Family Integrity

Tag: Politics

  • Family First Welcomes Bill to Fix Smacking Law

    MEDIA RELEASE

    19 March 2009

    Family First Welcomes Bill to Fix Smacking Law

    Family First NZ is ‘stoked’ that ACT List MP John Boscawen has announced his intention to introduce a Private Members Bill to amend the anti-smacking law.

    “Our polling along with every other poll done over the past 3 years shows that approximately 80% of NZ’ers oppose this law – and for good reason,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

    “This flawed law has attempted to link a smack on the bottom with child abuse of the worst kind, and has put good parents raising law-abiding and responsible citizens in the same category as rotten parents who are a danger to their kids and to society in general.”

    “Not surprisingly, the child abuse rate has continued unabated with 12 child abuse deaths in the 21 months since the law was passed – the same rate as before the law was passed.”

    “Family First research has also shown that parents are hugely confused over the legal effect of the law. Parents have a right to know whether they are parenting within the law or not.”

    The 2007 UNICEF report on child wellbeing said “the likelihood of a child being injured or killed is associated with poverty, single-parenthood, low maternal education, low maternal age at birth, poor housing, weak family ties, and parental drug or alcohol abuse.”

    Family First is calling on National to adopt this bill as a government bill, to acknowledge the important and valued role of good parents, and to then target resources and effort at the real causes of child abuse.

    ENDS

    For More Information and Media Interviews, contact Family First:

    Bob McCoskrie – National Director

    Mob. 027 55 555 42

  • Amendment To Fix Broken Anti-Smacking Law

    Amendment To Fix Broken Anti-Smacking Law

    Immediate Release: Thursday March 19, 2009

    ACT New Zealand MP John Boscawen today announced that he will introduce a Private Member’s Bill to amend the controversial Anti-Smacking law inflicted on New Zealanders by Labour and the Greens in 2007.

    “My announcement coincides with yesterday’s release of a poll that shows widespread support for the law to be altered,” Mr Boscawen said.

    “This poll, commissioned by Family First NZ and conducted by Curia Market Research, surveyed the views of 1,000 everyday New Zealanders – 83 percent of whom felt the law should be changed, with a total 77 percent of respondents believing the law would not help reduce our child abuse rates.

    “While addressing the concerns of those who felt that the original section 59 of the Crimes Act was too vague, my amendment to the law will protect from criminalisation those parents who use a light smack for the purpose of correction.

    “The amendment will change the Act so that: it is no longer a crime for parents or guardians to use reasonable force to correct children; there are clear statutory limits on what constitutes reasonable force; parents and guardians have certainty about what the law permits; it is no longer reliant on police discretion for the law to be practical and workable.

    “In an attempt to curb child abuse, this law has simply criminalised law-abiding parents and removed their freedom to decide how best to raise their children – something that ACT has consistently opposed.

    “The Labour we know best’ Government is out and National is now in.  Perhaps we will now begin to see an end to the madness of the past nine years – where politicians saw fit to tell New Zealanders how to live their lives,” Mr Boscawen said.

    ENDS

    Media Contact: Shelley Mackey, Press Secretary, 04 817 6634 / 021 242 785.

  • Fitzsimons to resign as Greens co-leader

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/4856034a6160.html

    Fitzsimons to resign as Greens co-leader

    By ANTHONY HUBBARD – Sunday Star Times | Sunday, 22 February 2009

    Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons is about to announce her resignation from the post. She will stand down to allow a new co-leader time to make her mark before the 2011 election.

    The veteran Green, co-leader since 1995, is expected to serve out the parliamentary term as a list MP.

    The main candidates for her job, which under Green Party rules must be held by a woman, are MPs Sue Bradford and Metiria Turei. The new leader is likely to be announced at the party annual conference in June.

    Fitzsimons, who had earlier indicated she would probably retire at the next election, refused to comment yesterday. Co-leader Russel Norman also refused to discuss her future.

    Fitzsimons’ departure will leave a difficult problem for the party. She is a widely liked and admired politician, with appeal across the political spectrum.

    Neither Bradford nor Turei has similar appeal. Bradford, once a fiery Marxist radical, has softened her image, but her sponsorship of the anti-smacking bill drew much flak.

    Turei has the progressive appeal of being a Maori woman, but she may be seen as too radical to have wide appeal.

    It is not known if Catherine Delahunty, elected to parliament at last year’s general election, will be a candidate for the co-leadership. Her lack of parliamentary experience could count against her.

    It is understood that veteran Green MP Sue Kedgley is not seeking the post.

    Auckland University political scientist Raymond Miller said the resignation was a serious blow to the Greens. “Jeanette was a conservative and moderate figure who reassured people who might otherwise think of the Greens as an extremist party.”

