by frog
Well, Sue did it! The Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill has just passed it’s second reading. The vote went thus: In favour – Labour 49, National 6 (Katherine Rich, Simon Power, Paula Bennett, Paul Hutchison, Jackie Blue and Chester Borrows), New Zealand First 3 (Brian Donnelly, Doug Woolerton, Peter Brown), Green 6, Maori 4, and United Future 1 (Peter Dunne). Against – National 42 (all the rest of ‘em), New Zealand First 4 (Ron Mark, Barbara Stewart, Winston Peters, Pita Paraone), United Future 2, Act 2, and Taito Phillip Field.
We still have a long way to go. This is by no means in the bag, and yet it was a huge hurdle. It was hard for some amphibians not to get teary, especially when Sue was greeted with spontaneous applause from the assembled NGOs, politicos and ordinary Jo(e)s. Many of these people have campaigned tirelessly on this issue for literally decades, and some of the abuse they’ve copped makes it look like we’ve got off lightly. Sue is often criticised for forcing her ‘femi nazi doctrine’ through, with ‘no support and against the wishes of the majority of good kiwi parents yada yada yada’ , as if she sat around one day, trying to think of a private members bill that would garner her comparisons to the Dark Lord, endless abuse, filthy emails and death threats. In fact, people who have worked at the coalface and continue to do so – researchers, social workers, lobbyists, academics, parents, doctors, even, gasp, children – have pushed long and hard for these changes.
It’s for those same people that Sue is adamant about pulling her Bill if Borrow’s amendment is passed. Not petulance or pride, but because this would negate both Sue’s Bill and all the work of these people.
Frog’s off to celebrate. The committee stages are scheduled for the 14th of March. See you there…
Published in Society & Culture by frog on Thu, February 22nd, 2007
Tags: environment
Hope it fails, and given most New Zealanders do not want this, it will be interesting to see which politicians back it. There is no mandate. Pure state interventionist left-wing arrogance. Burrows occupies the sensible middle ground, and it is telling that Bradford will pull the bill if it doesn’t criminalise everyone for using a gentle slap.
It comes down to this: most parents know better than the state how to look after their kids.
Go after the minority who are doing the real damage. Why isn’t your time and energy spent on those people? This bill won’t make the slightest difference to them as they ignore the existing laws now.
Too racially charged?
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You want to make a positive difference? Educate people on the difference between discipline and abuse (something that seems to be misunderstood by most who wish to repeal s59).
And go after substance abuse.
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congratulations sue…
getting this through will be a major….
(a morning on which i am ‘proud to be a green’..eh..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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albeit an excommunicated one….(..heh-heh..!..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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I think you are dead right PEL,
Police wont attend basic call outs now, can you imagine the Police response when Mrs NoseyNeighbour calls them to report smacking going on next door?
And if they do attend and the process comes to a prosecution it will be Mrs NoseyNeigbours word against the alledged smacking offender.
Just cant see this law being enforced somehow. especially as Mrs NoseyNeighbour will need to go to court and testify. Will be a case of “yes you did, no I didn’t”.
Who in the land is going to report a case of smacking. Assault yes, smacking, nah dont think so.
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>>Who in the land is going to report a case of smacking
I think it will be used mostly in custody cases, unfortunately.
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ah..zen..are ready to answer that question now..?
y’know..that one you and b.b. keep ducking away from/not answering..?
and as for your snide red-herring/reference to ‘substance abuse’..
i’d like to put my hand up as a pot-smoker with an adult child..and one aged 12..
who has never even thought of smacking/hitting his children..
you’re really getting quite tiresome zen..
as you well know..if anyone tried the trolling you and bb are doing here..at your place..
they would have been ‘banned’…how long ago..?
your trolling bullsh*t is wearing thin..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
and hey zen..!..answer the feckin’ question..eh..?
(the reason you don’t ..is because you have no answer/riposte..
and we can all see that..
eh..?
‘the zen has no clothes’..eh..?
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substance abuse Phil, not substance use. You may also care to consider the difference between discipline and abuse in the same light.
As I said on the other thread, where you asked your questions – happy to, but they deserve (and require) more time than an off the cuff response between my work obligations. Be patient.
And my comments are hardly trolling…it’s called “having a different opinion”, whereas your comment above is typically impolite.
I hope you do not speak that way to your children. Your skill at sarcastic put downs can really hurt those tender young ones as much as a slap across the face (both which I do not approve of). Was my crime to talk back to you?
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Well done Sue! and well supported the “Yea” sayers!
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Zen Tiger please save your obviously long standing(?) personal disputes and put downs (no matter how “polite”) for somewhere else.
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Resistance to Sue Bradford’s bill to repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act indicates that some people need more information and other solutions to their problems of controlling wayward children.
If you don’t like what your kids are doing, check what behaviours you think you have been modelling. If you want listening, loving, cooperation and honesty, then model it! View ‘The Nanny’ currently on TV2 at 2:30pm.
When Corporal Punishment was prohibited in all NZ schools under Section 139A of the 1989 Education Act, teachers were horrified that they could no longer vent their wrath or get revenge and so have release from their anger at a disruptive pupil.
Unfortunately some fundamental religious schools have found a way round the Education Act ban on corporal punishment by insisting that parents administer physical violence. No doubt some parents will continue to beat their children whether or not Sue Bradford’s bill gets through its third reading.
So far, so good! But it will be a crime if Section 59 of the Act is not fully repealed in the third reading, because children will continue to be treated as objects, not people, and therefore not victims.
Jurors will continue to claim that parents have used reasonable force to control their children, short of breaking a limb or two.
Following are definitions from Dictionary.com for ‘smack’:
verb
1. to strike sharply, esp. with the open hand or a flat object.
noun
2. a sharp, resounding blow, esp. with something flat.
Synonyms for ‘smack’ from Roget’s New Millennium™ Thesaurus:
bash, bat, belt, blow, box, bump, collide, crack, cuff, knock, punch, slam, smack, smash, sock, stroke, wallop, whack, whop
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zen..i was yacking with someone this morning..
and your name came up..
(i used it as an example of the hysterically funny nomes de guerre that righties choose..
(remember that (now departed) member pf your coven called ‘rightwingdeathraybeast..?..whoar..!)
and they asked me to ask you..(this is a direct quote..)
“..what sort of pretentious? onanist would choose the false persona.
.’zen tiger’..?..”
(his words..not mine..!..i hasten to add..)
(you could answer here..eh..?..and i’ll pass it on to him..)
and re me and ‘the boy’…?
no..he dosen’t get sarcastic ‘put-downs’ from me..
increasingly i am finding we are laughing at the world..together..(which i like..)
i save them for the onanists of the world..eh..?
and as for your ‘substance use/abuse’ qualification..?
(sheesh..!..one persons’ ‘too-much’..is anothers’ ‘not-enough’..eh..?..)
i’m in the ‘not enough’ category..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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BTW
CYFSWATCH NZ is dead. Gone.
Maybe anything calling themselves **WATCH NZ shouldn’t blog at all…
RedWatch NZ was removed, now CYFSWATCH NZ. I see a pattern rofl
http://www.t94xr.net.nz/?p=142
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Oh and heres my post, abuot the threat to Sue Bradford and stuff.
http://www.t94xr.net.nz/?p=139
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A victory for lies and half truths, and a victory for Labour.
Still, you will pay for it at the next election.
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Congratulations to Sue Bradford and the team.
Before the naysayers begin to criticise me let me say that I am 61 years of age, so I have seen a few generations in my life time. Now I see my youngest grandchildren (ages 4 to 6) being brought up without smacking. I am very proud to say that they are polite, courteous children, intelligent, eager to learn and that their soul/spirits are being nurtured. Joy.
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Unfortunately, I have to go with the amended version. I know Sue means well, but she’s a legislator. NO law and the discretion of the police (and the neighbours) is not good law. A good law defines what behaviour is wrong. Her job is to make good law, not defer the responsibility to the cops or the neighbours.
This albatross will be hung on us at the next election and it will cost us.
Of course we’ve had this discussion before.
I just want to point out that we may be celebrating a pyrhhic victory. I got my nomex suit right here.
BJ
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PEL,
You are right I can see the custody battles aready. Mum accusing Dad of “smacking’ Johnnie. Dad replies “No I didnt”. Who will the court believe?
BJ
As per always, elegantly descibes and sums up the situation perfectly. You have a way with words my good Sir.
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Gerrit said: You are right I can see the custody battles aready. Mum accusing Dad of “smacking’ Johnnie. Dad replies “No I didnt?. Who will the court believe?
I don’t think it will have any bearing on custody battles. The scenario Gerrit mentioned can, and does, happen already.
Sue Bradford’s Bill amends the criminal law. It does so to remove a defence that is currently available to a charge of assault on a child in the Criminal Court. There has to have been an actual assault before the current defence under section 59 comes into play.
The Family Court, in resolving custody disputes, should be interested in how each parent has treated the child and what custody/access arrangements are consequentially in the best interests of the child, rather than whether anyone is criminally liable for what happenned to the child.
The Family Court is charged with taking an interest in whether assaults have actually occurred and whether they are detrimental to the welfare of the child. If assaults have occurred, it is irrelevent to the Family Court whether there is a defence to them in the Criminal Court.
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bj..how about you try and answer that question bb and zen tiger are avoiding…?
and..there was the same ‘panic’ here when caning in schools was stopped..
and as for electoral backlash..?
nah..!..it’ll be old history by then..’done ‘n dusted’..
and an environmental cassandra such as yourself..should be aware that far more pressing issues are heading our way..
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Section 59 should have gone down with the Titanic – better late than never.
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I also hope Sue Bradfords bill fails. This will only be negative to averge joe family, will lessen the ability of loving familys to discipline their children and add to the ever increasing problems of deminishing acceptable behaviour. If your can’t tell the differenc between a smack and a beating you shouldn’t be a parent.
For those that bash kids this will make no difference. I am a parent of two teenagers both are on the right track (for now anyway!). I am liberal in trems of their freedoms,we have a great relationship ane can communicate well even on issue we don’t agree with. I have smacked them when they were little. I strongly resent a politician telling me how to bring up my children.
Sue should spend more time sorting out the rubbish parents whose children will not be thanking her for this wasted effort.
I fail to understand how a party or individuals can support something that is not wanted by the majority. If she was genuine it would go to a referendum.
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Fantastic news that the bill has passed second reading, and I hope it repeals section 59 and without any qualifications. Sue is a courageous campaigner and a leader in the true sense of the word. Like outlawing slavery and universal suffrage it is an idea who’s time has well and truly come, but one that needs a good campaigner to move the political establishment. I’ve been commenting on it at Aardvark – http://www.aardvarkforums.co.nz/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1119
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Toad
The key word is “should” This isn’t a perfect world.
Sensible, separated Dad, who may administer a gentle slap, once in a lifetime, to protect his child from harm. Mum, looking for any excuse to distance Dad from child.
How quickly can the lawyer say assault charge?
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Unfortunately getreal, some parents certainly do not know the difference between a smack and a beating and that is the problem. Therefore, they should never be a parent. And, yes you could argue until the cows come home, whether repealing S59 will change that, but speculating and assuming does nothing either. Action is better than doing nothing to stop the appalling child abuse in this country. Smacking and hitting are two different ‘animals’ and the latter is allowable under present legislation. Hitting is destructive and so is totally unacceptable. Now I suppose this debate will rage over what is hitting and what is smacking.
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you don’t need a mandate to protect someone. if 90% of voters wanted to give peterexitsleft a wedgie every wednesday, the government would be entirely justified in ignoring the electorate’s wishes & providing him with protection.
the difference between discipline & abuse? if it teaches, it’s discipline. if it hurts and humiliates, it’s abuse.
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Maybe most parents do oppose the bill. But has anyone polled the children? I imagine the level of support would be much greater, in the same way that 100% of sows expressed an opposition to sow crates.
Congratulations Sue!
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>>the difference between discipline & abuse? if it teaches, it’s discipline. if it hurts and humiliates, it’s abuse.
Which will also be the new defense: “I was teaching him/her. Honest guv”.
Who, in their right mind, is going to admit to “hurt and humiliate”?
Why not just define the level?
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I haven’t seen the polls but I understand about 80-85% oppose the bill. If that is so it is a blow for democracy, another case of the tail wagging the dog.
The level of parliamentary debate is pathetic (we elected them as politicians; we never deemed them geniuses) and coverage on TV is too quick and clipped. Morning Report and Nine to Noon are good and if you happen to catch them there are opinion pieces in the newspaper. I think though as an adjunct to the political system we need a site that critically analyses issues, bringing all the arguments together.
It would be good to think that this is somehow based on sound science rather than ideology, however, when I hear people say that the level of support provided by working people to unmarried mothers has nothing to do with their decision to have a child (or several), I doubt it.
For a party that presents itself as an environmental party there are far too many people from the far left. Two politicians from the “Unemployed Workers Party” and two rank communists. Where are the economists and ecology professors?.
jh
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Politicians are reef fish.
jh
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More comments from the Herald on line:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/466/story.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10425219
An Angry Teacher:
Tawhilangi
What a farce! How much money do we pay our politicians? Have the not got better things to do than to continually degrade our ethics? Statistics do not lie! Sweden newly introduced no smacking policies, child abuse cases quadrupled. Netherlands legal to discipline kids, child abuse cases low. Japan corporal pinishment..child abuse non existent. England no smacking! Youth crime increased exponentially. We have got to wake up! What is this Sue Bradford pushing? Has she done any homework? Our country keeps adopting stupid policies that have already failed in many countries. Why? Problems began in our country when we started to model our rules and regulations to other so called modernised and westernised countries. I am a secondary school teacher who will never teach in this country again, I have taught in many countries around the world and I am totally saddened and disheartened with the discipline(or lack of it) that I have seen in our current schooling system. It is o ut of control,there is no more respect in our classrooms anymore. Why do we have teacher shortages, no teachers want to teach todays students it only takes 1 hooligan to ruin and destabilise a class. What can we do? Ring the parents whom are already disenchanted with there childs carelessness. We just keep going backwards..and we always will with ill conceived policies like this. I have voted for labour the last 20 years , its time for a change! Mr Key please do something about this. I love my children too much to let this bill pass. I want them to know whats right and wrong not just in my eyes but any person that interacts with them ie teachers, nurses, caregivers. The list goes on.
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Well said JH
Sadly this bill is not about smacking kids, the Greens have already proven they are not overly concerned about the plight of our kids.
They have voted against classifying “P” as a class A drug, voted against increasing the sentence for Child porn and voted against raising the drinking age.
The examples you cite are true, I have seen the youth gangs and yob culture that infest Britain, we will have the same problems here.
Make no mistake JH, this is all about the hard left gaining more control of our lives, the sad thing about all this is that the Greens are going to carry the can for what I believe to be the work of Comrade Klarke.
Klarke knows full well that as she has no kids she would be hammered if she introduced this bill to the house, she found a patsy in Bradford (who is not one to let the truth get in the way of a good story) and is happy to sit back and see this bill passed, she will not allow her party members to have a conscience vote on this issue..why do you think that is?
I sure as hell do not agree with a lot of Green party policy but until now I have trusted them, at least you knew where they were coming from, sadly they are now no better than the corrupt Labour govt.
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so did the Greens change in the last day, (so that you no longer know where they are coming from) or did your opinion of them change after you discovered that they voted a certain way on certain bills, or do you just sway in the wind and type a stream of consiousness steaming heap?
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Stuey
When I need to see a “steaming heap” I look for one of your posts.
Now if you want to debate this issue then I am keen to do so, if however you cannot answer the question then please stick to the rules that Eredwen is so keen on reminding us about and lay off the personal attacks.
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Congratulations to Sue Bradford for her guts and determination and putting up with all the crap.
aladin
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Lots of people are missing the point…
Yes, changing the law won’t suddenly stop bad parents beating their kids from fear of the cops.
But changing the law will change (not instantly, but over time) people’s attitudes about what is an acceptable level of violence by parents against children.
Social pressure does the rest. If people consider that it’s up to parents to decide the appropriate level of discipline/violence, then the 10% of bad parents get away with it… If Joe beats his kids, and Joe’s neighbour or Joe’s cousin feel bad about it but say nothing because it’s Joe’s business, then a change in the law may encourage them to have a word with him…
This page, that I linked in yesterday’s thread, outlines how this worked in Sweden.
http://www.nospank.net/durrant2.htm
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since many kids are already brought up without smacking & are doing fine, i am puzzled by the underlying attitude that the littlies are a criminal threat to all that we hold dear and must be slapped down until they are compliant & reppress their vile natures.
i look forward to the epilogue a few years down the road when we can all enjoy the creativity and industry of a new generation of compassionate, confidant young adults.
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Me and my kids send congrat’s to Sue and her kids – especially the daughter in pg A2 of Thursday’s Dompost!
Adults don’t like being beaten. I campaign for the right to live my life without rape or violence, everyone’s pretty used to my “Thursdays in Black” t-shirts, sweatshirts, singlets and hoodies, which I wear without fail, every week.
I ask for no less for my children – that society respects the Rights of the Child to be safe from violence, and free to live and learn in an environment without fear, which includes schools without corporal punishment. If it’s good enough for teachers to be restrained from corporal punishment, then it’s good enough for parents – after all, who gets 3 years at training college to become a parent? I wish! 9months pregnany didn’t give me half enough time to learn what I needed to know to be an adequate parent, and 17 years later, I’m still learning from my children, some of whom will be adults very soon.
NVDA* in this country is strongly endorsed by legions of young people. I suggest that some more of the older people would do well to understand that position.
[*NVDA = Non Violent Direct Action]
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Phil
Skimming your posts you refer to a question but I don’t see it. Just some comments about substance abuse. If you do want me to try to answer you’ll have to refresh the question or link it so I can find it.
As to the next election… I hope you’re right and it doesn’t become an issue, but if last election is any measure, any mud available from the past half century will be airborne… and this’d be some of it.
Finally, the question of more pressing things? Of course there are, so why in the heck are we going at this in the worst possible way? Done right and everyone would have lined up to salute. This way we have to spend a hell of a lot of our precious political capital to get worse law than we should have.
Be sure to point me at the question now.
respectfully
BJ
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alistair Says:
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Lots of people are missing the point…
Yes, changing the law won’t suddenly stop bad parents beating their kids from fear of the cops.
But changing the law will change (not instantly, but over time) people’s attitudes about what is an acceptable level of violence by parents against children.
——————————————————–
People all ready know what is acceptable and what isn’t, except perhaps some violent, slack subcultures of society. In their case we have people like Sue Bradford claiming they are products of the (capitalist) system. [the Kahuis Frogblog].
This bill is aimed to make it illegal to physically disipline from level 0 to 10. It will be another breath of fear over the comunnity like “we musn’t change our toddlers at the public pool it is i-n-a-p-p-r-o-p-r-i-a-t-e”
When I was a little kid I had been being naughty with one of my sisters. Later I had an argument with my sister, to get back at her I said (in front of our mother)”anyway!, we showed!”. I got a quick smack, no words spoken, not even looked in the face. I don’t remember her smacking any other time.
jh
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Andrew said
“i look forward to the epilogue a few years down the road when we can all enjoy the creativity and industry of a new generation of compassionate, confidant young adults.”
Therefore the bill’s purpose in your eyes is social engineering. Why havent the Greens marketed the need for this bill by promoting the long term, socially beneficial benefits.
Listening to Sue Bradford on the various radio interviews this message did not come across at all. Her delivery was whinny and rubbed most people up the wrong way.
Does anyone in the Greens have a marketing degree or experience to “sell” messages better?
I’m with BJ on this, it is alienating a lot of people because the message and potential beneficial outcomes have not been marketed correctly.
I put it in the same league as the legalise marijuana. Sold poorly and while maybe 5% of the people thought it was a good idea the other 95% said rubbish. Cost the Greens votes. Just like this poorly sold piece of legislation will cost green votes.
But then again are principals more important then votes?
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essentially bj..
why is it that countries that haven’t hit their children since the mid-fifties..?
and that have higher taxes and (much) better social services/support..
and hence..have no ‘underclass’..
came top of that unicef survey on how well societies/cultures/countries cared for/protected their children..?
that survey that we came bottom of..
please explain..
essentially bj..it is a question addressed to those who think they have some right to slap/smack/hit other human beings…
in this case children..
and to those righties who advocate scrapping social support systems..
on the grounds..’..they don’t work..’..’..bludgers..!..’..etc..
and as for your stance on that issue..?
i assume from your words here that you oppose the revoking of this exception to the ‘common assault’ laws..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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jh : OK, so your model of society is one where there’s a majority of people who don’t need telling what to do, and a minority who are slack and violent who there’s no hope for?
That sounds sick to me. It’s also profoundly mistaken. The reality is that there is a continuum from zero violence, to people beating their kids severely. The aim of the bill (and it is indeed social engineering) is to lower the threshold of acceptable violence.
BJ : there is, I guess, a possibility of the measure being counter-productive, if people, in large numbers, are in revolt against it. But fundamentally I don’t care if it’s a vote-winner or a vote-loser for the Greens. The issue should be treated on its own merits.
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>>new generation of compassionate, confidant young adults.
Ever been to Sweden?
Smacking can be a quick and effective form of discipline. Studies show it does not harm the child, and anyone who fails to tell the difference between a gentle corrective slap and violence has no place being a parent.
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Why do we have pain?
It has to give an evolutionary advantage, or it would not be so ubiquitous in all the life-forms we observe.
What advantage would that be?
The fact is that we’ve abandoned an extremely easy win and better law, for a struggle against 80% of the population of the country and no legal definitions at all. We’re told to trust the discretion of the courts and the cops. Law is about definitions, and this contains none, nor any guidance at all to parents or anyone observing them.
AND
If you create a situation where children’s respect for others and authority is entirely dependent on having perfect parents the children of the imperfect ones will dominate the newpaper headlines. There are a lot of parents who have to work and have little time and energy left to invest in nurturing that respect and to deny them the quick and effective alternative of a spanking when it is needed, condemns them to a peculiar hell and society to juvenile delinquents running it. Until they become adult delinquents and we can put them in jail or if they are particularly successful, in Parliament.
I hope the amendment goes through and I would hope that Sue does NOT pull the bill in that event. A law with clear definition of the difference between a spanking and a smacking or a beating would be a big gain on the current situation.
I hope too that at the next election the public forgets having this foolishness force-fed to them.
Hope is a bad word to have to be using with respect to the results of a legislative action.
respectfully
BJ
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by definition it does harm the child, though i appreciate you are referring to that one study which found no long term anti-socialization of the victims.
your view that the many parents who successfully raise their kids without corporal punishment have no place being a parent is insulting and betrays a warped sense of priorities, given all the parents out there who are doing a really bad job of it.
the purpose of the reform as far as i can see is the protection of the children.
social engineering is merely a positive side effect, but it will be all the better to be able to look back to this debate years hence & say “see- we really weren’t overcome by a wave of barbarism”
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Andrew
“social engineering is merely a positive side effect”
Well at least you are honest, tell me, what other things do you believe the state should get involved in or change?
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Phil
The reason is that they DO have higher taxes and fairer societies with more support for parents – As I recall Sweden had a full year of maternity leave mandated, don’t know if they still do. Women can take time off to care for their kids.
All countries I know of have laws against Beating them and most would have laughed the excuses given here out of court… with or without S59.
Second, of ALL those listed countries only Sweden went so far as to outlaw
parents administering a spank. So you need to be careful how you generalize and finally….
The result in Sweden in subsequent years was a diminished amount of parental “abuse” which can barely be measured and a 500% increase in child on child assault if I am reading this correctly.
This is “good intentions”… but not a good result. Sweden also leads in countries having to remove children from homes. Society there is coping with it, but it isn’t anything like worth the price we’re likely to pay.
respectfully
BJ
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andrew
It is not my view “that the many parents who successfully raise their kids without corporal punishment have no place being a parent”. Please do not misrepresent me.
>>the purpose of the reform as far as i can see is the protection of the children
No, it isn’t. What it will do is criminalise parents who smack. The Burrows amendment will close the loophole which currently gives the real abusers a defence.
Why do the Greens want criminalise parents who DO know the difference? Effectively, they’re saying to ALL the parents of New Zealand that parents don’t know what is best for their child. The state knows best.
The arrogance is unbelieveable. No mandate and no clue.
I agree with BJ. We have a pain response for a reason, and no amount of social conditioning will change that biological fact.
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A few observations:
A few men here want to preserve their “right” to “discipline” “their” child/ren.
How many of you have seriously looked at the alternatives and
…have attended parenting classes, (and which ones)?
…really understand the “literature” (ie: studies done and written up in learned journals) about this subject?
… would be happy to see others (caregivers, teachers, babysitters) “disciplining” your child/ren in the same manner that you do?
Does your child’s mother agree totally with your methods? Are you sure?
Above all, are you willing to take responsibility for the damage that others will continue to inflict on other children if the current law is not amended?
Or is a lot of this just “I was hit, and look, it didn’t do me any harm!”
bj, I suggest that you are not applying the academic rigour here that you would expect in your own areas of expertise (Translation: “Don’t make a prat of yourself”!)
eredwen
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Adult humans and all animals also have a pain response for a reason. So by the same logic it is okay to hit them for reasons of discipline. Have you noticed that tose who go on the most about the value of discipline generally mean giving, rather than receiving it.
As I mentioned before, I wonder what proportion of the real stakeholders (the children being smacked) support the bill. Asking very small children or animals directly for their preference is impossible, but behavioural scientists use a variety of behavioural indicators to determine preferences. And the results are hardly surprising; 100% of those polled dislike pain or discomfort.
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>>100% of those polled dislike pain or discomfort.
It’s called being human.
>>So by the same logic it is okay to hit them for reasons of discipline.
Most people can tell the difference between a gentle correct slap, and hitting. The government doesn’t think that is the case, but then planet earth is merely an abstract political concept to many of them.
>>Does your child’s mother agree totally with your methods? Are you sure?
I don’t smack. But my wife sometimes does when all else fails.
I was canned at school. Occasionally smacked by my (very good) parents.
On all occasions, I was the first to admit I deserved it. And it was no big deal. I find verbal abuse far more difficult to accept – it can cut deeper, hang around longer, and builds resentment.
How about banning that? Perhaps that’s next on the agenda…
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Oh, and another thing:
What has smacking got to to with the environment?
