Family Integrity

Tag: Politics

  • The opponents of the anti-smacking law outnumber the supporters of ANY New Zealand government

    I (Beretta Blog) spotted this over at Kiwiblog today:

    1. 1,420,959 – Voted no to treating correctional smacking as a criminal offence
    2. 1,053,398 – 2008 Voted for National when they won the election
    3. 935,319 – 2005 Voted for Labour when they won the election
    4. 838,219 – 2002 Voted for Labour
    5. 800,199 – 1999 Voted for Labour
    6. 701,315 – 1996 Voted for National

    This certainly puts the lie to the claim that the referendum is irrlevant or that it was ignored because of an alleged bias in its presentation. The reality is, just those who voted NO outnumber the supporters of any political party that has won an election in this country. Then add the 200,000 or so who voted in the minority, and you’ve got one heck of a popular and representative referendum!

    Let’s now sit, watch, and see what our Prime Minister is made of.

  • Key says no to changing smacking law

    Key says no to changing smacking law

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2776861/Key-says-no-to-changing-smacking-law

    By TOM FITZSIMONS, COLIN ESPINER and CLIO FRANCIS – The Dominion Post

    Smacking referendum results by electorates

    Pro-smacking campaigners are calling on the Government to fast-track a law change to allow parents to smack their children, after a thumping referendum victory.

    But Prime Minister John Key says he will not change the law, and the law’s original sponsor, Green MP Sue Bradford, says the question was so flawed the result is meaningless.

    Children’s Commissioner John Angus also joined the chorus of people saying the law should remain, as “it is good for children”.

    The referendum, which cost $8.9 million and drew a voter turnout larger than most local body elections, asked: Should a smack, as part of good parental correction, be a criminal offence in New Zealand?

    In preliminary results issued last night, 87.6 per cent of those who voted answered No, and 11.81 per cent said Yes.

    More than 1,622,000 people or 54 per cent of enrolled voters voted.

    Mr Key said he “took the message seriously” and would take a series of proposals to the Cabinet on Monday.

    The proposals stopped short of a law change, but he would not say whether he was planning to give new instructions to police. “It is my belief that the law is working and that at this point we don’t need to change the law,” he said.

    “I don’t think a law change is necessary. There are other changes that fall short of changing the law that I think can be introduced.”

    Mr Key has said he smacked his two children “very lightly and in moderation” when they were younger.

    Kiwi Party leader and poll campaigner Larry Baldock said the turnout showed how strongly people felt about the issue, and sent a firm message to Mr Key: “They want the authority back in the home and he is foolish to suggest this law is working.”

    Mr Baldock, a former MP, said the Government should bypass the select committee process and move straight to a vote in Parliament. References in the Crimes Act that barred parents from using force “for the purpose of correction” should be deleted, he said.

    He denied the poll question was biased and confusing. The law had made people angry. “Every parent has been disempowered. They’ve got children coming home and saying, `You can’t touch me’.”

    Ms Bradford said she had expected a majority “No” vote. She believed some people were so confused by the question they accidentally voted the wrong way. “Because the question is so flawed, the result is flawed. It’s not a clear indicator to the Government of what it should do, if anything.”

    Other voters had told her they had scrawled abusive comments on their ballots instead of answering the question, which could have spoiled their votes, she said.

    She accepted some people were still uncomfortable with the law, but said it should stand because “it’s a law about protecting our most vulnerable citizens”.

    Sheryl Savill, who instigated the referendum, felt “overwhelmed” by the result. “I am so pleased that such a large number of people have shown their support for this issue.”

    Chief Electoral Officer Robert Peden said no data was kept about how many ballots had been written on or otherwise spoiled. But 9696 votes were recorded as “informal” because the voter’s intention could not be understood.

    Police are due to release their final report into how the law has affected their operations early next week. In reports so far, they have said its impact has been minimal.

    Turnout dwarfed the only previous citizen-initiated referendum decided by mail a 1995 question about firefighter numbers that only 26.96 per cent of voters responded to. Turnout at last year’s local body elections was about 41 per cent.

