FI – 270-275

Here are two press releases from today which make it clear, if it wasn’t already, that New Zealand has crossed over the line into a socialist totalitarian regime ruled by an elite group (MPs), 50% of whom, because of our MMP electoral system, are not accountable to the voters of any electorate. The behaviour of these MPs over the last few legislative issues (banning of smacking, legalising of prostitution, setting up civil unions) demonstrates that we do not live in a democracy, for the MPs have dropped all pretense of giving any heed to what the vast majorities (80-90% in these three issues named) of voters wanted. Note how every family is suspect and will be questioned to see if they are perhaps innocent. New Zealand used to have the legal understanding that you were innocent until proven guilty. No more.

Regards,

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
http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/

Our Home….Our Castle

if Section59 is repealed – or replaced…
YOU CAN KISS YOUR CHILDREN GOODBYE.
http://www.storesonline.com/members/846699/uploaded/Brochure_-_Kiss_Children_Goodbye_7.pdf

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4147461a10.html
Govt has radical plan on child abuse
| Tuesday, 31 July 2007

LATEST: All women will be questioned about family violence whenever they go to a public hospital, the Government said today.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4146638a11.html

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4146583a11.html

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What do you think of the Government’s plan? Click here to send us your feedback editorial@stuff.co.nz
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Speaking on Radio New Zealand, acting Social Development minister Steve Maharey said the plan would kick off tomorrow.

“Frontline health workers of hospitals will be working with all people who come through hospitals in future, children, families to look at whether there is violence in the family, whether there’s any kind of assistance that can be given,” Mr Maharey told Radio New Zealand.

While it will now be formal policy many hospitals are already doing something similar.

In March Bay of Plenty District Health Board announced it would become latest DHB to automatically screen all women over 16 for signs of family violence.

Most DHBs from around the country had adopted the programme over the past four years.

The move was one of a range of initiatives including a previously announced $14 million campaign starting in September to send a message violence was unacceptable and tell people how to get help.

There will be a helpline that will direct people to assistance.

Mr Maharey said the announcement was planned before two recent cases hit the national headlines.

On Saturday a 12-week-old Rotorua boy was taken to Starship Hospital with head injuries and three-year-old Nia Glassie remains in the same hospital six days after being treated for serious injuries following allegations of abuse which include being hung from a washing line and spun in a clothes dryer.

Auckland District Health Board family violence co-ordinator Kathy Lowe said nurses were required to ask the first three questions of every woman aged 16 to 65 and every caregiver of children even if they came to hospital for something like an ingrown toenail.

Yesterday social groups and politicians called for stronger tackling of child abuse.

Four people – three men and a woman – reappeared in Rotorua District Court court yesterday accused of abusing Nia and were further remanded.

A fifth man also facing similar charges and police have not yet ruled out further arrests.

The unrelated Rotorua cases have reignited the debate about New Zealand’s high rate of child abuse, little over a year after the death of three-month-old twins Cru and Chris Kahui in Auckland sparked a similar debate.

United Future leader Peter Dunne said Maori needed to face up to child abuse problems in their community.

Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples said he was ashamed to hear about every case of child abuse among Maori.

He said problems of child abuse stemmed from a dysfunctional culture which happened among poverty-stricken and underachieving communities, a group in which Maori were too highly represented, and that Maori needed to take ownership of the problem and working towards solutions.

National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges chief executive Heather Henare said the cases were shocking but warned against “Maori-bashing”.

“We need to make sure we are not alienating whanau and that increased support goes into preventing such abuse from happening.

“The overwhelming majority of Maori are sickened by child abuse, and deserve support and encouragement to face the challenge of breaking the cycle of violence within their hapu and whanau.”

Prime Minister Helen Clark called for people to act when they knew of abuse.

“I cannot believe that a child subjected to that level of horror, sadism, torture – that nobody knew,” she said.

“I can’t believe that and people have got to start turning in those who frankly are maiming and killing our children.”

National welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins said Miss Clark’s Government had done little to stop child abuse since the death of the Kahui twins.

“What we do know is that Helen Clark’s promise to identify clusters of at-risk families was never carried out and that the cross-party talkfest on child violence ended up largely being a repackaging of policies which Labour was already rolling out,” she said.

