son about five times on the backside with an open hand, leaving marks.

I think the jury convicted because the man smacked his boy too hard and because the boy was smacked not for a deliberate misdemeanour but because he soiled himself.

I prosecuted a man, a loving father, for using a belt on his mildly intellectually handicapped and very challenging teenage daughter after she damaged her bedroom.The jury were hugely sympathetic to the father but when I asked them in closing if they would not have intervened to stop the man had they been in the room at the time I knew they would find him guilty.

I saw the realisation dawn in their eyes. Not one of them would have stood by and let that happen “as a father’s right”, so they could not say it was reasonable discipline.

I’ve had far fewer cases as a defence lawyer, but I’ve never fancied my chances of going to a jury and saying: “Look, bashing that child with a jug cord was perfectly reasonable.”

Of course there will be the occasional case where section 59 has excused parents who overstepped the mark, but these are not cases where a child has been thrashed or beaten or injured. I challenge anyone to find a case where section 59 has excused a real bashing that left a child injured.

In my experience of those sorts of cases, the section 59 defence simply isn’t used. The accused denies the assault. New Zealand juries are not stupid.

Sue Bradford doesn’t trust the New Zealand public so I find it amazing that she has so much faith in both the police and the justice system.

She is proposing to give a huge amount of discretion to individual police officers.

She expects them to wisely ignore the letter of the law. They won’t. I know this and so does National MP Chester Borrows, with whom I worked and who was a superb, wise and compassionate detective sergeant.

The police may not, and I’m sure will not, prosecute every case of smacking, but they will be obliged to at least investigate – and therein is the harm. Picture this: a child at the centre of a custody battle comes back from an access visit. Mum questions the child: Did Daddy smack you? Has Daddy ever smacked you? The child says yes.

Mum takes the child to the police station. She is vocal and upset. “Investigate” sounds benign. It is not.

That child will be put through the evidential interview process. It’s not a process you want your child involved in. Dad will be asked to go to the police station to make a statement.

All this will probably be good for lawyers. Probably no charges will be laid, but the child and the family will have been through a traumatic and damaging experience.

This scenario will happen without a doubt. It will happen over and over again and the children at the centre of Sue Bradford’s concern will suffer it. The poor and powerless will be far more vulnerable.

Most police are honest and upstanding and we are lucky to have them.

Some are not. Some get caught up in a “means to an end” approach to criminal law. Some will use this legislation – and the discretion it gives them – for the wrong purpose.

It won’t be me or people like me who suffer this. It will be the very people Sue Bradford has fought for in so many other ways.

The Government should forget party politics on this one. We are lucky to have an experienced former police officer, who also has a law degree, sitting in the House. He is saying, for many different reasons, don’t give the police this much discretion. He’s right, and we should listen to him.

* Michele Wilkinson-Smith is a lawyer

Smacking row heats up

By PETER WILSON – NZPA | Tuesday, 27 March 2007

Government ministers have clashed with opposition MPs in Parliament over Sue Bradford’s bill to change the law on smacking ahead of another debate on it tomorrow.

Although the bill might not go to a final vote before mid-year, campaigns against it peak tomorrow with a march on Parliament and another day of full page protest advertisements in newspapers.

Prime Minister Helen Clark, facing a barrage of questions in Parliament, voiced her strongest support so far for the bill.

“It is perfectly plain that the bill does not ban smacking,” she said as opposition MPs insisted it did exactly that.

“I believe if this bill passes the police will have a reasonable chance of actually getting convictions against child beaters who take to their children with riding crops, bits of wood and the rest of it.”

The bill removes from the Crimes Act the statutory defence of justifiable “reasonable force” against assault on a child.

Supporters, including Miss Clark, say smacking has been illegal for more than 100 years and cannot be banned because it already is.

Opponents say removing the “reasonable force” clause from the Crimes Act will turn parents in criminals if they even lightly smack their children.

National MPs accused Miss Clark of forcing her members to support the bill, and said she should have allowed them to exercise conscience votes free from party instructions.

“What is on the conscience of the Government is the need to do something about the appalling rate of child death and injury through violence in the home,” Miss Clark replied.

ACT MP Heather Roy said the Government was overriding the view of a majority of New Zealanders and had no right to tell her, a mother of five, how to raise her children.

Education Minister Steve Maharey said the bill did not ban smacking and did not tell parents anything.

“It simply removes the defence of a person who is facing prosecution in court for using excessive force to discipline their children,” he said.

The bill is in the middle of its committee stage, the only stage at which it can be amended.

National MP Chester Borrows want to change it and insert a section which would allow light smacking. His amendment is likely to be voted on tomorrow.

Ms Bradford is confident she has at least 63 votes to defeat the amendment. A majority in Parliament is 61 votes.

She believes support will hold at about that level through the committee stage and the final third reading.

National MPs have managed to delay progress on the bill, and are expected to run more time-wasting tactics tomorrow.

Now that the Government has given up trying to put it on the fast track, it might have to wait until June before it comes up for the third reading vote that will determine whether it becomes law.