Family Integrity

Tag: Family First NZ

  • Call for Minister of Families in New Government

    MEDIA RELEASE
    11 November 2008

    Call for Minister of Families in New Government

    Family First NZ is repeating its call for a Minister of Families to be appointed to the Cabinet of the new government.

    “It is time that families were given the status they deserve,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. “Governments have tinkered with Families Commissions and a Children’s Commissioner, both which have been unable to, or have failed to, fully represent the concerns and needs of families.”

    “It also fails to acknowledge that families and children are not mutually exclusive.”

    “A Minister of Families at the Cabinet table will be party to all decisions made which affect families. Commissions are simply a way of saying “we acknowledge you but we’re not going to give you too much authority or input.”

    “We currently have Cabinet Ministers for disabled, senior citizens, youth, Maori, veterans, women’s affairs – even the rugby world cup. It’s time we stopped paying lip service to our most important asset – strong families,” says Mr McCoskrie.

    “It’s time the government put families at the head table.”

    ENDS
    For More Information and Media Interviews, contact Family First:
    Bob McCoskrie JP – National Director
    Tel. 09 261 2426 | Mob. 027 55 555 42

  • Persecution of Parents To Be Investigated by National

    MEDIA RELEASE

    5 November 2008

    Persecution of Parents To Be Investigated by National

    Family First NZ is welcoming comments by senior National MP Judith Collins that if elected, National will check whether the anti-smacking law has resulted in needless prosecutions and persecution of parents.

    “We have stacks of evidence and testimony that good families have been targeted by this flawed law and that it has failed to deal with actual child abuse,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. “Families have been referred to CYF by schools, neighbours, members of the public, their children, and even their children’s friends for non-abusive smacking. And some families have also undergone police investigation.”

    “This has caused huge stress and anxiety to families who are simply trying to raise good law-abiding kids in an appropriate way.”

    “All the records show that police and CYF notifications have sky-rocketed yet there has been no corresponding increase in actual child abuse being discovered or prevented.”

    “For people like Sue Bradford and Helen Clark to try and argue that it is not an anti-smacking law is to deny the reality of how it is being treated by the authorities, and what their intention was from day one.”

    Family First NZ has already sent a large file of cases to National leader John Key highlighting good families being persecuted and prosecuted as a result of the flawed law, and will continue to collate evidence of the harmful effects of this law.

    ENDS

    For More Information and Media Interviews, contact Family First:

    Bob McCoskrie – National Director

    Mob. 027 55 555 42

  • Home discipline still a hot topic

    Home discipline still a hot topic

    4:00AM Saturday Oct 25, 2008
    By Carroll du Chateau

    The debate has yet to die down. Photo / BOP Times

    The debate has yet to die down. Photo / BOP Times

    The Smacking Debate

    In a year when the morals and ethics of our political parties seem at an all-time low, voters are focused on policies sidling into our sitting rooms.

    Many morally contentious issues are designated conscience votes by political parties, meaning their members do not have to vote along party lines.

    The anti-smacking bill proposed by Sue Bradford of the Greens and finally cobbled together by Helen Clark and John Key started out as a conscience issue and ended up as a party vote for Labour, National and the Greens, who voted 100 per cent in favour.

    Meanwhile, there was overwhelming opposition to the bill out in the community. Parents do not want the Government telling them how to parent. They say loss of discipline at home contributes to bad behaviour, out-of-control youngsters and, eventually, rising crime.

    Many say the Government is sending the wrong message to the young.

    “The idea that smacking should be against the law is ridiculous,” says Rodney Hide who, as leader of Act, stands for individual freedom and personal responsibility. “The fact that a small smack on the bottom should be up there with bashing kids with a pipe offends me.”

    Mr Hide’s position is echoed by Richard Lewis of the Family Party (a Christian offshoot of last election’s Destiny Party) and Bob McCroskie of Family First. While Mr McCroskie’s organisation is a pressure group rather than a political party, it has signed on as a Third Party and is spending a chunk of its allocated $120,000 to push family values – and undermine this legislation.

    Mr McCroskie says the law sends an underlying message that parents aren’t really in charge. “Kids are saying, ‘You can’t tell me what to do!’ We need to establish parenting within the law and parents don’t feel they’ve got it.” He talks about a consistent message (feeding through legislation) that we don’t rate parents.

    “We don’t recognise parenting as a career choice. The message is, ‘If you want to be a contributing member of society, get yourself a real job.”‘

    He is talking about paid parental leave, 20 hours’ free childcare and all the other measures designed to make it easy for mothers to go back to work.