“Our record on child abuse is a national disgrace. If Labour thought smacking legislation was the answer they were mistaken.”

Non governmental Groups called for increased education and greater community involvement.

– NZPA

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0707/S00521.htm

Stopping the cycle of violence against children
Tuesday, 31 July 2007, 10:34 am
Press Release: Green Party

31 July 2007

Stopping the cycle of violence against children

Each of us need to take responsibility and action to stop violence against children wherever and whenever we see it happening, including within our own families, Green Party MP Sue Bradford says.

“The success of my recent bill to amend s59 of the Crimes Act took just one step towards this goal, by removing the ‘reasonable force’ defence which legitimized violence against children for the purposes of correction. As a result, our legal system no longer mandates child beating,” Ms Bradford says.

“However, all of us involved in the campaign around s59 knew full well that this was only one part of what needs to change. Rather than devote energy into blaming and scapegoating others, we need to work towards :
* Increasing funding to tangata whenua and community sector groups which support families in trouble, and which educate parents about alternatives to violence, including the SKIP programme

* Revitalising the Cross Party Working Group on Family Violence with the goal of genuinely working for policies that all, or most, political parties can buy into

* More parenting education in schools from a young age, so children grow up having a much better appreciation of the realities of becoming a parent

* A serious commitment by Government to do a lot more to end child and adult poverty, and substandard housing

* Continuing to improve the capacity of Government agencies to work with families in a genuinely developmental way – rather than perpetuating patronising and dismissive approaches which can harm and alienate the very people who most need support to change

* Reconsideration of the ‘Work First’ ethic of current welfare and Working for Families policies which implies that it is better for everyone, even the mothers of young children, to be in the paid work than at home caring for their children.

“It is also ironic that Bob McCroskie of Family First is mounting a campaign to reintroduce corporal punishment in schools at this time.

“Mr McCroskie still does not seem to understand that violence breeds violence. Such a measure, if successful, would only emphasise the message that it’s good to beat kids – which creates the effects we see all around us today.

ENDS

Here below is some great commentary on Section 59, pointing out the kind of ugly stuff we have to look forward to.

Regards,

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
http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/

Our Home….Our Castle

if Section59 is repealed – or replaced…
YOU CAN KISS YOUR CHILDREN GOODBYE.
http://www.storesonline.com/members/846699/uploaded/Brochure_-_Kiss_Children_Goodbye_7.pdf

The Anti-Smacking Bill -A Test And A Prelude To Persecution

Why is it for Bradford and Clark that the enemies are always Christian “Fundamentalists”?
Garnet Milne

The anti-smacking, anti-parenting bill is a test and a prelude. It is a test to see if parliament will pass legislation which especially discriminates against Christian values-in this case the Christian biblical warrant for using corporal punishment in child rearing. It is a test because if it succeeds then more intrusive legislation against Christian values will follow. This will involve hate speech legislation aimed at churches and private schools which teach morality, especially Christian moral teaching which criticises homosexuality, divorce, abortion, religious idolatry and adultery as being morally repugnant. The social engineers who control the reigns of power have a deep hatred for God, His people, and His Law.

The Fabian socialists* have been building up to this for a considerable period of time. They have succeeded in decriminalising homosexuality and in order to do so they were very cunning. They used an argument that it wouldn’t hurt non-homosexuals, because they were not being compelled to agree with homosexuality. They argued “live and let live”.

Once they had achieved this victory, the neo-pagans realised that their real goals were within their reach, but the argument they had used to achieve the decriminalising of homosexuality was no longer sufficient. They had argued that the Christian public were not being compelled in anyway by laws sanctioning homosexuality, later prostitution, and in the not too distant future euthanasia. The social engineers realised that in order to achieve their real goal of suppressing and criminalising Christian morality, not just count it as one legitimate expression of morality in a free society, they would need to first get immorality normalised and sanctioned as morally acceptable. Once that had been achieved the social engineers would move into the next phase (which is happening right now) and begin to push legislation-on a gullible and largely apathetic public, legislation which would actually punish and thereby marginalise the Christian voice.