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PeterExitsLeft said:Oh, and another thing: What has smacking got to to with the environment?
Peter – Green principles are not just about the environment. They are about promoting:
Ecological sustainability
Social justice
Appropriate decision-making
Non-violence
The Bill to repeal section 59 is founded primarily on the fourth of these – nonviolence.
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Hence the reason I can’t vote Green.
Love the environment, dislike socialism.
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pel:
From your family’s case (as you have written it) what is it you are concerned about here?
It seems to me like someone, who drives his car at 50.001 Km/h, being afraid of a clear speed limit “in case that law puts me in jail for speeding”. (He does this without any thought for the innocents on the road who will die in EXCESSIVE speed crashes because of the lack of a law that will work.) THAT is what makes me very concerned!
We currently have a law that does not work.
The EXCESSIVE “Chastisers” hide behind a Section of the Act that was intended for the “50.001 Km/h-ers” (that many of us are.)
Because of the way in which our legal system works, we MUST amend this law to be able to stop the carnage (that is too frequently happening in our society.) It is being used in the Courts in a way for which it was not intended. The Legal Profession knows this and it is the Politicians job to rectify the situation.
Meanwhile you and I can safely chug along at our “50.001 kph as we do now … and who knows, your kids’ generation may decide that they don’t want (or need) to hit their kids at all!
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Eredwen
“A few observations:
A few men here want to preserve their “right? to “discipline? “their? children.”
Interesting slant on things Eredewn, whats next?..all men are rapists so we will make it illegal for men to be on the streets after 6pm?
Is this issue really about men? and the man haters of the left?
And by the way, they are our children Eredwen, I know you see them as members of the state but right now they are still our children.
“How many of you have seriously looked at the alternatives and
…have attended parenting classes, (and which ones)?
…really understand the “literature? (ie: studies done and written up in learned journals) about this subject?
… would be happy to see others (caregivers, teachers, babysitters) “disciplining? your child/ren in the same manner that you do”
Are you serious?..since when the state have all the answers when it comes to raising children?
The state has no place in the upbringing of our kids, for you to even suggest that parents should be attending parenting classes smacks of communism, if this is Green policy then that is something that the party must make public.
“Does your child’s mother agree totally with your methods? Are you sure”
Yes and yes, it is the height of arrogance for you to assume that all mothers are against this, all (and yes I do mean all) mothers that I speak to about this subject are dead against Bradford’s bill.
I note that you have again suggested this is a male thing, do you have a problem with men in general?
“Above all, are you willing to take responsibility for the damage that others will continue to inflict on other children if the current law is not amended”
Please stop telling lies Eredwen, smacking kids DOES NOT cause damage.
Stick to the facts please.
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“toad Says:
February 23rd, 2007 at 12:28 pm
PeterExitsLeft said:Oh, and another thing: What has smacking got to to with the environment?
Peter – Green principles are not just about the environment. They are about promoting:
Ecological sustainability
Social justice
Appropriate decision-making
Non-violence
The Bill to repeal section 59 is founded primarily on the fourth of these – nonviolence.”
Ecological sustainability….check, no problem with that.
Social justice…Real problems here, your idea of social justice is communism.
Appropriate decision making….More individual rights given up so the state can choose what is “appropriate” and what is not?, sounds like communism to me.
Non Violence..check, no problem with that in theory, but will you really attack the sector of our community who cause most of the violence or will you stay away from that as it is not PC?
The bill to repeal section 59 is not about the well being of kids Toad and well you know it, the Greens voting history shows quite clearly that they are not overly concerned with the welfare of our kids, this is all about the state gaining more and more control of our lives.
When I first came to this site I accused some here of having a hidden Green agenda, i must admit that I only half believed it at the time but the events of the last few days has finally convinced me that it is real and it is evil.
Do you not think it is about time you let the voting public know what your real intentions are?
Toad, this post contains absolutely no personal abuse at all, if you believe in free speech you will not censor it, if you do then I suspect it is because you have something to hide.
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BB – Toads can’t censor posts here – only Frogs can, and I’m a pretty thick-skinned Toad anyway – not that there was any personal abuse, as you say.
As for you stating: the Greens voting history shows quite clearly that they are not overly concerned with the welfare of our kids take a look at the Greens’ Children’s Policy.
Actually, the Greens are the only Party that cares enough about kids to have developed a Childrens’ Policy, and they rated top in the Every Child Counts survey of political parties before the last election.
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Toad
Is that not a discriminatory policy then?..sign me up for the equal rights for Toads march.
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>>what is it you are concerned about here?
Increased state intervention that will only serve to criminalise good parents.
The failure to go after the group who are most responsible, presumably because it isn’t PC to do so.
Socialism and communism in general. I think it fails all people equally.
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Eredwen
With two kids (one who doesn’t seem to need spanking and the other who’s outgrown it) , and a degree in Psychology and a Mom who taught for 20 years I reckon I know about as much about it as any of us. First off, there’s the kids individual differences.
My wife does more spanking than I do. Sometimes I play peacemaker instead.
I’d be happy to have someone else emulate me. I think my kids would as well, but it remains true that I HAVE spanked when needful.
See… I AGREE that we have a law that does not work. You described it very well. The folks who are creating the problem are hiding behind the vague wording and inconsistent interpretations.
It is the response to this that aggravates me. Substitute the cops judgement about when to prosecute for “vague”? THIS is the best law we can have?
Every single cop has a different idea of what’s appropriate and has a different idea of who’s right here. It is the parliamentarian’s job to make the law, not the cop’s. What happens when, as I have encountered in other climes, the cop is a born-again evangelical ideologue? What happens to your “law” when the enforcement is up to a member of the EB?
(Not that I imagine they ever apply to become cops, just making an example of how ELSE this is wrong).
Kiore1 – Of course they dislike it. Pain is intended to dissuade the organism from doing things that are bad for it. It is the FASTEST teacher. Not the “best” and not the “nicest” and not the “easiest”… but it is efficient.
The pain we are going to feel at the polls on account of this will likely bring tears. Maybe we’ll learn from it. I have some hope we’d learn sooner.
respectfully
BJ
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Wow bb!
That certainly hit a nerve (and “kee jerk” reflex!)
Unfortunately, from your response, it seems that very little of what I wrote got far enogh to be processed by your brain cells.
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Today’s’ parents who advocate smacking may have been brought up in yesterdays’ dysfunctional families where a parent was too stressed, too tired, too inconvenienced, too annoyed or upset to acknowledge that their own behaviour may have been inappropriate and delivered you a sharp hit or worse.
Get real; a light or gentle smack will achieve nothing because it won’t be felt! Stressed out parents are more likely to smack their child to relieve their own feelings, not out of any concern for the child’s safety or wellbeing.
Often children hit other children because they haven’t learnt to control feelings of inadequacy, jealousy or resentment. Adults are supposed to be more in control of themselves, but are they? Not if they model smacking (hitting). ‘Preachers say, Do as I say, not as I do’.
I wonder how many children including teens feel resentment, anger or hatred because they have been made to do something against their will, by those who would wield power over them with underlying threats of violence.
Of course, if there is immediate danger it is appropriate to pull or push a child out of the way, but why hit?
Some parents who don’t smack have no methods of coping with problem behaviour in their children, so feel impotent and helpless while their offsprings become little monsters manipulating, bullying and bashing one and all. They need to attend parenting classes!
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bj:
I understand your position.
However, do bear in mind that both you and your wife come from what is, in many ways, a different culture with different cultural norms.
I prefer that we take the lead from elsewhere … Scandinavia for example.
You also come from a different legal system. As I have said, the law as it was intended is not working, and this amendment will help until such time that the whole thing is redrafted.
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eredwen Says:
February 23rd, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Wow bb!
That certainly hit a nerve (and “kee jerk? reflex!)
Unfortunately, from your response, it seems that very little of what I wrote got far enogh to be processed by your brain cells.
Eredwen, I am very disappointed by that response, you used to be able to argue your point quite well, I shall have to assume that you do not deny anything I have said.
I was really hoping that your reply would prove me wrong but sadly it seems that I was right all along.
All along I was of the opinion that you did not like me because I am slightly right of center, however it seems that the real reason is because I am a man.
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BB
Communism is NOT what constitutes “Social Justice” here – You need to compare communism with socialism with social-democrats and progressives… the folks I’ve met and with who I interact among Greens are very little like communists. Don’t exaggerate.
Appropriate decision making actually brings it closer (imao) to the individual than it is now in most cases. I don’t think you got the right of that one right either.
YMMV of course.
respectfully
BJ
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Focus
Most of todays parents (87%) who are advocating smacking were raised in the days of MUCH lower crime rates, MUCH lower child abuse figures and MUCH higher respect for authority and their elders, these figures were lower because kids all knew that if they stepped out of line there would be consequences.
The stupid hands off approach that became fashionable in the 70′s and 80′s has produced at least two generations of dysfunctional and violent kids who know there is not going to be any consequence to their actions other than being sent for “time out”.
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BJ
I would suggest that exaggeration is the life blood of this blog, as David Lange once said “if they stop telling lies about me I will stop telling the truth about them”
Communism is all about the state controlling or interfering with our lives, this bill (and others that the Greens have talked about introducing) are intended to do just that.
NBIWYMMVM
Bruv.
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So, BB, what does NBIWYMMVM mean? I suspect you spelt it wrong because no one has ever used it before on the web:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=NBIWYMMVM
And I must take issue that you feel that the Greens charter commitment to appropriate decision-making is somehow centralist or authoritarian in nature. The reality is quite the opposite. We support localisation of democracy, not centralisation.
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Stuey
I did wonder who might pick that up, it means (in answer to BJ’s post)
No Bl**dy Idea What YMMV Means
Try thinking laterally Stuey, not everything is as it seems….oh and lighten up mate, it is after all Friday.
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BB – Totalitarianismabout the state controlling or interfering with our lives.
Communism by contrast is about the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange.
They can go together, but don’t necessarily have to – the State interfered massively in people’s lives (and deaths) in Nazi Germany.
The Greens don’t support either totalitarianism or communism. What we do support is limited State intervention where necessary to progress our Charter principles. If the market and/or education programmes can do the same without State intervention, we’re quite happy to leave well alone.
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Toad
So what you are saying is that as long as the education system preaches the message YOU want you will not interfere.
Would you allow dissenters?, what if there was huge popular support for changing our electoral sytem?..would you ban that or simply ignore what the public want?
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This snippet from The Kiwi Herald:
Standing outside parliament under a banner announcing “Red bum good, blue bum bad,” National MP Chester Burrows today attempted to explain his amendment to the “anti-smacking bill” saying that he wanted to outlaw bad smacking while encouraging the kind of smacking that was ‘part of the great kiwi tradition; the stinging red bum delivered with love’.
“Like thousands of New Zealanders I look back with fond memories of a hot bottom. It was always transitory and trifling, usually after a Sunday roast when Mum had poured more sherry into herself than into the trifle itself and us kids were keeping her from her nap. She would give our bare bums a good paddling, all the time weeping and saying how much she loved us. Far from being the cruel and degrading treatment that Sue Bradford is on about it brought us closer together. These days if I get a touch of sunburn or a sting from a wasp I’m immediately awash in a flood of loving memories of family life.”
Using a colour chart Mr Burrows went on to explain the varieties of redness that were acceptable under his amendment saying that “where the redness is from blood, Mum has probably gone too far and no sherry has made it into the trifle.”
The MP, whose amendment is expected to pass said that where the child was blue or black or even dead from smacking prosecution was often in order.
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Eredwen
As far as I know the only country on the planet that has tried this to now, is Sweden (not all of Scandinavia) and their results seem at best ambiguous.
The others have outlawed it in schools and that’s fair enough.
Nor do I argue that children cannot be raised better, or that other means besides a spanking can’t work on any child or that all children need to be spanked occasionally. Some do, some don’t.
What I am arguing is that a law must clearly state what is permitted and what is not. The attitudes of cops here seem to be far less anxiety producing (at least for me) but leaving it to individual officers, judges, neighbours or the kids themselves is simply abdication of responsibility. We have a responsibility to make good law. Permitted or not permitted is clear. “Not permitted but you won’t be prosecuted because the cops will turn a blind-eye to it” is deliberate obfuscation. The law is clear.
Whether I am prosecuted or not.
respectfully
BJ
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YMMV
Your Mileage May Vary
Standard disclaimer seen in car adverts a long time ago…
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BB: So what you are saying is that as long as the education system preaches the message YOU want you will not interfere.
Not at all. The Greens are a political party, and as such we’re about trying to change things for what we see as the better for people and planet. That is why we continue to advocate some policy positions that currently have little public support – because we believe they are correct, because we believe we can eventually convince the public they are correct, and because we hope the public will eventually give us the political power to make them happen. It’s got nothing to do with the education “system” – it’s about educating people through whatever means possible.
BB: what if there was huge popular support for changing our electoral sytem?..would you ban that or simply ignore what the public want?
I presume you mean if we were in Government. I think the Green response should be based on our appropriate decision-making charter principle. If the huge popular support were towards giving more democracy to people, we would support it. If it were for a move towards a less democratic society, we’d oppose it, and if the voters weren’t convinced by our ats and (ironically) continued to want a less democratic system then I guess they would chuck us out.
But to ban it is what happens under totalitarian regimes, and that is anathema to the Green appropriate decision-making principle.
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BB – Want to watch a scary movie, try to find “burnt by the sun” which is a russian language flick about a former general in Stalin’s time, or “repentance”.
No… we Greens are not into that sort of totalitarian control.
Heck, they haven’t kicked me out… they have to be a pretty tolerant bunch.
BJ
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Toad
Thanks for that, I can understand the theory behind what you are saying but I am sure that you can appreciate that it looks a lot different in practice.
What 87% of the public hear when the smacking bill is debated is Sue Bradford telling them that she is going to control how they raise their kids.
And as for the electoral system question, remind how the Greens voted recently when there was a bill before the house to reduce the number of MP’s?…remind me what was the Green party attitude was toward the huge numbers in support of changing our electoral system?
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BB: And as for the electoral system question, remind how the Greens voted recently when there was a bill before the house to reduce the number of MP’s?…remind me what was the Green party attitude was toward the huge numbers in support of changing our electoral system?
The Greens voted against the Electoral (Reduction in Number of Members of Parliament) Amendment Bill.
They did so because it would have made Parliament less representative, and therefore less democratic. The Royal Commission that recommended the MMP electoral system recommended it would require 120 MPs to work effectively.
That was the same expert advice received by the Justice and Electoral Select Committee.
Under the system proposed in that Bill the number of list members would start to reduce, and the ability of MMP to deliver diversity in terms of adequately sized smaller-party caucuses, race, gender, sexual orientation, and so forth would be extremely limited. Select Committee’s, which are a check on the power of the Government, would not have been able to function if the Bill was passed, as there would simply have been insufficient members to sit on them.
I acknowlede that there was significant public support for reducing the number of MPs. But the Greens don’t cast their votes on the basis of what is popular. We cast our votes on the basis of what the Green Party’s policy requires (Green MPs are bound to support the democratically decided policy developed by the Party at large) and on the basis of what expert advice tells us is correct.
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Toad
The Royal commission also recommended the removal of the racist Maori seats, it would seem to me that if you quote the Royal commission in support of your position then you should also support the removal of the Maori seats.
Why is it necessary to have a set number of men/woman/gays or races in the house,? what is wrong with just having the best people?
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” Green MP’s are bound to support the .. policy developed by Party”
pure totalitarianism
Marx coudn’t have put it better.
poor BJ he the only one in the party who think for hisself,
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PQ
Hot Damn! Where’ve you been? long time since seeing that unique style of yours…
I believe, as this bill was a private members bill, it is not party “policy”. It is the preference of some members of the party. I respect their opinion and disagree.
Party policy I get a lot more say in, and by and large, it seems to be a lot less divisive and troublesome, and I am not an MP. If I WERE an MP I’d expect to toe that line same as… heckfire, that’s the same all over. That’s why they have whips
respectfully
BJ
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alistair Says:
February 23rd, 2007 at 9:35 am
jh : OK, so your model of society is one where there’s a majority of people who don’t need telling what to do, and a minority who are slack and violent who there’s no hope for?
That sounds sick to me. It’s also profoundly mistaken. The reality is that there is a continuum from zero violence, to people beating their kids severely. The aim of the bill (and it is indeed social engineering) is to lower the threshold of acceptable violence.
———————–
It lowers the threshold to zero (ie) includes the light smack.
It assumes that a light smack is always the worst of any set of options, and purports to be based on solid scientific evidence.
jh
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toad Says:
February 23rd, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Peter – Green principles are not just about the environment. They are about promoting:
Ecological sustainability
Social justice
Appropriate decision-making
Non-violence
The Bill to repeal section 59 is founded primarily on the fourth of these – nonviolence.
————————–
I asked someone to apply appropriate decision making to “Qieter Please” but didn’t get any takers:
http://blog.greens.org.nz/index.php/2007/02/19/quieter-please/
The Green Charter doesn’t tell us how to make decisions, for instance, some ecologists would argue that the world is over populated. Attacking population, however, might interfere with current views on “social justice”.
Light smacking is to violence as abortion is to murder.
jh
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eredwen Says:
February 23rd, 2007 at 11:31 am
A few observations:
A few men here want to preserve their “right? to “discipline? “their? child/ren.
How many of you have seriously looked at the alternatives and
…have attended parenting classes, (and which ones)?
…really understand the “literature? (ie: studies done and written up in learned journals) about this subject?
… would be happy to see others (caregivers, teachers, babysitters) “disciplining? your child/ren in the same manner that you do?
Does your child’s mother agree totally with your methods? Are you sure?
Above all, are you willing to take responsibility for the damage that others will continue to inflict on other children if the current law is not amended?
Or is a lot of this just “I was hit, and look, it didn’t do me any harm!?
bj, I suggest that you are not applying the academic rigour here that you would expect in your own areas of expertise (Translation: “Don’t make a prat of yourself?!)
eredwen
——————————————————–
More than a few condescending assumptions there Eredwen, I can see you floating around the room on a bag of hot air, all fluffed up like a mother hen on a hot nor-west day. However the point that I find most worthy of comment is this:
…really understand the “literature? (ie: studies done and written up in learned journals) about this subject?
Actually the answer is no, however, I did hear an e mail on 9 to Noon where a psychologist disagreed strongly that there was universal agreement on this matter.
In addition we do have social intelligence (and minds of our own).
And.. what matter would we be talking about were we presented with a study, since misrepresentation (deliberate or otherwise) seems to be the order of the day (ie) a light smack or strong regime of corporal punishment?
What sort of case did Sue Bradford present (ie) did she present relevant peer reviewed studies? Please refer me to the web page where the Mother of the Nation presents her argument (with relevant references).
toddle-loo
jh
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I was reading a bookk a while back called “A Mind of its Own” (about behaviour). One point people might find of interest is that religiousity isn’t necessarily positively correlated with generosity. I presume the same applies to people from the left and right. One of the nastiest people I ever met was from a family prominent in the “Peace Movement”.
jh
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“Life damaged by S59″ says:
… “Action is better than doing nothing to stop the appalling child abuse in this country. Smacking and hitting are two different ‘animals’ and the latter is allowable under present legislation. Hitting is destructive and so is totally unacceptable. Now I suppose this debate will rage over what is hitting and what is smacking.”
I reply:
Unfortunately we don’t seem to have got past the perceived “RIGHTS” of the individual parent (mostly fathers in this case)… presumably to go on doing, without question, whatever their parents did to them, regardless.
The repeal of Section 59 (because it has NOT been interpreted by the Courts in the way that was originally intended, with the result that some Kiwi children have been put at risk, or mainmed for life, or killed) is being seen only as a personal “threat” to these individual parents: “What if they (cannot?) continue to “smack”, which they have a “right” to do, without being prosecuted?”
The fact that this law needs to be changed urgently, for the sake of too many vulnerable Kiwi children who are put at risk or killed, is being ignored by those who cannot think beyond their own “rights”.
Our parents/caregivers “did their best” when we were children, but that was another time. There is always something we each can learn, in each generation … some more effective ways of dealing with our children, some gentler ways of dealing with “inappropriate” behaviour …
AND we are all part of Society … and what we decide to do affects all Kiwi children … and we all must take the responsibility for this!
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big bruv:
I will answer your posts … one more time (?)
Previously I have “given you the benefit of the doubt”, assuming that you wrote in the way that you do because you were not used to “arguing” in written form. (I taught Communications English in the Polytechnic system for many years and was willing to communicate with you honestly, well aware that our value systems and thoughts were very different. The post you took exception to was actually a summary of things that were said by others on this thread … My university training was in social sciences.)
On this thread, you said to someone else:
“Now if you want to debate this issue then I am keen to do so, if however you cannot answer the question then please stick to the rules that Eredwen is so keen on reminding us about and lay off the personal attacks.”
In contrast, here is what you thought appropriate for “debating the issue” with me:
… “Eredewn, whats next?..all men are rapists so we will make it illegal for men to be on the streets after 6pm? Is this issue really about men? and the man haters of the left?
… And by the way, they are our children Eredwen, I know you see them as members of the state but right now they are still our children.
… Are you serious?..since when the state have all the answers when it comes to raising children?
… for you to even suggest that parents should be attending parenting classes smacks of communism …
… it is the height of arrogance for you to assume that all mothers are against this,
… I note that you have again suggested this is a male thing, do you have a problem with men in general?
… Please stop telling lies Eredwen, smacking kids DOES NOT cause damage. Stick to the facts please.
… Eredwen, I am very disappointed by that response, you used to be able to argue your point quite well, I shall have to assume that you do not deny anything I have said.
I was really hoping that your reply would prove me wrong but sadly it seems that I was right all along.
… All along I was of the opinion that you did not like me because I am slightly right of center, however it seems that the real reason is because I am a man.
………
bb,
This is NOT an effective way to get your message across.
It was very unpleasant to read this “outpouring”, written in an inappropriate tone.
It indicated a great deal about your attitudes (especially to women), and very little/nothing that was accurate about my attitudes to anything!
“Could do much better” is my comment.
eredwen
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You flatter yourself Eredwen,you have been standing in the class room too long being right about everything. You are a hard-liner, and there is a critical mass in the “green” Party, whose far-left agenda is just large enough to keep the party in the looney area.
The (property developer type) opposition from the far right must break into a wide grin every time they hear “Keith Locke, Green Party”…. “Sue Bradford…. Green Party”.
The idea that the Green Party is supporting this bill because of the Green Charter is preposterous twaddle.
Mention Green Party; get an earfull!!!
jh
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Just watching “best of Mornings” TV One.
Sue Bradfords “seen 1000′s of submissions, sat on select committees, listened to debates…” Well quantity isn’t a substitue for quality, she still fudges the essential elements of the argument. What’s more she wouldn’t let the interviewer control the interview.
Contrasting her views with Dury Christian School was slack (missrepresentative) as they are on the extreme.
jh
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Under Sue Bradford’s law.
You and your child are in a supermarket, the child wants a drink which is sitting on a shelf in reach of your child, you happen to be trying to locate on another higher shelf the normal brand of a item your partner has asked you to pick up for them, for a single moment your attention is not on your child, they grab the drink from the shelf open it and start to drink before you realize whats happening, you realize and of course naturally you are very upset at your child’s not only lack of respect for your authority over them, but also toward the owner of the store you happen to be standing in, you take the drink of your child of which as a upstanding citizen of New Zealand you are now obligated to pay for, and as a result your child gets a nice big hug and told that everything is ok.
Or you slap your child around the ass tell them they are totally wrong and you are very upset with them, which is then seen by a person who agrees with Sues anti-smacking law 100% she gets on her cellphone calls up the police and reports the incident, there just happens to be a policeman in your local supermarket area/mall and they meet you outside where you are arrested for abuse and your child removed from you.
The police MUST investigate any complaint made to them even if they believe that complaint to be false or a waste of time, and if the law is found to be broken they do not have a choice in which laws they can and can not proceed to prosecute, they must act within the bounds and reasons of the letter of the law
Sue says that the police will not prosecute in such circumstances she is wrong
This law is about Sue believing her way of child raising is the best and only way, she is attempting to force parents to raise kids like she does.
Well Sue one of your kids committed suicide, thats the best indicator of what sort of parent you truly were
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jh, I/WE GET YOUR MESSAGE (loud and clear!)
You LIKE some Green Party policies, and want the Greens to be there to work for some things that you VALUE. However there are other Green policies (and attitudes) that you do NOT agree with …
Therefore you decide to behave like a little boy having a tantrum: throwing everthing within reach and saying the most hurtful and “daring” things he can think of to get attention.
When this happens, wise adults speak calmly to the little boy.
They are patient, but if he persists in this behaviour, they quietly leave him in the safety of his own room “until he is ready to come out and behave in an a more appropriate manner.”
Consider me to have gone out the door and shut it gently behind me.
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Drjobinson,
You can’t turn your back on your child for an instant without the child indulging in sociopathic behaviour? That’s sad. You and your child need professional help.
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alistair Says:
February 24th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Drjobinson,
You can’t turn your back on your child for an instant without the child indulging in sociopathic behaviour? That’s sad. You and your child need professional help.
——————————————————————
Sounds like a normal child to me Alistair, and it sounds like Drjobinson, would have saved the family budget and given the child a quick smack (rather than your expensive “professional help”). I’m quite relaxed about that. [However, it depends on Drjobinson's, temperament and level of social intelligence etc how well this was administered - primitive societies had lots of other "aunties" and dominant matriacs to moderate subordinate parents behaviour].
80 bouquets and 20 brickbats to Drjobinson.
jh
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It interests me all this talk about left/right. The fact is life is about both -left I see as the need for community and interaction -right the need to be an individual with preferences and a need for space to achieve meaningful stuff.
So a balance is needed between these extremes and I would hope that Government and leadership is about the balance of these elements.
In the modern complex overpopulated world this balancing is becomming more and more difficult and more and more people are falling off – some bashing their children.
I feel our democratic processes of finding the balance are not coping because it is easy to find the balance in our smaller interactive communities and harder in large metropolis areas with less interaction of the whole. Town planning, the economics of providing a work force for large institutions and the damage to our health support systems by city “footprints” (eg. the effect of bad air etc. on our behaviour) all contribute to the violence around. More of it happens in the urban environment.
To me children don’t choose to live in these environments but adults do, and design them. Maybe this is an indication that our process of child rearing is incidental to our lifestyle needs so in actual fact we are already extremely to the right in the focus of what children need.
