FI – 219-237

John Keys and Helen Clark have agreed to amend Bradford’s Bill with the following:

To avoid doubt it is affirmed that police have the discretion not to prosecute complaints against parents of any child, or those standing in place of any child, in relation to an offence involving the use of force against a child where the offence is considered to be so inconsequential that there is no public interest in pursuing a prosecution.

Bradford agrees with the amendment, because, as she just said on Michael Law’s radio show, it doesn’t change her bill in any way whatsoever.

Why is this true?

This amendment is simply adding this as an extra clause to the Bill. It is not changing the re-write of Section 59 which is another clause in the Bill. So, the clause will not pass into the Crimes Act. It is simply a bit of commentary in the Bill. And as Bradford just said on Law’s radio show, this is precisely what Police do now anyway.

And of course, parents who use reasonable force to correct their children do not use inconsequential force…..they use force that is going to have consequences….the consequence of present and future corrected behaviour. Police will have to consider this a criminal act.

And of course, CYFS is most likely still to be advised by police, even when the force is inconsequential, for the force is technically illegal. Here is where our greatest fear lies.

This is total and complete capitulation by National. They’ve surrendered completely.

May God have mercy on us all.

Here then, unless there is some miraculous event in Parliament today, is what Section 59 will look like :

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).

Correcting your children, you see in (2), is a criminal offense. And (3) says that if there is a doubt as to whether the force was for correction or for prevention, the correction interpretation must prevail.

Until now, juries convict the accused of a crime when no doubt about it exists, when it is beyond reasonable doubt. Now, if charged with the crime of using force to correct your child, the existence of doubt will legally require the jury to convict you of the crime.

This Bill is totalitarian in the way it thoroughly removes parental authority to determine the upbringing of their children, for they are unable to use force, even reasonable force, to back up their parental requirements and prohibitions. If Police could not use any force to back up state prohibitions, they would be reduced to making suggestions which we could safely ignore. Children will be able to safely ignore what parents say.

This Bill signals the tipping of NZ into the cauldron of totalitarianism in that the politicians, across all parties, have totally ignored the clear will of the populace.

Ring John Key’s office and tell National how stunned you are at their total surrender to Labour and the Greens.

John’s Wellington office: (04) 471 9307
His Auckland office: (09) 412 2496

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://tinyurl.com/3bjduw

Here are our answers to two of the questions:

A. I answered that what I smack for was for the 4 Ds – Disobedience, Disrespect, Dishonesty, Destructiveness.

B. Then this is how we answered the last question:

Bradford has been shown to be a master of deceit, and this quote from her contains some classic lies about the situation in Europe. See Sweden’s National Council for Crime Prevention website, in English, at http://www.bra.se. Anyone who promotes prostitution, lowered drinking age, lower penalties for dangerous drug taking and child porn, lobbies to raise the status of sodomites in every conceivable way and to preserve for females the option, for whatever reason, not to have the responsible male named on the birth certificate, while doing nothing to stop the pre-meditated killing of 17,000 unborn humans every year should be in therapy, not in Parliament.

Sue Bradford is lying to the New Zealand Public. There are many articles about the fact that the smacking ban does not work in these countries. See articles like:

1. http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/2007/03/swedens-smacking-ban-more-harm-than.html

2. Dr. Bob Larzelere has shown that in Sweden, trends indicate sharply increasing rates of physical child abuse, at least in criminal records of assaults by relatives against children under the age of seven (7). This frequency increased from 99 in 1981 to 583 in 1994, a 489% increase. On February 28, 2007, Family First published a press release informing of a “14% Increase in Child Abuse despite Swedish Smacking Ban”. These are the latest figures from Sweden revealing that more children were abused in Sweden in 2006 compared with the 2005 figures, according to The Swedish Daily. See http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0702/S00378.htm.

3. http://www.storesonline.com/members/846699/uploaded/Child_deaths_in_Sweden.pdf.