  • Massive NO to Anti-Smacking Law Politicians Must Listen

    87.6%    87.6%

    87.6%

    Family First Media Release Friday 21 August

    Massive NO

    to Anti-Smacking Law

    Politicians Must Listen

    1. Amend Law
    2. Establish Non-Political Commission of Enquiry into Child Abuse


    Family First NZ is welcoming the result of the anti-smacking Referendum and says that it is now time for the politicians to respect the people they represent and amend the anti-smacking law.

    “87.6% of voters have called for a law change by voting NO in the referendum. The National government should move immediately to amend the law,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

    “John Key cannot ignore this result. To put 87.6% in perspective, at the general election last year 45% voted for National, 34% voted for Labour and 6.7% voted for the Greens. 87.6% is more than these three combined.”

    “The attempt by politicians to dismiss the Referendum as ‘ambiguous’ and irrelevant has also been rebuked by the voters. A 54% response rate in the Referendum is still significant especially when compared to just 47% voting in the recent Mt Albert by-election, an average of just over 40% voting in the recent local body elections for their mayors and city councils, and a 55% response rate which changed our whole voting system to MMP.”

    “The attack on the referendum seems to have rarked up voters because they feel like it was more of the previous ‘we the politicians know better than you and we’re not listening’ attitude. NZ’ers hoped that we had moved on from that approach.”

    Family First is calling on the government to immediately amend the anti-smacking law under urgency so that good parents are not treated as breaking the law for light smacking, and then to establish a Royal Commission of Enquiry into Child Abuse which will identify and target the real causes.

    “The 87.6% who voted NO are not people who are demanding the right to ‘assault’ and ‘beat’ children. They are simply kiwis who want to tackle the tougher issues of family breakdown, drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, violence in our media, poverty and stress, and weak family ties.”

    “The anti-smacking bill has been a spectacular failure because it has failed to identify and target the real issues and has had no effect on our child abuse rates. It was simply about a political agenda rather than practical solutions,” says Mr McCoskrie.
    ENDS

    http://www.familyfirst.org.nz

  • Anti-smacking referendum: No vote wins

    Anti-smacking referendum: No vote wins

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2776567/Anti-smacking-referendum-No-vote-wins

    By MICHAEL FOX – Stuff.co.nz

    Last updated 20:03 21/08/2009

    New Zealanders have overwhelmingly voted for the anti-smacking law to be canned.

    A total of 1,622,150 votes were cast with 87.6 percent in favour of repealing the controversial new law.

    The Chief Electoral Office said it would now complete checks and count voting papers still to be received, before releasing the final result.

    The preliminary results from the $9 million citizens-initiated referendum which asked: “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” have just been released.

    Both sides of the campaign had earlier admitted this was the more likely result.

    Labour deputy leader Annette King said the referendum had allowed everyone to have their say.

    “It’s now up to the Government to determine what the next steps are. Labour is yet to see evidence that the current Act needs to be changed. It is going to be reviewed at the end of the year and we will wait to see the outcome of that.”

    The referendum followed a controversial law change in 2007 led by Green Party MP Sue Bradford, which repealed Section 59 in the Crimes Act, a clause which made it legal for parents to use reasonable force to discipline a child.

    Those leading the “Vote No” campaign had argued the law had achieved nothing and was not targeting the real causes of child abuse in New Zealand.

    The “Vote Yes” advocates wanted the law to be kept, saying fears that innocent parents would be criminalised had not eventuated and that children deserved the same protection against physical harm as adults.

    Both Prime Minister John Key and opposition leader Phil Goff have indicated they were comfortable with the law and the referendum would not necessarily change that.

    The law change made it illegal for parents to use force against their children but affords police discretionary powers not to prosecute where the offence is considered inconsequential.

  • Anti-smacking side concede loss likely

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2773068/Anti-smacking-side-concede-loss-likely

    Anti-smacking side concede loss likely

    By MICHAEL FOX – Stuff.co.nz

    Larry Baldock

    HOT ISSUE: Larry Baldock with boxes of petitions in 2008. The petition, circulated nationwide, led to the referendum.