For those with the eyes to see, there is ample evidence that this is taking place in New Zealand. Once the neo-pagan Fabian socialists have succeeded in criminalising ordinary parents who smack their kids, they will move onto hate-speech legislation directed against Christians especially who speak out against homosexuality and false religions such as Islam, among other evils. This trend will only be checked if Christians return to faithfulness and begin to apply the Christian faith to all of life, holding evil politicians accountable for their scurrilous misuse of political power.

Christians will need to unitedly dissent from the present political system as a testimony against this evil, and then agitate for a recommitment to our historic responsibility as a nation in covenant with God, a status inherited from our British roots. A piecemeal approach to applying Christianity only as far as the neo-pagans will let us is a dead end. Only a radical social revolution will stem the tide of Fabian socialist legislated evil, a vile blot on our nation’s brief history. This revolution must begin with the nation’s believers uniting in an attempt to recommit ourselves as a covenant nation under God. Playing lobbyists, while necessary to maintain a witness or testimony against evil, will never be a sufficient to achieve a real and lasting victory for truth and peace in our time.

*“Fabian” is a name taken by early socialists in the UK from a Roman general (Quintus Fabius Maximus) whose tactics involved wearing the enemy down through attrition by harassment rather than direct confrontation in classical battle array. Fabianism is therefore the doctrine of gradualism in politics.

This page printed from: http://reformationtestimony.org.nz/Essaysa/Corporal/TestPrelude.html

Consider the following poll results of this morning:

<http://www.tv3.co.nz/News/tabid/183/Default.aspx>

Should police have more powers to seize children at risk of abuse?
Yes 86%
No 12%
Not sure 2%

(Results as at 10:35am Mon 30 July 2007.)

The stories of abuse and death of children in the home are horrendous, and calls for action are needed and welcomed.

What kind of action is needed? This poll intimates that more police intervention is needed: intervention BEFORE any injury or crime has been committed. This is a very dangerous precedent. All parents will come under suspicion. Suspicion — mere suspicion, not actual facts or real behaviour — will be the criteria for police intervention. And Police intervention in relation to children means CYFS intervention and what they call “alternative placement”: that is, your children are taken away and given to someone else.

The Police already have the power to break into homes and remove children, using whatever force in necessary, WITHOUT a warrant, if they belive the child is in immanent danger (see Section 42 of the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act 1989).

It is during times of crisis and when the public mind is very angry at such ugly crimes as we’ve seen against wee children in the last few weeks that the state can be given — in a very unwise, reactionary way — license to remove more liberty, license to give more unnecessary interventionary powers to agents of the state.

Regards,
Craig S. Smith

Here are two press releases from Family First that I thought worth sending onto you:

http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/2007/07/27-july-2007-family-first-calls-for.html
My comments with this one are: “So much for the strong message Bradford and Kiro insisted was being sent by rewriting Section 59. All the law change did was put all good parents in the firing line, unsure what force they are allowed to use and for what purpose, for the state has taken away from parents that discretion and authority.”

http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/2007/07/28-july-2007-family-first-5-point.html
Just a bit of caution: Bob’s ideas still make the state the final decision maker, since the state is called upon to fund 4 of the 5 steps outlined.

Regards
Craig Smith

If you are going to be in Auckland 28 July you might have time to help out with this campaign.

http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/2007/07/sat-28th-july-feet-on-footpaths.html

FEET ON FOOTPATHS
SAT 28TH JULY, 9am to 12noon
The Howick/Pakuranga Awareness Campaign

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
http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/

Our Home….Our Castle

if Section59 is repealed – or replaced…
YOU CAN KISS YOUR CHILDREN GOODBYE.
http://www.storesonline.com/members/846699/uploaded/Brochure_-_Kiss_Children_Goodbye_7.pdf

World expert on corporal correction Dr Robert Larzelere visited NZ earlier this year. If you haven’t already done so, you must read his parting comments (reproduced below)as he left NZ just before the final vote which criminalised it here in New Zealand. Very sobering reading.