4.Since 1978 – the year before the anti-smacking Bill gained force of law – until today, thousands of parents have been reported, accused, arrested by the police, detained, tried in courts of law and sentenced to fines or prison as a result of the said law. Christian Diesen, a professor in Sweden was quoted in an article in the NZ Herald saying: “Approximately 7000 cases [of beating children] are reported each year, but only 10 per cent lead to prosecution…” It would seem that Diesen would like to see more parents prosecuted. Anyway, ten per cent gives the grand total of 700 cases per annum multiplied by 27 years, makes 18 900 prosecutions for child abuse from 1979 until 2006. The number of prosecutions may seem small, but the 7 000 reports multiplied by 27 years brings the number of families that have been affected to 189 000. In unsubstantiated cases, suspected physical abuse of children is transformed into factual administrative and mental abuse of the children and their parents.
http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/search/label/Ruby%20Harrold-Claesson

5. Ruby Harrold-Claesson says “I have been criticised for saying that Swedish children are badly behaved. Well, I am not the only one who finds that Swedish children are badly behaved. See for eg Roger Lord’s article “The children are embarrassing Sweden” http://www.nkmr.org/english/the_children_are_embarrassing_sweden.htm

6. Linda Skugge’s article “We are bringing up a generation of monsters” http://www.nkmr.org/english/we_are_bringing_up_a_generation_of_monsters.htm

7. To normal thinking people, a well-behaved child is a joy to its parents, friends and the community at large; a badly behaved child is an abomination. The Daily Mail, March 13, 2007, has published the article, “The terror aged ten”, about the 10-yr old boy who drinks, smokes pot, steals and terrorises his neighbourhood. See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=441819&in_page_id=1770

8. and then the altimate of sues Bradford Lying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjBKFKc2igU

or

Please make sure you listen to this Youtube movie.

To finish – Ruby again says “I am convinced that New Zealand has enough intelligent, level-headed politicians so they will not want their fellow citizens to have to make the same mistakes that Sweden has made. Bradford’s Bill is not being progressive; it is being destructive and repressive. The French reporter, Jean-Francis Held, wrote the article “Smacking: Those Swedes must be crazy!”
http://www.nkmr.org/english/smacking_those_swedes_must_be_crazy.htm

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
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

Thanks,
You’ll also go in the prize draw for $1,000

http://tinyurl.com/3bjduw

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
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 Key letter is:
I am writing to seek your support for a proposed amendment to the Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill currently before the house. As you may know, I met with Sue Bradford MP to discuss this amendment with her on 25 April, and she has indicated she will not support the amendment.
The amendment proposes removing the new subsections 59(2) and 59(3) and inserting a clause justifying the use of light smacking that is “minor and inconsequential”, while leaving in place the general prohibition on force for the purpose of correction in the purpose clause of the bill. A copy of the proposed amendment is attached.

This amendment will allow good parents to feel reassured that they will not be criminalised by the new legislation, rather than relying on Police procedure to avoid investigation and prosecution. The clause will also provide clear guidance to the Police that light smacking of a minor and inconsequential nature should not result in prosecution.

It is unfair to rely on the Police to exercise their discretion to make this legislation work, simply because we as a Parliament lack the courage to codify the law in the way we expect it to be enforced. The reality is that there will be widely differing interpretations of this law, and of any procedures and guidelines attached to it, by Police around the country.

We all agree that the purpose of this legislation is to reduce New Zealand’s terrible rate of harming children, but we all probably agree that we do not want to see good parents criminalised for engaging in actions no one considers criminal. I simply believe it is bad law for Parliament to pass a piece of legislation outlawing an activity absolutely, and then expect the Police not to prosecute minor breaches.
My proposed amendment achieves the outcome that I think we are all after, and I seek your support for this change to the bill.

The amendment John Key proposes, to replace the 59(2) and 59(3) is:
Every parent of a child and every person in the place of a parent of a child is justified in lightly smacking the child in the course of their parenting duties if the smacking used was minor and inconsequential, notwithstanding Section 3 of the Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Act 2007.

This is interesting political sleight of hand. It is what Bradford has been doing all along.

Good on ya, Key! He wants to dump the parts of Bradford’s Bill that will criminalise parents for correcting their children: subsections 59(2) and 59(3), which read: “(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).”

And he is going to replace them with the clause at the bottom that justifies “lightly smacking the child in the course of their parenting duties” as long as the smack is “minor and inconsequential” and then he gives a nod to Section 3.