    Campaigners on both sides of the smacking debate believe a referendum result due out tonight will be a victory for those who opposed a controversial 2007 law change.

    We will bring you results of the referendum as soon as they are available this evening.

    Preliminary results from the controversial $9 million citizens-initiated poll are due at 8.30pm this evening  although they are not binding, and the government has not signalled any intention to act on the result.

    Those behind the referendum, which asks: “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” believe the majority of respondents will have voted no. As of last Friday, 1,330,900 votes had been cast.

    “I’ve been working on this for 32 months and to get the final result it will be great,” Kiwi Party leader Larry Baldock, who initiated the referendum, said.

    “I think it will definitely be a majority no vote.”

    The referendum follows a controversial law change in 2007 led by Green Party MP Sue Bradford which repealed Section 59 in the Crimes Act, a clause which made it legal for parents to use reasonable force to discipline a child.

    The law change made it illegal for parents to use force against their children but affords police discretionary powers not to prosecute where the offence is considered inconsequential.

    Mr Baldock said the 2007 Act should be repealed, and is so confident the majority of Kiwis feels the same that he has already organised a party at an Auckland motel for supporters, where they will gather to await the result.

    Vote Yes spokeswoman and former NZ First MP Deborah Morris-Travers said the group that opposes smacking did not expect the vote to go their way.

    “We’ve always expected that the majority vote would be a No vote because, of course, thats how the question is put. It’s a loaded question.”

    However, she said the campaign had allowed them to (miss-educate)  educate people about the law and address (spread) some of the misinformation that surrounded it.

    She pointed to the latest police statistics which, she said, proved concerns in the community that large numbers of parents would be criminalised for smacking were unfounded.

    (No any good family that comes before the Police and CYFs is unnecessary and traumatic for the family)

    The figures from the latest six-month review showed police attended 279 child assault events in the six-month review period between last October and April.

    Of those events, 39 involved “minor acts of physical discipline”, with four resulting in prosecutions. Eight of those involved smacking.

    During the previous review period, police attended 258 child assault events of which 49 were “minor acts of physical discipline” and nine involved smacking.

    Police said there had been little impact on their workloads since the law was enacted.

    “It’s hardly thousands and thousands of parents are being criminalised because they are absolutely not,” Ms Morris-Travers said

    (One good family criminalised is too many – especially if it is your family)

    She said she had detected a sea change in people’s attitudes and New Zealanders needed to give the law a chance.

    “They can have confidence in [the law] and they can have confidence in the way the police are administering the law,” she said.

    The No campaigners would be making recommendations on how the law should be changed and hoped Prime Minister John Key would act quickly, Mr Baldock said.

    Mr Baldock said little had been gained from the legislation so far.

    “If you look at all the time and money and, you know, angst thats been expended on this for the past three or four years and for what gain?” he said.

    However, both Mr Key and opposition leader Phil Goff have said they are comfortable with the legislation as it stands and a No vote would not change that.

  • The smacking referendum – my summary

    As plenty of readers will already know, New Zealanders are currently taking part in a postal referendum on the issue of whether or not a parent smacking a child under any circumstances should be a crime. I have already voted no.

    In 2007 Sue Bradford of the Green Party was successful in having section 59 of the crimes act repealed and replaced with a new version. The former version provided exceptions to the law concerning assault, providing a defence. It permitted parents to use “reasonable force” in the process of correcting their children. This would include, putting a child in her room against her will, administering a smack, placing a child on the “naughty stool” when he didn’t want to go, and so on. These are all uses of force, and are acceptable provided they are done within reason (e.g. hurling a child into her room would not be allowed, and nor would punching a child’s lights out or shoving him into the stool).

    This defence was necessary because of the unique relationship that parents have with children. Obviously it would be illegal for me to select a random adult and force him into a bedroom and require him to stay there. That would be assault and unlawful detention, as would making him sit on a stool against his will, and smacking him would just be common assault. So there was a natural and obvious difference between the rights and protections given to another adult and those given to a child. This is reflected in other aspects of law too (e.g. children can’t buy alcohol, vote, consent to sex, get married, drive a car etc). Those who say, for example “if you can’t do it to an adult, why should you be allowed to do it to a child?” are just not thinking seriously about the issues at all.