As the adults doing the damage are also products of this process it becomes an indicator to me that an assertion of the community good and need is required – thus a debate and legalising process affirming the rights of children to be considered properly.
This debate is far larger than one Bill in Parliament and probably needs to look wider at economics, town planning, waste, health, the placing of decisions closer to each community/individual etc.
I feel that the extreme assertion of the individual right is a symptom of people who are feeling disempowered and the same with the extreme left and neither extreme assertion can reach the balance needed. Our distrust of the process makes us suspicious of change, but in fact it is the size and complexity of the process disempowering us – thus appropriate decision making.
We have allowed the process of innocence till proven guilty to be undermined but if this is reignited then we have little to really fear. A policeman told me that the weight of evidence needed to make an adequate prosecution meant that a light smack would hardly register but the real violence does. The definition comes back to the same processes of police and court decision as to weight of evidence.
If bashers were getting off with the way the definitiom was then a slight change of balance to make this harder is pragmatic.
The real issues that are involved with increasing violence such as the environment we are creating that disempowers people, I feel is well covered in Green thinking and the tired old growth for growth sake social and economic planning will only result in extreme breakdown – I think of the indulgent Roman Empire with lead water pipes (Modern pollutants), self indulgent extreme entertainment (Grand theft Auto game), huge trading empires (multinationals), military domination (Iraq), barbarians (terrorists).
We all need a dose of balance.
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Djrobinson,
I am surprised at the story you tell …
You write: “Under Sue Bradford’s law.”
(Not a “law”. Sue is asking for the removal of one “section” of a law because lawyers and child care experts say that “those words are not being understood in the way that the people who wrote the law meant them to be understood.”
Some children in this country are being SERIOUSLY beaten, and the people who do these beatings are getting away with it! This is why this law needs fixing, (and taking out those words will fix it.)
You write: “You and your child are in a supermarket … for a single moment your attention is not on your child …”
Most of us have “been there done that”! … and NO the child does NOT get a nice big hug and told that everything is ok. HOWEVER to “slap your child around the ass tell them they are totally wrong and you are very upset with them” is NOT the best way to deal with the situation.
It seems from the responses in the media that we need to have more “Parenting Skills”… TV programmes, classes, groups, courses in schools etc …
“a person who agrees with Sues anti-smacking law 100% ”
… might come to the help of the busy shopper and spend some time entertaining the child. (I often do!)
I don’t know where you got the idea of …”she gets on her cellphone calls up the police and reports the incident, there just happens to be a policeman in your local supermarket area/mall and they meet you outside where you are arrested for abuse and your child removed from you.”
(Were you thinking of attacking the child with an axe?)
“The police MUST investigate any complaint made to them even if they believe that complaint to be false or a waste of time … ”
… as they “must” under the law as it stands now.
However, (and this is what the proposed amendment is about) under the current law PEOPLE WHO DO ACTUAL PHYSICAL HARM to children ARE GETTING AWAY WITH IT ! Prosecutions taken against them fail, because of the the wording of that section of the law. To stop this from happening, the law must be amended!
We should all “be on the same side” … making sure that ALL our children are safe, and helping parents and caregivers to have the support, the knowlege and the skills to do this important task!
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Oldlux: Well said!
I’ll reply later … when time allows.
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Alistair -
Either you’ve got perfect well behaved children who do not push the limits of the boundaries you’ve set for them or you’ve never raised children.
Eredwen
At this moment I do not have a lot of time to reply to you, but I will reply when I return. I am in agreement that we must protect our children, but as guardians we must do more then protect we must raise, and help our children mature into well rounded citizens of this country, our children will test the boundaries that we set for them, they will ignore us, and push us to our limits.
In the scenario I set out in my first message I gave 2 examples of punishment that could be administered you said both are wrong, well i happen to know both are used because there are different styles of raising children and no one style is correct as you seem to suggest in your reply, of course there are other ways of dealing with such a situation, you could call the police and have your child charged with stealing (opening something that does not belong to you is stealing), you could buy the drink as obligated and then make the child wait until they get home which makes them wait for their due punishment, in my opinion physiological abuse is worse then instant punishment
Anyway I will write more in reply to your statements when I return, I personally believe there are no prefect solutions to punishing a child, and since my children are obviously not as well behaved as Alistair’s and you allude to having all the answers perhaps you could enlighten me by explaining how you would handle such a situation
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big bruv Says:
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:05 am
Andrew
“social engineering is merely a positive side effect?
Well at least you are honest, tell me, what other things do you believe the state should get involved in or change?
any issue of protecting people from assault.
otherwise why have a state?
but on social engineering, let’s call the abolition of assault social de-engineering.
the idea that you can whip little people into a compliant frame of mind is the ultimate in social engineering. the proponents of corporal punsihment word it that way themselves.
one parent once confessed to me that she felt terrible smacking her children because it felt like she was breaking their little wills, but, she added, the experts seem to recommend it (depends which experts you choose to follow).
at least she was human enough to see something wrong with breaking their will, not like the one bradford mentioned who was quite upfront about the fact that she smacks to bend their will.
so let’s here the pro-smackers accused of social engineering from now on.
peterexistsleft says:
“>>the purpose of the reform as far as i can see is the protection of the children
No, it isn’t. What it will do is criminalise parents who smack. The Burrows amendment will close the loophole which currently gives the real abusers a defence.”
uh huh. and the purpose of outlawing shooting people is what? to criminalize people who shoot people? or to protect people?
smackers are real abusers. not as severe abusers as some, admittedly, but it isn’t the job of the law to allow a certain level of crime.
peterexistsleft also says:
“Effectively, they’re saying to ALL the parents of New Zealand that parents don’t know what is best for their child. The state knows best.”
if a parent wants to have sex with their kid & the state outlaws that, is it arrogant of the state? does the parent know best?
you see, what this boils down to is that you think that on this issue, YOU are right. the state is merely arrogant if it disagrees with YOU.
well it doesn’t work that way. the state is there to protect all citizens, whether they have voting rights or not, & whether those from whom they are to be protected want the victims protected or not.
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toad Says:
February 23rd, 2007 at 3:08 pm
This snippet from The Kiwi Herald:
Standing outside parliament under a banner announcing “Red bum good, blue bum bad,? National MP Chester Burrows today attempted to explain his amendment to the “anti-smacking bill’’ saying that he wanted to outlaw bad smacking while encouraging the kind of smacking that was ‘part of the great kiwi tradition; the stinging red bum delivered with love’.
—————————————————————————–
Another idiot mp. I shake by head. That doesn’t typify (I’m sure, the reason people oppose this bill)
We need an FAQ approach to this bill since I personally believe Sue B, Helen C’s side haven’t been straight about it.
Is it ok to smack a child in some circumstances? 80% Yes 20% No: there is always a better way. [I believe there are times when a smack is the best option (I gave an example earlier--- personal experience)]
Does smacking lead to a more violent society?
etc, etc
their is far too much smoke and mirrors in politics. We need to make best use of the information age an faq, is just one example, of what we can do.
jh
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Eredwen
Wow!..intellecutal snobbery as well as a hard left hidden agenda.
OK so you flushed me out, unlike you Eredwen I am not pretentious, hell I even had to go and check out what the word pretentious meant before I used it.
I did not go to university (and here I will save you the time and effort of saying “that is obvious”) and I am not what you would call an educated person, I am however a person who has lived through times tougher than most.
Unlike you I did not choose to take time off and let the state pay for my up keep, I decided very early in the piece that If I wanted a better life for myself and my family then I was the one who would have to do something about it.
I have little time for the educated elite irrespective of their political leanings, most of the educated elite that I came across a younger person were hell bent on keeping me where I was, they positively discouraged me to have a crack at bettering myself.
Most of the educated elite had no idea what it was like to be poor, their hand wringing cries for social justice made me sick, all I (and many like me) wanted or needed was for these do gooders to get the hell out of our way and go and annoy somebody else.
It must really annoy you Eredwen that such an uneducated person has done OK, people like me really foul up your hard left view of the world.
I do find it interesting that you were a teacher, now I have a better understanding of why you are against those who do well in life, god forbid that you ever worked in a profession where the useless teachers were actually paid what they were worth.
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big bruv says:
“It must really annoy you Eredwen that such an uneducated person has done OK, people like me really foul up your hard left view of the world.”
……………………………..
I reply:
NOT AT ALL! That is one of the great things about Aotearoa/NZ.
Many Pakeha New Zealanders came here with “nothing” but their determination to make better lives for themselves and their families.
My great grandfather (whose surname I bear) was the illigitimate son of an illiterate factory worker from the slums of Leeds (in Yorkshire England). He worked in the (cotton etc) mills as a small child, and got his education in the “Sunday Schools” in those factory towns.
(He later emigrated to Auckland, as a widower with two small children, and was one of the founders of the WEA in Auckland… )
I think it is a shame that that big “chip on your shoulder” stops you from seeing/understanding what is actually being said … One thing that I have NEVER come across among the Greens is snobbery!
bb, I really don’t care what you think of me, but do yourself a favour and STOP being that “little boy from a poor background” inside your head.
I have noticed that it gets in the way!
You have “done well” and good luck to you!
Not everyone has the determination and drive and abilites (and chances) to do well as you have done.
Greens believe that all people are part of our society and are entitled to the support of that society … when they need it. It is called cooperation!
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yeah..b.b is this interesting mix of personal (little-boy) insecurities..
(hummer and all)
overlaid with a political ‘feck you..!..i’m all right(financially) jack..”
(this is a common syndrome in 1st generation working class monied..)
that ‘unease’ that it might be all gone tomorrow never leaves them..
(he’d be like that to his relatives too…many working class new-monied go all dog-in-the-mangerish..’feck off…!..it’s mine..not yours..!..”..to them also..)
and it does become their ‘god’/alter of/for worship..
and this all wrapped in rabid-right dog-eat-dog rhetoric…
whoar..!..
quite the mix..eh..?
hey..!..he should get together with those rabid-right gun-nuts..muzza and whaleblubber..
then..they could ride around together..with guns..in the hummer..!
whoar..!..
they’d all have raging hard-ons..eh..?
(and probably just at the thought of it..eh..?)
(let’s draw the curtain..and give them some time to themselves..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Eredwen
If anybody does not have the drive or determination to do well then they have no right to expect me to subsidize them.
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Most of what I wanted to say (in support of the bill) has been said, but that last comment of bb’s needs a response.
I have a (mildly) autistic daughter – in terms of raising a child with that kind of difficulty, the boundaries get pushed all the time. There are many accounts of such children being smacked, beaten, punished for not understanding what they were meant to be doing or why – all it does is make it even harder for them to understand, to withdraw even further from a confusing world. Worse, whatever progress or confidence they might gain is lost when coercion comes into it. You have to change the way you communicate with such a child.
The same should apply to any child! Communication and patience are the only effective tools. And I have certainly made mistakes with my children – which I regret. This youngest one taught me so much.
‘If anybody does not have the drive or determination to do well.. ” well, sometimes that confidence has been beaten out of people. My daughter struggles very hard to be independent in a society that jeers at her, mocks her oddities and takes advantage of her vulnerability – she looks more or less ‘normal’ and tries to be so. She has done reasonably well in some areas of study (and has a large student debt to prove it) and has tried out all kinds of jobs. Every time, she has been humiliated by never quite being what is wanted.
She does work: she cleans houses for a few mature people who treat her well and appreciate her honesty and dedication to the job. But it isn’t enough to live on and if they are away, there is no income.
So, she does have a benefit to provide that certainty that she needs. Why should society not help to support her and others who struggle? Would you rather she was starving or on the streets? And yes, we support her too but can’t do it entirely on our own.
The reason we introduce laws to abolish abuse of the vulnerable is not because it will be achieved overnight, but because it is signalling the right thing to do.
You have to start somewhere, and also be prepared to make adjustments in the light of events and new information. For me, Greens are the ones willing to keep discussing issues from a principled base – parliament is just one of the tools to debate these issues, not the only way to make the world a better place. That we have to do ourselves, collectively.
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Hi Janine,
Very well said. You have summed this up very well.
I think it is time this blog closed as it has outlived it’s purpose.
Any further comment on this S59 matter is very likely to have already been expressed.
This blog has now turned into a slinging match, orchestrated by an “ego tripper”.
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Bravo Janine!
VERY WELL SAID! … and a great contribution to this thread.
Seeing big bruv is unwilling to contribute, your daughter is VERY welcome to the tax money that I pay! (and in your case YOU should be due for some serious “overtime” rates for raising a useful citizen.)
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Eredwen
You write “(Not a “law?. Sue is asking for the removal of one “section? of a law because lawyers and child care experts say that “those words are not being understood in the way that the people who wrote the law meant them to be understood.?
Some children in this country are being SERIOUSLY beaten, and the people who do these beatings are getting away with it! This is why this law needs fixing, (and taking out those words will fix it.)”
By removing this section of the law you are in effect changing the law correct? Once this section has been repealed it will in effect place a blanket ban over physical discipline of children, which is exactly what Sue wants.
Removing section 59 is not going to stop children getting beaten, but it will force the police to charge parents who have used light smacking to discipline their children with assault.
You write “Most of us have “been there done that?! … and NO the child does NOT get a nice big hug and told that everything is ok. HOWEVER to “slap your child around the ass tell them they are totally wrong and you are very upset with them? is NOT the best way to deal with the situation. ”
They are 2 solutions to the issue; perhaps you can suggest the correct course of action to this hypothetical situation?
“It seems from the responses in the media that we need to have more “Parenting Skills?… TV programmes, classes, groups, courses in schools etc … ”
Perhaps but there are no prefect responses to parenting, Personally I do not punish my daughter as I do not believe it will assist her in growing into a well rounded adult, I prefer to bend to her height and talk to her, hoping to build a bound of trust and respect between us, if she were to steal something from the shop as I pointed out before and she has, I have bent down to her level told her that what she did was wrong, paid for the item, threw it in the bin, gave her a hug and told her that we need to discuss it when we get home, I wont let my temper fly off the hook because if I let go of my self control for a single second I will lash out, however I’m not going to tell anyone that my way of parenting is right nor wrong it works for me but its not a 1 package fits all deal.
As I know that I personally do not have all the answers to parenting. So please enlighten me with your superior knowledge on the subject as to hell in your opinion I should be raising my child
“… might come to the help of the busy shopper and spend some time entertaining the child. (I often do!) ”
I have gone to a great deal of effort to teach my daughter not to trust or talk to strangers, why would I want some complete stranger attempting to undermine that teaching in front of me
“I don’t know where you got the idea of …?she gets on her cell phone calls up the police and reports the incident, there just happens to be a policeman in your local supermarket area/mall and they meet you outside where you are arrested for abuse and your child removed from you.?
(Were you thinking of attacking the child with an axe?) ”
Any assault is consider serious by the police, be it with an axe or a open hand, any complaint must be investigated and if the parent is deemed to be in the wrong charged
“However, (and this is what the proposed amendment is about) under the current law PEOPLE WHO DO ACTUAL PHYSICAL HARM to children ARE GETTING AWAY WITH IT ! Prosecutions taken against them fail, because of the the wording of that section of the law. To stop this from happening, the law must be amended!”
Nice play on words, “people who do physical harm?, the amendment of section 59 is nothing more then a blanket ban of physical punishment of a child.
I have always been a die hard labour supporter however if this amendment passes, I will never vote labour again.
Andrew Writes
The idea that you can whip little people into a compliant frame of mind is the ultimate in social engineering. the proponents of corporal punsihment word it that way themselves.
one parent once confessed to me that she felt terrible smacking her children because it felt like she was breaking their little wills, but, she added, the experts seem to recommend it (depends which experts you choose to follow).
Andrew any form of punishment is an attempt to force children wills to be bent to the will of the parent, by they put in their rooms for 5 minutes and forced to apologize before being allowed to leave, or being smacked around the ass with a open hand, you simply can not have discipline without some will bending effect.
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Eredwen
Nowhere have I ever said that I do not want the state (you like that word) to help worthy cases.
What I do not want is people making life choices with my tax dollars.
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oldlux,
My response to your post of ” 24 February 2007 1:45pm” (at last!)
Thank you for your insightful and thought provoking analysis. A breath of fresh air is valuable at this time!
Left/right talk is brought here by visitors whose major mission seems to be “to root out and reject” anything they regard as “Left”. Attracted to frogblog because of their concerns about some things that they hold dear, these visitors discover Green’s so called “watermellon” characterisitics, and the discussion is taken “off topic.”
Some people always did “bash” their children, but I don’t think it was as anonymous in the days when people lived in communities rather than commuter-dormitory suburbs, or low-income ghettos.
I am drawn to your comment: “To me children don’t choose to live in these environments but adults do, and design them …” and the implications of this.
I live in the house that was my childhood home. In those days the women were the glue of the community. My very well qualified mother (and her ilk) looked after family and home but also used their skills and experience to make sure that the schools and the community (including its most vulnerable families) functioned. When my mother worked in her profession (part time) my grandmother “looked after us”.
Today the women are “at work”, and overstretched parents and their children arrive home late, leave early and have “no time” for community activity.
The problem is that no one has filled the gap. (In fact many don’t realise that there is a gap to be filled, and this allows changes in our communities to be made without our knowledge and “say so”. )
On the “larger debate” that you speak of. I have just had the experience of leading our community in a process with the City Council, which was to allow us to have a large input into the redesign and (scheduled) upgrade of a very neglected hillside “terrace” which, as it is now, is seriously inadequate to “serve” approximately 60 housholds.
From the outset to the present, the process has taken several years. The politicians were all on-side, all the residents took part in meetings and
seminars and consultations, and unanimous (!) decisions were reached. The preliminary plans were drawn up and approved.
During this process we had a change in Council which led to a “restructuring” which involved staff and department changes, and a long delay.
The net result is that all our work and agreements have been ignored by the staff, and we are to be given an (inappropriate) “standard street upgrade”. The battle continues, but it seems that, overall, we and our elected representatives have lost the war!
It seems that this process was seen as a threat, hence the “power play” by staff (made possible because of changes in the way the Council operates.)
It was NOTHING to do with what is the best design for the street!
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Interesting the way the debate has changed since the earlier “Section59 debate hots up again”. Then people were saying “this isn’t an anti-smacking bill”. Now there is no pretence.
Debate on Herald online has been heavily against the bill (and it isn’t a male thing)
Claim: Light smacking is damaging to a child.
Evidence:………….
Claim: there is always a better way.
Evidence:………….
Claim: banning smacking will lead to a less violent society.
Evidence:…………………
jh
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UNICEF in its report for 2007 stated “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.?
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0702/S00339.htm
jh
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jh: “Interesting the way the debate has changed since the earlier [thread] Then people were saying “this isn’t an anti-smacking bill”. Now there is no pretence.”
er, no, I still say that Sue’s Bill doesn’t ban smacking, it only bans corporal punishment in the home. If it were to ban smacking it would create a new crime, not remove a defence to an old crime.
Personally I haven’t contributed to this thread stating that point because I figured it was pointless, I’ll just get shouted at by a bunch of rabid right-wing “the greens can do no good so we must call them devious liars with hidden agenda” pit bulls.
that and I hate to repeat myself (unlike “broken record” BB)
Yes it is sad (and worrying) that most of the population believes that the bill does ban smacking, and the blame for that has to be attributed to the media (where are the articles where panels of legal experts are asked for their opinion “does this bill ban smacking?”).
If the bill did ban smacking, I would oppose it too.
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Stuey
The bill puts the slightest spanking on the same in the same legal queue as beating someone with a crowbar. It makes it an assault under the law.
That’s it. No trickery involved. It removes the exception made with respect to children and without that exception the exact same legal definitions that apply to two blokes having an argument, apply to a parent and a child. You can’t touch them.
The proponents tell us that the police will exercise discretion and that it will be all right. Which means that parliament is abdicating its responsibility to spell out what is legal and what is not.
I have posted at length here and I am no rabid right-winger. I also have queried our internal board to find out how this plays in the wider party membership only opinions. I believe GPANZ has made a mistake here, and that it will cost us dearly.
Make no mistake Stuey… it bans smacking and spanking and slapping on the wrist. All are legally assaults.
respectfully
BJ
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Thing is, BJ, this isn’t even a Green Party measure. It’s a private member’s bill. It happens to have the support of all the GP MPs, because that’s the sort of people they are, but it’s a conscience vote for the other parties.
Labour seems to have voted for the second reading as a procedural matter, but I’d be surprised if that were the case for the final reading… I’m sure some Labour MPs will vote against. If they do vote as a bloc, then it’s nine-tenths a Labour Party measure. There’s no reason the Greens should be singled out for a hypothetical backlash (and the election is still a long time away.)
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One element we can’t subtract from the debate is the sanctimonious attitude (or personal beliefs) of those who think they know better. I can see Sue B and eredwen walking up BJ’s drive to tell his wife how to raise the children:
[Henry writes:
“what you might call intelligent loving smacks used for discipline …?
NO! I certainly would not call such behaviour “intelligent and loving?.
Think about it from a small child’s point of view. An adult male who the child trusts hits a small child deliberately because he can. (Notice that the pro smacking group on this thread are male.) The immediate message is “I am bigger and stronger than you are so I can hurt you if I choose to, and you are powerless to stop me.? Add to that “I am doing this for your own good … because you are wrong … and because I love you.?
Wow! What is the message! “Intelligent? Loving?? I don’t think so!
(Must we perpetuate behaviour “because it was done to us??)
Children learn by example. There are more effective ways of teaching our vulnerable and precious children about living cooperatively than this. People who know how to live peacefully and cooperatively will be sorely needed in the World of the future.
(Apparently, the occasional hit in anger is less likely to be damaging in its “message? than calm and calculated physical punishment.)
In Child Care / PreSchool situations the children who hit other children tend to be those who are hit by their parent(s) … Then their parents hit them for hitting other children … and so the cycle continues.
There is plenty of literature on the subject …
eredwen (who was not smacked as a child and whose children were not smacked. Self discipline and consideration for others is BIG in our family.)]
jh
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Alistair
Private Members bill or not, the wording in our official policy is such that they may be obligated to support it. I don’t know if the “private members” source trumps “must support official policies of the party” but it wouldn’t seem so at first blush.
I have placed a new thread on our internal forum to try to get a sense of where the party itself actually stands on this issue. I don’t think we’ll get away from being hung out to dry on this either. It is Sue B’s bill, not someone elses and she’s been the person leading the charge. I’ve a lot of respect for her on that count, but I am quite convinced that it is an unnecessary charge to be making.
There IS plenty of literature folks, the most relevant has to be on the results in Sweden which is the only country on the planet that has attempted to do this to their society.
respectfully
BJ
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An anolgy might be smacking/ smoking, where the smackers are the smokers:
[i]Newsflash:[i/]
Social scientists have discovered that what many consider harmless smacks, as a form of discipline/ child training, are harmful to children and harmful to society, in that they lead to a culture of violence. Discouraging smacking (they say), will lead to better adjusted individuals, and reduce child abuse in the community.
We therefore, the Anointed Sanctimonious (AS) decree that the lumpint parents of the community ([i]mostly male![i/]) shall desist immediately.
Yours Sanctimoniously,
Your next, UN Secretary General,
Helen Clark PM, AS.
(ps we’ll you can’t afford a house, lumpint Kiwi’s, but at least your all worrrrking—— [we're building houses for foriegners Helen, and that's (partly) putting our house prices up])
jh
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One of the most interesting aspects of the S59 debate is that the bill was opposed by The ACT Party.
No truly liberal party should ever vote to perpetuate physical violence. Once again ACT have abandoned their proclamed liberal ideologies for cynical political gain. They cannot be taken seriously as a political voice unless they can move beyond focussing on economic liberties to also embrace essential individual liberties.
Individual liberties such as a life without the threat of violence. Children are not merely property to be dispensed with as parents see fit. Bollox. Let the little ones sort themselves out, and if they need help then provide advice and guidance without violence. Much of the problem is not with children’s bad behaviour but with adults’ poor communication skills.
Removing the right to use physical violence against children should sound the death knell of the “might is right” attitude that pervades NZ society. It is this attitude that characterises the behaviour of the adolescent gangs that are oh so feared by conservative types.
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jh says:
“One element we can’t subtract from the debate is the sanctimonious attitude (or personal beliefs) of those who think they know better. I can see Sue B and eredwen walking up BJ’s drive to tell his wife how to raise the children:”
Perhaps this statement is indicative of jh’s view of the world?
People like the Greens want to “control” us and “take away our liberty” to do as we see fit with “our posessions”.
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No, I was pointing out that people like you think they know better than others.
jh
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Stu Donovan Says:
February 27th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
One of the most interesting aspects of the S59 debate is that the bill was opposed by The ACT Party.
No truly liberal party should ever vote to perpetuate physical violence. Once again ACT have abandoned their proclamed liberal ideologies for cynical political gain. They cannot be taken seriously as a political voice unless they can move beyond focussing on economic liberties to also embrace essential individual liberties.
————————————-
You typify the radical element inso far as you can’t recognise an assumption
jh
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No Eredwen – to do as we believe is properly required in order to discharge our responsibilities. You keep casting and spinning to make us appear violent. We aren’t. The people who are violent will be in trouble with a properly amended law that says exactly what is permitted and what isn’t. The Cop on the beat will welcome a proper definition instead of having it left to his or her judgement, and the courts will be less perplexed.
Or perhaps the gloves are indeed entirely off and the entire purpose of this bill, to ban all forms of spanking, even the slap on the wrist, from NZ parenting. In that case you’ve been quite clever.
I am reminded of what my Aunt (the Austrian one) always told me… “too clever is dumb” . I think this is going to cost us, and I think it is a bad thing to try to do all at once.
Should’ve gone for the easy win, taken the additional credit with everyone and used it, let a generation of kids get raised without the farm implements being used, put in better support structures for parents and then maybe the society would be ready for this step.
This isn’t a purely liberal issue. This is a parenting issue and it crosses quite a few lines.
respectfully
BJ
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Well said BJ
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JH – radical? Now that’s a big fat stupid call if ever I heard it.
What’s “radical” about saying that ACT, as a liberal party, should not have voted against the S59 bill?
JH you’re welcome to disagree with the above statement but don’t trot out pathetic insults.
Geez.
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funny, the only sanctimonious people in this thread are the ones who are arguing against the Bill.
