I think Bradford originally planned to repeal the section, but the final bill amended it to:

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 disruptive 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).
(4) To avoid doubt, it is affirmed that the Police have the discretion not to prosecute complaints against a parent of a child or person in the place of a parent of a 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 proceeding with a prosecution.

[http://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1961/0043/latest/DLM328291.html]

(4) was insert in the final negotiations that brough National in to the vote.

?

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you state
“…It is up to the descretion of the police to not prosecute…I don’t have any problems with the wording. If you don’t understand it, you’re too thick to vote, or need english lessons.”

1) ‘descretion’ is spelt incorrectly, it should be ‘discretion’
2) ‘english’ begins with a capital letter, as in ‘English’.

By your own criteria, you need english (sic) lessons and therefore must be too thick to vote. So can I assume you won’t be voting then?

I don’t have any problems with the wording. If you don’t understand it, you’re too thick to vote, or need english lessons.

And it wouldn’t have cost as much if we never had crap law made, or if it was held at the same time as the general election.

If what you want to know is whether the majority of people who vote in a referendum want s59 repealed why not ask that directly?

Instead we are getting (yet another) very poorly worded referendum question — inevitably any result is meaningless.

The $9 million could be better spent teaching people how to write unambiguos questions.

Having said this it seems like this debate is important but also focuses on only two options – Sue Bradfords amendment, and the original law.
It is obvious that both of these forms of the law are opposed by a large proportion of the population.

So i would like to ask Mr Baldock if you believe this is the best way to tackle this issue. It seems that we all have the same aim – to ensure the safety and wellbeing of all children in New Zealand. I believe all children have a right to this. The argument lies in the best way to ensure this. I am worried that you seem to be more aggrieved by parents being prosecuted than by children being beaten. I believe that the safety of children is the paramount issue here.

The original law left a loophole through which courts may have found they could not punish child abusers. I find this unacceptable. The wording reasonable force is blatantly open to all kinds of interpretation. I even noted that your petition does not contain these words instead it contains “as part of good parental correction”.
So you are not openly in favour of the original law.
What we clearly need is a new version of the amendment that is very clear, very explicit and effective in ensuring that no child can be abused.

Your argument worries me because though you argue for your own rights, and you ignore the fact that the people who lose rights when you gain them are the children who are being abused in New Zealand. They lose the right to be free from any form of violence. If you really put families first shouldn’t you be campaigning for the safety and wellbeing of these children?
I know you belive this law change did not significantly help the situation, but maybe you should try and help the situation. You have put so much time, effort and money into arguing for your rights, Im dissapointed that you cant get on side in putting children ahead of yourself, and focus on a way to keep every single child in NZ safe.

The final thing that worries me is that not every parent uses smacking in the calm, controlled manner in which you describe it – some parents will smack their kids when they are annoyed, when they have had a bad day – and under your laws this is acceptable and I dont think I agree with that.

It wasn’t Bob McCoskrie or Larry Baldock who fronted the petition with the poorly worded question

All for a referendum, the result of which, according to the PM will not change the law as it stands, anyway.

I do wish that Bob, Larry et al would put their money where their mouths are.

It contains Baldrick and McCrustie’s poorly worded “question”.

Why should Parliament take any notice of this referendum when the question can be interpreted in multiple ways – and is phrased in extremely loaded language ?

These two clowns get to waste $10m of our hard earned money – funds which would be better spent on teaching parents positive ways of leading their children to do the right thing.

Shame on you both.

I was under the impression that the current law explicitly protects “inconsequential” assault. I’d argue that “good” parental correction must imply inconsequential physical hurt, thus there is no way to use the referendum to oppose the amended law.

While I never thought that smacking had any major effect on the character of those who grew up with it, (apart from a sometimes increased tolerance towards corrective violence) I’d heard good evidence that smacking is a statistical risk factor for child abuse. Are you claiming you’ve got research that suggests otherwise, Larry?

Personally, I think it wouldn’t do any major harm even if smacking were categorically illegal, as there are better ways to raise children out there and people who are willing to assist parents in incorporating them into their family lives if they so wish. Why would anyone bring violence, however trifling, into their homes when they don’t have to? It’s a viewpoint I just cannot sympathise with.

Anyway, I really hope this referendum leads to petitioners having to put up actual draft laws with their referendums instead of getting to pick their own language. That would be much fairer, and would involve better-informed political debate and more healthy direct democracy in New Zealand- especially if they could be binding.

I ask you again: What level of force on a child do you consider acceptable?

Secondly, Larry, I agree with you that the bile is unnecessary. Unfortunately, I see as much if not more of it from the promoters of the referendum, with yourself a notable exception.

