Family Integrity

Tag: Royal Commission

  • ‘Honest’ Report on Child Abuse Welcomed

    MEDIA RELEASE

    4 June 2009

    ‘Honest’ Report on Child Abuse Welcomed

    REPORT LABELLED AS ‘POLITICALLY INCORRECT’

    Family First NZ is welcoming a report from the Children’s Commissioner on child abuse released today, and says that it backs the call for a Royal Commission on child abuse.

    “The report entitled ‘Death and serious injury from assault of children aged under 5 years in Aotearoa New Zealand: A review of international literature and recent findings’ makes an honest assessment of the real causes of child abuse and reinforces the findings of previous UNICEF and CYF reports that we have quoted,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

    “The anti-smacking law was a smoke screen for dealing with the real, and much harder to deal with, causes of child abuse. It has meant that ‘normal’ families have been targeted because they’re easier to deal with, rather than the dysfunctional non-compliant families who need support and possibly intervention. This report identifies those causes and is so honest that it could almost be labeled politically incorrect.”

    Risk factors for child abuse in the report included:

    · ethnicity (including the high rate of abuse amongst Maori)

    · drug and alcohol abuse

    · mental illness

    · unsupported young mothers with little or no antenatal care

    · presence of a non-biological parent

    · family breakdown, severe conflict and ongoing domestic violence

    · poverty, instability and unemployment

    “The report also identifies that families are often brought to the attention of CYF and other agencies on repeat occasions and that this should sound ‘alarm bells’. It also calls for a multi-agency approach which Family First has consistently supported.”

    “While it acknowledges that home visitation programmes may reduce the likelihood of future maltreatment, their effectiveness depends on the relationship between the worker and the family. Unfortunately we have created an ‘adversarial’ approach which immediately puts families under suspicion and therefore on the defensive.”

    “It is also significant that some of the research quoted comes from countries which have smacking bans. Once again, it reiterates that smacking bans simply don’t affect child abuse rates,” says Mr McCoskrie.

    “At last we are getting down to the nitty-gritty of the causes of child abuse and our unacceptable child abuse death rate.

    Report: http://www.occ.org.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/6345/OCC_Deathand_seriousinjury2009_040609.pdf

    What we’ve been saying for 3 years: www.stoptheabuse.org.nz

    ENDS

    For More Information and Media Interviews, contact Family First:

    Bob McCoskrie – National Director

    Mob. 027 55 555 42

  • Kiwi Party leader outlines first five pledges.

    Addressing his party’s annual conference today, party leader Larry Baldock announced their first five priorities for action they would be working on after the election.

    “Our number one priority is of course to stop the criminalisation of good parents by repealing the anti-smacking law. This has to be the most anti-family socially destructive legislation parliament has passed in a long while. Completing the petition to force a referendum was always only going to be the first stage of the battle,” said Mr Baldock

    “It is simply not good enough for John Key to say he supports the peoples’ right to have their voice heard in a referendum without committing his Government to abide by the result.

    “In fact when National’s leader John Key announced their pledge of 10 policy items at their conference last weekend not a single one of them addresses any of the social engineering Labour has forced upon the nation in the past 6 -9 years.

    National surely is the party to maintain the status quo, easy she goes, don’t rock the boat.
    It is essential therefore that the Kiwi party is able to exercise influence over National after this years election if voters want to see the social engineering of Labour repealed.

    “Our message to the voters in this election is this, give the Kiwi party your support on Election Day and the Bradford anti-smacking law will be gone by lunchtime. Once the law has been repealed we must then get serious about the nations child abuse by appointing a Royal Commission  to understand and address the wider causes of family breakdown, family violence and child abuse in response to the more than 300, 000 kiwis that signed our petition on this matter.

    “Then we must restore our democracy by ensuring that we can have binding referenda on controversial issues. It must never happen again that more than 90% of our elected representatives could ignore 80% of the population ever again……….

    Contact Larry Baldock
    Party Leader
    021864833

    www.thekiwiparty.org.nz