Yes I’m aware of your views, I’ve read them many times before thank you very much, and I still don’t accept them.
If you point me to a panel of august legal experts who say ‘this bill makes the lightest smack illegal’ then I’ll change my mind.
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Stuey
How about the NZ police, again you are being economical with the truth.
If a member of the public (with socialist leanings) sees me administer a slight smack on the backside to a disobedient child and then reports this to the Police they are duty bound to investigate it.
There is no scope for discretion Stuey, if they ask the question “did you smack your child” and I answer yes then they must prosecute, you (or Comrade Bradford) cannot worm your way around this, Bradford is going to make criminals of ordinary decent parents.
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stuey said:
“funny, the only sanctimonious people in this thread are the ones who are arguing against the Bill.”
That is consistent. It is part of their need to be “right”.
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Big Bruv said: I answer yes then they must prosecute, you (or Comrade Bradford) cannot worm your way around this, Bradford is going to make criminals of ordinary decent parents.
Sue Bradford will be asking some questions of the Minister of Police in Parliament today on this very matter – Question 11, Questions for Oral Answer.
But I suspect, BB, that you’ll claim the Minister’s answers are lies or a jack-up, because she supports Sue’s Bill.
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Toad
Do you really expect me to believe anything that comes out of the mouth of Labour party pollie?
These are the same people who promised to pay me back my money..I am still waiting.
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yawn … is that the sound of a cracked record?
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Everone:
Let us all bow our heads in one minute of silent contemplation about the non-return of big bruv’s “money” …
So sorely missed, and remembered with poingant regret, every day.
Age shall not weary it, not the years condem …
(any one other than the PM, that is.)
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Thanks Eredwen, that means a lot to me.
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Toad
As I suspected, Sue Bradford has once again been economical with the truth.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10426521
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“police had told the select committee that considered the bill that police were already obliged to investigate suspected or reported assaults” – per Phil Goff
This will result in some good parents being prosecuted because the police will not be able to sort out all of the good from the bad on the spot. This is perfectly expectable and will happen.
It is also impossible to avoid the likelihood that some few of them will be convicted of assault on this basis. The destruction of good people and good families WILL be one result of this and is easily avoidable by adopting and accepting the amendment and gaining the same ground and more on the very much needed reduction of parent on child violence in this country.
Heck, leave out the words parent-on-child. We’re too violent in a lot of ways.
respectfully
BJ
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Ms Bradford asked Police Minister Annette King what was police policy for technical offences such as when parents took children out of school for a holiday.
On behalf of Ms King, Cabinet Minister Phil Goff said police weighed up cases on whether it was in the public good to prosecute and minor offences seldom made it to court.
I think that analogy is pretty apt. A school, or other interested party, might report parents to the police for taking their child out of school. After all, education is compulsory. The cops have to make the decision to have a chat to the parents, prosecute if it’s really warranted, or tell the school to take a walk (if it’s a matter of a long weekend once in a blue moon, or once a year to help with the hay baling).
Cops are, like schools, part of the community. Or they should be. They have to make judgement calls all the time.
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I don’t think that is the issue anyway The issues is that the state comes down officially on the side of a claim that light smacking is wrong in and of itself and part of a culture of violence. The state therefore, casts negative aspertions on a big majority of people who believe they can live their lives guided by common sense and social intelligence.
jh
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Stu Donovan Says:
February 28th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
JH – radical? Now that’s a big fat stupid call if ever I heard it.
What’s “radical? about saying that ACT, as a liberal party, should not have voted against the S59 bill?
JH you’re welcome to disagree with the above statement but don’t trot out pathetic insults.
Geez.
——————————————
You stated: “No truly liberal party should ever vote to perpetuate physical violence.” Peretuating physical violence is an assumption, no one has proved (won the case) that not repealing S59 will perpetuate physical viloence.
jh
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Alistair, there was more to it than that…
Mr Goff countered that the police had told the select committee that considered the bill that police were already obliged to investigate suspected or reported assaults.
What does this actually mean?
It means that -
A. Every time some nosey-parker reports a spanking, or some dispute between adults results in a charge, the police will be obligated to investigate.
I note that this would still be the case if the complainant reported an assault – however there is now NO DEFENSE for the parent who spanked. If they did spank, the policeman if he’s having a bad day or has a bad attitude or gets some lip back from said parent, is going to have a duty to send them to court charged with assault JUST as if they had horsewhipped the child or beaten the nosey-parker with a ball-bat.
B. In the court, they are at the mercy of the court. Note that this is the last place where reason may prevail and there is no guarantee that it will because they STILL have no defense.
This change in law will eventually and absolute certainty lead to very good families being torn to shreds, and very good people with assault convictions, because the rule of law is damned uncertain when the law is undefined. The law as provided by this change makes it completely arbitrary and up to the judgement of a VERY few people, what will happen to people who are technically in violation no matter how minor the infraction is perceived.
Amending the law gets you ALL the advantages of making beatings illegal with NONE of the downside. This society is not ready to take the giant leap of rendering simple spankings illegal.
This change alienates us from the electorate, costs us a significant teaching tool, makes amendment a likely result and the results in Sweden are ambiguous. Sweden being the ONLY country in the world that has tried this extreme. We don’t have their social support structure and we have a rough order of magnitude more violence going into this than they did.
Amending the law (which would make us match the rest of Scandinavia by the way), would get support from the electorate, give us a teaching tool, gain us credibility with the electorate and obtain all the practical gain we can possibly expect from this one.
( Part of the problem with the Swedish stats is that they were already quite non-violent when they undertook their experiment. It is impossible to draw much of a conclusion – they blame an increase in child-on-child violence on migrants and gang formation in some papers, others attribute it to this law. )
Eventually we may reach the point where we can match the Swedish state…. first we have to persuade people to put down the farm implements.
This country is not ready yet… but s59 as written HAS to go.
I hope that Sue has the sense NOT to withdraw her bill if it gets amended, because there is absolutely no doubt at all that change is required with respect to s59.
respectfully
BJ
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“alistair says Ms Bradford asked Police Minister Annette King what was police policy for technical offences such as when parents took children out of school for a holiday.
On behalf of Ms King, Cabinet Minister Phil Goff said police weighed up cases on whether it was in the public good to prosecute and minor offences seldom made it to court.
I think that analogy is pretty apt. A school, or other interested party, might report parents to the police for taking their child out of school. After all, education is compulsory. The cops have to make the decision to have a chat to the parents, prosecute if it’s really warranted, or tell the school to take a walk (if it’s a matter of a long weekend once in a blue moon, or once a year to help with the hay baling).
Cops are, like schools, part of the community. Or they should be. They have to make judgement calls all the time. ”
It was the wrong question to ask as it does not give a true reflection of how the police will react if a complaint is laid about a parent smacking their child.
Your reference is to justified absence from school, as reported in “Attendance, Absence and Truancy in New Zealand Schools in 2004″, Schools themselves do not believe such absences to be illegal as they have the prior permission of the parent.
However what this has to do with smacking I do not know as assault is considered very illegal by the police and they are not going to let assault slide on a whim.
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Interesting link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjBKFKc2igU
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And more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjklj6yZGPk&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk45JHr7aBY&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Olo4uWHPMyE&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSxV0farmys&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfmUhGwtE9w&mode=related&search=
I suppose these were all funded by Exxon
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“assault is considered very illegal by the police and they are not going to let assault slide on a whim.”
yeah but they are not going to consider just smacking as assult are they?
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Stuey
“yeah but they are not going to consider just smacking as assault are they?”
Yes they are. They will be honour bound to follow up any complaint made to them
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andrew
>>you see, what this boils down to is that you think that on this issue, YOU >>are right. the state is merely arrogant if it disagrees with YOU.
Most parents know the difference between a gentle smack and assault.
How strange that the state doesn’t appear to…
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Section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961 states that the parent of a child, or a person in the place of a parent “is justified in using force by way of correction towards a child if that force is reasonable in the circumstances. It is up to a jury to decide if the force used was reasonable in the circumstances. This was interpreted by a jury in Napier in recent years to mean that it was reasonable for a father to hit his eight year old son eight times with a piece of wood 30cm by 2 cm – leaving linear bruising visible for days. Also in recent years a jury in Hamilton considered it reasonable for a father to hit his 12 year old daughter with a piece of hosepipe, leaving a raised 15cm-long lump with red edges on the girl’s back.
These cases form the legal background against which police decide whether to prosecute or not when they come across similar instances of abuse. Thus beating children with pieces of wood and hosepipes is “reasonable? under current law. The United Nations reports that we are the only country to have such harmful legislation.
Full repeal of Section 59 is the only way of removing the legal justification for assaulting babies, children and young people. Repealing Section 59 also means that we will be meeting our international obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child..
In Europe, ten countries have already changed laws so that no physical punishment of children is allowed. In these countries there is no evidence at all that police prosecute for this kind of minor assault. What does happen on the evidence from Europe is that child abuse deaths drop, and very few parents now feel that physically punishing our children is an acceptable way for adults to treat people who deserve adult love and care, not adult physical and mental assault on their well-being.
International Obligations:
Article 43
1. For the purpose of examining the progress made by States Parties in achieving the realization of the
obligations undertaken in the present Convention, there shall be established a Committee on the
Rights of the Child, which shall carry out the functions hereinafter provided.
2. The Committee shall consist of ten experts of high moral standing and recognized competence in
the field covered by this Convention. The members of the Committee shall be elected by States Parties
from among their nationals and shall serve in their personal capacity, consideration being given to
equitable geographical distribution, as well as to the principal legal systems.
3. The members of the Committee shall be elected by secret ballot from a list of persons nominated by
States Parties. Each State Party may nominate one person from among its own nationals.
Any comments on these claims?
jh
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Seems to me that I have only found one European country that has dropped all parental right to spank. Perhaps I am mistaken. This claim asserts there are 9 others. Who would they be?
As for the claim that the police do not prosecute, they DO investigate each such allegation in Sweden and Sweden has a higher incidence of court ordered separations/interventions than most. This can be good or bad, but I maintain that this repeal is not the “ONLY” way to deal with abusive parents.
I’ll check this again. 10 ? Hard to believe there is no mention of the others on the web.
respectfully
BJ
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>>This was interpreted by a jury in Napier in recent years to mean that it was reasonable for a father to hit his eight year old son eight times with a piece of wood 30cm by 2 cm – leaving linear bruising visible for days
So, who says the state knows best, then?
What’s to stop an equally stupid decision against a parent who used a light smack, then receives an assault conviction?
Wouldn’t it be best to support the Burrows amendment? It’s very close to what Bradford is proposing, yet won’t criminalise good parents.
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“- The best indicators of physical child abuse showed a 489% increase in physical child abuse cases classified as criminal assaults in Sweden from 1981-1994. Child abuse fatalities have been infrequent in Sweden both before and after the 1979 legislation, though not as low as Durrant claims.
- The best evidence suggests that perpetration of criminal assaults against 7-14 year-olds is increasing most rapidly in age groups raised after the law against smacking was passed. This directly contradicts Durrant’s conclusion based on selected evidence from the same data source.”
My point here should be obvious. It isn’t a cure-all to simply ban spankings.
I have found listed 8 other countries. No studies or results from them is available yet. I still regard this as a rather larger bite than we can chew.
respectfully
BJ
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From England we see this:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040131/SPANK31//?query=spanking
respectfully
BJ
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In Europe, ten countries have already changed laws so that no physical punishment of children is allowed. In these countries there is no evidence at all that police prosecute for this kind of In Europe, ten countries have already changed laws so that no physical punishment of children is allowed. In these countries there is no evidence at all that police prosecute for this kind of [adult physical and mental assault on their well-being.]
What does happen on the evidence from Europe is that child abuse deaths drop, and very few parents now feel that physically punishing our children is an acceptable way for adults to treat people who deserve adult love and care, not [minor assault.]
I rearranged the words.
Hitting people is wrong –and children are people too
http://www.unicef.org/violencestudy/arabic/pdf/Hitting-wrong.pdf
I believe that Unicef heading contains a logical fallacy(?):
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/composition.html
jh
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I wonder if this was a Bay of Pigs on behalf of Unicefs: ten experts of high moral standing and recognized competence in the field , or if not a non random sample of pontiffs.
Perhaps we could have a system where we enact a wide range of potential corporal punishment situations and put them to the vote. Jurys then use them as a comparison chart?
jh
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A question for any green party supporter
Do you agree or disagree that the removal of section 59 will be a blanket ban of smacking?
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10426864
[Paul Holmes] Yeah, but what’s the big deal about a smack every so often? Her reply is brutal and finishes the argument for me. “Because one person’s smack is another person’s violent assault. I go all the way to James Whakaruru. The person who killed him was trying to teach him how to use the toilet properly, [BULL****!!]and often the people who bash their kids are really trying to discipline their kids or teach them something.
[Description of Slippery Slope: The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. In most cases, there are a series of steps or gradations between one event and the one in question and no reason is given as to why the intervening steps or gradations will simply be bypassed.]
So it’s the psychology in this country that you hit kids and brutalise them in the name of discipline.”
[Hasty Generalization: This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is not large enough.]
Don’t we deserve better than this???
jh
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To date, there is no data whatsoever on what happened in the more recent additions to this erroneous interpretation of how blastocytes grow to become children who grow to be adults. We know that teen-agers do not think the same way as people who have matured. We know that children do not think the same way as teen-agers and toddlers not the same as children. The only real data available so far is from Sweden. We have to wait another 10-15 years for the rest of the data to catch up. I think it will be a mixed bag when it does show up. Adult assaults will go down, but other problems will rise.
On what basis do we decide they are “all the same”? They clearly aren’t. Parental responsibilities and rights balance against their own through a spectrum until they reach their majority and face the world as adults.
Yes, there is a matter of respect for authority. The big guy can beat you up. The SOCIETY can beat you up if you transgress its rules. That lesson is also learned, and this cr@p about “the only lesson it teaches” is just that.
Learning to stay on the right side of the law and knowing the limits to which you can go when opposing the “authorities” you become way too likely to be on the receiving end of law enforcement.
We are nowhere near the situation as it ever was in Sweden. The Brits have something more like our culture and have not gone “the full monty”.
Finland 1984, Norway 1997, Denmark 1986, Austria… have done it.
I cannot find any good comparative studies for Finland. I have searched the literature and Finland has changed prosecution guidelines and reporting guidlines too much over the past 15 years to draw much of a conclusion.
http://www.istat.it/istat/eventi/perunasocieta/relazioni/Hofer_rel.pdf
… this is the best I have to date. Anyone with better links to realistic statistics is welcom to post them.
Children are quite often removed from “abusive” parents and taken under care of the state in Sweden. Also the law was passed in 1979 but –
“The European Commission declared the parents’ complaint inadmissible in 1985 since the Swedish government had claimed that the law was a lex imperfecta and that no parent would ever be charged under the law.”
Sound familiar? However, it is no longer possible to sort out the Swedish data because all of it is categorized as “assault”. The only statistic we have any firm data on is the rise in children forcibly separated from their families. Some of that may be good, there is no doubt at all that at least some of it is bad.
The Austrian law apparently doesn’t explicitly forbid parents from spanking, I have to find a better source for data.
Germany has its own problems but since its law dates only to 2000 we can’t draw any conclusion about their results anytime soon. The other countries listed seem to have negligible relevance due to factors like Cyprus (split into two), and Israel (a nasty perpetual war).
http://www.goethe.de/ges/soz/dos/jug/sjs/en1879264.htm
Canadian perspective
http://www.toronto.ca/health/ssl_backgrounder.htm
… and nobody seems to be differentiating corporal punishment with axe handles with the sort of spanking that most parents perceive as needful on occasion.
Face this too. We are unique in the manner of our acceptance of two cultures here. No other nation has a Treaty of Waitangi or anything remotely like it.
This MAY work… but it seems far more likely to me that it will result in good parents and good families getting broken for no improvement at all over a more explicit law.
respectfully
BJ
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Djrobinson
I agree of course, but I am arguing against my fellow greens here
respectfully
BJ
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Just one other thing.
However, within ten years almost all Swedes came to support the
law. This was partly because there are no penalties for spanking.
Rather, the purpose of the law was to set a national standard, to
educate parents and children, and to help parents who were having
difficulty managing their children.
That is VASTLY different from treating a spanking as an assault. It is vastly different from the course that we have set ourselves on.
Isn’t it.
respectfully
BJ
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(sigh..!.)..
are you still doing that cracked-record number b.j..?
how many times..?..and by how many people..including commissioners of police..
do you have to be told that when this irrational exemption to our common assault laws is removed..
and children are afforded the same protections under the law as the rest of us..
that the police will not be forming ‘smacking squads’..
and working undercover in the ‘burbs’/supermarkets/childcare-centres..
and something for b.j. and the rest of the ‘a light smack/thrashing never hurt me brigade’ to ponder on..
is that amongst the ‘chattering-classes’ there wouldn’t be that much slapping/smacking of children anymore..(esp in public places/with an audience..)
but if you go to more economically depressed areas of new zealand..(y’know..down amongst the miseries of that underclass clark denies even exists..)
(quote:..’there’s a few who fall through the cracks’..)
it is in those places you will see/hear children getting far more than that (oxymoronic..save for s&m’ers..description)..’a gentle smack..’
and these are the children who need the protections under law already afforded the rest of us..
and these are the adults who need to be shown/told..’..no..that is not o.k..!.’.)
and those..(like b.j.)..
who advocate the ‘open-hand’..on both time and motion..and ‘how else can i enforce my authority over this little person..if not by the threat of violence…?..”.grounds…
should ponder on this…
if they are not able to exert any form of influence/control over the fruit of their loins without that ‘authority’ of physical chastisment..
how on earth do they expect teachers to be able to control mobs of the little anarchists..
without having to hit them..any more..?
that’s another question for you to answer there b.j…
(and ..hint..!..hint..!..former space-guy..it ain’t rocket science..eh..?..)
but i guess you’ll most likely just file it with the other one you didn’t answer..(remember..?..the unicef-protection-scale one..?
neither you nor zen tiger have been able to answer it..eh..?
so..untill you do..
(and those questions get right to the flaws in the heart of your arguments/stance b.j…eh b.j..?..)
you really should ease off with the cracked-record routine..eh..?..
“..’..the course we have set ourselves on..”
you ain’t half the feckin’ cassandra/drama queen..eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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What feckin question Phil? Which one was THAT now. Sigh! yourself. If you haven’t got anything to contribute except references to something somewhere that I haven’t somehow satisfied on your behalf but which you are unhappy to ever actually ask, I am damned if I am going to search this thread for it after searching the feckin web for information that YOU and the rest of the Green party SHOULD have researched before starting this “tilt at another windmill” effort.
Except I DID answer it already and I realize now that this gormless thread ate it. So I’ll do it again, just so you can be happy.
why is it that countries that haven’t hit their children since the mid-fifties..?
and that have higher taxes and (much) better social services/support..
and hence..have no ‘underclass’..
came top of that unicef survey on how well societies/cultures/countries cared for/protected their children..?
Because dear heart, they HAVE ” higher taxes and (much) better social services/support” – and even before changing their law had a level of violence against children that was a tenth of what we have. They DID “hit” their children in the 50′s, they didn’t beat them and they DIDN’T make the spanking the same as an assault and the parent a felon in the process and they DID suffer an apparent 400-500% increase in child-on-child violence after the law went into effect. Moreover, the incidence of real violence appears to have risen,
You’re damned right, it ISN’T Rocket Science. I’ve done some real work behind these posts and contributed some actual information to this thread. Unlike a certain rather incoherent person who posts here. I’ve contributed information that cuts both ways too, if you’d bothered to read through some of my links. I am looking for facts.
I’ve dug into national stats on half a dozen countries and research that deals with this issue in depth. I also HAVE a degree in Psychology and I understand that bafflegab quite well. What have you done besides look into sites that agree with your prejudice and toe the party-line?
I went into the Green internal site and started asking around there.
What have you contributed?
Suck it in Phil. I’m tired of your snotty attitude to people you disagree with, and I WILL give it back to you.
Thanks for nothing
B J
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um..b.j….you are accusing me of ‘toeing the party line.’…?..(heh-heh..!..)
(sheesh..!..that’s an accusation that’s never been levelled at me before..eh..?..)
and you have a batchelor of psych..?..what year/decade/century..?
and that makes you an ”expert’ in what exactly..?
and you chastise me for not going to the green ‘internal site’..?
you forget..dear heart..i am blacklisted/dossiered/cashiered from the green party..
(my long-service epaulets were ripped from my shoulders..eh..?..
and my sword was formally ‘broken’..)
guilty of ‘crimes against greens/green thought’..
(.the exact nature of which..i am yet to ascertain..)
so..no ‘internal’ for moi..eh..?
and what have i ‘contributed’..?
well..apart from the practical demonstration of raising a couple of nippers without the need to follow your smacking/time-management/discipline imperatives..
i’ve presented you (and big brother and zen tiger) with (solid) ripostes to your puzzling/hysterical/reactionary stances on this quite simple issue..
that you still haven’t answered..to anyones’satisfaction..
and the teacher/discipline question in the comment you ‘didn’t’ respond to..eh..?
doyawanna try again..?
and..when/how are you going to ‘give it back’ to me..?
or..was that it..?..
(whoar..!..i’ve been ‘gummed’..by b.j…)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
oh..and i shut zen-tiger up too…
remember..?
we are still waiting for him to answer that question you have (still) not answered..
eh..?
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Well….
it was part of my point Phil, that you ARE NOT a Green, for reasons that have to do with you, not the Green Party. It is QUITE possible to disagree with the party line without being a disagreeable twit. Unfortunately you do not seem to have any access to a personality that is not disagreeable.
What part of s59 has anything to do with teacher/discipline? It isn’t part of the feckin question Mr “I shut all of them up”… Or is it too hard for you to stick to the topic at hand and understand the limits to a disagreement. You’ve never had much talent except for hyperbole and invective, and your style is to try to lump everyone together as enemies, as if any of them that disagrees with anything you pronounce disagrees with everything you believe. That’s a pretty stupid way to treat people who are (for the most part) your allies.
Maybe you should try actually studying the problem instead of playing attack dog. You are a good attack dog Phil, but this is a forum for people who actually want to discuss things, not bark at each other. So since I haven’t “shut up” (despite your claims) and I have kept on at looking for data and answers (inconveniently for your assumptions it appears) the “all talk, all the time Phil show” has to cope with a bitter reality.
Some of us are more than just talk. Some of us actually think things through. Some of us actually act on our convictions.
I am not expecting you to apologize, though you should. I am not expecting you to contribute, though you could. My lowest expectations of you have barely been met.
Congratulations – you’ve made it to my sh!t list a second time.
Which IS an accomplishment of sorts. We will see what further tests of patience you will provide us with.
BJ
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Another response swallowed by the SW…. WTF
BJ
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bj,
I’ve just returned from the Green’s South Island Policy Conference.
The venue was beautiful the food was great, the company superb, the discussions excellent etc etc.
The MP’s were there, as were many Party Officials and Staff.
My adult son attended for his first time and found it a GREAT experience.
(and yes, we had a look at the Defence Policy that you are involved in!)
NOBODY mentioned the repeal of Section 59.
I’d “wager a bet” that not one of the delightfully intelligent, talented, cooperative and “well behaved” kids there has EVER been subjected to a “spanking” (as you call it).
The repeal of Section 59 is a Private Member’s Bill put forward Sue Bradford under her own name. The Green MPs will support it, as will many other MPs. It is what we/they believe should happen for reasons that you seem incapable of understanding.
You appear to be so tied up in your personal “right” to treat your children in the way you were treated (?) that you haven’t grasped the fact that this amendment is largely about protecting those who are put in danger from the misuse of the current law:–
Perpertrators are getting off Serious Assault charges by using the defence of “reasonable force”, (when, if they had “assaulted” an adult in the same way, they would have been succesfully prosecuted.)
The law needs amending to give children protection equal to that that enjoyed by adults.
(It is NOT a plot to grab bjchip and his admireres and prosecute them!)
The sky won’t fall in. If you continue to spank your children, no one will take you to court and manage to make a criminal out of you … (Perhaps you might even be encouraged to learn some effective non violent ways of dealing with similar situations… )
Do try to relax a little …
Why not trust your judgement about Aotearoa being a place that you want your kids to grow up in … rather than trying to mould it into a mirror image of your previous home. (Which, I might remind you, is behaving very badly in the World at the moment and should be sent to its bedroom for “time out”!)
I wish you’d seen the gentle, confident, cooperative and non violent kids I saw this weekend …
(and I met “Toad”.)
eredwen
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Eredwen
“that you haven’t grasped the fact that this amendment is largely about protecting those who are put in danger from the misuse of the current law”
Jut tell me how this amendment will save ONE Kahui kid or ONE Lillybing and I will agree with you.
This law is not (and was never going to) save ONE kid from child abuse.
Most of all I would love people to tell the truth about this amendment, it sure as hell is not about saving kids from abuse.
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was that an official b.j. dummy-spit..?
(i see you lost your americanism/faux-polite ‘respectfully’..eh..?..
(heh-heh..!..)..
(would a ‘gotcha..!’ be appropriate at this point in time..?..b.j…?..)
more ad hominems there than you can point a stick at..eh..?
(even down to deciding ‘guilty!’.. on my (dossiered/tabled) litany of ‘green-sins’..eh..?..
you’ve decided to go with the kangaroo court on that one eh..?..”
b.t.w..have you met ‘dossier-guy’ yet..?.b.j..?..
you’d better be careful there ..eh..?
cos’ if he decides he dosen’t like you/if you say or do anything that offends him….he’ll whip up a dossier against you faster than you can whip up a souffle….and one as full of ‘hot-air’ as that souffle..eh..?..
heh-heh..!..)
and you (still) haven’t answered either question..eh..b.j..?
just answered with one of your own..
(which i’ll answer..as a practical example for you of how that is done..eh..?..)
then maybe you could give it a go..eh..?
you ask what relevance does teaching discipline have with sec 59/hitting children..?
a couple of points..
teachers maintain discipline without physical punishments..
(how do they do it b.j…?..
could be some lessons to be learnt there for the likes of you..eh..?..)
when in the past..like you in your parenting..teachers had to maintain their ‘authority’/'respect’ with the crutch of the cane/strap/fear..?
and those same fears you express at losing your ‘rights’ to hit children..were expressed by many teachers/alarmist ‘amatuer-pundits’ like yourself..
when the ending of caning/strapping in schools was first mooted…
the parallels/lessons are clear..eh..?