The mendacity and nastiness of Family First particularly depresses me. I hope that Yes voters can set a better standard consistent with their non-violent vision.

“and grumpy old buggers like you who get off on hitting people who cannot hit back deserve contempt.”
“to smack the faces of the fools who initiated this referendum.”

I wonder who really needs the anger management classes?

Someone said earlier it is an emotive issue. I have tried to put forth some of my reasons as clearly as I could without saying anything nasty about those I strongly disagree with.

In response to MR Pilk who asked for more data, I agree it would be nice to have as many facts as possible. Theses are difficult to obtain but we are doing our best with OIA’s to the police so intelligent comparisons can be made!

As I said all the 20 plus case we have listed on the link above were interviewed and verified, and a senior police officer has verified the ones that were chaged amongst them.

I have continued to ask people like Sue Bradford to give evidence that her new law is making it possible for the police to prosecute those who really abuse their children and that the law has made children safer. After all she has the resources of parliament at her disposal, yet nothing has been published yet that has any veracity. Only constant claims that the law is working well with no facts to back it up.

If you want a link to the review of all the cases over the past 13 years let me know.
Otherwise I think this discussion has pretty much run its course and served its purpose as far as I am concerned.
Don’t forget to fill out your ballot paper! Democracy means the people of New Zealand having their say and I am confident they will. I will accept the result.

What “track record”? There has never been a non-binding postal CIR in New Zealand.

There has been only ever been one nationwide postal referendum (binding), turnout was 80.3%.

Also, as Bob notes, Parkinson is wrong when he says there is no vetting of questions until after the signtures have been obtained. The question must be approved in advance, and is subject to public input. The system is far from perfect, but worth noting because the characterisation is far from accurate.

i was hoping for some hard statistical evidence to verify your statement that ‘…a growing numbers of parents are being persuaded to plead guilty’

Ideally, the number of parents investigated, prosecuted, appearred in court, whether they were found guilty or not, over the timeframe since the law change was passed. I’d like to see similar data for the same period before the law change.

Providing the irrefutable facts of this comparison to New Zealanders who wish to appraise this emotive issue objectively, would be far more useful than merely linking to your website.

TL;DR

Vote YES to smack the faces of of the fools who initiated this referendum.

Im sorry but hitting children, and grumpy old buggers like you who get off on hitting people who cannot hit back deserve contempt.

So you think it is OK for a man to tip a child out of his chair? What if he hits his head and breaks his skull?

I ask you again larry, What force on a child would you regard as acceptable? Would you count hitting a child with implements to be acceptable?

You say you smacked your children ‘often’. Does that mean you smacked them for the slightest offence? I hate to be your child Larry. ill get smacked for breathing in the wrong direction

I’ll go even further and say that you are endangering democracy by abusing the system. While you happily distort the truth and use innocent children as fodder for your populist political agenda, you endanger the very institutions that democracy is built upon. After presenting such a stupidly worded referendum question and wasting $10m of public money that could have been spent better on just about anything else, who is going to pay attention to referenda in the future?

Read them a little slower and be a little slower to judge perhaps.
My wife and I fostered CYPS children for a few years so we have some idea about how it all works. I would be horrified at the prospect of my children or grandchildren ever being taken from their home and put into CYFC care. It can be a real battle to get them back.

In response to Basil Emes,
Each of cases were personally contacted and interviewed to make sure of the details and that they were prepared to have their situation reported. Many of course are not willing to have anything made public, even with names changed etc, for fear of further consequences.
For that reason we cannot say how many cases there are. I don’t think anyone really knows for sure.
What we should be able to see is an increase in the real abusers being prosecuted. Where is that list???

If you go back and check my comments you will see that I said I “a growing number of parents are being persuaded to plead guilty,” not “a large number” as you stated.
I have never expected in the short term for there to be large numbers of prosecutions of good parents, after all that would never be acceptable and would kill this new law very fast.
The plan by the law’s supporters is to change things over time. Remember the purpose of the law as I quoted from the Act is to abolish “the use of parental force for the purpose of correction.” (and I think I could quite rightly add the word ‘eventually!’)

Another words eventually no parent in this country would feel comfortable smacking their child without the possibility of consequences from law enforcement.
All those of you who feel so strongly that a child should never be smacked will no doubt cheer , and say hurray, and may that day come quickly!

But people like myself and my wife, (and many Kiwi Mums and Dads) who have raised great well adjusted law abiding, socially engaged children, ( in our case, two of which have themselves married and are now raising two children each) would say hang on a minute, what is this all about.