    The new section 59 erases this defence completely. In its place here’s what it now says, as law professor Jim Evans pointed out:

    Subsection (1) of the new section 59 allows a parent (or person in the place of a parent) to use force that is reasonable in the circumstances for the purpose of (a) preventing or minimising harm to the child or another person, (b) preventing the child from engaging in a criminal offence, (c) preventing the child from engaging in offensive or disruptive behaviour, or (d) performing the normal daily tasks incidental to good care and parenting.

    So far so good. “But wait a minute,” you might think. “part (d) would allow a smack, provided it was part of good parenting.” Up to this point, maybe, but then check subsection (2) of the new version. It reads: “Nothing in subsection (1) justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction.” Subsection (3) adds: “Subsection (2) prevails over subsection (1).”
    Subsection (2) is where the problem arises, and it is this section that now prompts people to call for a law change. So here is the issue: Force is allowed as part of “good care and parenting,” provided it’s not corrective. Now wait a minute, isn’t correction part of good care and parenting? Confused yet?

    In case it wasn’t unclear enough for parents already, subsection 4 makes it even worse, allowing police discretion when this crime of assault against children is committed, enabling them to decide for themselves which criminal acts to prosecute. So a law that is already now written in doublespeak then gives police sole discretion in deciding whether or not to prosecute, in a case where the defence of reasonable force in correcting a child is no longer available.

    Because of the wording of subsection 1, which refers to “good care and parenting,” and because of the wording of subsection 2 (which for many, introduces confusion), referring to “correction” as though it was excluded from good care and parenting opponents of the law change had the referendum question worded as follows, following the lead of the legislation:

    “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”

    The question was written precisely because of the terms used in the new law, asking new Zealanders, in effect, whether they agreed with the divide that the law proposed between “good care and parenting” in which reasonable force was allowed, and “correction” in which no force at all was allowed.

    I think that the facts as spelled out above are relatively simple and easy to ascertain. However, the supporters of Sue Bradford’s law change, as well as supporters of voting “Yes” in the referendum (the two groups partly overlap) have set out on a campaign of misinformation and deception, along with bungled and careless reading of the law.

    John Roughan is among the worst offenders. In reply to the claim that the law is unclear or possibly inconsistent, he writes that subsection (1) clearly allows smacking, so there’s no ban on smacking here at all! He further implies that anyone who is worried about subsection (2) is supporting the right to inflict “a cold-blooded assault” intended to leave a defenceless child  “in pain and fear.” He claims that there’s absolutely no tension in the law because it’s obvious that “correction” in subsection 2 refers to this type of assault, or to things like “ritual thrashings.”

    Fortunately, uncritical opponents of the referendum (like those who reproduced Roughan’s material online as gospel) weren’t the only ones reading. Roughan’s legally uninformed perspective was itself given a good thrashing in the same newspaper by Professor Emeritus of law at Auckland University, Dr Jim Evans (see here). He explains just how the new section 59 is in fact unclear and a poor piece of legislation.

    Others (e.g. the propaganda site “yesvote”) have claimed that the wording of the referendum question is loaded because it uses the word “good” and repetitive because it uses the word “correction.” This just represents a failure to understand the specific legal reasons why those terms were chosen. They were chosen because subsection (1) allows force as part of good parenting, and yet subsection (2) forbids force in cases of correction. The referendum question then asks parents if correction using force can indeed be part of good parenting. The only ones claiming that the question is loaded or unclear are those who are motivated to do so, namely those who themselves fully understand the question but who want people to vote “Yes.”

    There’s a good list of frequently asked questions over at http://voteno.org.nz/faq.htm

    But isn’t “Vote no” a propaganda group too? Sure, in the sense that they are trying to influence opinion. They do, however, draw on the legal facts of the matter, along with evidence that the new law is not making any positive difference in the abuse rates of children, and they also illustrate the negative impact of the law on good parents in New Zealand. If the facts are in poor taste, then that website’s up to no good!