‘shine on..you crazy smacking/slapping/strapping diamond..!..”….you..
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Teachers have an increasingly difficult time with their students Phil, or hadn’t you noticed.
They rely on the parents, the kids get sent home, they wind up in schools with other “problem” kids. Kids are all different. The troublesome ones are not all “handled” by the teachers. I’ve seen some of the problem kids. My Mom taught school for 20 years, and I too have been a teacher for a while.
It may not have been quite so bleeding obviious to your high and mightyness, but I don’t give a “feck” about my “right” to hit kids. It isn’t something I want to do or wish to do as you imply. It is something that may occasionally have to be done. PARTICULARLY in a socio-economic system like ours, that is nowhere near as supportive as Sweden or Finland or Norway have.
I DO care about good parents being charged with assault for giving a spanking…. because even then that is NOT what the Swedish model is, assault charges go far beyond that.
So maybe you ought to give it another go and try to understand that you can’t expect people to be as patient with your acting like a child, as they are with actual children.
You’ve proved my points for me.
BJ
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Eredwen
I pointed out long ago and possibly on another thread, that I reckon the intentions are good and the effects may not be as dire as I expect, though the Rickards example SHOULD give pause to someone who decides to trust the police to make the law.
I believe that strategically this is a bad call by the party and by Sue. An amendment would’ve gotten all the protections you need in the form of law and cost us nothing, removal is just a bit too far to go all in one step, remembering that we are an order-of-magnitude WORSE on the violence scale than the Swedes when they went this way.
I’ve never treated my kids the way I was treated. I don’t take that example. It ISN’T THE POINT!
I’m not even strongly disagreeing with the end goal though I do disagree. The stats don’t tell me a lot to encourage me that this is the “best” way to raise kids… for some of them it can work.
I am pointing out that the strategy used and the law used is IMAO, about as dumb as charging at any other windmill. Noble? yeah, but you still have a headache afterwards.
respectfully
BJ
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This wikipaedia article sets out the arguments well. I think boths sides are right, it is just a question of when.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanking
This is a good example of how to present a contencious issue (bluntly honest), rather than as a hard-hitting commercial where eg smack = hit = beating.
jh
[Some attribute the quotation "spare the rod and spoil the child" to the Bible; in fact, it comes from a bawdy poem entitled "Hudibras" by Samuel Butler.]
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Good article jh.
Thanks!
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no b.j..you’ve proved my points for me..
you say..”..It is something that may occasionally have to be done…”
so that’s it..!..strip away your pyscoanalytical ‘readings’..your massaging of stats..etc..etc..
it all comes down to your desire to have that option..
cos’ it ‘may have to be done’….
and that is just ‘bullsh*t..b.j..
you never..i repeat never..have to hit/slap/smack/cane children..eh..?
and that is where you and i part company..eh..?
and that your longwinded justifications for your personal desire boil down to being the actual/real reason you have been infuriating many with your stats-laden smoke-screens…
(sheesh..!..a teacher too..!..2nd generation even..
is there anything you are not an expert in..?..we wondered/asked..?..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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phil u Says:
March 6th, 2007 at 9:02 am
you never..i repeat never..have to hit/slap/smack/cane children..eh..?
——————————————————————-
High level of belief.
The counter view can be expressed as:
Those who accept spanking often frame the issue as a matter of parental rights, stating that parents have the right to raise their children in the way they consider most appropriate. They also hold there is little evidence that moderate spanking is harmful. Further, many believe that discipline problems among children have recently increased, and partially attribute the increase to the decline of both parental authority and the use of spanking. Proponents of spanking also argue that moderate spanking is simple and effective, especially compared to non-spanking disciplines proposed by both academic psychologists and parents which may rely upon complicated or unrealistic methods that are often not implemented successfully.
jh
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I think this is a strong point:
Proponents of spanking also argue that moderate spanking is simple and effective, especially compared to non-spanking disciplines proposed by both academic psychologists and parents which may rely upon complicated or unrealistic methods that are often not implemented successfully.
jh
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why is it..that those who hit children..
have a total sense of disbelief..that others..who don’t hit..
are able to raise civilised children..?
is not ‘the proof in the pudding’..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Wow just wow
This argument has moved beyond simple protection of children.
Its now about who’s ideology is best.
Those who believe that you should never hit a child
As to those who believe a smack around the ass is a good tool for teaching chlidren the difference between right and wrong.
The difference in arguments is stark, but only one side is attempting to impose its will on the other, its easy to see which side is attempting to force people to follow their ideology while the other is asking for to be left alone to raise their children as they see fit within the bounds and reasons of the law.
Those people who support the “Do not smack children” side of the argument should bring their children up in this manner, and leave the rest of population to decide how their children should be raised.
The greens are once again attempting to force their opinions upon the majorty of this country, when will they get it through their heads that over 90% of this nation did not vote for them, and they should not be attempting to force their agenda upon the rest of us who do not want it.
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phil u Says:
March 6th, 2007 at 10:04 am
why is it..that those who hit children..
have a total sense of disbelief..that others..who don’t hit [inflammatory word]..
are able to raise civilised children..?
is not ‘the proof in the pudding’..?
————
This reminds me of the “Was Richard Pearse the First to Fly” thing (ie did you see Richard Pearse flying?).
In my own experience, I have obsevered situations where I considered a quick spank was the best option (simple, effective, appropriate), and only used on those occasions- so for me, that answers my “did you see Richard Pearse flying” or not question.
One further point, which I hope you can place in the argument is, >
I was reading a blog where someone was commenting on actions taken by locals against some people caught stealing. They apparently rolled rocks down where they were hiding. Someone’s indignant comment was ....”but somebody could get hurt!”...exactly, I thought, society has taken the “(you) could get hurt” for bad behaviour message out of society. Criminals operate in an environment where, if they fall off the trapieze, there will always be a saftey net. By sending the message that no one ever needs to smack (if you do it is a failure of parenting) you reinforce that message (imho).
jh
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Djrobinson
Very well said.
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Actually this is Labours bill, they provided the block voting.
jh
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“..those people who support the ‘bring the children out of the mines’ side of the argument should bring their children up in this manner..and leave the rest of the population to decide how their children should be raised..”
an argument as fallacious then..as now..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Djrobinson Says: “Those people who support the “Do not smack children? side of the argument should bring their children up in this manner, and leave the rest of population to decide how their children should be raised.”
So does the same apply to those creatures who think it is okay to have sex with their children?
Or to those who think it’s perfectly okay to leave the younger kids in the care of an 11 year old while they go out on the booze?
Aren’t these also instances of leaving the “rest of the population to decide how their children should be raised.”
I recently had a conversation at a party with a man who told me (not knowing that I supported Sue B’s Bill) how he had taught his daughter to ride her bicycle by belting her around the legs with a piece of timber every time she fell off. “Reasonable force for the purpose of correction” he believed. And he was very proud of himself that it worked, claiming that she would never have learned to ride but for his interventions. He never had a thought that anyone would consider such an action unreasonable.
Get real DJ – this is the sort of attitude we are up against! What chance of a conviction from a jury with a few guys like this on it?
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bj:
I assume you followed Toad’s suggestion (February 23rd at 12:28pm), and read the Children’s Policy of the Green Party of Aotearoa NZ (ratified 29 June 2005):
“Section 3. Creating a safe, supportive, nurturing, non-violent environment for children to grow up in.
“The Green Party will:
” 1. Outlaw the use of physical force in the discipline of children. We will repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act so that parents may no longer use “reasonable force” to discipline a child. This is in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.”
Sue Bradford’s Bill is based on Green Party Policy which follows directly from Green Core Principles … in this case the Principle of “Non Violence” (ie non violent conflict resolution).
My wise old father had a saying: “There is no point in farting against thunder.”
bj: That is precisely what you are doing here!
Your copious “farts”(!!) have support from some of the (right wing?) visitors to this site, but not from the Greens … and your determinedly held “fears” are not shared by our legal experts (in NZ Law).
Do think about it!
eredwen
…………………………………………………
For others reading this post:
The Key Green Principles are:
*Ecological Sustainability, *Social Justice, *Appropriate Decision-Making, *Non-violence
Whatever the Greens do comes from these Principles.
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Specialization is for insects Phil
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Eredwen – You’ll find a companion to this thread on the internal Green Forum asking about what we were thinking when we voted that line in that policy, and you’ll also find (though I don’t insist you look) that I alluded to that line in the policy somewhere above this in the thread. So yes I DO know it is there.
I still think it is a mistake. Doesn’t matter what BB -or- Phil say. Even the Swedes didn’t make simple spanking into an assault Eredwen. It even goes past the UN wording as you’ve provided it. Children are not adults.
No Toad… you’ve missed the point this time, which is that there is a middle here that has been excluded and is complaining about it.
Yes, the example person you cite was abusing and abusive – AND WOULD BE in any rational amendment. Feel free to charge the SOB with assault. I have no qualms whatsoever, but he wasn’t spanking his young’un. We do not sanction that in any way. However totally removing s59 as opposed to amending it to offer definitions does not accomplish ANYTHING with respect to that person or any other.
The question of what the society will permit is societal. This society condemns sex with minors almost unanimously and that control is easy to assert. The argument about spanking is far different and the question of the child’s rights vs the parent’s responsibilities is definitively in question here. No such question exists in your sexual examples.
All kids are different. One of mine has never needed more than a cross look, or a “you made papa unhappy” to get his attention. The other has always had bouts of unreason. She’s old enough now to be mostly past that. The are different as night and day.
respectfully
BJ
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Wher did my Richard Pearse analogy post fly off to? I thought I made a good point.
jh
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djrobinson said: “The difference in arguments is stark, but only one side is attempting to impose its will ,”
yeah, those who are smacking.
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so is that you in a state of..
“..stick a fork in him..!..he”s done..!..”..?
b.j…?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Hi phil!
I’m glad to see you battling on!
I really would like to encourage some of the fathers (or would-be-fathers?) here who seem genuinely afraid of losing their “right to discipline ther kids in the only way they know how” to look at effective non-violent ways of socialising small human beings … for a peaceful world !
“As the twig is bent, so does the tree grow.”
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yeah..that does my head in..how they appear to be blind to the many alternatives/’working’ examples..that there are..
and yes..different childrenhave different personalities..some are more difficult than others..
but an (inevitably escalating) regime of physical violence is in no way a ‘solution’..
it s the problem..
and..how can they ‘want’ to be able to slap/smack/hit the people they purport most to love..?
as i said..it does my head in..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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bj:
I won’t go on and on with you any more! You pride yourself on being intelligent, but on this matter you seem determined NOT to see the “BIG PICTURE”. (Frankly your arrogance is “breathtaking” at times.)
Sue’s bill is about the rights of the most vulnerable children in our society to have SOME protection. (It is a Private Members Bill, and does not require the agreement of the Green Party as a whole.) It does have the support of the Green MPs and of MPs from other Parties, and a great deal of support from within the Green Party membership, and (crucially) the support of experts in the field.
As the law stands, serious abusers with a good barrister are able to use the “reasonable force” clause to “get off” that, which if it was done to an adult, would be (punishable) as “serious assault.” (“Precendent” created in precvious court cases has made this possible.)
Thus the clause does not work in the way it was intended. By removing this clause, the loophole is closed. This needs to be done, and that is why Sue’s bill has been put forward.
bjchip is NOT going to be prosecuted if he continues to “spank” his kids.
Nor will his right-wing, all-male entourage. (Hopefully all in this group will eventually learn more effective ways of behaving with their kids.)
Whatever you have read on this topic, what makes you believe that you know more and better than Sue and her advisors? and more than those who understand our legal system and support her?
Give us all a break!
eredwen
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[quote]So does the same apply to those creatures who think it is okay to have sex with their children?[/quote]
You’re trying to argue that a smack around the ass with a hand has the same physiological effect as touching up a child?
Are you so far gone from reality that you would confuse such issues, dude get off the drugs
[quote]Or to those who think it’s perfectly okay to leave the younger kids in the care of an 11 year old while they go out on the booze?[/quote]
This is interesting, now we are getting down to reasonability, who is ultimately responsible for the child?
The parent or the state!
[quote]I recently had a conversation at a party with a man who told me (not knowing that I supported Sue B’s Bill) how he had taught his daughter to ride her bicycle by belting her around the legs with a piece of timber every time she fell off. “Reasonable force for the purpose of correction? he believed. And he was very proud of himself that it worked, claiming that she would never have learned to ride but for his interventions. He never had a thought that anyone would consider such an action unreasonable. [/quote]
One of my partners best friends has 3 children to 2 different fathers, the first 2 children were smacked not beaten or abused, they were smacked, for serious breaches of the rules, they turned out ok, they were respectful and well behaved as children and have grown to be well rounded citizens of this nation of ours. The 3rd child who is now just turning 13 has never been smacked is the most rude, smart assed little so and so one could meet, my partner who happens to be named sue was on the phone to her friend, when the young teenager started swearing at his mother and telling her to get off the phone because his friends would be calling him back soon.
Both sides have their horror stories.
[quote]al DJ – this is the sort of attitude we are up against! What chance of a conviction from a jury with a few guys like this on it? [/quote]
Your entire argument is more about bad parenting then it is about children being smacked. A bad parent beats their kid until they can not walk, leaves their kid in a car while they go shopping.
Once again you are trying to confuse 2 entirely separate issues, smacking as a form of disciplining a child and bad parenting.
Stop with the muddy waters and start discussing the issue of smacking and how the green party is attempting to force their ideology upon New Zealanders who neither need it nor want it
Andrew -
Really.. Are you saying that smacking is the only way to impose your will on someone?
eredwen
The police themselves have said they will enforce the law, they have no other choice but to do so, it’s up to a jury to decide if you’re guilty or innocent.
If you section 59 is repealed and you smack your child, you are breaking the law and are guilty of assault its that simple. Why do you think that the police are suddenly going to turn a blind eye to something as serious as assault? I heard on the radio today they are investigating incidents where water bombs have been thrown at cars, it sounds trivial but the a complaint was made and the police must treat it seriously
Also in answer to your question. Sue Bradford has an agenda to force all parents in New Zealand to follow her parenting style of not smacking their children.
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eredwen Says:
March 6th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
bj
Whatever you have read on this topic, what makes you believe that you know more and better than Sue and her advisors? and more than those who understand our legal system and support her?
(Frankly your arrogance is “breathtaking? at times.)
________________________________________________
This is where argument mapping would come in handy.
jh
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Eredwen
‘bj
Whatever you have read on this topic, what makes you believe that you know more and better than Sue and her advisors?’
EVERYTHING that BJ says makes a lot more sense than ANYTHING that comes out of Bradford’s mouth.
As an example, BJ speaks the truth, Bradford might want to try that some time.
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Actually I tried argument mapping, it was a bit clunky and i rapidly gave up. However, an argument like this would go better if a moderator maintained a structure?
I think the first and a, critical point where we dissagree is (as I said):
“In my own experience, I have obsevered situations where I considered a quick spank was the best option (simple, effective, appropriate), and only used on those occasions
V’s
(for example)
you never..i repeat never..have to hit/slap/smack/cane children..eh..?
If smacking is alwaysbad, repealing Section59 is not such an issue.
Next issue.
Does the occasional smack lead to an (inevitably escalating) regime of physical violence ..??
jh
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Eredwen – I read the Q&A in Parliament. The one in which Goff’s reply to the relevant question went like this
“police had told the select committee that considered the bill that police were already obliged to investigate suspected or reported assaults?
Which contradicts your reassuring words… and reveals to a certain extent, the difference here. I am not listening to Sue’s assurances about what the Police will or will not do. Remembering that the Police also employed Shipton and Rickards trusting them is NOT something I am so very inclined to do anyway… I am listening to the what the police themselves are repoted to be saying.
Does that answer your question?
I seriously believe that nobody arguing this here wants the law as it currently stands. It’s crude but we can ask.
Frog ! Why doesn’t this blog let us do POLLS ??!!!
Y’all have to be honest now. No erasing other peoples names and no adding names that aren’t yours.
s59 as is ?
s59 amended to define spanking within strict limits?
BJ :
s59 gone and let the police prosecute whom they choose?
Just cut and paste and add your squiggle to show where you stand.
We can’t do it neat, but we really need more clarity. The issue isn’t what people get away with under the current law. If I am not mistaken the “current law” will get near zero or zero support here, even from the most conservative.
Which makes arguments based on the assumption that anyone here supports it, which have recurred with absurd frequency for such an otherwise intelligent group of people, meaningless and not a little insulting.
We all understand the law should be changed. Some of us disagree with the extreme measure that is being offered here.
…and it IS extreme. I’ve pointed out that it is more extreme even that the Swedes did, because they did NOT make it the same as a felony assault, to give a misbehaving child a spank.
respectfully
BJ
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bjchip Says:
March 6th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
I seriously believe that nobody arguing this here wants the law as it currently stands. It’s crude but we can ask.
_________________________________________________________
I thought the situation is, that, the bill works reasonably well, but occasionally, jurys have made decisions which, (proponents of repeal), say, let child abusers off?
However, the BIG FISH is to send a message to society that no level of physical disciplining of children is acceptable?
Assumption: There is always a better way to discipline a small child than a light smack.
Assumption: Violent people will be less likely to assault children if physical disciplining is banned (ie there is a cultural change).
Assumption: If there is a strengthening of a “hands off children” rule, there will be no rise in bad behaviour by young adults.
jh
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drjobinson said: “You’re trying to argue that a smack around the ass with a hand has the same physiological effect as touching up a child?”
your blustering doesn’t really address the principle which was raised.
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Well it looks like a victory for Bradford, I guess it just proves that if you tell enough bare faced lies even Pollies will believe you.
The up side is that we will only have to suffer this ridiculous piece of legislation for 18 months at the most as the Nat’s have said they will repeal the act when they win the next election.
The Green party will suffer a huge backlash from the voting public over this silly bill and that is a genuine pity, while I will admit that I detest Bradford with a passion I do think there are some (and I stress the word some) Green MP’s that I have a lot of time for.
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Woo-hoo!
The Maori Party’s other co-leader Pita Sharples today announced the party’s four MPs would unanimously support the bill in its current form, to send a strong message they did not support violence against children.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10428560
This is what I’ve been saying all along : the bill’s not about punishing parents, it’s about changing the culture of violence in which too many of our children are raised.
Bro : in your dreams mate…
Even if the Nats got a clear majority in parliament, they quite likely wouldn’t have the numbers for repeal :
The vote is on MPs personal conscience but all Labour members are voting for the bill and most National MPs are against it. United Future and NZ First are divided.
The fact is, social progress is very rarely rolled back. Even unpopular measures are gradually assimilated. For example, France abolished the death penalty in 1981, even though a majority supported it. Now, a majority opposes the death penalty, and it will never be brought back (it even got written into the constitution this year)
Congratulations Sue, I’m proud of you.
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alistair says: “Congratulations Sue, I’m proud of you.”
I have just sent Sue an email containing that sentence, and am about to send one to Pita Sharples too!
When questioned by a TV News reporter about his own experiences as a child, Pita said that he was regularly beaten (and even knocked unconscious). THAT “reality” is something that those who want to retain Section 59 and their “right to spank” or “smack” their children should ponder.
Fortunately it looks as if the loophole in the law WILL be closed, and I agree that “social progress is very rarely rolled back.”
Well done Sue!!
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… and the PM was interviewed and said that the Labour MPs will support Sue’s Amendment for the sake of our children. (or words to that effect).
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Fifteen reasons the anti smacking bill is insane –
1/ The propsoed alternatives of psycological punishments can be far more damaging for SOME children. One of my children gets highly traumatised and hysterical by time out or loss of privaleges, but not with a light smack.
Proponents of this bill are happy to inflict psycological punishments and trauma on some children as an alternative to a light smack. For some children, and some circumstances, alternative proposed are far WORSE. For some children they could even be considered cruel and abusive.
2/ These proposed alternative corrections often have to be repeated many times to work. Almost always a light smack works instantly. Nine times out of ten, it is simply a threat of a smack that works instantly.
3/ Life threatening behaviour like pulling out live plugs, or running onto roads needs to be stopped immediately. Our childrens lives are far too valuable to try keep trying corrections that don’t word very well.
4/ This bill has nothing to do with stopping severe beatings – Sue Bradford said this on radio.
5/ The bill was never intended to stop severe beatings – Sue Bradford said this on radio.
6/ The bill will enable police to be called if an out-of-control child gets a smack in a supermarket – Sue Bradford said this on radio (all on zb).
7/ Both Police and Judges say New Zealand has a growing problem with children and teenagers who a/ have no self discipline, and b/ have been taught that there are no consequenses for their actions. This bill will clearly increase this.
8/ The world famous University of Otago long term study has researched smacking. Although the difference was not great, as a group adults who had NOT been smacked as children performed BELOW those that had (as to be expected, those who were abused were way below both groups).
9/ Hundreds of thosuands of New Zealand’s best parents will be turned into criminals overnight.
10/ Any person with a grudge can easily make a false (or true) accusations that a child has been smacked.
11/ Children will easily be able to make false (and true) accusations against their parents when if they are angry.
12/ Police and CYFS time will be wasted. They will have LESS time for real abuse cases
13/ It will cause the fracture of the social structure of many families, and between spouses – I’ve already started to see this happen with people I know. This bill is already anti-family.
14/ Polititians are using the law to bash and bully good parents who are putting out some of New Zeland’s top achievers.
15/ It shows the most extreme arogance of polititians and those who support this bill to dictate that if you don’t follow the child rearing method that they dictate to you, the you are a lowly criminal.
New Zealand has a serious problem with a very small group of people who don’t have the intelect to tell the difference between a bash and a light smack.
Unfortunately we are about to see that half of New Zealand polititians are in this group.
And they show extreme arrogance by spitting on democracy and their own constituents, and giving a big bash to hundreds of thousands of New Zealand’s best parents, while (as Sue Bradford admit on nationwide radio) doing absolutely nothing to stop serious child abuse.
Stunningly some polititians claim to have no idea of why people are so angry at them. Surely no one can be this out of touch with New Zealanders. If they are, they have no right to be a representative and should look for alternative employment – they may need it.
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One of my children gets highly traumatised and hysterical by time out or loss of privaleges, but not with a light smack.
I don’t want to go judgemental on you Dave, but you’re not doing your kid any favours by letting her get away with a “light smack” and keeping her privileges… wait till she tries throwing a wobbly at work eh… the message she’s getting is that she can always get her way UNLESS someone threatens violence to her.
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New Zealand has a serious problem with a very small group of people who don’t have the intelect to tell the difference between a bash and a light smack.
Not such a small group. NZ has a shockingly high level of violence against children, Dave. Our culture needs to get the message that this is unacceptable. If that means living in fear because a neighbour might tell the cops on them, then so be it. We need to be concerned about the welfare of our neighbours’ kids, it’s our business too, not just their parents’. This bill will empower people to do that.
Yeah people might be tempted to abuse the law by making false or trivial accusations against people they don’t like. The cops will sort that out, just as they do with all laws.
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SouthernDave said:
1/ The propsoed alternatives of psycological punishments can be far more damaging for SOME children. One of my children gets highly traumatised and hysterical by time out or loss of privaleges, but not with a light smack. Proponents of this bill are happy to inflict psycological punishments and trauma on some children as an alternative to a light smack. For some children, and some circumstances, alternative proposed are far WORSE. For some children they could even be considered cruel and abusive. See Alistair’s post above – the message she’s getting is that she can always get her way UNLESS someone threatens violence to her. Kids who get this message often grow up to be violent adults.
2/ These proposed alternative corrections often have to be repeated many times to work. Almost always a light smack works instantly. Nine times out of ten, it is simply a threat of a smack that works instantly. Surely we want children to learn to understand why certain behaviour is appropriate and other behaviour is not. Getting them to modify their behaviour as a response to fear doesn’t give them any understanding at all – it just teaches them to behave as automatons, rather than thinking human beings.
3/ Life threatening behaviour like pulling out live plugs, or running onto roads needs to be stopped immediately. Our childrens lives are far too valuable to try keep trying corrections that don’t word very well. The Bill, as amended by the Select Committee, permits the use of force that is reasonable in the circumstances and is for the purpose of preventing or minimising harm to the child. It also permits if for the purpose of preventing or minimising harm to others, preventing the child from engaging in conduct that amounts to a criminal offence or offensive or disruptive behaviour, and performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting.
4/ This bill has nothing to do with stopping severe beatings – Sue Bradford said this on radio. So what. But it will help create a culture where violence towards children becomes less acceptable, and if parents hit their children less, it will help reduce the incidence of excessive force being used in disciplinary situations as a consequence of parental anger.
5/ The bill was never intended to stop severe beatings – Sue Bradford said this on radio. Same as 4/ above.
6/ The bill will enable police to be called if an out-of-control child gets a smack in a supermarket – Sue Bradford said this on radio (all on zb). The police cqan be called under the current law. What’s more, they are duty-bound to investigate under the current law. The current section 59 provides a defence after an assault has occurred – it does not deem the assault to have not occurred.
7/ Both Police and Judges say New Zealand has a growing problem with children and teenagers who a/ have no self discipline, and b/ have been taught that there are no consequenses for their actions. This bill will clearly increase this. This is pure speculation. I would have thought the converse would be more likely if children were taught why unacceptable behaviour is unacceptable, rather than taught to refrain from it out of fear of being hit. Spanking is more likely imo to teach them “might is right”.
8/ The world famous University of Otago long term study has researched smacking. Although the difference was not great, as a group adults who had NOT been smacked as children performed BELOW those that had (as to be expected, those who were abused were way below both groups). This misrepresents the study findings. The full study is reported here in teh NZ Medical Journal. What it did find was that 80% of participants received physical punishment in childhood. For over a quarter of all interviewees (29%), smacking was the most severe physical punishment; 45% reported being hit with an object; and 6% described experiences of extreme physical punishment such as being beaten up or knocked unconscious. It also found that there was no relationship found between reason cited for punishment (i.e. extent of misdemeanor) and severity of punishment administered, suggests that parents do not apportion punishment to fit the “crime?.