Now, Section 3 is in the version of Bradford’s Bill that is currently before Parliament. It says, “3 Purpose. 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.” So the Act says it is meant to abolish the use of parental force for correction. But if subsections 59(2) and 59(3) get removed and replaced by Key’s amendment, there will be noting actually written in the statute books that abolishes the use of parental force for correction, even though there is something in the Act which says that’s why it’s there!!

And Key’s amendment doesn’t ban the use of implements as Borrow’s amendment does. Please note also that Bradford’s Bill as it is does not ban the use of implements either.

This amendment by Key, if adopted, will have the effect of more closely maintaining the status quo. Bradford’s bill as it is has the effect of widening the use of parental force with children quite a bit more than the present Section 59 obviously allows. That is, Bradford’s Bill appears to extend the justifiable use of force with children beyond what the original Section 59 does, except that it criminalises correction. Key’s amendment will leave Bradford’s extensions to the use of force in place and also remove the criminalising of correction.

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/4038067a11.html
National Party leader John Key and the Green’s Sue Bradford have failed to agree on a compromise over her controversial bill to change the law on smacking.

They met for an hour in Parliament today for talks Ms Bradford described as “genuine and friendly” but did not find a way to overcome National’s strong opposition to the bill.

The bill’s future did not depend on the meeting because there are 63 votes behind it, enough for it to be passed into law, but it has divided Parliament and is causing bitter debates.

The bill removes from the Crimes Act the statutory defence that allows “reasonable force” to be used to correct children.

Opponents, including National, say that means even the lightest smack would be a criminal offence.

Supporters say smacking has been illegal for more than 100 years and the defence is allowing people to get away with savagely beating children.

Ms Bradford said Mr Key proposed an amendment to the bill at their meeting which would insert a clause stating parents were justified in lightly smacking a child, if the smacking was minor and inconsequential.

It is similar to an amendment already proposed by National MP Chester Borrows, although the wording is different.

Ms Bradford said it was not acceptable, because it would legitimise violence against a child.

Mr Key initiated today’s meeting and Ms Bradford said she believed he had made a genuine attempt to cut through the problems National has with the bill.

“I think Mr Key does want to reduce the level of violence against children. . .I think he tried really hard to come up with something,” she said.

Mr Key was due to hold a press conference later today. A spokesman said the meeting had been cordial “but there was no outcome”.

Wednesday 2nd May at 12.30pm

www.familyvalues.net.nz

24 April 2007

‘The real school bully isn’t in the schoolyard’

Without provocation, the Government has forced Wainuiomata Christian College to disclose its disciplinary policies or face closure. Martin Keast, principal of Wainuiomata Christian College and Silverstream Christian School has reluctantly complied with the demand but states, ‘we do so under threat.’ In response to Mr Keast’s comments, Education Minister Steve Maharey, says: “The law is the law.’ Now lets take the anti smacking bill. If this bill is passed, what will stop the Government (without any provocation) demanding from ordinary, law-abiding kiwi parents the same disclosure of their disciplinary measures in the home? After all, ‘the law is the law!’ Government’s planned national database to monitor all New Zealand children provides the framework to make this scenario a reality.

To that end, a mass gathering at Parliament Grounds will take place next week – Wednesday 2nd May at 12.30pm to oppose the anti-smacking bill. Speakers include Bishop Brian Tamaki, Pastor Peter Mortlock, Wellington Reverend Mike Weitenburg and former All Black and Wellington Hurricanes Captain Bull Allen.

Event details can be viewed on www.familyvalues.net.nz

Media Enquiries:
Janine Cardno
Mobile: (027) 479-9191
Email: info@familyvalues.net.nz

Well, the Show on TV last night:

Sunday Night 7.30pm
Smack down the Middle

DID NOT, in fact, deal with the famous “hosepipe” case the repeal lobby bring up time and again. It dealt with a totally unknown case that is unknown because it never made it to court but was tossed out by a couple of Taranaki JPs who decided it was not worth prosecuting.

Just to point out a few things: the father of the boy was all upset. Well, for crying out loud, who was it sent his own son away because he could no longer handle him? Did he not choose where the boy got sent? Did he not check out what kind of treatment the boy would get there?