    So for what it’s worth, if you haven’t voted yet, vote NO.

    To view the comments and to make a comment go to:

    http://www.beretta-online.com/wordpress/index.php/the-smacking-referendum-my-summary/

  • Smacking question is clear enough

    http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/70140/smacking-question-clear-enough?page=0%2C0

    Smacking question is clear enough

    Tue, 18 Aug 2009

    Rex Ahdar takes issue with the idea that the “smacking” referendum is ambiguous and confusing.

    Unless you have been living in the Fiordland bush for the last few years, or have just arrived from Latvia, you would readily understand the fateful sentence in its cultural context

    People should exercise their democratic rights and vote in the smacking referendum.

    I believe the objections to it are misplaced.

    Some cry, what about the expense? Could not the money have been spent on tackling child abuse? Yes, but the promoters of the referendum are not to blame.

    The government was asked to run the referendum in conjunction with the general election, but it said no.

    The referendum question might have proved an unpalatable, additional reason for voters not to give Labour and the Greens another term.

    It is thus disingenuous for the politicians to cry waste when they had a straightforward opportunity to avoid it.

    Besides, $9 million is not a huge amount when considering an important parental practice and, as the abolitionists of smacking remind us, the welfare of children.

    If we can spend $80 million per year on possum eradication, we can afford a fraction of this on such an important matter of family governance.

    Next, the wording is said to be ambiguous and confusing.

    Really? Read in isolation I suppose one could quibble with its meaning.

    But unless you have been living in the Fiordland bush for the last few years, or have just arrived from Latvia, you would readily understand the fateful sentence in its cultural context.

    The referendum wording is read against the background of the ongoing public controversy over the merits of a law to permit mild corporal punishment of children by their parents.

    The real gripe is not so much that the wording is ambiguous, but that it is slanted.

    Perhaps.

    To me, the offending phrase simply sets the context in which a smack occurs.

    On the other hand, critics contend that smacking and good parental correction are cunningly linked, implying that the two are part and parcel of the same thing.

    Critics refuse to see how a smack can ever be part of good parental correction.

    But again, the proponents of the referendum are not at fault.

    As the Californian experience of referendums shows, the promoters always try to word the thing in a way that favours their desired result.

    Having invested a huge amount of energy to secure the minimum 10% of voters necessary to trigger a referendum, who can blame them? But the real culprit, if any, is the Clerk of the House.

    The clerk is the independent statutory official responsible for vetting the wording and ensuring, in the words of the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993, the question put to voters conveys clearly the referendum’s purpose and is capable only of one of two answers.

    The so-called poor wording is the fault of former clerk David McGee QC.

    Next, is the current version of section 59 of the Crimes Act working satisfactorily? Have parents who engaged in a light, non-injurious corporal correction (a smack) been prosecuted? The answer, according to Family First’s investigations, is yes.

    And those who have not been prosecuted have still undergone the stress of a police investigation, and probably scrutiny by Child, Youth and Family personnel, too.

    Why the prime minister maintains the present law is working well (and thus no action is needed) is puzzling.

    Looking back, the whole rationale for the law change was suspect, if not illusory.

    Abolitionists, led by Sue Bradford MP, continually raised the spectre of the abuser who sheltered behind the section 59 defence and was thereby acquitted of blatant thuggery by a feeble jury.

    The celebrated and deliberately vague examples usually cite the father who beat his son with a hunk of wood and the mother who viciously used a horsewhip on her son.

    A closer inspection of the facts reveals another story.

    The Havelock North father hastily used a thin piece of kindling (a foot long and 2cm thick) on his 8-year-old son’s backside following an admitted incident of stealing by the boy.

    This is hardly the ominous piece of four-by-two that is typically asserted.

    The Timaru mother did use an 18-inch long and half-inch thick riding crop, but in urgent response to her 12-year-old son’s attempt to hit his stepfather on the head with a softball bat.

