Section 59, again.
Deep breath everyone, ‘cos Sue Bradford’s Bill to amend Section 59 of the Crimes Act goes back to the House to continue committee stages this afternoon.
And it seems likely that the rhetoric will get even uglier as ‘Bishop’ Brian, the Destiny Church, Bull Allen and pals rally at Parliament.
Looks like they’ve learnt their lesson from last time when they essentially pushed the Civil Union Bill through with their own hatred. Word is the faithful have been asked not dress like a private army, to avoid the rather unfortunate jack-booted black shirts impression.
Interestingly, Mr Baldock doesn’t want his flock associated and Family Values are emphasising that it’s NOT a pro-smacking rally. Confused?
And, in a clash of religion vs. fundamentalism, a long list of clergy have signed up to supporting the Bill (around 150 at last count). There will be an ecumenical service held at the Wellington Cathedral in a show of support, and a silent procession from the cathedral to Parliament to present Sue with the list.
Watch for a plethora of lightning strikes in parliament grounds as we see who provokes the most wrath.
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:33 am
Confused? No.
Baldock wants to make the point that it’s not merely a large number of Christians opposed to the bill as it stood - rather it’s a large number of everyone.
And Family Values may be making the rather clever point that I myself have made - I’m not pro-smacking, I’m anti-anti-smacking (much like I’m not pro-smoking, but still don’t think it should be illegal).
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:53 am
Those of us against the current wording are not confused. If I am confused by something it means I haven’t asked the right questions, and it also means that you won’t see me posting on the subject until I have found them.
I don’t want to know about the politics anymore. We’ve been all over this like a blanket and we’ve all said our pieces.
Parliament will pass it unamended or amended
The signatures for the referendum will appear or not
The Party will suffer at the polls or not.
Unless someone adds something new, we’re all in exactly the same place we were 6 months ago. Sue is intransigent and uncompromising. The rest of the nation is dead set against her and equally unwilling to compromise.
The debate is deadlocked. The issue is going to be decided one way or another over the next two years and there’s damned little any of us actually need to say about it anymore. It’s all been said.
BJ
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:21 am
bj
If my reading of your post is correct …
may I say that I am relieved that we are not going to be subjected to another volumious “interpretation” of New Zealand Law by you, as a self appointed expert in the subject.
PLEASE just sit back and watch /listen to Kiwi politics in action.
Maybe you might learn something!
(There was a very good reason why so many people worked so hard to achieve the political system we have in Aotearoa/NZ.)
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:31 am
And yet you still managed to find more to say about it BJ, even if it was mostly just a stream of tautologies. Wow.
To those of you who seem to have conveniently forgotten, Sue’s original version of the bill was summed up in these four words: “Section 59 is repealed.” Period.
So when y’all keep harping on about how “uncompromising” she is in light of how much the select committee mutilated her original submission beyond recognition I think you are the ones being uncompromising in your criticism.
Interesting post about this over at Spans blog here, for those who are interested:
http://spanblather.blogspot.com/2007/04/compromised.html
And just for the record, I would rather see the original full repeal than this current select committee version.
This is going to be a very tense day for people like me who were seriously messed up as kids by the use of excessive and unreasonable physical discipline.
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:40 am
I forgot to add:
VERY WELL DONE SUE, your Green Team and other supporters!!
… and to the other Parties in Parliament who recognise that this is “an idea whose time has come” …
thank you on behalf of the tamariki/children of Aotearoa/NZ !
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Thanks Eredwen! And thanks for all your contributions in the often hostile blogosphere environment.
For those that are interested - look away now BJ - there’s a cool article over on Public Address:
http://www.publicaddress.net/default,4136.sm
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Has anyone seen the text of the amendment put forward by Peter Dunne and apparently supported by labour and national (according to a Green Party press release).
“Both Labour and National put aside petty politics and have come together to support Sue Bradford’s Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill, following an amendment that assures parents that police have the discretion not to prosecute when very insignificant or inconsequential offences come to their attention.”
“This new amendment, put forward by Peter Dunne and announced by Helen Clark and John Key this morning, gives parents the reassurance so many of them are looking for on the vexed issue of criminalisation,� Ms Bradford says.
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Eredwen
I am too busy to bother and it has all been said. In about 2 years we will all learn who was right and who was wrong about the immediate political consequences, and in about another 10 we’ll have a clue about the societal consequences. Learning will occur. Who will learn what remains to be seen.
respectfully
BJ
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Sally Fallon, president of the Weston A Price Foundation and author of “Nourishing Tradition” is GRACING New Zealand with a series of seminars very soon.