9/ Hundreds of thosuands of New Zealand’s best parents will be turned into criminals overnight. The Police will take into account the sufficiency of reliable evidence, the mitigating or aggravating circumstances, the public interest served by prosecution, the alternatives available, the amount of force used, and the likelihood of obtaining a conviction in deciding whether to prosecute – as they do under the current law. And no-one will be a criminal if they obey the law and stop hitting their kids.
10/ Any person with a grudge can easily make a false (or true) accusations that a child has been smacked. As they can now make an allegation that a child has been assaulted, sexually abused, or neglected. We rely on Police investigations to identify malicious allegation, and where they are serious, to charge the perpetrator with making a false complaing.
11/ Children will easily be able to make false (and true) accusations against their parents when if they are angry. As many parents who are angry currently hit their kids – sometimes brutally. Which is worse?
12/ Police and CYFS time will be wasted. They will have LESS time for real abuse cases Allegations of serious abuse should be given investigation priority. Just as an allegation of rape will have priority of over one of theft at the moment. There is a problem with CYFS resourcing that means some serious allegations don’t get adequate priority at the moment, but that is a separate matter.
13/ It will cause the fracture of the social structure of many families, and between spouses – I’ve already started to see this happen with people I know. This bill is already anti-family. No – the Bill is anti-violence – and this is pure speculation in any case. If parents who physically discipline are increasingly challenged by their partners who do not agree with this, that can only be a good thing. Society needs more, rather than less, discussion of the appropriateness of physical discipline.
14/ Polititians are using the law to bash and bully good parents who are putting out some of New Zeland’s top achievers. It’s not bashing or bullying any parents – just removing one defence they currently have if they are alleged to have assaulted their kids.
15/ It shows the most extreme arogance of polititians and those who support this bill to dictate that if you don’t follow the child rearing method that they dictate to you, the you are a lowly criminal. So it’s okay for parents to leave the younger kids ion the care of an 11 year old while they go to teh pub, is it? Society has to draw the line somewhere, and it is politicians’ responsibility to decide where it should be drawn, hopefully on the basis of evidential studies, rather than pandering to public opinion.
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alistair – “I don’t want to go judgemental on you Dave, but you’re not doing your kid any favours by letting her get away with a “light smack? and keeping her privileges… wait till she tries throwing a wobbly at work eh… the message she’s getting is that she can always get her way UNLESS someone threatens violence to her. ”
This is the problem – you are being judgemental, and very arrogant. You don’t know me, you don’t know my child, you don’t know how they react, and you don’t know the situation….
YET
Despite not knowing anything about this – not a thing – you preseume that you know better than me what will work and what won’t.
You also presume what will happen in the future, again – depite not knowing a thing.
The punnishment you insist on can highly traumatise my child – sometimes it could be considered to be psychologically abusive.
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alistair Says:
March 14th, 2007 at 3:17 am
Not such a small group. NZ has a shockingly high level of violence against children, Dave. Our culture needs to get the message that this is unacceptable.
_________________________________________
I haven’t noticed any culture of violence against children, Alistair. I have seen good parents smack though, (such as my ex nieghbour). Your claim is just a baseless catch cry. I believe gangs have a culture of violence.
Politicians need to get the message that glib slogans are unacceptable, even though it is possible to lead the public by the nose, and ride roughshod over 80%.
I believe that child abuse is associated with single parenting (where the state provides a guaranteed income incentive). The rationale is that people who are committed to raise children by their own sweat are more likely to value them.
jh
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alistair Says:
March 13th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
The fact is, social progress is very rarely rolled back. Even unpopular measures are gradually assimilated. For example, France abolished the death penalty in 1981, even though a majority supported it. Now, a majority opposes the death penalty, and it will never be brought back (it even got written into the constitution this year)
___________________________________________________________
This is one of the tails assumptions, when it wags the dog.
It used to be considered ok to change a toddler at a public pool, it isn’t now, but is there anything wrong with it? ……If people who once considered an occasional smack the best solution in some circumstances, no longer do it (because of the shadow of the state), is that “social progress”?
There is no evidence that moderate smacking is harmful, or that there is a better way in every situation.
Nor is there any evidence that those parents who engage in moderate smacking are part of a “culture of violence”.
Lumping the occasional smacking parents with thugs is just a trick of flop-jawed politicians.
jh
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jh Says: There is no evidence that moderate smacking is harmful, or that there is a better way in every situation.
Nor is there any evidence that those parents who engage in moderate smacking are part of a “culture of violence?.
Research and informed expert opinion:
http://www.nospank.net/resrch.htm
Witnesses, survivors and victims testimonies:
http://www.nospank.net/victims.htm
Yeh right
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Yet the mildest forms of spanking have not been proved harmful. “A family that hits once in a while? The research is equivocal about that,” Kazdin says.
What the research does show is that spanking is generally no more effective than nonphysical disciplinary techniques in instilling acceptable behavior, that its effects vary from culture to culture and that a greater frequency of spanking increases the risk of negative consequences.
http://www.nospank.net/n-q64r.htm
Yeh right
Witnesses, survivors and victims testimonies:
http://www.nospank.net/victims.htm
Yeh right
(again)
jh
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Parents who administer “the mildest forms of spanking are doing no harm, and probably do it for good reason (busy/ quickly over with etc). What’s more they should not be lumped with the fruitcakes in your second link (ie) are not part of a culture of violence.
The propnents of repeal should have presented data such as the links you posted (if that is what their proposals were based on), rather than an arrogant trust us we know best approach.
jh
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The world famous University of Otago long term study found that children whe were never smacked performed BELOW (as adults) those that were diciplined with light smacking
Children who were not smacked were MORE violent and had MORE trouble with the police.
The differences were slight, but as a group of adults they perform BELOW those children who were smacked lightly.
Both of these groups performed way above children who were abused.
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JH
“The propnents of repeal should have presented data such as the links you posted (if that is what their proposals were based on), rather than an arrogant trust us we know best approach”
This would be the most arrogant and least truthful post I have ever seen on this site.
The people who support Bradford’s bill are the arrogant ones, YOU are the ones who are telling the MAJORITY of Kiwis that YOU know best.
I presented links and data the proved Bradford was telling lies yet supporters of this bill chose not to comment.
If this is the type of (and excuse the pun) Big Brother legislation we can look forward to in a Green party coalition then the Greens have just signed their own death warrant.
Make no mistake, the Greens have BADLY misjudged the publics mood on this, it will be a major issue at the next election and the incoming National govt WILL repeal this silly and offensive act.
The one good thing that will come of this of course is that the likes of comrade Bradford and Comrade Locke will not be in the house of representatives, sadly that will also mean that the good Green MP’s will also be out of a job but when (and it is a case of when not if) this happens the Good ones will know exactly who to blame.
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I think you miss understood my comment BB?? I used the words “proponents of repeal “. I’m saying they should have presented a solid case with studies to back them up. Of course you have to look at a range of (peer reviewed) studies rather than cherry pick. I have been looking for evidence that the mildest forms of spanking are harmful, or part of , or leading to a culture of violence…. So far I haven’t found it but what the proponents of repeal do is they bunch mild spankers with heavy thumpers.
[pro·po·nent (prə-p?'nənt) pronunciation
n.
One who argues in support of something; an advocate.]
jh
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Can anyone else not tell which side I’m on??
jh
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JH
Opps!..sorry totally my mistake, I skimmed over it and took the word proponent to read opponent, a long day on the road and slight dyslexia means I am prone to do this sometimes, more so when I am dead tired.
My sincere apologies.
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Toad, I find it ludicrous that you support a bill that turns the majority of New Zealand parents into criminals, so a message can be sent to a completely different group of people who don’t take any notice of far more serious laws.
The “we know best and everyone who disagrees with us is a criminal” atitude is appalling.
It is very arrogant to tell me what my child learns from a smack when you don’t know the cuircumstance in which it was given, you don’t know me, and you don’t know my child, and you don’t know the behavoural changes that ocurred.
Yet you presume (very wrongly) the lesson my child takes if she is given a smack.
The University of Otago long term study found that children brought up with your no-smacking method are slightly more likely to get in trouble with police, and are slightly more likely to be violent as an adult, than children brought up with my method (various punishments including on rare occasions a light smack).
Alternative punishments to smacking are often worse for some children, or some circumstances. From world renowned University of Otago study, and I quote …”An unexpected finding was that non-physical punishment was most frequently regarded as the worst punishment ever received.”
My children have the right to be brought up to have the lowest possible chance of getting in trouble, the lowest possible chance of them being violent, and the lowest possible chance of them doing something stupid that will seriously hurt or kill them.
But this is soon to be made a criminal offence. Insanity
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Dave :
This is the problem – you are being judgemental, and very arrogant. You don’t know me, you don’t know my child, you don’t know how they react, and you don’t know the situation….
Tell you what… if I’m not allowed to comment on your child-control methods, and you don’t actually want people to discuss them, then don’t offer them up as an example on a public forum. I’m not exactly intruding here — you’re the one who put this in the public domain.
It’s too late to go all holy on us now Dave, but you might think twice about it next time.
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So while we’re on the subject : The punnishment you insist on can highly traumatise my child – sometimes it could be considered to be psychologically abusive.
Sincerely, I’m concerned about your daughter. If being sent to her room really causes her serious trauma, you should go to see a family psychologist together. Independently of the smacking business.
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Bro :
but when (and it is a case of when not if) this happens the Good ones will know exactly who to blame.
Helen Klarke I expect. She’s been very up-front about supporting the legislation.
Gee it’ll be a landslide eh BB. Smackers unite! Ignoring all questions of the economy and the environment, a tidal wave of support gives National at least 100 seats in parliament…
… except what about the National MPs who support Sue’s bill? That’s a bit of a problem eh Bro? Especially if they’re list MPs.
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Alistair “Tell you what… if I’m not allowed to comment on your child-control methods, and you don’t actually want people to discuss them, then don’t offer them up as an example on a public forum. I’m not exactly intruding here — you’re the one who put this in the public domain.
It’s too late to go all holy on us now Dave, but you might think twice about it next time.”
You are welcome to comment, and I can tell you that you are so far off the mark you clearly don’t know what you are talking about.
You make many assumptions about situations, children and parents that you know nothing about, tell me what message my child has taken from a situation, then presume to know what will happen in twenty years time…….you even tell me the child I was talking about (a boy) is now a girl.
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“he” or “she” is just a convention, Dave, since you didn’t mention the child’s sex, and doesn’t change anything. It’s true that I don’t know the circumstances, in fact I have no way of knowing whether you actually have any children or not. After all, you might have made them up in order to score some points in an internet debate.
Either way, good luck with them.
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Alistair “Sincerely, I’m concerned about your daughter. If being sent to her room really causes her serious trauma, you should go to see a family psychologist together. Independently of the smacking business.”
I’m sorry, but I have to laugh at this. I’m sure you would just love dive into every family situation and be able to dictate how they bring up their children.
And again you make completely wrong assumptions. My daughter loves being sent to her room – that simply doesn’t do anything to change her behaviour.
I have a boy who has a complete melt down when put in his room. just like a number of other small children I know. Most small children get freaked out by somwthing.
As the Otago Uni study showed, NON-physical punishments were considered WORSE by children.
Sending all kids off to a family pschologist for issues that they’ll grow out of in a few months is rediculous.
Save your concern (if it is real) for kids who are being beaten up and abused.
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Alistair, the bizarre thing is that we seem to be having a debate between two groups of parents who care deeply about how their children are brought up.
Parents who use light smacking and parents who don’t smack have the children who perform best and second best as adults – particularly when it comes to staying out of trouble with police and being non-violent.
And that’s the whole problem with the Bradford Bill – it sets these two groups against each other and ignores those parents who beat their children up.
Even Sue Bradford says it will do nothing to stop them, AND…. that it was never intended to.
That’s appalling.
All it does is criminalise thousands of good parents, to suposedly send a massage to bad parents, who don’t listen to messages.
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Well Dave, my reading of the Otago study is that there is no clear-cut boundary between those who smack and those who hit. This distinction is no doubt clear in the minds of all decent parents, like yourself, who presumably smack and don’t hit, but the statistics don’t support it in reality.
The survey indicates that about 35% of the kids, when growing up in the 1980s and 90s, were hit with an object as a usual form of punishment. (Can you clarify whether you think this is OK?) In itself, I find that a shockingly high level of violence against children; and it’s the cultural background that protects the parents of the 6% of kids who are victims of severe physical abuse. They can just tell themselves, well everyone hits their kids don’t they?
Once the parents of those 35% stop hitting their kids with objects, then the remaining 6% will be easy to identify, and will come under severe social pressure to behave.
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Alistair, the Otago study had some massive distinctions. Those adults who showed signs of distrss because of childhood punishments were 22% (who were beaten), but just 2% (for those who were hit) and 1% (those who were smacked or not smacked).
But you’re right – subjects showed little difference in negative effects from the three lower punishments of hitting, smacking or no smacking. In fact a slightly higher percentage of children became “very upset” from non-physical punishment, than from either a smack or a hit.
This is pretty much common sense. Getting a smack on the hand with a ruler at school was pretty common in the 60s and 70s, and we don’t have a million people with problems because of this.
However I don’t agree with using an object, which is why the Burrows ammendment makes so much sense. The Bradford version makes the whole issue murky (becuase 80-87% of Kiwis think it is wrong, it is ridiculed – no one takes notice of stupid laws which criminilise a million people – it’s just plain stupid).
The Burrows ammendment will allow a light open handed smack on a leg bottom or hand – that’s it.
It will be made clear that it is a criminal offence to use an object, closed fist, hit a head etc.
It is a far more sensible approach that has a chance of doing some good, without the numerous negative implications of the Bradford rediculous version. With the Burrows version, ALL breaches should be prosecuted.
With the Bradford version, some breaches might be prosecuted and most won’t – she’s effectivelty turned it into some sort of lottery.
The problem it that there are a small number of people who can’t tell the difference between a smack and a bash. Unfortunately people like Bradford are doing their very best to make sure they still can’t tell the difference – they say it is all the same
You’d think she’d realise the damage she is doing with thses statements. Similarly others in the debate deliberately try to use hitting instead of smacking, violence instead of smacking, and any other much stronger word they can get away with.
It all muddies the waters further and makes it harder to draw what should be a very clear and wide line between what is abusive and what is light physical correction.
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Folks –
It is barely possible that we may get away with this if the police are exceptionally good at overcoming the complete lack of guidance in the law (bad law which mirrors the complete lack of guidance on the other side in construing “reasonable force” and we know how well THAT worked in the end). The end result will at least be that we are rid of s59 AS WRITTEN, which is a common goal for all of us. If the electorate finds other concerns and the police and courts perform brilliantly in defining law which parliament (paid and having the responsibility to define laws) declines to do then it is possible that this will be forgotten. There are some pretty clear potential benefits for a country as violence prone as ours. The potential downside in juvenile crime doesn’t show up for another decade… we may get to blame it on National then.
I am not optimistic about our future on this. BB isn’t likely to be correct about the extremes to which things shift, but we’re in on a razor’s edge this past election (something you seem to forget) and it would not take too many people with a longer memory of this act to put us out of parliament utterly and Labour into opposition come the next election.
Which does just exactly WHAT for the environment, for our policies to promote peace and justice, and all our other initiatives?
Which does this damage in order to accomplish exactly NOTHING different from what a proper legal definition would have accomplished.
It is entirely possible that we have given ALL of that up in favour of promoting yet another of the “confrontations with the establishment” that delight some of us so much. “Confronting the Establishment” was what US Greens were doing when they ran Nader to get the smirking chimp elected in the USA.
It is p!ss poor political strategy for a political party, and I hope we survive it.
respectfully
BJ
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Getting a smack on the hand with a ruler at school was pretty common in the 60s and 70s
Well, the studied population were born in 1980, and 35% of them were routinely hit with an object.
So, we’re getting somewhere… the acceptable level of violence is going downwards. Just about everyone recognises that this is a good thing.
Our point of disagreement is whether NZ society is ready for “zero tolerance” yet. The majority of our legislators think so.
This relates to the subject I raised higher up, with the example of France abolishing the death penalty at a time when a majority were still in favour of it. The downward trend of support for judicial killing was clear; the politicians led the way on that occasion, and they were right to do so.
jh calls this “the tail wagging the dog”. By his logic, women should never have got the vote… slaves never freed… etc. I reckon that if the pollies are going to run the show, the least they can do is provide a bit of leadership from time to time. Like now.
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“Confronting the Establishment? was what US Greens were doing when they ran Nader to get the smirking chimp elected in the USA.
Jeez BJ, did you see what the Prime Minister said about the legislation?
Who is this “establishment” we’re alleged to be confronting again?
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80 percent of the voting population of New Zealand would make a pretty fair establishment Alistair, and the fact that the Prime Minister has directed her party to support it has not made her caucus unanimous in praise of the measure. They see it as a vote loser.
WHAT DO WE GAIN OVER THE AMENDED VERSION??? and at what cost?
This was and is, a confrontational measure, at the expense of the totality of goals of the party. In this case the Green Party is confronting the 80% of Kiwis who regard it as a bad idea.
Including this member of the party.
respectfully
BJ
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alistair Says:
March 15th, 2007 at 5:47 am
France abolishing the death penalty at a time when a majority were still in favour of it. The downward trend of support for judicial killing was clear; the politicians led the way on that occasion, and they were right to do so.
jh calls this “the tail wagging the dog?. By his logic, women should never have got the vote… slaves never freed… etc.
_________________________________________________________
As I said this is what your side is expecting, hoping, will happen. Before 60% of French were for the death penalty, after (when it is “denormalised”) 40% are for it.. a drop of 20%……
However this isn’t this death penalty and the question isn’t about whether or not people will accept it once the situation is normalised, the question is whether it is the right thing to do or not. Freeing the slaves, and giving votes to women was the right thing to do. Children are a different catagourie. Clark and Bradford use the notion that “somebody needs to speak for them” (ie they want to enter every family in the nation and intervene), and yes it has been shown that politicians can wag the dog; they control time on television, and carefully evade and missrepresent others arguments.
=====================================
I reckon that if the pollies are going to run the show, the least they can do is provide a bit of leadership from time to time. Like now.
_______________________________________________
They could provide studies which show that moderate smacking is harmful/ inappropriate. They could also back up their argument that what goes on in the family home (light smacking) will have any affect on child abuse or is part of a culture of violence.
jh
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bj:
You just don’t stop do you!
On this occasion why don’t you sit back and watch? Hopefully you may learn a bit about your recently adopted country and the way in which it works.
Parliament is in the process of making its decision. What is happening is a good lesson about the merits of MMP. Sue Bradford knows what she is doing and she has a great deal of genuine support.
The sky will NOT fall in and the vast majority of your your “80%” figure will not feel “confronted”. Those that do (and no doubt you’ll join them) will go on and on about it for a while …
Overall things will improve for our children, and in this regard, the Maori Party MP’s decision to support the Bill is a BIGGIE! (and much, much, more important than your “right” to “spank” your children and feel virtuous about it!)
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Emotive and yet fascinating to watch – a lesson in trusting as you say eredwen
I was watching the dog trainer last night as I have done throughout the series. She never smacks the dogs – however stroppy of ferocious. She assists them to learn a new behaviour which they willingly do – once they understand what is going on. It seems that most owners do not know what they are doing and the dog simply keeps repeating a pattern of behaviour that is constantly being reinforced by the ignorant owner. Once the dog trainer points out what is “actually” happening the dog changes its behaviour.
We learn our pattens of behaviour from our parents, situations and from those constantly around us. These patterns are laid down as neural pathways and the more they are used the stronger the connection. So where did our parents and mentors learn their pattens, reaction, judgements and associated actions? Grandparents and what about them? and so on. Now you can only recognise that you have reactive pattern if you become aware of it – this then gives you a choice to react as before or to respond in a different way.Once you respond differently then you begin to change in the way that you relate to everything includiing your own inner emotions and thoughts. As you ditch the previously learnt subconscious historic patterns – you are then free to choose a new belief and action. And the world around you appears to change with you.
Isn’t this the stuff we should be assisting our kids with so that they can learn to throw away the patterns of behaviour that will no longer serve them. As we would throw away the baggage that we also have been unconsciously taught.
The dogs in that programme were encouraged to learn some “new” habits – through love not fear. Humans however have another gift and that is one of free choice – lets learn how to use it and share it with integrity, compassion, intuitive insights, joy, connectedness and above all – with love.
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This is a variation of the “there is always a better way than smacking argument” – smacking is the tool you must never use (if a kid miss behaves, distract it with a rubber ducky). Research doesn’t back this up. Parents who use minimal smacking, aren’t necessarily the dumbo’s they are painted.
jh
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jh
you must be seeing something that I cannot see in my last post – nowhere have I mentioned “never” or “dumbos” or “ducks”- If you have another read you will see that I have mearly ellucidated my own positive beliefs. It promulgates a way of life, which works! What I did mention is “Free choice”!
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Posted by Blue | March 15, 2007 10:23 AM
Posted on March 15, 2007 10:23
Peter S:
Like or dislike Bob McCoskrie, he has scored a hit against the bill this morning.
On Newstalk ZB he played a clip of an interview he had with HC just before the last election.
HC stated she had no intention of supporting the bill, she recognised the difference between beating & smacking and said that trying to stop frustraited parents from smacking children would be like trying to change human nature.
This is the same person that now regards the issue as so important it can’t be left to the individual conscience of her own party members to decide on.
As Leighton Smith said. Either she was lying through her teeth then, or she is now.
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michaelangelo Says:
March 15th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
jh
you must be seeing something that I cannot see in my last post – nowhere have I mentioned “never? or “dumbos? or “ducks?-
____________________________________________________
Sorry michaelangelo,
I remember being smacked by my mother before she died quite suddenly, and to me it was the best choice under the circumstances.
I don’t think Helen Clark or Sue Bradford, could have told my mother how to suck eggs.
jh
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HC stated she recognised the difference between beating & smacking and said that trying to stop frustraited parents from smacking children would be like trying to change human nature.
Whilst I sincerely recognise the angst that most of us feel about the threat to our individula parenting autonomy, the quote does bring two questions to the fore.
1. Who owns the frustration, why is the person frustrated and can they alter the reactions. The smack is often simply the reactive result of something else going on in the adult or child.
2. Changing human nature (should read human behaviour – which is learnt) is what our lives are about. As I have said before – bringing more of the higher qualities into our lives and those around us is an eternal quest. no one said that it would be easy.
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Its interesting you used dog training as a comparison, Michaelangelo. I am just reviewing the code of welfare for cats, which also insists that physical punishment should not be part of any training.
I have spent a considerable proportion of my life on animal activism, part of which is raising awareness of the moral status os animals, and the way that animals have far less legal protection than humans. It is therefore ironic that until Sue’s bill becomes law, protection from assault is one area in which animals have more legal protection than some humans. Hitting a dog as badly as some of the child hitting cases we have seen in court would result in a conviction under the Animal Welfare Act. It would not be possible to claim “reasonable force” as a defence, unless the dog was actually attacking.
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JH
you are quite right – our past experiences govern (to an extent) our present beliefs and choices. Well done for accepting it and letting it go. Thats love
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JH says “As Leighton Smith said. Either she was lying through her teeth then, or she is now.”
Or she has since changed her views. People do you know.
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kiore1
Thanks – it is interesting that you have chosen the name kiore1 as you will know it is the name of the polynesian rat that is supposed to have accompanied the Polynesian explorers to New Zealand. So it fits perfectly with your beliefs.
I believe that animals are often reflecting our own behaviour right back to us. They are interesting souls and great companions – my dog Bex accompanies me to the office every day and when clients come she offers them one of their biscuits as a gift. Needless to say the love or fear she reflects back lets me know if I am on course.
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Ah Kiore so you’re a cat trainer!
Must be a pretty rewarding occupation…
Probably qualifies you to be leader of the Greens actually… herding cats etc…
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eredwen “The sky will NOT fall in and the vast majority of your your “80%? figure will not feel “confronted?. Those that do (and no doubt you’ll join them) will go on and on about it for a while …”
How wrong you are. A vast majoruity of the 80-87% DO feel confronted.
If I were to disagree with your parenting methods, and legally make you a crimninal for them, you wouldn’t feel confronted?
You are telkling a million parents that they are criminals, and they should just get over it????
Such arrogance is very rare.
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Alistair, the problem is you are so focused on physical punishment that you completely miss very important points – you miss ths big picture.
Like children find non-physical forms of punishment MORE distressing than a light smack.
Like children who are never smacked are slightly MORE violent as adults than those who are corrected with a light smack.
Using the Otago Uni Long term research, what you are proposing to do something that will be MORE distressing for many children, and turn out MORE violent adults.
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My son was a biter, he used to bite me until I bit him back. His mother initially couldn’t bring herself to bite him and put up with months of being bit patiently trying other methods, eventually she conceded and bit him back. This genuinely hurt her emotionally more than it did emotionally or physically to my son. I didn’t think this was abusive but according to the new bill before parliament we are now both child abusers. We love our son and wouldn’t smack him out of anger. Are we out of touch with society disciplining our child in this way? Is there another way to stop a biter? Or is the Government out of touch. I am now unsure if a last resort smack is ok, I know being arrested is the norm for Sue Bradford but I would rather it was me criminalized for trying to prevent my son becoming one. Am I way off base here? Let me know.
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You love your son and as you continue to show him – he will feel it and move in that direction, whatever your teaching method – the bite “call it instant karma.” He now knows what it feels like and will not probably do it again.
We have only one choice in our lives that we pass onto our kids : to move towards love or towards fear. The choice visits us every moment. If we choose fear at least we get another chance to move the other way.
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OnceBitten – well done. Every child deserves to have definite boundaries set.
The psychologicval punishments suggested by the anuti-smacking loby often don’t work, or work only if applied over and over. Often they are more traumatic for a child than a smack (according to my experieence AND Otago Uni research).
Appropriate punishments should be used for appropriate circumstances. A smack shouldn’t always be the “last resort”. Various punishments failed to stop my child runnng onto the road.
How long should I risk my child’s life by following non-physical punishments that weren’t working?
In the end, a single light smack worked like magic, and he never ran onto roads again. I felt guilty I hadn’t done it earlier.
If I followed the anti-smacking proponents guidelines, there’s a good chance my child would be dead.
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What is great about these responses is that everyone is valuing their intention and self responsibility. Great parenting.