Regards,

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
http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/

Our Home….Our Castle

if Section59 is repealed – or replaced…
YOU CAN KISS YOUR CHILDREN GOODBYE.
http://www.storesonline.com/members/846699/uploaded/Brochure_-_Kiss_Children_Goodbye_7.pdf

NZ’s Anti-Smacking Law Most Extreme in the World
Dr Robert E. Larzelere

After 28 years of research, I came to New Zealand on behalf of her children, her parents, and her ethnic and religious minorities with the boldest claim I have ever made in the public arena: “There is no sound scientific evidence to support a smacking ban.” The best evidence the Children’s Commissioner could muster against that claim on the Campbell Live TV program was about my written reply to an anti-smacking article in a scientific journal 14 years ago – not because of its content, but because the journal was sponsored by a Ph.D.-granting Christian university! How could someone as knowledgeable as Dr. Kiro emphasize such a ridiculous criticism? She got that criticism from her Canadian consultant Dr. Joan Durrant, the Pied Piper who wants to lead New Zealand’s children to the Swedish utopia that she could not lead her own country’s children to – because the Canadian Supreme Court retained their country’s version of Section 59 after considering both sides of the scientific and legal evidence.

What does this Swedish utopia look like? One year after Sweden’s smacking ban, 3% of their parents admitted beating up their child – 2 to 5 times higher than the overly high American rate. Physical child abuse increased almost 6-fold during the next 15 years, according to Swedish criminal records. Criminal assaults by minors against minors increased over 6-fold during that same time period. The ability of parents to enforce appropriate discipline continued to erode until only 31% of 10- to 12-year-olds thought that parents had the right to use grounding in 2000. All these statistics come from Swedish anti-smacking authors.

Even more worrisome, the imminent New Zealand smacking ban is more extreme than Sweden’s ban in three ways. Using force to correct children will be subject to full criminal penalties, although the government’s politically clever but inconsequential concession gives police the discretion not to prosecute mild offences. Sweden’s ban had no criminal penalty. In addition, New Zealand’s bill bans the mildest use of force to correct children, not just smacking. This removes most disciplinary enforcements parents have used for generations, especially for the most defiant youngsters. Finally, the required change in disciplinary enforcements will be the biggest change ever imposed on parents.

The New Zealand bill’s proponents claim that missionaries were responsible for introducing smacking and bashing to the Maori and other South Pacific peoples. The irony is that they are doing the same thing they accuse missionaries of – imposing a European philosophy of child correction on native ethnic groups – this time enforced with criminal penalties. In addition, the gap between what will be technically criminal and what will be prosecuted opens the door wide for discriminatory enforcement.

The bill is motivated by a commendable desire to reduce child abuse, but it will make it a crime to bring the most effective treatment for abusive parents to New Zealand. In a review of 20 years of treatments for abusive parents, eminent abuse researcher Dr. Mark Chaffin showed that none of them turned out to be effective. He then developed a new treatment that decreased recidivism of child abuse charges from 49% to 19%. It will be a crime to bring that treatment to New Zealand, however, because it includes a non-smacking type of force to enforce time out.

Everything seems backward to me in New Zealand – people drive on the left side of the road and are now preparing for winter instead of summer. And it is the liberals rather than the conservatives who take absolutist positions and impose their values on everyone else, including over 80% of Kiwis who oppose this ban. They also show little cultural sensitivity toward others who are different in religion or ethnicity.

The pervasive confusion about what will be permitted under the new law makes the pre-existing law allowing parents “reasonable force to correct their children” seem reasonable indeed, although it needs to be updated to clearly exclude physical abuse.

As Bill Clinton said of abortion, smacking ought to be safe, legal, and rare. His successor had an overly optimistic view about invading Iraq because they heard only one optimistic side of the scenarios. Now our country is in a quagmire with no good way out. For the sake of New Zealand’s children and future, I hope they have a better exit strategy than George Bush.

With this bill, New Zealand will leapfrog the field to ban more forms of traditional disciplinary enforcements than any other country. But their ban runs counter to scientific evidence, previous experiences with similar bans, and the wisdom of previous generations as far back as we can remember. It illustrates the world’s increasing inability to work out well-reasoned balanced positions rather than forcing people to choose between polarized extremes.

As I prepare to leave New Zealand, I have difficulty holding back the tears whenever I see its beautiful children, knowing they are about to be victimized by the most extreme and unproven social experiment in history. I feel like the engineer who predicted that the O-rings on the Challenger space shuttle were likely to fail, but no one would listen. His tragic prediction proved all too accurate. I hope I am less accurate about the forthcoming failure of New Zealand’s smacking ban than that engineer was.