    On both occasions, the juries decided that the parents’ response was reasonable in all the circumstances.

    At best, this repetition of the-abuser-was-acquitted tales is sloppy.

    At worst, it is calculated and deliberate misrepresentation.

    The smacking defence-justified-abuse gambit is really just a specious ploy to undermine a law that was working satisfactorily.

    It is sleight of hand designed to divert attention away from the abolitionist’s real objection, which is philosophical from start to finish.

    The previous law did not permit physical abuse by parents to go unpunished.

    The social science evidence on the effects of smacking on children does not show that it is harmful.

    The Otago University Children’s Issues Centres 2004 report said: “While it is clear from the research that severe and harsh punishment [both physical or other] is potentially very risky for children’s development, occasional physical punishment occurs in many families and may not have long-term negative effects as long as it is used in a climate of warmth and love, where the predominant mode of relating to children is positive.

    “To say that smacking is associated with children’s aggression, under-achievement, depression is mischievous.

    “The observation that two things are associated [or correlated] does not mean there is a causal connection between them.”

    Faced with these inconvenient facts, opponents of smacking are relegated to asserting their personal convictions.

    I have no doubt that abolitionists sincerely believe that corporal punishment of children is morally wrong.

    They are entitled to their view.

    If their liberal sensibilities are offended, let them exercise their own parental prerogatives by adopting other modes of discipline on their children.

    I will let them grapple with the question of whether time out (false imprisonment, if an adult was the one being confined), removal of pocket money (deprivation of property) and so on raise no ethical concerns.

    Let me, along with the other 83% of New Zealanders who do not share their moral sentiments, choose the form of discipline that we consider is sound. – Rex Ahdar

  • Distinguishing between correction and violence

    http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/69422/distinguishing-between-correction-and-violence

    Distinguishing between correction and violence

    Thu, 13 Aug 2009Sue Bradford

    Sue Bradford

    Most parents do not seek to harm their children but want the best for them, writes Michael Reid.

    What does that imply with respect to the “smacking” referendum?

    “When war comes, the first casualty is truth.”

    In the debate over smacking and the associated referendum, the definition of violence is the casualty.

    Advocates of the “yes” vote get away with using the word “violence” all the time.

    They don’t distinguish between responsible parents who use a light smack from those using implements to inflict severe pain.

    Emotive words like “belting”, “beating” and “whacking” all blur the distinction.

    But the difference between parental correction and violence is critical.

    The occasional smack is not the same as abuse with jug cords, belts and sticks.

    The latter is totally unacceptable and most parents know the difference – they always have.

    This debate is not about legal rights but the lived experience of family life.

    Despite hysteria to the contrary, those opposing Sue Bradford’s law are not condoning smacking, but they know that responsible parenting requires a range of skills and techniques to do the job.

    Many voting “no” are upset with the state limiting their options and making them criminals if they dare to smack.

    The caveat that investigating police exercise discretion on a case-by-case basis prior to charges being laid doesn’t allay parental fears nor promote consistency in enforcement, which is the basis of good law.

    Ms Bradford herself is confused: she doesn’t want light smacking criminalised, but then claims she wants children to be “free from violence”.

    Good law, though, has to be enforceable and this equivocation only muddies the waters of what is meant by violence.

    The former s.59 of the Crimes Act assumed responsible parenting and respected parental freedom up to a point.

    Where real abuse occurred, the police were right to prosecute.

    Ms Bradford’s amendment did not come about by the wholesale failure of s.59 but by the sustained activism of certain groups bent on popularising particular understandings of children’s rights.

    Children are not marching in the streets demanding reform; they want loving, committed parents, not more legal rights.

    As one writer has put it, a child is protected because she is loved, not because she has a right to be protected.

    Supporters claim to be protecting children by extending to them the same rights as others to be free from violence.

    This sounds plausible, but is it? The parent-child relationship is a blood-tie, intergenerational bond that is different in essence to two adults on the street where one decides to hit the other.

    Parenting involves a responsibility to nurture and provide for the child from infancy to independence around 18 years of age.