    Mr Lewis insists the old legal defence in smacking cases “never protected anyone from child abuse. I think this bill exposes parents unfairly. There are reports of children turning up to school with innocent scrapes and bruises and being asked, ‘Did your parents do it?”‘

    Sue Bradford fervently disagrees. A mother of five, she insists she is a staunch defender of the family. “It’s the ability to beat your children that undermines the family.” She also defends the Parental Notification Bill, which allows teenagers under 16 to have abortions without their parents being aware of them. “My belief is that a woman’s body is her own.” ‘

    Less high-profile is the ethical issue around the refusal to pay parents and family caring for disabled children and adults, while professional carers qualify for funding. The practice was challenged in a tribunal hearing brought against the Ministry of Health by the Director of Human Rights Proceedings on grounds of discrimination against parents and families.

    While all parties except Labour express concern at the unfairness of the law, only the smaller parties are prepared to change it. United Future would introduce a caregivers’ allowance; the Maori Party would ensure disabled people and whanau could access support; the Progressives favour funding “as fiscal conditions permit”.

    Labour, meanwhile, is committed to steering away from the issue, instead pledging to provide $37 million on extra daycare and respite services, family caregiver support, extra funding for home-based support services plus wider criteria for the DPB so low-income couples and sole parents could receive extra support to care for sick or disabled children.

    One ethical area where the larger parties are taking a risk is with gangs. Gangs are seen as an integral part of our social fabric and stopping people gathering together breaches ethical boundaries. The proliferation of P has Labour and National talking about cracking down on gangs – again putting them out of step with Christian parties who claim the Government should focus on eliminating drug dealing rather than the gangs themselves.

    Another matter bothering Mr Hide is the issue of self-defence “Some things are worse than being charged: A, being a wimp and B, being dead.”

    * Since the law came in

    Sixteen months after the law change in May last year, eight parents have been prosecuted. One received diversion, one was discharged without conviction and six cases are yet to be resolved.

    This, says John Key, supports the view that the law is being well administered by police.

    A petition for a referendum on the legislation, which asked the question “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” gained 390,000 signatures, 310,000 of which were judged valid. To trigger a referendum, 10 per cent of registered voters (285,000) need to sign it. The referendum will be held next year.

    NOTE:

    From a link above:

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/image.cfm?c_id=1&gal_objectid=10539387&gallery_id=102944

    National: Anti-smacking legislation to stay.

  • National Adopts ‘We Know Better Than You’ Attitude

    MEDIA RELEASE

    22 October 2008

    National Adopts ‘We Know Better Than You’ Attitude

    Family First NZ is labeling comments made by National leader John Key in the Dominion Post today regarding the anti-smacking law and Referendum as disappointing and deaf to the views of the overwhelming majority of NZ parents.

    “It was hoped that National would respect the views of parents both when the law change was being discussed and when the 300,000-plus voters signed the petition demanding a change to the law and a Referendum,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. “However Key’s comments today suggest that the attitude of ‘politicians know best’ is rampant not only in the Labour and Greens parties but also the National party now.”

    In the interview, Key said “We’ll have respect for what the referendum says, but it wouldn’t make us change our mind” and we’ll “change the law if the law isn’t administered in the way that I think this Parliament intended it to be.”

    “The problem is that what Parliament did under the orders of both Helen Clark and John Key was to vote against the will and mind of the huge majority of NZ’ers.”

    “Polls continue to show overwhelming opposition to the anti-smacking law because it has failed to deal with actual child abuse, has targeted good families with investigation, prosecutions and persecution, yet has been trumpeted by supporters as a success because nobody has been imprisoned.”

    “NZ needs laws that target actual child abuse, prevent child abuse deaths, and that target the major contributing causes including drug and alcohol abuse, family breakdown, and rotten parents – as highlighted by the tragic Nia Glassie case.”

    Family First has already provided documented evidence to John Key that good families are being both persecuted and in some cases prosecuted as a result of the anti-smacking law.

  • Marriage Breakdown Costing Taxpayers At Least $1 Billion a Year

    MEDIA RELEASE – 20 October 2008

    Marriage Breakdown Costing Taxpayers At Least $1 Billion a Year

    In the first research of its kind in NZ, a new report estimates that the fiscal cost to the taxpayer of family breakdown and decreasing marriage rates is at least $1 billion per year and has cost approximately $8 billion over the past decade.

    The report “The Value of Family – Fiscal Benefits of Marriage and Reducing Family Breakdown in New Zealand” was commissioned by Family First NZ and prepared by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER).