I feel bullying is more of an issue. It often establishes a pattern of behaviour that masks the real problem. Workplace, schools, institutions, and in the case of the recent sex trials – by those who we have instructed to protect us – the bill (cops) and in terms of legislation the parliamentry bills (present debate included) – the policy makers.
We are back to Power again!
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Eredwen
I know you reckon that Sue is the goddess incarnate and could not possibly make a mistake. You’ve relied on this line of argument in about 9 out of 10 responses to me. I don’t buy it. She’s just like the rest of us. She can make mistakes.
“The sky will NOT fall in and the vast majority of your your “80%? figure will not feel “confronted?.” – You do not KNOW that and neither does Sue. We may get away with it. I said so myself, but the variables are many and the result won’t be known until the votes are counted.
Again I ask you why this way and not the way that left no doubt of the outcome and strengthened the party’s electoral hand in the bargain? The result would be the same or greater on the abusers, and you cannot tell me otherwise… and neither can Sue. The only people on whom there is a logical consequential difference are the good parents who resort to a spanking when the other methods don’t work so well or so fast. Most of them will be trying hard not to spank their kids anyway, but bailing them up on an assault charge for a simple spanking isn’t even done in Sweden, your role model country. Heck, if Sue offered the light spanking as a misdemeanor offence I’d be relatively happy to get off your back about this, but nooooo…. we have to do it all and do it all at once.
Michaelangelo – You do actually ONLY see the success stories on that dog show. Did you miss the episodes where she says if the dog does/has done such-and-such it has to be put down… as in killed? Not true of course… you CAN train that dog too, just not in any way you would show on that TV show. My points are that dogs are not people and you should not draw conclusions from what you see on TV without reflecting seriously on what the TV doesn’t show you. (Including “superNanny”).
I don’t mind trying to change the society to be less violent, and both Sue’s version and the amended version will succeed in that. Equally.
What I mind here is that the party has been led into a pitched battle that needn’t have been fought and who’s outcome will not be known before the next election.
I mind that an agenda was set for us without consideration of any OTHER goals of the party, which may easily be lost along with our representatives if things go even SLIGHTLY worse than the last election, or have you all forgotten that razor thin margin?
I mind discarding something that does work (mild spanking) for a totally restrained approach to child rearing… treating children as though they are adults. Treating them as though they are all the same.
They Are Not!!!
The results on juvenile crime I have alluded to before. Remains to be seen what will happen there, but “better” is the least likely outcome given the results in other countries. We may manage an improvement on our stats for violent abuse, that would not be hard at all, but I am not optimistic about the rest.
respectfully
BJ
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I fear you are right BJ by block voting by Greens and Labour, in the publics eye they have turned a private members bill conscience vote into suedo party policy that will no doubt become an election issue by criminalising parents who practice a less harmful form of punishment than non-physical punishment.
The environment will suffer if the coalition govt find themselves being the opposition.
Thanks for the science SouthernDave it puts things into perspective.
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Bj
Thanks and that is true – but I have had dogs and animals all my life. in an earlier post I mentioned that I have found that I have developed a very intuitive communication with amimals and other life forms.
I did say that dogs like everything around us reflect back to us something that if we are aware, we can use to increase our understanding of, not only the world around us, but also ourselves. You yourself have said exactly that – by saying that I should not draw something from TV without reflecting on it. I am directly drawing on my own experiences – I simply chose to describe what I believe -based on my own experiences – by pointing out what I noticed on TV regarding behaviour -something which others may have seen. Sort of common ground.
Everything around us is a feedback system – wghat we see and hear Perceive is the end result. The filter which you perceive the world is your own perception – What we have to do is constantly throw out what confines and constricts our growth, to take on new horizons, and constantly expand – nothing ever stands still in the universe – except when it is devoid of life and even then Quantum physics wiould probably tell us that it is all moving energy. Interesting isnt it?
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I’ve been missing all the fun on this one. Way back on Feb 23rd Big Bruv posted the following:
“Andrew
“social engineering is merely a positive side effect?
Well at least you are honest, tell me, what other things do you believe the state should get involved in or change?”
I have a bit of trouble understanding the point – the dreaded state is legitimately and properly involved in a lot of what could (under the above definition) be called “social engineering”.
For example: campaigns and legislation to discourage and penalise drink-driving.
What is wrong with that?
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Oh, one more comment – saw another (of the many) legal opinions on this bill.
It supports the view expressed earlier in this post that smacking a child is already illegal under the current law, it’s just that section 59 provides a defence against that charge.
So if it’s already illegal what is all the fuss that the repeal of this section will automatically “criminalise” a lot of good parents?
Good discussion by the way.
Frog, is this a record, still running since Feb 23?
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Kiwinuka – you are talking semantics.
We have the Sue saying parents who smack their child in a supermarket should be arrested.
We have the police saying they will arrest any parent seen smacking.
This is a big effort to criminlise a million parents who turn out kids who are LESS violent as adults than those who are not smacked.
And apprentlty (and this is the lunacy of the bill) the attack on these parents is supposed to send a message to a completely different group of people who abuse their kids – a group who take no notice of laws or messages.
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its funny how people who accuse the Greens of scaremongering then resort to it themselves
please provide a reference for the police saying they will arrest any parent seen smacking. Because I havent seen anything of the sort. The policeman on National Radio this morning refused to say anything about how the police will behave until he knew what the final legislation will look like.
and how about you provide a ref about when Sue said “should”, someone above said that she said “could” but I dont belive them either without a transcript really
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Stuey
In the parliamentary debate published in the Herald the police commisioner was quoted as saying that all such allegations would be investigated by Phil Goff in response to a question. Take him at his word, he has to investigate.
In the course of time some police person will have a bad day and some otherwise exemplary parent will be hauled before a magistrate who also happens to have a bad day. A good family will be broken… and that only has to happen once to make this a bad law.
Just the same as the abusers who get away with abuse, except some innocent kids will wind up losing their parents because our parliament whose job it is to make laws decided to make none and give it over to the police and courts to decide.
I’ve heard different stories about “what Sue said” and like you I’d want to see actual quotations, but the quote in the parliament is quite sufficient IMHO.
respectfully
BJ
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How about stopping all the speculation, taking a deep breath, and getting back into the real world ?
Here is a good place to start:
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR10668.html
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stuey “please provide a reference for the police saying they will arrest any parent seen smacking.”
Ok – here it is, from the head of the Police association
“That means an admission or a witness saying they saw someone smack. Police will have no choice but to arrest a person acting on a complaint.”
He also said “police would have no discretion”
Are your trying to argue that we should have a new law, but it most of the time it should be ignored by police?
This really is a fantastic case study in how NOT to make new legislation.
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eredwen “How about stopping all the speculation, taking a deep breath, and getting back into the real world ?”
Ah – speculation….
If the bill passes,
One million parents will become criminals overnight
They have been told by police they will be arrested if seen smacking, or if there is an accusation of it.
They are worried that it this does happen, there is a risk of them losing their children.
They will have to live with these threats and stresses constantly.
Yet you SPECULATE, that they will not feel “confronted” by this?
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thanks for that Dave, but are you sure you got that quote right, because all the police I have heard or read have said that yes they have no choice but to investigate if there is a complaint (or admission) but they are not duty bound to arrest. The police I have heard have been at pains to point out that they usually talk to the parties involved first off before deciding whether an arrest is appropriate.
And secondly, I think you are twisting the words of the quote further by saying that if someone is “seen smacking” – the quote clearly says if there is an admission or if there is an accusation, i.e. in this hypothetical supermarket situation there needs to be not only a witness, but a witness who makes a complaint.
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stuey “thanks for that Dave, but are you sure you got that quote right..”
YES.
And you seem to want to try to change the meaning of the quote (which is very clear), so I’ll repeat it
“That means an admission or a witness saying they saw someone smack. Police will have no choice but to arrest a person acting on a complaint.?
and just to reiterate, if there is “evidence of violence, the policy is quite clear, the offender must be arrested.”
If you don’t think people should be arrested in these situations, you should be argueing with the police, or to change the bill.
Or are you argueing to bring it a bill to criminailise smacking, AND for very same law to be disregarded?
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Hi SouthernDave,
Maybe it is just semantics to you, but what it says to me is that if the law already outlaws smacking children (which is what that legal opinion I referred to above said) then all parents who smack are already acting illegally.
So where does that leave your statement:
“One million parents will become criminals overnight”
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Kiwinuka – if you beleive smacking is already criminal….
do you call the police if you see a child smacked in the super market?
(or do you ingore violent crime against children?)
If the Bradford Bill is passed, would you then call the police if you see a child receiving a light smack in the supermarket?
(or again would you ignore criminal offences against children?)
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So you say yes but you don’t provide a hyperlink, so I have to trust you. hmm. not good online debating mate, not good online debating.
can I answer kiwinuke for him? No I don’t report smacking to the police, same as I don’t report people who cycle without a helmet to the police, or people who go slightly over the speed limit, or people who park on grass verges or people who drive without a seatbelt, any other technically illegal but obviously minor offence, that if I did, really I would be wasting police time. Instead I probably just shake my head and go tut tut and then go about my business and then immediately forget it in all of those situations.
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stuey – do you not find it rather odd that you want to bring in a new that turns thousands of parents into criminals, but you don’t want it to be enforced.
A great example of the very worst in law making.
In fact, prominent QCs have labeled it
“an unmitigated peice of nonsense: and
“a dogs breakfast”
Proponents of the bill tell us it will criminalise smacking, …..and that it won’t criminalise smacking.
We are told that there will be prosecutions, ……..and that there won’t be prosecutions.
What a fine law.
We could have a law that takes a line in the sand common sense approach like the Borrows ammendment, that makes it perfectly clear what is and isn’t allowed. A law whre ALL breaches should be prosecuted.
Or we could have the wooley Bradford version that effectively throws good parentrs into a criminal lottery.
Whether or not they are arrested depends not on the police (who have “NO OPTION” but take action) but rather on the whim of a small nummer of fanatical anti-smackers.
I agree with the QC – this is not a law – it’s an unmitigated piece of nonsense.
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Dave;
“One Million Parents” assumes that all parents smack, and that no parents have been to classes run by such organisations as Parent’s Centres, or have read information such as the S.K.I.P. programmes being distributed by Youth Affairs section of MSD.
As these assumptions are patently void (both organisations are healthily engaged in society), your premise lacks merit.
Please go and troll your opinions somewhere else! Meanwhile, informed and intelligent readers of this blog will find other comments torespond to.
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Katie – University of Otago has researched numerous studies which showed gave a low figure of 70% and a high figure of 95% of parents using smacking to discipline children.
They have also found a low figure of 80% and a high figure of 87% of parents are against a smacking ban.
You are clearly very intollerant of free speech. If you can’tm handle discussing this issue, then it’s probabvly best not to be in NZ for the next few weeks.
We’ll either see a backdown or political suicide by the Labour Party. The last time a governing party tried to pass something that was this unpopular, was Maggie Thatcher in the UK, with poll tax that killed dead her political career.
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Katie – I don’t know why you are against that group of parents who correct their chilren with a light smack.
Their children are the LEAST violent of any group.
They get into LESS trouble with the law
They are LESS upset about their punishment than non-physical punishments.
Children who are never smacked perform slightly below those who are in the above three aspects.
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BJ :
In the course of time some police person will have a bad day and some otherwise exemplary parent will be hauled before a magistrate who also happens to have a bad day. A good family will be broken…
High drama! I should think the magistrate would pat them all on the back and send them home… Broken family indeed! You have little faith in common sense. This isn’t the USA you know.
all such allegations would be investigated by Phil Goff
Well that’ll give him something useful to do… Might keep him out of trouble…
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How about we criminalise those parents who don’t use a light smack to discipline their chilrdren.
Their children are more likely to be violent, get in trouble with the law, and are more upset by their punishments.
Lets make all those non-smacking parents the criminals. Not all of them will get prosecuted. In fact probably not many will – only if a pro-smacking fanatic spots them not smacking when their child runs amock in a supermarket.
Would YOU like to be labeled a criminal for doing a great job bringing up your children, just because a fanatic fringe gets a vote against the overwhelming majority of the countries wishes.
To criminilise ANY group who is generally doing a good job bringing up their children is insane. or in the words of the QC, the proposed bill is …
“an unmitigated peice of nonsense”
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Sue Bradford has confirmed parents will not be able to smack their children after her bill is passed.
When questioned again today about the effect it would have on parents, she was asked whether it would be possible to smack children after her bill becomes law – and she said no.
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/newsdetail1.asp?storyID=114074
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With 80% of 1 million good parents who smack now being criminalised.
Scientific studies showing smacking as a less harmful punishment than phycological.
Therefore the remaining 20% should be criminalised too.
Why not just sterilise the whole country.
At least this would impact real child abuse.
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Geez… that WOULD put a crimp in Phil’s business day wouldn’t it ?
Good Catch on the quotation marks.
BJ
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bj..
“..OnceBitten Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:29 am
With 80% of 1 million good parents who smack now being criminalised.
Scientific studies showing smacking as a less harmful punishment than phycological.
Therefore the remaining 20% should be criminalised too.
Why not just sterilise the whole country.
At least this would impact real child abuse.
bjchip Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Geez… that WOULD put a crimp in Phil’s business day wouldn’t it ?
BJ..”
please explain just what it is you are insinuating there..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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BJ
Some of the points that you raise are excellent – freedom to choose how we feel – will always be ours to have nomatter how many legal hurdles are put in our way. And how much personal power is seemingly eroded by authorities.
Most of the lawmakers and law keepers are our public servants – they are there to do OUR bidding. I feel somewhere along the line those in positions of authority have conveniently forgotten that fact. It is therefore important to remind them and to instruct them to do what we decide. However WE have to come to a consensus first.
The other point you make regarding juries making decisions about possible smacking cases – I refer to the debate on sexual abuse promulgated by the recent rape trials. I know personally that much of the convicting evidence was never put in front of the jury. it was cleverly scuttled at the pre trial stage by the defence even though prosecution witnesses had been informed that it would be tabled. The pre trial evidence procedures, based on law, could also result in similar verdicts and confusion if related to cases brought by the Anti-smacking bill.
As you say once these Laws are passed they are hellish difficult to ensure fairness and justice prevails.
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phil :
BJ was referring to me quoting his post
http://blog.greens.org.nz/index.php/2007/02/22/the-votes-are-in-and-s59-is-on-the-way-out/#comment-24878
when he said
In the parliamentary debate published in the Herald the police commisioner was quoted as saying that all such allegations would be investigated by Phil Goff in response to a question.
… and I thought that was funny.
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Why should a loving parent have to go court in the first place.
The expense of a lawyer and loss of wages will just be taking food out of the mouths of children of financially strapped families.
An occasional light smack on the hand is more effective and less harmful than prolonged phycological punishments such as imprisoning them in timeout after you get home from the supermarket.
Worse still would be ineffective or no discipline with obvious results.
And what a waste of police resource investigating light smackings, taking them away from real abuse cases.
We all want to preserve the natural enviroment for our kids to grow up and appreciate.
But when faced with a choice, nurturing our children or the enviroment.
Sorry I have to put the future of by son first.
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Phil… as Alistair explained – and I also thought my mistake was amusing… respectfully BJ
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Where are the supporters of this Bill?
Have realised that a light smack in the right circumstance is ok, or are they thinking we are too barbaric to debate this issue with?
After all if they think it’s assult to carry a kicking screaming child against their will then the thought of a light smack must seem abusive to them.
Pity pre-adults aren’t born with a fully developed brain but this isn’t the case until their early 20′s so expecting a child to act like an adult and be treated as such is a pipe dream.
Maybe they are all hung over from celebrating except of cause expectant mothers that would be child abuse.
I also wonder how many opposition MPs crossed the floor on this bill to ensure that the coalition government became electon fodder.
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OnceBitten Says: Where are the supporters of this Bill?
Probably, like me, they have already said their piece (either here or in previous topics on this issue) and become blase from watching you overexcited naysayers kicking your strawmen to death.
Does it strike anyone else here (pun intended) how utterly bizarre and bewildering it is to observe people so zealously defending their right to inflict pain on another living being?
Or how hysterical people can get when they perceive their credibility as “good parents” is being bought into question? My oh my what a touchy touchy subject that is for some.
And FWIW, the kinds of hysteria and aggressive reactions I have been observing in the blogoshpere from opponents of this bill have only made me support it even more.
Clearly there is an underlying culture in NZ that children are chattels and until we get past that I doubt we will see any kind of rational debate on the matter.
So, don’t mind me, I’ll just go back to lurking, rolling my eyes and shaking my head in bewilderment.
I believe it’s your turn to kick the strawman next SouthernDave… please pass the popcorn…
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I support this bill. If we have to teach people to live in a non-violent society using violenence what does that say about our society?
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If you ever met my son you would find him to be a happy, social and well balanced boy. This is due in part at least to possitive parenting I constantly give him praise such “you are so clever” and devote a higher proportion of my time to him than most parents do. I take him to Gymbaroo, play centre and love bugs as I believe as a only child he needs as much social interaction as possible aswell as the other possitive benefits from these. His first word was Dada and he is for me the meaning of life. Because I love him so much I have to correct his behaviour so he grows up a respectful useful member of society, this very very rarely means I have to smack him. As he is a boy with a strong spirit he tries his boundries regulary and I don’t attempt to quell this nature but we all have to conform sometimes. My wife received some quite vicious bites from my son until she finally bit him back. I don’t think I am a perfect parent nobody is but I certainly don’t own him more likely he owns me.
We would all love to live in a nonviolent society but that is against mother nature and human nature, maybe a antirugby bill might help to acheive this?
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You know guys there isnt just ONE answer – black or white/yin or yang. Fortunately for the human race there are many colours in between. Whilst you are ALL right – it is important to acknowledge that everone is perceiving their world (not the world or truth or…..) thru their own experiences and beliefs. No one has ever, or could ever see the world through the eyes and mind of each individual. If you did then you would understand more clearly how each person got to where they are right now. So there is going to be various shades green, blue and red as well as many other colours.
Zana has a point in that everyone has a view and there is little to be gained by mauling each other. As I has said before if we are not clearly listening to our own words, feelings and wisdom – we lose an opportunity to take another step forward in our soul evolution. We speak to communicate – yes – but we speak to hear what we are really saying – what is the personal intention behind the thought. Dont worry if you missed the last one – another opportunity comes along.
What is interesting for me in these posts is the exchange of ideas, thoughts, aspirations, action, humour and wisdom. I thank you for the uplifting comments and expressions and for sharing your judgements, emotion and pain – all unique parts of yourselves. Thank you
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Common sense if finally prevailing and the Politicians are back-peddling fast. http://nz.news.yahoo.com/070315/3/68f.html
Although I think Sue was mistaking the Burrows amendment for her Bill.
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The outpouring on this thread is very interesting.
I had NOT realised just how widespread the use of violence is (in one form or other) in the upbringing of our babies, toddlers, and children.
The Contributors here are (almost all) male. Most seem to be seriously misinformed about the intention and effects of the Legislation under discussion. (Maybe a predonminiently female group would see things differently?)
ABOVE ALL, I am disheartened about the seeming lack of awareness of the many effective “non-violent conflict resolution” techniques that are commonly used, to excellent effect, in caring for children. Many of our children are brought up without being slapped, or smacked or paddled, or spanked, or beaten, or strapped, or whipped, or thumped, or punched, or … (and they almost invariably grow up to be non-violent parents themselves).
All our Child Care facilities, Kindergartens, PlayCentres and Primary Schools etc manage very well without hitting kids …
Aotearoa/NZ obviously have a long long way to go, and more-and-varied opportunites for “Parent Education” needs to be a big part of this.
Let’s support this Bill (it IS NOT going to have all the terrible effects predicted here!) and let’s get on with learning how to be a truly “Peaceful Nation!
There is an old saying: “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the World.”
Looking at the state of the Planet, I’d say that “hand” needs to become much more gentle than it is now!
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In response to eredwen
Violence is an emotive word tough love would be more appropriate.
We may be seriously misinformed about the intention and effects of the Legislation under discussion maybe because the goal posts keep being moved.
I don’t know if a predominantly female group would see things differently under the circumstances. My male viewpoint is slightly unique though as I have been the stay at home caregiver since the birth of our son.
I would have preferred an effective “non-violent conflict resolution? technique that would have worked on stopping our son biting his mother she did try all of these for months until the injuries became scarring.
I don’t doubt many of our children are brought up without being smacked probably mainly girls also boys that don’t have a feisty spirit.
All the other physical actions you described are abuse.
All our Child Care facilities, Kindergartens, PlayCentres and Primary Schools etc manage very well without hitting kids … And so they should it’s not their place to do so. I also believe early child care facilities are abuse by abandonment. Play centres are different because parents stay with them but the literature you get given on joining is more focused on reporting abuse than parental or child education. If you were an abuser you probably wouldn’t attend one anyway.
Nice one michaelangelo that last post was beautiful
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The Bill does not create a new offence – what it does, and what some on this threat don’t get, or don’t want to get, is that it simply removes a defence that a parent currently has if charged with assault.
Under the Bill you will still be able to use reasonable force to stop a child from harming himself or herself, or harming someone else, or engaging in criminal conduct, or engaging in offensive or disruptive behaviour, or for performing tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting. Sometime the degree of force that will can be used for these purposes is what is commonly known as a smack.
What you will not be able to do under the Bill is to use force, including smacking, as a punishment after the event of the bad behaviour punishment.
So the Bill does not ban smacking, and it does not create any new offence.
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Eredwen – you clearly don’t have the slightest idea of what this bill does – it tells 70-95% of New Zealand parents that they are criminals and that they abuse their children.
zANavAShi is “bewildered” why any parent would be upset by being labeled a criminal and child abuser.
Eredwen insists on “non-violent conflict resolution” but ignores the fact that University of Otago studies report that children are MORE traumatised by these methods than by light smacking, that they are MORE likely to be violent than those who get light smacks, and they are MORE likely to get in trouble with the law than those who get light smacks.
Are you REALLY doing a better job of bringing up children your children are MORE traumatised and MORE likely to get into trouble and be violent?
I wonder which side are the fanatics – those who want to their child from serious harm, with the option of a light smack if they deem that to be the best method, OR, those who think 70 plus percent of New Zealand parents should be labelled as criminals.
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Following on from my previous post (16 March 3:55pm),
this from my perspective:
bj:
You recently came to Aotearoa/NZ, (presumably as a “refugee”) from arguably the most violent Nation that the World has ever seen. You chose to join a Political Party which bases all its decisions, including its Policies, on four Key Principles: “Ecological Wisdom, Social Responsibility, Appropriate Decision-Making, and Non Violence”.
From the Charter of Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand : “NON-VIOLENT Conflict Resolution” is the process by which Ecological Wisdom, Social Responsibility and Appropriate Decision Making will be implemented. “This Principle applies at ALL LEVELS”.
Now, bj, you are rabbiting on and ON AND ON about wanting to change a Green Party Policy (that is based on the Principle of “Non Violent Conflict Resolution”) because it does not suit the child rearing methods that you brought with you from your former home.
Sue Bradford’s Bill, to remove Section 59 from that Act, is supported by professionals and other people with expertise and experience in a variety of fields who believe that the change is necessary and that this Bill is an approriate way to make that change. (They also believe that from a legal point of view “the average Kiwi parent” has nothing to fear.) Do you not see how ARROGANT it is of you to assume that she has NOT “done her homework”?
It is a “Private Members Bill” and not a Bill put forward by the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand.
(It does have the support of the other Green MPs in the House, just as it has the support of a lot of MPs from other Parties.)
PLEASE get your facts right before you give us another display of “how bright bj is” and how “bj knows everything about everything and how (somehow) nobody else does”.
The Greens in Aotearoa NZ have been around for more than 35 years now. (We were the first COUNTRY in the World with our “Values Party”, following the lead of the Values party in an Australian State). A lot of us have a longstanding stake in our (very well deserved) reputation. I personally support Sue’s Bill 100% and my training and (major) career … including the training of others, has been in related areas for much of my priofessional life.
Please, when you go on about what “We” should do, remember some of what I have said above … and …
Please stop trying to save Aotearoa NZ single-handedly!
(That is an all-too-frequent American trait … and NOT appreciated by the the locals!)
eredwen
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toad “Under the Bill you will still be able to use reasonable force to stop a child from harming himself or herself, or harming someone else, or engaging in criminal conduct, or engaging in offensive or disruptive behaviour, or for performing tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting. Sometime the degree of force that will can be used for these purposes is what is commonly known as a smack.”
Toad, you give another great example of why this bill is, to quote a QC “an unmitigated piece of nonsense”
SO it is now legal to smack in ANTICIPATION of a child doing something wrong, but not if they actually DO something wrong.
Or to quote another high level legal opinion on the Bradford Bill, it’s a “dogs breakfast” (is that a legal term?)
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SouthernDave – it tells them no such thing. The new section 59 inserted by the Bill says:
59 Parental control 5
(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 15 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).
Read the plain words – they don’t say what you or several others on this thread purport them to say.
BTW, can you quote me the part of the University of Otago report that you claim shows children who are disciplined by non-violent means “are MORE likely to be violent than those who get light smacks, and they are MORE likely to get in trouble with the law than those who get light smacks.” I’ve read the report several times, and can’t see this finding anywhere in it. Are we reading different reports? Or are we reading different Bills, for that matter?
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Hehehe, I’m having visions of SouthernDave in his playpen tossing all his strawman dolls all over the place, snot flying out of his nose as he screams over and over again at what horrible little things they are.
Uhmmm, I think we heard you the first time Dave…. and the second…. and the third…. and the fourth…. and it’s not that we can’t be bothered attending to your anxieties…. it’s just that we’re waiting for you to calm down and behave in a rational manner. I guess this is one of those examples of “being left in time-out” traumatising adult kiddies too huh. Awww you poor wee thing.
Toad, thanks for re-iterating the obvious yet again, and since there are too many here screaming too loudly of their own fears to actually be able to assimilate the facts as you state them, let me re-re-iterate in a big bold felt tip pen that the upset little boys might be able to read a little clearer (and please read it twice before you respond with another little tanty OK):
Under the Bill you will still be able to use reasonable force to stop a child from harming himself or herself, or harming someone else, or engaging in criminal conduct, or engaging in offensive or disruptive behaviour, or for performing tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting. Sometime the degree of force that will can be used for these purposes is what is commonly known as a smack.