  • Thousands to get lessons in parenting

    Why do you think we have these out of control 0-7 year olds?

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/4767641a11.html

    Thousands to get lessons in parenting

    By LANE NICHOLS – The Dominion Post | Friday, 21 November 2008

    A Government scheme that sends parents of violent or misbehaving children to parenting courses is to expand to up to 15,000 more families.

    Officials estimate that children with severe antisocial behavioural problems each cost society $3 million during their lives through crime and other state spending.

    Parents of chronically disruptive children are now being sent on state-run parenting courses in a bid to address their children’s antisocial behaviour – some through court and Probation Service referrals.

    The 12 to 20-week group courses, which include homework assignments on how to play with children, teach parenting skills such as rewarding good behaviour, setting boundaries and discipline.

    Hundreds of parents have taken part since last year.

    Officials intend to expand the scheme to the parents of 15,000 children thought to have chronic behavioural problems, who amount to 5 per cent of the country’s three to eight-year-olds.

    Initial research involving about 200 parents suggests the courses – known as the Incredible Years programme – have resulted in vastly improved behaviour for up to 75 per cent of the children whose parents took part.

    Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft praised the broadening of the “excellent” initiative. He said early intervention was crucial in preventing children from growing into a life of crime.

    “So often the battle is won or lost at that age. The longer I am in the Youth Court, the more I realise the problems we get are really formed in the 0-5, 0-7 ages.”

    The work is part of a five-year plan targeting severe antisocial behaviour in young children involving education, health, justice and social agencies.

    The Education Ministry says an Auckland University study estimated that the lifetime cost to society of a chronic adolescent antisocial male is $3 million.

    Officials hope the ministry-led project will help save billions of dollars by preventing an unchecked slide into unemployment, mental health problems, substance abuse, crime and prison.

    “If we get in early we can curb aggressive behaviour in children and decrease disobedience before they develop into permanent behaviour patterns,” ministry documents say.

    Severe behaviour displayed by children as young as two included tantrums, swearing, yelling, hitting, kicking, talking back and refusing to share toys. Problem children were identified through before-school health checks, teacher and GP referrals, or parents.

    Special education deputy secretary Nicholas Pole said the key was intervening early. “It starts with good parenting skills.”

  • Helen Clark still smiles

    Helen Clark still smiles The Kiwi Party
    Press Release
    November 18, 2008
    While we can rejoice in the change of Government that has occurred in NZ we should all realise that defeated Prime Minister Helen Clark will still be wearing a big smile after reading the supply and confidence agreements signed yesterday by ACT, UF and the Maori Party.

    Why? Because none of them contain any initiatives to reverse and dismantle the consequences of her Governments family deconstruction policies over the last nine years. Many commentators have acknowledged that the anti-smacking law passed by 113 MPs in the last Parliament was the piece of legislation that led to the downfall of Helen Clark and the Labour Government. The subject arose time and again during the campaign yet none of the support parties have given any assurance to the citizens of this country that the referendum to be held on Aug 21st on the question, “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence?” will be respected.

    It is particularly disappointing that Rodney Hide and the ACT Party ,who campaigned widely on their commitment to repeal the anti-smacking law, have not secured a commitment from John Key for the result of the referendum to be binding. Prostitution law reform, same sex marriage, (Civil Unions) abortion on demand and the criminalising of good parents for smacking their children are issues that none of the partners to the new Government seem prepared to use their influence to address.

    Underage girls will still be able to be taken from school to the nearest abortion clinic without parental notification or consent. The lowering of the drinking age which has been widely acknowledged to have been a mistake goes unmentioned, as does the awful problems of drug and alcohol addiction and abuse, and the lack of detox and rehabilitation facilities needed to treat those with these problems.

    There is no mention of policies to address our high rates of family breakdown, family violence and child abuse that are at the very core of our social problems, and nothing to promote a stronger and healthier marriage culture in this country without which we will never see a reduction in fatherless young criminals appearing before our youth court.

    The Kiwi traditional common law rights to hunt and fish to put food on the family table will continue to be threatened with no mention in any agreement of support for the Kahawai Legal Challenge. Recreational fishers still face their battle with the Ministry of Fisheries over the depletion of the fish stock in the inshore-shared fishery.

    It also looks like the Department of Conservation, Animal Health Board and Regional Councils will be able continue their insane campaign of dropping 1080 poison that will one day ruin our clean green image and potentially affect our primary exports.

    Helen Clark ‘s new society looks set to remain intact. New Zealand will never be the same again; at least not if it is left up to National and it’s allies ACT, UF and the Maori Party to reverse these things in the next three years.