    “The study shows that the decline of marriage, NZ’s high teenage fertility rate, and our rate of solo parenthood is not just a moral or social concern but should also be a concern of government and policymakers,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. “The report states that even a small reduction in family breakdown and increases in marriage rates could provide significant savings for taxpayers.”

    The report says that family breakdown and decreasing marriage rates are seldom considered in debate on social policy issues.

    “The focus has been on ‘child poverty’ but this misses the real issue – that is, poverty among families with children, and the way that divorce, unwed childbearing, teenage pregnancy and sole parenting contributes to that poverty. For example, sole parents have the lowest average living standards of all economic family unit types.”

    The report also refers to International research which suggests that the private costs of divorce and unmarried childbearing include increased risks of poverty, mental illness, infant mortality, physical illness, juvenile delinquency and adult criminality, sexual abuse and other forms of family violence, economic hardship, substance abuse, and educational failure.

    “It is significant that this report comes during an Election period where the issue of family breakdown and decreasing marriage rates is barely registering a mention or a policy. Yet this report makes it quite clear that strengthening marriage and reducing family breakdown is a significant public concern, both in human costs and economically,” says Mr McCoskrie.

    The report suggests the use of a range of programmes and services to reduce unwed pregnancy among teen mothers and to help prepare couples for and support them during marriage.

    “We must do much more to strengthen marriages and help families succeed,” says Mr McCoskrie. “The investment will pay for itself.”

    The Full Report is available from 20 October at http://www.familyfirst.org.nz

    ENDS

  • Family First – Poll reveals backlash over smacking law

    From Family First e-newsletter. To subscribe to this newsletter send an email to: admin@familyfirst.org.nz

    1. Poll reveals backlash

    over smacking law
    The anti-smacking law is still enormously unpopular,

    a Herald election survey has found

    LISTEN Bob McCoskrie on National Radio The Panel discussing

    the latest poll results and the continued opposition to the law(starts at 16’52”)

    Family First Media Release – Another Smacking Poll – Same Response

    Family First NZ says that the NZ Herald poll showing 86% opposition to the

    anti-smacking law is further proof that the law is fundamentally wrong and

    should be changed.


    Family First Media Release – Bradford Encourages Parents to

    Carry On Smacking

    In a stunning turnaround, Green MP Sue Bradford has told parents that

    smacking is not a criminal offence and implied that groups like Barnardos,

    Plunket, Every Child Counts and politicians who have said that the aim of

    the law was to ban parents physically punishing their children are

    misleading the public.


    Green Party Response – Family First shows legal ignorance
    Green Party MP Sue Bradford has responded strongly to a statement

    by pro-violence (!!) lobby Family First saying Bob McCoskrie appears

    confused about what the amendment of Section 59 is actually about.

    There is no specific law relating to smacking on New Zealand’s statute

    books. People like Mr McCoskrie have fostered a myth that what has

    happened is that a new law has been created that specifically outlaws

    smacking. This is simply not true.


    Family First Comment : Dear Sue, if the law wasn’t about smacking

    and doesn’t outlaw smacking, why did you call it the ‘anti-smacking

    law’ when you introduced it? (original media release from 2003 below


  • Bradford Encourages Parents to Carry On Smacking

    From:

    http://christiannews.co.nz/2008/bradford-encourages-parents-to-carry-on-smacking/

    Bradford Encourages Parents to

    Carry On Smacking

    In a stunning turnaround, Green MP Sue Bradford has told parents that smacking is not a criminal offence and implied that groups like Barnardos, Plunket, Every Child Counts and politicians who have said that the aim of the law was to ban parents physically punishing their children are misleading the public.

    In a media release from the Green party today, Bradford says ‘smacking has never been a criminal offence, and still isn’t.’

    Yet only last year, she told Newstalk ZB ‘it is already illegal to smack children but her bill removes a defence of reasonable force for the purpose of correction.’

    And in the original 2003 media release from the Green party launching her amendment to section 59, it is entitled “Greens draw up their own anti-smacking bill” http://www.greens.org.nz/node/12844

    “Sue Bradford is confused by her own law,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ, “and is misrepresenting the real effect and purpose of the anti-smacking law. She believes smacking is assault, yet more than 80% of NZ’ers continue to disagree.”

    “Otherwise, we can only conclude that she is telling parents to carry on smacking and if investigated by police or CYF, parents should tell them that they don’t understand the law and to get lost. Yet parents are getting referred to CYF and the police by schools, neighbours, social workers, even their own kids, for light smacking.”