While it has never been a secret that refined foods are not too good for people, it has also been known for some time that clogged arteries cause heart attacks but that hadn’t resulted in decreased strokes either.
So if you have an interest in organic food, vitality and equality etc then you have a chance to hear from a humanitarian of the one of the greatest unrecognised importance, who’s work is in complete contrast to the debt based profiteering model that has suppressed such real wealth from people for such a fundamental part of existence.
With the availability of such knowledge being given coinciding with NZ Organics proclaiming more on heaven and earth than previously dreampt of, to increased vitality of celebrity mps, ranging from perhaps cookbooks to stronger people with results like above standards for child development etc, it is yet another synchronicity that the ground of all environmentalism that has eva mattered, Common Wealth, is further represented by Sally’s partner Geoff, in being a lifetime member of “Democrats for Social Credit” who are helping to present the seminars as part of their unwaivering commitment for a debt free world for all.
Will post more details later.
Nick.
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Even - What was that about? “hasn’t resulted in decreased strokes either” means what with relationship to the non-secrets about refined foods?
Please write clearly.
BJ
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Kiwinuke asked: Has anyone seen the text of the amendment put forward by Peter Dunne
According to the NZ Herald it is “To avoid doubt it is affirmed that police have the discretion not to prosecute complaints against a parent of a child, or person in the place of a parent of a child, in relation to an offence involving the use of force against a child where the offence is considered to be so inconsequential that there is no public interest in proceeding with a prosecution.”
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:02 pm
BJ - does that amendment improve the situation any from your point of view?
What about other anti-anti-smacking bloggers?
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:18 pm
so..bj..you are assuming a doom/gloom pose..?
leavened with a certain..fatalism..?
there there..!
phil(whoar.co.nz)
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:34 pm
Well it looks like Labour, National and and United Future are going to get swept away with the Greens in the immense voter backlash.
When the floodwaters recede, who’s left standing? ACT, Winsome, and the Destiny Party?
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Something new indeed…
With that amendment it remains “bad law” but considerably improved from what it was. I can live with it. I don’t particularly like it but I can live with it.
I still disagree with the social “science” behind it, but that is merely a form of social experimentation that isn’t really here or there in importance.
What is really important is that the alteration gives cover for the party to escape without being greatly damaged by the effort. It still leaves things “up to the police” which is wrong, but it explicitly does so which gives the police the delegated power to write their own legislation around it.
I reckon it’s the best we can do given the personalities and prejudices involved. Letting… no FORCING the police to write law is not exactly the way proper “rule of law” is expected to work. I hope parliament has the cojones to quit abdicating its responsibilities. I am not optimistic about that either…
Phil… I’ve always been a bit of a fatalist and I have always been a relatively extreme pessimist. You can’t tell me this is the first time you’ve noticed it.
Hmmm… but then I’ve known BB as an animal rights activist for over 6 months simply from his writings here… and you didn’t notice that either… so maybe you can tell me that. I’d have to believe it.
respectfully
BJ
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Once again Comrade Bradford has not kept her word, she said she would “pull the bill” if ANY amendment was made, AGAIN she lied.
This is a victory for the Prime Minister in waiting John Key, the socialists have been beaten and common sense has won the day.
Sadly for the Greens I think the damage has already been done.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:47 pm
alistair says:
“When the floodwaters recede, who’s left standing? ACT, Winsome, and the Destiny Party?”
Now THAT sounds like an interesting “Government” !
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:01 pm
i’ve been aware of b.b’s avowals around animal rights..
but didn’t feel the need to comment..
the extreme right has a long connection with environmental rights etc..
(if you read the social/family policies of nazi germany..not knowing the origin/history..
you’d go whoar..!..pretty good..!..)
and hey..!..hitler loved his dogs..!
eh..?
mind you..i do have a (sorta) grudging respect for him tackling that person who was beating the dog..
(but he probably had a hamburger on the way home..)
so..animal rights..?..bb..?..
don’t think so..eh..?
not really..not if he eats them..
any ‘environmentalist’/green who still eats animals is a walking exercise in hypocrisy/double-standards/contradictions..eh..bj..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:42 pm
er actually destiny support the new look bill as well, apparantly “bishop” tamaki called the amendment a “glorious victory”.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10437411
so does that mean that support for destiny will be washed away as well? It’s going to be a pretty empty Parliament!