The boy was asked if he’d ever smack his own future children. “No, unless they….” There you have it.

The father said, in spite of all this, he DID NOT support Bradford’s Bill.

I must also add that the smack the uncle administered was controlled, not in anger, measured and explained to the boy and the boy apparently submitted to it.

In virtually ALL the discussions about smacking, parents are portrayed as lashing out in frustration, anger, having come to the end of their tether. The wee film clips of parents smacking children with their hands are all of this variety. THis is not controlled, useful, purposeful corporal correction. This is what most would call “light smacks” that they don’t want to see banned. It is the measured strokes with a wooden spoon or cane that are, in fact, most judicial, helpful, purposeful, effective, are explained to the child, are submitted to by the child, but which are most likely to be banned because they have not entered into the debate.

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
www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz

Our Home….Our Castle

an extensive review of the “hosepipe” case of discipline the repeal lobby constantly bring up is on as part of the Sunday Documentary programme, 7:30 tonight on TV 1. I don’t know what the over all spin to it will be, but it is one of the three the repeal lobby bring up all the time (the other two being the Timaru riding crop case and the Hawkes Bay “plank of wood” case, which is interesting because the “plank” was 2cm by 30cm, the size of a standard wooden spoon and the judge acquitted the parent as soon as he heard the facts without a Section 59 defense even being raised!!)

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
www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz

Our Home….Our Castle

http://www.afr.net/newafr/wekickedgodout.asp

Regards,

Craig & Barbara Smith

This one is to draw attention to the meeting between National’s John Key
and Green’s Sue Bradford proposed for ANZAC Day, Wednesday 25 April.

Meet at the Feilding Clock Tower at 12 Noon Monday 23 April, two days
before ANZAC Day.

Regards,

Craig & Barbara Smith

Well, it appears John Key of National and Bradford 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.

To help us know what to do, I’ve pasted below the present Section 59 as well as the re-write of Section 59 that the present Parliament is considering as a replacement for the presnet Section 59.

Bombard Key and Bradford with the following requests, Numbered “One” through “Five”. (Contact details for both below).

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 confused by too many undefined and unusual 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.

Ask the following of Key and Bradford”

Number One:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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).

Contact details for John Key:
Email John Key: john.key@national.org.nz
Email John Key’s Parliamentary secretary, Emma Holmes: emma.holmes@parliament.govt.nz
Email John Key’s electorate assistant, Mel macDonald: mel@johnkey.mp.net.nz
Phone (Parliament): 04-471-9307
Fax (Parliament): 04-473-3689
Phone (Helensville electorate): 09-412-2496
Surface Mail: John Key, Leader of the Opposition – Room 3.014 – Parliament Buildings, Wellington
Electorate office: 265 State Highway 16, Kumeu, Helensville, Auckland

Contact details for Sue Bradford:
Parliamentary Contacts:
Email: sue.bradford@parliament.govt.nz
Phone: 04-470 6720
Fax: 04-472 6003
Freepost Parliament
PO Box 18,888, Wellington.

Green Party Office Contacts:
308 Great North Road, Grey Lynn, Auckland
P O Box 1553, Shortland Street, Auckland
socialjustice@greens.org.nz
ph. (09) 361 6202
Fax (09) 361 5926

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

Family First NZ, with the support of For the Sake of Our Children Trust and Sensible Sentencing Trust, is bringing to New Zealand ROBERT E. LARZELERE PhD, Associate Professor of the Psychology Dept. Human Development & Family Science at Oklahoma State University to present the dangers of the ‘Anti-Smacking’ Bill on the important role of parents and the well-being of our children.

Dr Larzelere will be in NZ the week of the next vote on the Bradford / Clark ‘Anti-Smacking’ Bill (May 2nd). This is an important vote because the sensible amendment of MP Chester Borrow’s (which substantially lowers the definition of what is ‘reasonable’ without criminalising good parents who give light smacks) will be voted on.

Dr Larzelere has been one of the world’s foremost experts on the research on child correction outcomes for the past 30 years – including:

*One of three social scientific expert witnesses on the side of successfully defending a similar section to NZ’s s59 of Canada’s Criminal Code. (The social scientific expert witnesses on the other side included Joan Durrant. Durrant has been painted as the authority on smacking bans in NZ yet was ignored in her own country!)