  • 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

  • Stick that could yet beat Clark

    Stick that could yet beat Clark

    The smacking bill passed with a hefty majority in Parliament, but it has left a deep schism through middle New Zealand. Politicians from both major parties are resolutely refusing to make it an election issue, but it just won’t go away

    By EMILY WATT – The Dominion Post | Friday, 24 October 2008

    The ironic thing about the so-called anti-smacking law is that it may just cost Helen Clark the election. This, despite the fact that both the major parties seem to be trying to ignore it on the campaign trail.

    No matter that National also backed the bill when it passed in May 2007 with a healthy majority 113-8.

    And it appears to be irrelevant that it wasn’t even Labour’s idea, but a bill that was championed by Green MP Sue Bradford.

    For disillusioned Labour supporters already grumbling about the nanny state, the smacking legislation was a step too far. Helen Clark – childless herself – was suggesting she knew more about raising their kids than they did. It was meddling, pure and simple.

    Soon after the law was passed, Labour’s support, which had been sitting comfortably at 40 per cent, dropped while National’s grew. Up to 120,000 Labour party faithful may have decamped as a result.

    The law was built on a bedrock of good intentions: an attempt to reduce the appalling child abuse statistics, the desire to provide children with the same protection from assault given to adults, and to change the law after several high-profile cases, including one involving a mother acquitted by a jury of “disciplining” her son with a horsewhip and cane.

    As Canterbury University associate professor in law John Caldwell points out, it is not an “anti-smacking” law at all, but lists four circumstances in which smacking is acceptable, including when it is part of the normal daily tasks of good parenting and preventing a child from using disruptive behaviour.

    “I’ve personally been a bit baffled about why it’s continued to be called the anti-smacking law,” he says. “I think there’s widespread misapprehension [about the bill].”

    Yet its passage was preceded by months of vitriolic debate that drove thousands of opponents, led by the Destiny Church, to descend upon Parliament to defend their right to smack their children.

    It raised hackles in the House, too. Gordon Copeland quit United Future over the issue – then missed the vote and had to have his vote recorded later.

    Though police insist officers are using a “commonsense approach”, opposition has remained staunch.

    Opponents presented 390,000 signatures to Parliament this year and have forced a referendum on the law asking: “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”

    Miss Clark has done her best to kick the problem into touch by refusing to hold the referendum on election day. She says there was no time to prepare, and it is likely to be put to a postal vote next year.

    Political commentator Chris Trotter says the law has had a devastating effect on Labour. Based on polls conducted around the time of the law, he estimates that between 100,000 and 120,000 Labour party faithful have deserted, mostly for National, because of it.

    “The anti-smacking legislation, I think, really hit people where they lived. It really did feel as if the state was coming in the front door and telling parents how they should raise their kids.”

    The National Party, which also supported the bill’s passage, seemed to have escaped untarnished in the fallout.

    After leader John Key helped to work out a compromise clause with Miss Clark, his party learnt its full support to the bill. Mr Key received kudos for a masterly political breakthrough.

    He has ruled out changing the law if he becomes prime minister unless there is evidence of good parents being prosecuted. But he told the Family First conference last month that he would consider changing the law if the referendum results were strong.

    Ms Bradford says opponents of the bill purposefully muddied the waters by focusing on smacking rather than abuse of children. She believes about half the country was supportive of the bill.

    Miss Clark did not go down the legislative path blindly. She would have known how deeply unpopular the bill was, but has said it was an issue she simply couldn’t turn away from.

    Trotter says the prime minister has always been rigorous at looking at the big picture, “but on this one, she let her heart rule her head”.

    “But if she goes down because of that, she’s gone down for something worth going down for.”

    THE LEADERS SAY

    National leader John Key and Labour leader Helen Clark were both asked in The Dominion Post’s readers’ questions whether they would look again at the law on smacking if the referendum was in favour of change.

    John Key:

    “The purpose of putting up the compromise position that we did was to ensure that the law would be administered as we thought was appropriate, which is to give parents some leeway for lightly smacking a child. Inconsequentially smacking a child was something that the police would not investigate. So our view is, as long as the police continue to administer the law as the compromise intended, and we don’t see examples where good parents are criminalised for lightly smacking a child, then we think the law’s working.”

    Helen Clark:

    “It seems to me that, when Parliament votes 113 to 8 for something, that’s near unanimity. I think Parliament as a whole was exercised about violence in the family and wanted to send a strong signal. Parliament did not want to send a signal to the police that matters of little consequence should be dragged before a court and the reality is that they’re not being dragged before a court.” She added that there was a high level of ambiguity in the referendum questions.

  • 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.