Or maybe the doomsaying predictions of commentators on this blog will be shown up to be ludicrous nonsense.
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Maybe the Bradford sideshow will now end, and we can actually address the well known factors associated with child abuse - the REAL issue.
Of the approximately 250 cases of assault on a child each year in NZ, over half result in aquitals.
Of these 250 cases, on average section 59 defence is used just once, and it usually fails.
So what about the other 99.5% of cases that have nothing to do with s59?
Will Sue and other polititians now actually address the REAL issues, or will it just like the predictions (and exactly what has happened in other countries) - our polititians can now say “we tried to do sopmething” - when in effect they have completely and totally side-stepped the REAL factors associated with abuse.
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Yes, I support the parliamentary intent of the amendment. But the Greens providing some options let alone a solution for child abuse - yeah right. THe Greens wouldnt know where to start.
It couldn’t even do this bill properly without Labour and Nationals help. It was initially drafted so badly that it was both a disgrace and legal nonsense.
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:30 am
All it will take is for one judge to decide that no smack is ever inconsequential or insignificant and Sue will have acheived her objective.
You need only look at the case law that has arisen from the “boy-racer” legislation to see that there are judges who will enterpret this clause using the Greater Oxford English Dictionary.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:16 am
ivan sowry said..
“..Anyway, as someone who works for the Green parliamentary team now, I can make the offending headline go away, which I just have.
It now reads “Greens draw up their own bill to combat violence against children”.
this (astonishing?) admission from sowry of ongoing re-writing/falsifying of history is on a (worth-reading) smacking-thread over at kiwiblog..
(titled..’is it an anti-smacking bill’..)
there..a commenter noted an early press release from bradford was headlined as this being an anti-smacking bill…
and this was ivan sowrys’ response..
whoar..!..
eh..?
as expected…sowry was then evisscerated as showing/exemplifying all the worst attributes of stalinist re-writes of history..etc..
it wasn’t a ‘good look’..eh..?..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:21 am
How embarrassing
Greens draw up their own anti-smacking bill
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR6778.html
I have never called it an anti-smacking bill – my opponents did
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR10668.html
The apology to tens of thousands of ordinary parents
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR10801.html
So now we have an anti-slapper bill relying on police discretion
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Stuey
The bill is no longer what it was.
I am happy to move on from this. I think the nation as a whole is happy to move on from it. However, lumbering me with “doomsaying” because my predictions relating to the original won’t come true with the modified bill is both wrong and offensive. I wasn’t wrong, the bill was wrong and the bill was changed.
Any “Doomsaying” I did had to do with what it was. In its changed form it has removed the worst of what its critics (including myself) have said about it and is therefore not likely to work against us in the next election. The singularly problematical requirements laid on the police were resolved and it immediately has broad support. You omit that I also pointed out how small the changes would be to get that broad support.
Law should be still be written by parliament, not by police and this law delegates to the police an amazingly broad power to determine what is actually against the law.
I can accept that though I distrust it. When that delegation was not explicit, it presented an impossible problem for the police. It is now explicit. This makes an enormous difference in the law.
It also means that we are no longer bucking 80% of New Zealanders and have some agreement across parties. Yeah, the religious nutters will still have something nasty to say, but we’re a whole lot better positioned now than we were 3 days ago with respect to the mainstream of the society
BJ
May 3rd, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Again BB has taken a machete to reality:
“Once again Comrade Bradford has not kept her word, she said she would “pull the billâ€? if ANY amendment was made, AGAIN she lied.”
My recollection is that Comrade (just call me Sue) Bradford publkicly stated her willingness last week to explore the possibility of compromise with John Key. She refused the amendment on offer because, as she said, it would have directly legislated for an acceptable level of violence against children. She said that if any amendment was passed that had that effect she would withdraw the bill.
The current amendment still leaves any assault against a child as an offence but clearly gives discretion to the Police not to prosecute if that is “considered to be so inconsequential that there is no public interest in proceeding with a prosecution”.
Might sound like semantics and double speak to you BB but Sue has not gone back on what she said. The amendment just seems to reinforce (”To avoid doubt”) what Sue had claimed all along - that the Police would not be obliged to prosecute in cases where to do so would be “frivolous”.
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Cindy Kiro claimed she looked at a meta analysis and decided smacking was harmful (or words to that affect), on Cambell Live…. she wouldn’t lie would she??
Does anyone have a citation for her claim??