    Most parents do not seek to harm their children but want the best for them and often harbour a desire they will do better in life than they have.

    In this sense, the “best interests of the child” (that hackneyed notion enshrined in the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child) is fleshed out every day in families when parents love, nurture, discipline and sacrifice for their children.

    Moreover, the parent-child relationship has never been equal in terms of political power.

    Conflict always involves the will of the adult against that of the child.

    “Stop hitting your brother”; “go to your room”; “pick up your clothes” involve parents asserting their will.

    Only in recent times and as a result of the waffle offered by discourse analysis have theorists conceptualised normal tensions as a power issue in any political sense.

    This has created an artificial atmosphere of competing rights between parents and children.

    When rights clash, whose rights are most right?This is the where the yes supporters depart from the no voters in the referendum.

    The former see the world in terms of child’s legal rights but the latter just want to get on with parenting without running foul of the law for using the odd smack.

    Finally, the parent-child bond is unique among human relationships. It endures.

    No friendship or marriage lasts quite as long.

    For the child, the dynamic shifts from infant dependence through to independence as an adult.

    For parents, it moves from independence and active parenting through to (in many cases) a reliance on children in old age.

    That limited period in early childhood when smacking as one of a range of parenting techniques should be tolerated has to be seen in this long-term context of reciprocal responsibilities.

    Some parents, sadly, rely too heavily on smacking while others go well beyond it and abuse children. They are violent.

    The rate of child abuse in New Zealand is horrific.

    But let’s target the real causes rather than create a hypersensitive rights culture where responsible parents are treated as criminals for using the occasional smack.

    Let’s also distinguish between parental correction and violence.

    The Bradford law fails to do so and is confusing, presumptive and placing undue pressure on police resources.

    What an irony that we have rampant youth crime and unprecedented violence in our streets – yes, violence – yet we seem absorbed with this issue.

    And by the way, all this bunkum about a confusing referendum question: if you like the Bradford law, vote yes; if you don’t, vote no. Simple.

    • Dr Michael Reid is a parent, teacher, and author of the 2006 book From Innocents to Agents: children and children’s rights in New Zealand.

  • Referendum 44% return so far – one week to go

    Two press releases:

    The Kiwi Party
    Press Release

    The people are speaking!!

    Kiwi Party Leader and Referendum Petition organiser Larry Baldock said he was thrilled with the number of Kiwis making their voice heard in the referendum.


    The latest update from the Chief Electoral Office confirms that as at 5.00pm Thursday 13 August 1,330,900 votes had been received by the Chief Electoral Office vote-processing centre for the Citizens Initiated Referendum on the question “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand”.

    “This is approx 44% of those registered, a significant increase over the first week and many more than normally received after two weeks of the Local Government postal elections. It definitely puts the referendum on track to be a better turnout than Local Body elections with a result that cannot be discredited,” said Mr Baldock.

    ends

    Larry Baldock
    021864833

    and

    MEDIA RELEASE
    14 August 2009
    Voters Loud and Clear on Referendum
    Family First NZ is welcoming news that 44% of voters have now returned their ballot papers for the anti-smacking referendum.
    “It is quite evident that NZ’ers understand the question, want their say on the issue, and expect the politicians to listen,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.
    “44% of registered voters is only just short of the turnout for the recent Mt Albert by-election (47%) and most City Councils, Mayors and Community Boards have been elected by less than 44% in the last 2 local body elections. It is quite evident that NZ’ers feel strongly on this issue and still have another full week to vote.”
    “The attempts by politicians to attack the question and to threaten to disregard the result of the Referendum has actually had the opposite effect to what they possibly intended. It has rarked up voters because they feel like it’s more of the previous ‘we know better than you and we’re not listening’ attitude. NZ’ers hoped that we had moved on from that approach.”
    “Because of this message, it is even more important that voters return their voting forms and send a strong message to the politicians on this issue,” says Mr McCoskrie.
    ENDS
    For More Information and Media Interviews, contact Family First:
    Bob McCoskrie – NATIONAL DIRECTOR
    Mob. 027 55 555 42