Michaelangelo, delightful post and I entirely agree. Wow you are a breath of fresh air to this place. While I imagine Dave hurling himself around in his playpen, I am meanwhile imagining you and me and Eredwen and the greenie-gang having wild and wonderful philosophical conversations about the deeper mysteries of life at a beatnik cafe.
Cheers,
Zana
PS: And don’t forget to wear your sunglasses and berets
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It would nice to see this discussion continue without emotive claptrap even though it is a emotive subject.
And racial abuse is no bettter than real child abuse.
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WOW! You guys are posting too fast for me, LOL I can’t keep up
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Its interesting how discussions about “well this emotive subject (where we are all experts – when we were children and now adults) brings up frustrations and aggitation. There is a Wisdom saying which offers the following : Wherever you place your mind thus follows your emotion – for that is where you really are! When ones mind becomes defensive, ones body and emotion go into defensive mode – as a result the mind grimly clings onto its belief – defending it to the last – until of course Wisdom strikes. Criticism, frustration, etc…. all do the same. Laughter brings laughter – and so on. Enjoy your weekend guys
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Toad, Sue Bradford herself said the bill will enable the police to arrest a parent if they are seen smacking a child in a supermarket.
The Police have said they will have “no option” to do this if it is reported.
Sue has since said it will not criminilise smacking, AND that smacking is a criminal offense. The “dogs breakfast” description is partularly apt.
Part of the world renowned University of Otago Study is here –
http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/119-1228/1818/
In adition to this there was a radio interview last year where additional information was added. Of the four categories of punishments (i.e. 1/ those who were bashed, 2/ those who were hit with the likes of a spoon or strap, 3/ those who recieved no physical punishment, and 4/ those who were smacked), researchers found the following –
Those in the smacking category were the least violent adults.
Those in the smacking category had the least trouble with the law.
Those who were not smacked were just slightly behind.
The researchers also found other results that they didn’t expect, like children found non-physical punishments more traumatic than most physical punishments.
i.e. 62% became very upset over non=physical punishments, fractionally less became very upset over being hit with an object, and but a lower amount of 54% became very upset with a smack (see link to table 3).
The point is that a light smack, in the appropriate circumstances is if anything LESS harmful than alternative non-physical punishments. I have no doubt that, given in appropriate circumstances, it is also far more effective at correcting dangerous or damaging behaviour.
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When you see Sue Bradford on national TV.
She was asked whether it would be possible to smack children after her bill becomes law – and she said no. (wednesday night)
It’s no wonder we are confused but after reading what the bill possibly says I would’t have a problem supporting it.
Although I would also like to read the Otago University report as I am always open to being educated about being a better parent and concerned that other forms of punishment may have a worse effect than smacking.
Loving your children enough to smack them is no crime, real abuse is different.
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oncebitten:
I appreciate your post!
The following was especially interesting to me:
“I would have preferred an effective “non-violent conflict resolution? technique that would have worked on stopping our son biting his mother she did try all of these for months until the injuries became scarring.”
Your poor wife !!! In response to the biting incidents:
Human Societies do have strong, built-in “taboos” about biting. (These taboos are needed because human teeth don’t just rip flesh, they actually can take out whole chunks which, without modern medical techniques, could not be repaired, which could (would) thus lead to infection and death.
I remember my son, when he first got teeth, trying them out by biting my nipple when he was breastfeeding. I immediately hit him on the face (not hard but sharply!) He is 27 years old now, but I still have a clear memory of the look of SHOCK on his little face … followed by it “crumpling into tears!” He NEVER bit again!
There are some situations like that where a physical hit is appropriate … and that is all-the-more-reason why physical force should NOT be used when a non violent method is available.
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zANavAShi, the contradictions continue.
zANavAShi “Under the Bill you will still be able to use reasonable force…..”
Are you saying you can still use resonable force under the Bill than bans resonable force as a defence?
Does ANYBODY really know what the bill does legally.
Sue says people who smack in the supermarket will end up in court,
Sue says it doens’t make smacking illegal.
The police say they will arrest people seen smacking.
Helen Clark says they won’t.
“dog’s breakfast” is probably still the most apt description of this bill I’ve heard.
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Hi all
It seems to me there is a lot of going around in circles in this discussion.
It is understandable that people have an emotional reaction to this issue and that many hold their opinions very strongly. However, to get anywhere with debating such an issue we need to try to listen to each other clearly (I’m giving it my best shot).
To illustrate some of the circularity and confusion that I see happening I’ll respond to an earlier comment of SouthernDave’s (which was a response to a comment of mine):
“Kiwinuka – if you beleive smacking is already criminal….? – SouthernDave
I never said that that at all, I was not making a statement of my personal beliefs, I was reporting a legal opinion that I had just read about the issue, viz:
“Oh, one more comment – saw another (of the many) legal opinions on this bill. It supports the view expressed earlier in this post that smacking a child is already illegal under the current law, it’s just that section 59 provides a defence against that charge.
So if it’s already illegal what is all the fuss that the repeal of this section will automatically “criminalise? a lot of good parents?? – Kiwinuke
In your initial response to that post SouthernDave you said it was semantics. I’m of the view that it’s central and critical to a lot of the current argument (not all of it though) and that if that legal opinion is correct then the proposed bill will not criminalise parents for smacking – not because that won’t be a criminal act, but because (according to that legal opinion not my beliefs) it already is one.
I hope I’ve stated that clearly enough this time.
Apologies for labouring the point tfor those who got it the first time.
This leads me on to later statements that just reinforce the apparent confusion, in particular:
“Sue has since said it will not criminilise smacking, AND that smacking is a criminal offense. The “dogs breakfast? description is partularly apt.? – Southern Dave
From my point of view Sue’s statement above is both logical and totally consistent with the legal opinion I’ve already referred to.
Another example of this seemingly self-inflicted confusion, OnceBitten this time: :
“She (Sue) was asked whether it would be possible to smack children after her bill becomes law – and she said no. (wednesday night)
“My bill does not create an offence when parents smack a child,? Ms Bradford said last night
So she was lying then or is lying now.? – OnceBitten
What Sue actually said in that latter quote was:
“My bill does not create an offence when parents smack a child,” Ms Bradford said last night. “That has been a technical assault for over 100 years.” – Sue Bradford
Further on in that same article (which OnceBitten provided the link to above) the following statement is also quoted, after quoting Helen Clark – so the inference is that the following are her words not Sue’s:
“This is not a bill that outlaws smacking. The Act now, the law now, says it is a crime to hit anybody but the reality is our police are sensible people.”
And if the above examples of seemingly deliberate sowing of confusion on this issue aren’t enough then SouthernDave’s latest post adds (in response to zAN):
“Are you saying you can still use resonable force under the Bill than bans resonable force as a defence??
The Bill is actually very clear about this, although you obviously are not – it allows reasonable force to prevent a child from harming itself or others (so it’s okay to pick up a child and remove them from such a situation) but removes it as a defence for hitting a child.
And your last series of statements, SouthernDave:
“Sue says it doens’t make smacking illegal.
The police say they will arrest people seen smacking.
Helen Clark says they won’t.? – SouthernDave.
The only bit that’s out of sync with the reported facts is that the police have said they will be obliged to investigate reports of assaults on children. This does not mean they are obliged to arrest people because they have been accused of contravening the act.
They are obliged to investigate reports of assaults on children now but the police have never automatically arrested anyone on some-one else’s say so – they make their own assessment of the evidence and veracity of accusations and their own assessment as to whether the reported matter is sufficiently serious to warrant an arrest.
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Hi again,
Having got that off my chest I’ll be brief.
None of the above changes the fact that people feel strongly about this and feel that they have had their opinions ignored.
BJ may well be right – there could be a significant electoral cost.
Personally I think the legislation is right and that to adopt the Burrows amendment would be pandering to a particularly effective campaign of scaremongering.
However, I agree with BJ that politics is the “art of the possible” and that if parties ride into the wind of strong popular opinion they risk getting blown off their horse.
In my jaded opinion the reason that National and Labour both have stuick around and been the major parties in this country for so long is that they don’t often stick to a principled position in the face of popular opinion (e.g. John Key’s backdown on market5 rents and numerous examples from Labour).
Unfortunately, strongly held principles in politics appear to be a liability.
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eredwen Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
To bj…Blah blah we can arrange a frontal lobotomy:
——————————————————
The Green Party principles are interpreted any which way one wants. For instance decisions on family size should be made at the level most affected >>> by that measure I should be able to throw my rubbish in the ocean. etc, etc. Truth is some things are a big fat no no. Do terms such as “beneficiary bashing” come to mind??”
The Green Party is not an environmental party. An environmental party would be made up of a representative sample of the population who have one thing in common: concern for the environment.
Perhaps the internet community are influencing our wag the dog smug, lead the people by the nose, arrogant poiticians (I hope so anyway).
jh
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Kiwinuka, effectivelty the new bill will mean police will arrest people for smacking. The police said this, Sue said this.
Previously the police would never arrest anyone for smacking.
So to shorten your synopsis –
Right now smacking is NOT a prosecutable criminal offence.
Under the bill it will be.
Leave aside all the double-speak, back tracking and muddying of the waters, and you are left with one thing. Smacking is being made a prosecutable criminal offense.
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Eredwen
“NON-VIOLENT Conflict Resolution? – but I do not perceive my relationship with my children as a conflict – it is parenting and it is teaching.
You again insinuate that the males on this forum are arguing this case because of being male, that the women would be gentler. No Eredwen. My Wife and Mother-In-Law have far shorter tempers than I.
Sue Bradford’s Bill, to remove Section 59 from that Act, is supported by professionals and other people with expertise and experience in a variety of fields
… and is opposed by professionals and other people with expertise and experience in a variety of fields… and likely a fair few more in opposition than support, but they don’t count somehow.
They also believe that from a legal point of view “the average Kiwi parent? has nothing to fear.
However, the legal written opinions, even those Sue herself cites offer no such guarantees…
Arrogance? Eredwen, I have never once asked that the policy be changed, I have however pointed out that it may be mistaken and that it is very very likely mistaken to attempt to implement it all in one massive jaw-breaking party-destroying bite. I have pointed out that amending s59 would gain all the action against abuse that this does while redounding greatly to the credit of the party and I have wondered loudly and often that this politically advantageous course was neglected in favour of confrontational change. In this the Green Party has practically BEGGED for confrontation. We got it.
Now you bemoan the fact that it has gotten out of hand. I predicted it would when this first arose as an issue – the distant past, has it been a year now? I fear I have lost track of the start.
Divisive confrontational politics is the worst strategy of all for Greens , it is distinctly UN-green, and yet this is what we have got. Sue is courageous in her convictions. I don’t deny it, and I don’t deny we have a hellishly violent subculture here…. but that does not tell us how or what to do, only that something needs to be done.
Toad
Thanks for actual information. Not much actual information seems to drop into this thread.
However, that section 2 has a real kick. Reading the legal opinion given on our own site under Sue’s own chop it is quite clear that all spanking will draw the assault charge and will be quite impossible to defend. “Purposes of Correction” – an interesting turn of phrase and legislation, creating an offence of an intended purpose. Proper legislation is made around things that people do, not what they think while they do them. There will be no defending a spanking given to an unruly child.
I am weary of this… as all of us seem to be. I called it a firestorm in our internal forums, and I think that intellectual (or in some cases emotional) exhaustion characterizes our current situation.
Unfortunately, strongly held principles in politics appear to be a liability.
I don’t agree exactly. Principles can be strong, but when it comes to acting on them political and social realism is required. Particularly in the face of a strongly held opposing view.
Compromise/Finesse, inaction or confrontation are the choices available.
With s59 inaction would have to be regarded as unacceptable.
I would have gone for the finesse. Moved the society away from the massively abused paradigm of s59 as written, and let my son or daughter, after a generation of less spanking and less violence, and classes in parenting required in our colleges, go for the no-spanking no-force-at-all level. Yeah… I am a sneaky and extremely patient b@5tard… but I’d have gotten all the progress available and gotten enough political credibility to maybe have also moved public transit ahead a notch or two. Maybe been handed a big enough vote in the next election to HAVE to be included in government where my policies to promote peace, avoid war and green the country would have a better chance to succeed.
The Green Party however, has chosen immediate confrontation.
Consequences were inevitable. Some of them are already apparent.
respectfully
BJ
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bj
Your reply is interesting but (unfortunately) predictable.
Whether my words have any effect is up to you !
eredwen
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eredwen to bj “Do you not see how ARROGANT it is of you to assume that she has NOT “done her homework??”
If Sue had done her hjome work she wouldn’t have abill that lawyers are calling a diogs breakfast.
If Sue had done her homework she would be able to tell us if her bill outlaws smacking (shes says it does), or doens’t (she also says it doens’t).
What is arrogant, is criminilising tha majority of New Zealand parents.
If Sue had done her homework, she’d realise that good people would not be happy with being labeled criminals.
But instead she says she has no idea why people are angry.
BJ – well said – it’s one of the most sensible and pragmatic messages here.
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Sue said… Helen said… the Cop said… Chester said… Otago Uni student said… the Swedes said… he said… she said… mother said… father said… they said… we said… the media said… the polls said… and my cat said meow meow meow where’s my dinner…
I have two eyes and one brain to read the amended (second) version of the bill (which in my opinion was very much watered down from the the original version) and I believe it stands on it’s own without all the hysteria generated by media soundbytes.
My practical interpretation of section one as follows:
Section 59 : Supermarket Scenarios
Supermarket Scenario 1a. 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 preventing or minimising harm to the child or another person:
Mum notices two year old toddler has slipped away and pulling cans out of a display stand which is at risk of collapsing on toddler and another child standing next to it. Mum rushes over, forcefully yanks the two kids away from the display, places the toddler down and exclaims a very forceful “DON’T TOUCH!”
Conclusion: Acceptable force.
Supermarket Scenario 1b. 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 preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in conduct that amounts to a criminal offence:
Mum notices toddler, who has been whining for jelly beans, has grabbed a packet from the shelf and is in the process of ripping it open. Mum rushes over, grabs the hand of the toddler which is holding the sweets, slaps the hand and exclaims a very forceful “NO!
Conclusion: Acceptable smack.
Supermarket Scenario 1c. 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 preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in offensive or disruptive behaviour:
Two year old toddler is upset at not being allowed to open a packet of biscuits Mum placed in the trolley and starts to whine. As they continue through the aisles toddlers behaviour escalates to full-scale leg-flailing tantrum. Mum picks child off the floor, forcefully holds him still by the shoulders, makes firm eye contact and exclaims a very forceful “CALM DOWN!
Conclusion: Acceptable force.
Supermarket Scenario 1d. 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 performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting:
Mum and two-year old pass a demonstration stand where an assistant is cooking fish fingers in a fry pan for customers to try. Toddlers hands reach up to touch the frying pan and Mum quickly intercepts with a slap on the back of the hand and exclaims a very forceful “HOT! DON’T TOUCH!
Conclusion: Acceptable smack.
What I interpret as acceptable about these behaviours as defined under the proposed bill is that the parent is administering the minimum amount of physical force and startlement to the toddler to prevent it’s behaviour from harming itself or others, causing disruption, stealing (criminal offense) AND ALSO doing it at the moment it is occuring, or about to occur.
Where I see subsection 2 kicking in is that it is unacceptable to administer formal punishment to the child at a later time. For instance, if the mother gritted her teeth, ignored the child’s behaviour and waited till they have gone through the checkout before administering a few slaps around the backside in the supermarket carpark “for the purpose of correction”, then I think that would be covered by the definition of criminal here.
(But anyone who is aware of the attention span of a toddler should know how ineffective this is, since they would likely have no idea by then exactly what they were being punished for. I think effective parenting has to be consistent and in “the moment” – except in the cases where a parent is feeling enraged and might be likely to cross the line into violence.)
So anyway, to get back to the primary point I am trying to make here…. the way I am quite clearly interpreting the wording of this bill – and which also re-iterates a point stated by Stuey here recently – is that it is to criminalise “corporal punishment” and NOT to make illegal the kinds of ordinary, moderate and immediate interventions as I have illustrated in my scenarios above.
And to my knowledge (and you can correct me if I am wrong) I have not observed on this blog any personal confessions of parenting that qualified as “criminal” under my interpretation of these sections. And even OnceBitten’s example of responding to the “little biter” – feedback for offensive behaviour which was issued in the moment – I see as quite clearly being OK under 1c.
With a very few RARE exceptions (which I saw on some other blogs), all the examples of parenting behaviour that I have observed parents being worried about being criminalised for are perfectly acceptable under this proposed repeal, so I just don’t see what all the fuss is about – really, I don’t.
If any of you had proudly announced that they march their kids out back for some kind of formal punishment ritual – or used solid objects on your kids, or hit them around the head… then that would be a completely different story indeed.
The only alterations I would suggest making to the wording of this bill would be to change the word “correction” to something more definitive, like “corporal punishment” perhaps?
I hope this clarifies my position a little better.
Cheers,
Zana
PS: I personally regard corporal punishment as an act of sadism… but that’s another story for another day…
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jh :
by that measure I should be able to throw my rubbish in the ocean.
You haven’t understood the basic precept of appropriate decision making : decisions should be made by the people affected by the outcome. You would be able to throw your rubbish into the ocean if the majority of the people concerned were OK with that … i.e. a majority of the people who live near the ocean.
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Oh ah awesome post Zan!
You went to the source (the text of the bill) which will go a long way towards calming people whose reaction is based on emotion and hearsay.
You nailed the distinction between using force for “purposes of correction” (currently legal, to become illegal) and acts of real-time parenting which we all carry out.
(Oh Eredwen! How shocked I am that you hit your baby!!! Surely you should have turned the other… cheek? Nipple?)
OnceBitten : can you see anything you can’t live with in the legislation?
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zANavAShi:
THANK YOU FOR those supermarket scenarios!
They introduce A REFRESHING DOSE OF REALITY.
You obviously know what you are talking about!
So does Sue Bradford, who is a very caring mother.
I’ve seen here with her kids … and I’ve seen her kids with her.
(No problems there!)
As an older woman, I often talk to small kids when in the in the supermarket etc, and rapidly distract them from their tantrums or whining or general restlessness … The parent(s) look so relieved (and I am quick to reassure them that I have “been there and done that”!)
If we as a community took more interest in “our” children, some or many of the fraught situations that lead to physical “punishment” could be avoided.
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eredwen Says: You obviously know what you are talking about!
LOL! Ya reckon?
Hey, I’m no lawyer, but the text of the bill seems pretty straight forward and common sense to me – except for that ambiguous use of the word “correction” which might mean different things to different people.
In my mind the “acceptable” uses of force in section one are actually “corrective” ones, because they are allowing “real time” behavioural modification techniques to “correct” the behaviour of the child. So yeh, I think that word needs to go.
But hey, we’ve still got one more reading to go, so there is still time to examine the minor ambiguity in the wording of this thing.
Cheers m’dears,
Zana
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alistair:
You “pop in from the other side of the World” with friendly, succinct and relevant comments.
A breath of fresh air … that I, for one, always appreciate!
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alistair “You went to the source (the text of the bill) which will go a long way towards calming people whose reaction is based on emotion and hearsay.”
It dosen’t really help when Sue Bradford says that if you smack your child in a supermarket, you could very well end up in court.
Interesting that neither of Zana’s examples follow the usual course of action, which is a child does something i.e. pulls jars from the shelf , THEN gets the punishment (which is specifically rulled out in section 2 of the Bradford Bill).
However her examples really show just how poorly written this law is. Parents are going to need a large manual of examples of which situations they will be criminals, and which they won’t.
It seems that not even Sue Bradfiord is really sure.
It’s loopy to expect the general public to come to grips with when they are commiting criminal acts, and where they aren’t.
The Borrows amendment which specifically rules our the ehad, fists, objects etc, and only allows a light smack to the hand, leg or bottom is infinitely more sensable.
Not even the top lawyers can agree on what the Bradford Bill means.
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Zana,
“Corrective” in law means any action taken to deter future similar behaviour.
As this is not allowed under section 2 (which overrides all of section 1) it makes smacking illegal in most cases except when it is done to prevent something.
However it is cyclical, as preventing and detering are very similar. i.e. a smack might prevent my son running onto the road in the future, or it might deter him.
Again though, section 2 over rides section 1, so it is illegal to use a smack to deter my son from running onto the road.
One of the most important things with punishment is to set boundaries and teach children there are consequences, but this is ruled out under the Bradford Bill.
Prominent lawyers are saying the law as written is a dogs breakfast as it doesn’t make it clear what parents are allowed and not allowed to do.
And that sort of law has to be the very worst type, whether you agree with it’s aim or not.
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SouthernDave Says: Interesting that neither of Zana’s examples follow the usual course of action, which is a child does something i.e. pulls jars from the shelf , THEN gets the punishment.
Supermarket Scenario 1c. 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 preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in offensive or disruptive behaviour:
Mum notices toddler is in the process of pulling a row of jars off the supermarket shelf and scattering them around the shop floor. Mum rushes over, and intercepts the hand of the toddler as it reaches for the next jar with a slap, exclaims a very forceful “NO!”, then directs the child to pick them all up again.
Conclusion: Acceptable smack.
According to my reading of the text, if the action to stop the childs offensive behaviour is done in “real time” then it is OK, however it would NOT be OK to leave the scene and administer smacking elsewhere/later.
And besides, I should think that the aim of the “loving parenting” was to “intervene in order to modify” the behaviour of the child, NOT administer “punishment”, yes?
Ay caramba! Methinks you might be a worse insomniac than myself (if that were at all possible)
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Zana – whatabout if the child just pulled one jar down, so the whole incident was finsihed by teh time the parent arrived.
Any action then would be corrective i.e. as a deterant for next time.
For my boy after repeated failed attempts with time out etc, a samck was the only thing that stopped him trying to go onto the road (it worked like magic).
That would be illegal under Sues Bill. It probably saves my bopyus life though when nothing else worked.
(you’re right about the last bit- good night)
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Good Moorrrning………..!!!!!!!
Author : alistair
Comment:
jh :
by that measure I should be able to throw my rubbish in the ocean.
You haven’t understood the basic precept of appropriate decision making : decisions should be made by the people affected by the outcome. You would be able to throw your rubbish into the ocean if the majority of the people concerned were OK with that … i.e. a majority of the people who live near the ocean.
00000000000000000000000000000000000000
Except that there is a long coastline, and the people who live along the coast won’t be able to recognise my rubbish as it has been mashed up into molecules. Or, two populations divided by power hungry politicians> one decides it is ok to have big families, regardless, (in Rwanda the number is 6/ family). Should the remainder of the populace have to support the extra 4???
jh
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zANavAShi – You need to consider clause 3 of the text, the one that says…
(3) Subsection (2) prevails over subsection (1).
and note that clause 2 says
(2) Nothing in subsection (1) or in any rule of common law justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction.
THEN consider the quoted opinion of counsel as and the Justice Committee as elicited by Sue’s own question…
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/other10661.html
specifically this bit
“Mr McKenzie concludes that under the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill as proposed by Sue Bradford, carrying a child against his or her will to “time out? or a “naughty mat? will be a criminal act that exposes parents to prosecution for assault. This is because the redrafted defence in section 59(2) provides that “nothing in subsection (1) or in any rule of common law justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction?. For most parents, it is said, a corrective purpose would be the dominant or indeed the only purpose for “time out?.
Comment
Committee members will recall that, in relation to option 1, the Law Commission was advised by a majority of the members that the outcome sought was a prohibition on the use of any force against children for corrective purposes. We are consequently delighted to receive Mr McKenzie’s independent confirmation that this objective is achieved by our proposed draft. ”
followed by-
“However, in this regard, there is a very important point to note. The “Solicitor-General’s Prosecution Guidelines? require prosecutors, in the exercise of their discretion, to assess the likelihood of achieving a conviction. We suggest that, in the vast majority of “time out? cases, parents will be prompted by a mix of motives, which may include prohibited correctional purposes, but in all likelihood will also include other permitted purposes. It is thus questionable whether in such cases a jury could ever properly convict a parent beyond reasonable doubt, which in turn may tell against the likelihood of prosecution.”
(emphasis mine)
Key word here – PROPERLY
In the original of s59 it would easily have been regarded questionable that parents might have failed to properly be convicted for beating their child with a horsewhip, the standard here is the same. The result is likely to be the same as well. For most of us decent parents, a reasonable doubt will suffice in our defence, but we WILL be forced to mount that defence. The police will be judging motive and the court as well, and sooner or later justice will miscarry as it inevitably does.
It only needs happen once for this to be proven a bad law.
I am no fan of McKenzie nor do I reckon that the whole story will really be understood until we “suck it and see”, and we have a long line of reasonable verdicts, but all of this argument and all of this doubt and all of the money and time in court that this will generate could be avoided.
I accept that in the cases you cite a conviction is unlikely in any single instance, but timing and perception are everything in the court. The witnesses available, their attitudes and the testimony heard as filtered by the legal community render this less certain than it should be.
A well thought out post… thanks for working through what you see as the results… I see them similarly except that I see them through the filter of “likely” results (there’s no guarantee in court) and through the filter of additional court appearances to clear parents, additional legal fees, involvement in custody battles and the statistically inevitable occasional bad result. One hopes it will be VERY occasional and that the Police will be far more careful than we have been.
The standard of law I am used to is that it is better for the guilty to occasionally escape than for the innocent to be punished. That is perhaps, a difference in my background from the usage here. I regard it as valid however, as there is NO recourse from punishment meted out by the State.
respectfully
BJ
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Hrmmm, an afterthought to my last loooonnnnggggg reply….
I am also pondering on the inclusion of the word “minimal” to the amount of force, because I am somewhat uncomfortable with the word “reasonable”, and tend towards the opinion that “reasonable” might be a bit too subjective in this context.
Maybe I’ll have a more coherent opinion on this after a few more shots of espresso and a shower to wake my brain up some more hehehe.
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Um, sorry Zan, but your long post is currently unapproved, because everytime I approve it it breaks the entire thread and you can’t read anything, and then when I unapprove your post again, the problem is sorted and the thread can be read again. It can’t be the length of your comment, because others have posted even longer ones.
I have disabled comments for this thread now because it is so long the page is getting far too big. Sorry. Unless someone can point us in the direction of a comments pagination plugin for wordpress.
Hopefully frog or Russel will post a new S59 thread at a later date and the discussion can continue there.
UPDATE: a new posting is at Let the s59 debate continue.
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