[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
jh
May 3rd, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Will Sue look at other reasons for family violence such as the number of children raised in single parent homes?
jh
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:09 pm
jh: you are speculating! Put up a prima facie case that a having largish family raised in a single parent home is a driving factor for family violence, and I’m sure Sue or Cindy and lots of other people will want to investigate it.
You don’t need a hell of a lot of research, just give supply some empirical, or even anecdotal, evidence that may support your assertion.
When you ask a question such as this, you need to have at least some evidential basis - otherwise it will just be dismissed as another prejudiced attack on single parents.
May 4th, 2007 at 3:20 am
Frog Says:
And it seems likely that the rhetoric will get even uglier as ‘Bishop’ Brian, the Destiny Church, Bull Allen and pals rally at Parliament.
Sue B Says:
Before I leave the psychological aspect of this debate, there is one other matter that I think underpins some of what is going on here. It has been hard to talk about in Select Committee, and in public, because of its very nature, although a few submitters have raised it.
This is the question of the connection between sexual perversion and the beating of children and young people. Very few of us want to acknowledge it up front, but in fact the more I’ve been immersed in this issue, and the more I’ve heard groups predominantly made up of men proclaiming and lauding the right of adults to beat children, and in some cases talking or writing about the right methods of administering the rod and so on, the closer the unspoken connection gets.
jh
May 4th, 2007 at 3:44 am
http://www.rodneyhide.com/index.php/weblog/comments/confusing_times/
Confusing times
I arrived back in the country jetlagged and flew onto Wellington to learn that an historic peace had broken out with Helen Clark and John Key agreeing to a compromise on the smacking bill.
Good on John Key I thought. He’s taken the high ground and made a difference. That’s what I thought. Until I saw the amendment.
It makes no difference. Of course, the police have the discretion whether to prosecute. If anyone knows that, it’s Helen Clark!! This amendment just confirms it and then adds the confusing terms “inconsequential� and “public interest�.
Then John Key wips the National Party caucus to vote for it. So now Labour and National are voting for Sue Bradford’s anti-smacking bill. The criticisms National made of the Bill still stand except now they are all voting for it.
But get this: I move Chester Borrows’ amendment last night because he wouldn’t. That defines clearly what is allowed and what is not. National voted against it, including Chester.
It must be the jet lag or something. I can’t figure it out!
One thing I admire about Rodney Hide he is straight. I think a few people will throw Act a vote or two over this (if they don’t I’ll walk naked through Riccarton)
jh
May 4th, 2007 at 4:11 am
Well there you go. An outright Act majority in the next parliament. Happy days eh.
May 4th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Smacking law `a disaster’ NP lawyer says
LYN HUMPHREYS lyn.humphreys@tnl.co.nz - Taranaki | Friday, 4 May 2007
A NEW PLYMOUTH defence lawyer is condemning Parliament’s answer to the anti-smacking bill as an unmitigated disaster. “It’s preposterous,” Barry Henderson said.
In the last six years, Mr Henderson has successfully defended five of six Taranaki parents charged with assaulting their children, using the controversial Section 59 argument of reasonable force.
“Now that defence has gone,” he said yesterday.
Prime Minister Helen Clark had said ordinary parents could be assured they would not be criminalised if they smacked their children.
“Exactly what the Prime Minister said would not happen, will happen,” Mr Henderson said.
And providing police with discretion was not always the ideal solution, he believed. “In general, police are pretty objective, but there are some that might not be so objective.”
Police might warn a parent for smacking a child’s hand in a supermarket, but might they be prosecuted if it happened again, he asked.
From a civil rights point of view, children would be bound to complain to their school teachers if they were smacked. The school would in turn be obliged to involve Child Youth and Family service.
Therefore the Prime Minister’s assertion that a light smack would not see any intervention was wrong.
“I think that’s a preprosterous suggestion to make.”
New Zealand should have followed Australia’s legislation which had defined a light smack as an open palm to the body below the shoulders, he said. “But I believe what they’ve done is now is a disaster that can be abused.”
Taranaki’s Crown solicitor Tim Brewer said police had always had a broad discretion whether or not to prosecute any offence.
“A large proportion of reported offences are never prosecuted because either the police think that it’s not in the public interest or because they think that an informal warning will be sufficient.”
However, the amendment would give comfort to a lot of people, Mr Brewer said.
The amendment was a bit like Parliament passing a law saying, “To avoid doubt, it is affirmed that people should keep breathing in order to stay alive.”