We smacked our children often, and if we were parenting today, we would be breaking the law. If we continued with our style of parenting we would be in danger of prosecution at some point surely, and the possible interference by CYFS. The ‘discretion’ exercised by a police officer, or after a second ‘offence’ possible a young single newly graduated social worker from CYFS, may lead to some serious outcomes for our family.

and Why? Because a small number of people in this country think any form of correction is abuse, and I happen to think that no correction at all is just as abusive.

As I said earlier the Otago Study, and many other international studies that distinguish between proper correction and violent abuse, show that my wife and I have not done any harm to our children. (The best research would be to ask them)

Research into the causes of child abuse show that the key factors are drug and alcohol abuse, relationship breakdown and violence in the adult relationships, and stress resulting from poverty or other economic factors, this new law is unlikely to do much to change our child abuse statistics.

Just as a wee aside, research shows that children are at least 50 times less likely to suffer physical abuse when they are living in homes where both their biological parents are also living in a married relationship.

The real issue here is that regardless of how many good parents at this stage are being charged with assault, most parents now feel they have less support from the law than they did before when it came to trying to correct their children’s unacceptable behavior.

Most people accept that the police and our corrections department must sometimes use reasonable force to correct the unacceptable behaviour of adults that will not live by our societies rules. When a police officer forcibly restrains someone, uses a taser, or ultimately a firearm, we have recognised that something needs to be down about the adults that need their behaviour corrected. Only when a police officer looses his temper and beats a suspect, or prison guard beats a prisoner, do we call it abuse.

Before this law, since parents were responsible for the behaviour and training of their children, they could also use reasonable force for correction, provided the child was not bruised and abused.
Now parents can only try persuasion to get a child to conform or behave. What if that does not work?
Can they call the police and ask them to deal with the situation?
Is that what kind of a society we want to create?
Maybe some want to see the Police abolished and all prisons closed as well!

You can be sure that if the child does not learn to control its own behaviour as they grow to adulthood, it will be the police they encounter, and the police will not be offering a few candies if they promise to be good, or suggesting the loss of the use of their ipod.

The good news is of course, that in a free society, if anyone decides to get married, and raise a family, they can use whatever parenting model they feel is the best way to raise their children, and the proof is usually in the final product, or pudding as we often say.

At least that was the way it was! Now my children would have to parent the way a small minority of so called experts say they should.
Our referendum will give all NZers the chance to say whether they agree with those experts or not.

Till then, the arguments will continue I am sure.

I’m going to spoil my ballot in the referendum by writing this in, and I advocate others to do the same.

What’s the problem? No one’s been “criminalised” for a light smack, though they have been investigated when a complaint was laid with police (just as they would have under the past law, or any theoretical future law). Your referendum question fails again.

http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/index.cfm/issues/anti_smacking_bill.html”

Well and so, let’s have a look at them:

Oct 2008: Daughter upset about being slapped on the leg, complains to CYF, father charged by police. Charging officer “expresses concern” with making the charge and explains that “the way the law was worded he had very little leeway.”
- The hell. S59(4) of the Crimes Act specifically states that the Police have the discretion not to prosecute if the offence is considered inconsequential. More likely the officer was basing the decision on operating rules set by the Police, or in fact thought that the slap on the leg wasn’t inconsequential at all.

Nov 2008: CYF are told by parents that they hit their children, and require the children to be removed until the Police can investigate.
- I’m not sure what the problem with this one is here. Don’t you want the Police to check whether the “offence is inconsequential” or not?

Jul 2008: A social worker is told by parents that they sometimes smack their child, and the social worker insists on a private interview with the child to find out his point of view. The family are referred to CYF.
- Am also not sure what the problem is with this.

Sep 2008: A woman asks her child’s friend if he’s being hit, and suggests that if he is beaten by his mother, he should go to her house. The family is referred to CYF.
- Seriously, most of the flyers I get from Barnados telling me what they’re doing with my money talk about organising safe places for kids to go if there are ructions at home, I really can’t see anything objectionable about this one. Oh, and CYF got a referral and checked it out. Again. Isn’t that their job?

Oct 2008: A mother hits her child at her workplace and is suspended from work. Her employer threatens to refer the case to the police and to CYF.
- My objection is that the employer didn’t go to the police and CYF straight away.

Nov 2008: CYF get a complaint that a child has been smacked and require her to be moved elsewhere for the night. After investigation it turns out to be a false complaint.
- People, most of them grown-ups, make false complaints about other crimes – assault and rape among them. That doesn’t make them not worth checking out.

Mr Baldock, this list of examples is seriously not endearing me to your cause.

Regards,

Stephanie