    “If the politicians who designed the law are confused, where does that put parents who are simply trying to raise good kids without breaking the law,” says Mr McCoskrie.

    Family First NZ continues to call on the politicians to change the law so that it clearly states that non-abusive smacking is not a crime (as wanted by 86% of NZ’ers according to today’s NZ Herald poll), and to then tackle the real causes of child abuse.

    To comment go to: http://christiannews.co.nz/2008/bradford-encourages-parents-to-carry-on-smacking/

  • Another Smacking Poll – Same Response

    MEDIA RELEASE

    29 September 2008

    Another Smacking Poll – Same Response

    Family First NZ says that the NZ Herald poll showing 86% opposition to the anti-smacking law is further proof that the law is fundamentally wrong and should be changed.

    “This is not 86% of NZ’ers who want to ‘thrash and beat’ their children as was suggested by the prime minister last year,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. “This is simply NZ’ers saying that a law supposedly designed to tackle child abuse should not end up targeting good parents raising great kids.”

    “Appropriate smacking for the purpose of correcting, training and teaching should never be a crime exposing parents to possible police investigation and CYF intervention.”

    “The law is fundamentally flawed because it fails to deal with the problem it was supposed to – child abuse – and implicates law-abiding parents in the process.”

    The latest poll follows a string of similar polls in 2008 including:

    u 74% parents should be able to smack Research International Feb 2008

    u 85% want law changed to allow light smacking Curia Research – poll commissioned by Family First May 08

    u 85% anti-smacking law should be scrapped TVNZ Website poll June 08

    u 81% say there should be referendum on smacking legislation at this year’s election NZ Herald Poll 25 June 2008 Total Votes: 4624

    u One year on, do you think the anti-smacking Bill has proved to be effective? No 87% Unsure 7% Yes 7% Littlies Magazine online poll July 2008

    “The guarded support for the ‘compromise’ amendment is parents simply hoping that the police may use some common sense in applying this flawed law. Yet evidence has shown that this is not the case, and many parents are more concerned about the way CYF are using the law for unwarranted intervention in good families.”

    “The message is loud and clear to the politicians,” says Mr McCoskrie. “We don’t need a costly referendum to tell us what we already know. Simply change the law so that good parents are not criminalised, and then start targeting the real causes of child abuse including drug and alcohol abuse and family breakdown.”

    ENDS

    For More Information and Media Interviews, contact Family First:

    Bob McCoskrie JP – National Director

    Tel. 09 261 2426 | Mob. 027 55 555 42

  • Website Shows Voting Record on Family Issues

    MEDIA RELEASE

    21 September 2008

    Website Shows Voting Record on Family Issues

    http://www.valueyourvote.org.nz

    Family First NZ has today launched a website highlighting the conscience and family related bills voted on over the past 6 years, and how each MP and political party has voted.

    The website is http://www.valueyourvote.org.nz and has an accompanying pamphlet.

    “Over the past six years there have been a number of law changes voted on by our politicians specifically impacting the welfare of kiwi families, and the role of parents and marriage,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. “Some of these laws – like the anti-smacking law, the Care of Children Act and the ‘parental notification’ law (relating to abortion) – have undermined the important role parents play in their children’s lives.”

    “Others – like the Civil Unions Act, Relationships Act, and the lack of support for the Marriage Amendment Bill – have weakened and attempted to redefine the traditional family structure, ignoring the mass body of research which shows that family structure and marriage is hugely beneficial, not only for children, but for adults and families as well.”

    “And laws – such as the decriminalisation of prostitution, the euthanasia bill, the Easter trading laws, and Parliament’s refusal to raise the drinking age – have failed to take into account what is best for the welfare and safety of families.”

    The website allows voters to see how their local MP and each political party has voted on these important social issues.

    “Despite many of them being conscience votes, in many cases, there seems to be a ‘collective conscience’!,” says Mr McCoskrie. “But most concerning of all has been the inability of MPs to hear the wishes and concerns of NZ families – for example, surveys showed that over 70% wanted the drinking age raised to 20, approximately 83% opposed the anti-smacking bill, and over 71% believed that a parent should be informed if a girl under 16 goes to a doctor to seek an abortion.”

    “Families deserve laws that strengthen and protect them – not ones that redefine and undermine them according to politically correct ideology. We hope this record of how our members of parliament voted on important family-based legislation will help voters make an informed decision of who to vote for at Election ’08.”

    ENDS

    For More Information and Media Interviews, contact Family First:

    Bob McCoskrie – National Director

    Mob. 027 55 555 42