“It sounds good and changes nothing,” Mr Brewer said.
May 4th, 2007 at 11:05 am
In the last six years, Mr Henderson has successfully defended five of six Taranaki parents charged with assaulting their children, using the controversial Section 59 argument of reasonable force.
What does this say about the state of the law? In six cases the Police thought the case was serious enough to justify prosecution. But in five cases section 59 saw the defendant acquitted. What would we be saying if 5 of 6 people charged with rape got off? Well, I think a lot of us did say it a little while ago, on another thread.
…children would be bound to complain to their school teachers if they were smacked. The school would in turn be obliged to involve Child Youth and Family service.
This is just plain wrong. There is no mandatory reporting of disclosures that give rise to suspicion of child abuse in New Zealand. Schools and other state agencies are entitled to exercise their discretion according to their judgment of how serious they consider the information disclosed is.
May 4th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
For f%&# sake JH, your insensitivity to people who have spoken out as adults to say that smacking and corporal punishment DID psychologically harm them is mind-boggling and bordering on the sadistic!
Sue’s statement about “connection between sexual perversion and the beating of children and young people” is a very legitimate one and it DOES need to be investigated. And I know for a fact there were submissions to the select committee from adults who documented their fascination with sexually perverse behaviour as adults and connected it back to corporal punishment being enacted on them as children - so she had every right to say that!
I have conversed with men who have dabbled in BD/SM, in an attempt to try and understand this strange perversion, and I can tell you quite frankly that their preoccupation with being subjugated with spanking behaviour does quite obviously (to me) correlate to experiences from childhood and being dominated by a smacking parent (most typically the mother). I haven’t had the opportunity (as yet) to speak to any women “subs”, but I quite fully expect that I would hear stories from them about dominant father figures who performed corporal punishment of some form.
I also have a friend who works as a dominatrix in Auckland, who I ironically met while I was doing a counselling course, and I have heard many quite intimate stories about some of her clients and their childhood histories. This woman decided to do counselling training because of the apparent psychological connection she was observing between the things she was being asked to enact on her clients and the re-enactment of incidents of corporal punishment as children. She had come to the conclusion that her clients underlying needs were more for therapeutic intervention than sexual relief.
I dare you to try and tell me that an adult male who gets off sexually on being spanked and dominated by a superior mother figure and being told he has been a “very bad boy” - and all the other kinds of “BD/SM talk” that we see parodied in the movies and like to titter about because we think it is cute comedy - is not trying to find an external outlet for all those sick feelings of being hurt and humiliated they internalised as children.
Where else do you think sexual deviants learned to internalise that kind of connection? Some mythical and “yet to be scientifically discovered” sado-masochist gene? You really need to get out in the world more and talk to some real people who have been effected by corporal punishment and stop spamming is with this bull$hit.
May 4th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
The way I see it in cases such as this there is no clear line which says right/wrong. Even if perpretrators get off, they have still had to appear in court and have their dirty linen scrutinised. What’s more I’m sure in each case there will be a whole lot of other factors. But this has been a deviuos campaign. On the one had there is discussion about the law, and on the otherhand, the (”you are all guilty”) need to change the “culture of violence” …smacking is the seed and family violence is the fruit.
jh
May 4th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
eredwen Says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:40 am
PLEASE just sit back and watch /listen to Kiwi politics in action.
….
You mean watch the people the public rate down there with real-estate agents.
========
(There was a very good reason why so many people worked so hard to achieve the political system we have in Aotearoa/NZ.)
…..
And that is that the far left couldn’t get anywhere. MMP should be MLM (maximum leverage and manipulation)
jh
May 4th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
jh Says: Blah blah blah SPAM blah blah blah SPAM blah blah blah SPAM blah blah blah SPAM blah blah blah blah blah
How old are you JH? You sound to me like some kind of petulant pimply teenage boy who is baiting his mommy just for the sake of it, is incapable of being reasoned with, and always has to have the last smart-mouthed word.
Why are you even here? Did mommy ground you from using your playstation for the last two months so all you have left to get your thrills is come and wind up the good people here at frogblog with your repetitive argumentativeness?
May 4th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
I’ve heard a lot of “this amendment makes no difference” but that is wrong. The amendment DOES change things for the police. Without it they are LEGALLY obligated to investigate and prosecute everything, whether they do or not and whether they wish to or not. Since it is child abuse they are checking into, the bar for ignoring an allegation is set rather high… and they can always be faulted for not pursuing an allegation.