*Member of Task Force on Corporal Punishment – American Psychological Association.

*One of 7 experts invited to present at 1996 Scientific Consensus Conference on the Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Corporal Punishment – co-sponsored by American Academy of Pediatrics.

His expertise will help answer the following questions regarding the Anti-Smacking Parental Correction debate:

1. what is the sound scientific evidence on the benefits / harms of smacking?

2. how does appropriate smacking compare with other forms of parental correction in terms of short-term and long-term outcomes?

3. do smacking bans reduce child abuse according to international experience?

He has written over 70 research papers on this topic including :

*Comparing child outcomes of physical punishment and alternative disciplinary tactics : A meta-analysis.

*Sweden’s Smacking Ban: More harm than good . (Refutes research presented by Joan Durrant which has been used as evidence for repealing s59 by NZ’s Children’s Commissioner, UNICEF, Barnados, Plunket and other groups supporting repeal.) .

*Children and Violence in the Family: Scientific Contributions – A Submission to the UN Global Study on Children and Violence

He is also a Member of the following professional organisations : American Psychological Association

APA Task Force on Corporal Punishment
Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy
Association for Psychological Science
And the National Council on Family Relations

YOU CAN FIND OUT MORE ABOUT DR LARZELERE AND HIS VISIT AT – http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/files/larzelere%20info%20sheet.pdf

ENDS

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
Family.Integrity@xtra.co.nz
http://www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz

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

http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/2007/04/timaru-lady-speaks-out-herself.html

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

http://www.bra.se/extra/pod/?action=pod_show&id=14&module_instance=11

The number of reported crimes has increased for the majority of offence types during the period 1975-2004. Exceptions to this include amongst others fraud offences and burglaries, including residential break-ins. The trend over the past ten years reflects an increase in reported violent and sexual offences, whereas the number of reported theft offences is more or less the same as it was ten years ago.

The number of reported crimes against life and health, 1975-2004.
The largest proportion of reported violent crime is comprised of assault offences. A total of just under 67,100 such offences were reported in 2004. The number of reported assaults against both children and adults has increased since 1975, and today stands at three times the level reported at that time.

http://www.bra.se/extra/pod/?action=pod_show&id=33&module_instance=11

Criminality over time
Since 1950, overall reported criminality in Sweden has increased dramatically.
Various factors have contributed to this increase in the number of reported crimes in the post-war years. The primary explanation is the improvement in living conditions, which has resulted in greater access to goods that are prone to being stolen, in combination with reduced social control between people.

1950-1990
Up until 1964, there was a gentle increase in the total number of reported crimes. The period between 1965 and 1980 is characterised by a greater rate of increase and by major variations between different years. In 1970 just over 656,000 crimes were reported, while in 1980 the number of reported crimes reached around 928,000.
The period between 1980 and the beginning of the 1990s is characterised by an even greater rate of increase. On average, the number of reported crimes increased by 31,000 every year. Almost 1,219,000 crimes were reported in 1990.

1990 onwards
The number of reported crimes remained relatively constant during the 1990s, with slight increases and decreases in certain years. Over the past ten years, the number of violent crimes reported to the police (chapter 3 of Criminal Code) has increased by 35 percent (from 56,574 reported crimes in 1996 to 76,118 in 2005).

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

“http://www.rcne.com/downloads/RCCs/Sweden.doc”>http://www.rcne.com/downloads/RCCs/Sweden.doc

BEDA

Support centre BEDA is a Non Governmental Organisation and a member of ROKS, The National Organisation for Battered Women Shelters in Sweden. The association is for women who have been subjected to incest or other forms of sexual abuse. The activity is based on self-help, woman to woman.

Beaten Lady
The first large investigation about men’s violence against women in Sweden was published in May 2001. The research was commissioned by the government and conducted by Eva Lundgren, professor of Sociology and by Gun Heimer, director of the National Women Centre in Uppsala.

Some facts in summery:
* Almost half of the women, 46%, have been exposed to violence by a man at some point after the age of 15.

* More than half the women, 56%, have been sexually harassed.

*Violence and/or sexual harassment are something nearly 7 of 10 Swedish women, 67% have experienced.

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