With the amendment they are legally allowed to exercise that discretion.. it gives THEM cover for doing what Sue has always claimed they would do, but was technically illegal for them to do. Rodney Hide gets full points for honesty in his analysis… but zero for political pragmatism.
Done is done folks. No point in going on about it, time to learn to live with it. I do admit to some trepidation with respect to CYF getting mixed up in this stuff… but I expect that in general we will manage OK. Ten-Fifteen years from now we may have some issues… not everyone will do it right… there will be kids who have NEVER been socialized into responsible behaviour. That however, is not too different from the situation we have today
The argument is over.
Over.
BJ
May 4th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Navashi - it may be ok for Sue to bring up sexual perversion, but for her to strongly insinuate it is the reason behind the groups that oppose her bill, is absolutely appalling - probably some of the most unethical and disgusting politics seen in recent years.
Toad - I’m not sure about the large family, but a single parent is one of the leading factors in child abuse. The factors are well known and studied and recognised - CYFS have even but out publications on the factors associated with abuse of children.
From memory they include drug taking, alcohol, single parents, having first baby at a young age (and this negative effect continuued even when the mother was older), poverty etc.
it’s all pretty much common sense really - all the factors that would seem to make parenting more difficult.
Interestingly, out of about a total of about 35 factors listed by CYFS, smacking was NOT a factor listed as contributing to abuse.
So if you REALLY wanted to stop child abuse, you would concentrate on the factors associated with it.
Sues bill will not stop abuse and was never intended to -Don’t take my word for that - Sue is quoted as saying that herself.
May 5th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Didn’t Sue say (somewhere) that this amendment doesn’t allow smacking?
[The point was made that if you smack your child and find yourself in court you have no legal defence, a smack is assault, is domestic violence.
The point was also made that the police could use this legislation as a lever to use on people that they were after for other offences.
The amendment does nothing to limit state interference in the home, it just gives the police more choice in the way they exercise their expanded powers, hardly a surprise they’re in favour of it. ]
[Why’s Bradford happy with the bill? Quite obvious; she knows that it will do what she originally wanted it to do: ban parents from using any force no matter how light for the correction of their children.]
[You can’t argue you shouldn’t have been prosecuted because it’s inconsequential. If the police have decided to prosecute you, it’s irrelevant. The court has no bearing in deciding whether something is inconsequential or not.]
Greens draw up their own anti-smacking bill
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR6778.html
jh
May 5th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Zanavashi:
Great posts! Thank you for your openness in providing first hand personal information, and giving us the benefit of your experience and resultant hard earned knowledge, regardless of the (very obvious) emotional cost.
Your analysis is excellent! I have learnt a lot.
Yesterday I spent several hours in the company of a very bright young child to whom I have the honour of being “Honorary Grandmother”(!)
Hopefully, when the dust settles, the “Nay sayers” who have spent so much time arguing here will catch up with the excellent “non violent” child raising techniques available, and the advantages to us all of raising our children this way …
“As the twig is bent … so does the tree grow”.
May 5th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Much is made by Sue Bradford of what she heard in the select committee, [you weren’t their but we heard all about it..] however as Southern Dave has pointed out the evidence that smacking is harmful and a lot of the other assumptions behind this legislation are false. It always was Sue Bradford and Helen Clarks intention to ban smacking come hell or high water (in line with our international obligations), un PC reasons for child abuse have been ignored and evidence has been missrepresented. The net result will be even less confidence in our dumocracy
jh
May 5th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Sweden’s ban on smacking a failure:
“It would appear that Sweden and New Zealand have comparable rates of child abuse despite Sweden’s ban on smacking for the past 28 years.”
http://lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com/
jh
May 6th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
I must confess, I haven’t really understood what the amendment means, and smelt (expected) a rat. Frogs post could have simply discussed what the amendment now means.
The background seems to have been (however) a battle of world views and attempted social engineering (by a minority). My impression was that legal problems with Section 59 weren’t great, and just being used as an excuse.
jh
May 7th, 2007 at 3:02 am
I have only had the opportunity to enquire about the BD/SM behaviour of subs, not doms Dave. So the answer to your question is: don’t know him, wouldn’t want to know him.
Just the site of the guy on the news gives me the creeps… I could say more on my opinions about acting out sado-masochistic fantasies on non-consenting adults and minors but I think the spam filter would eat me for it… I will say this though…
It is hardly something we should be tittering over. When I observe people tittering about sadism I tend to find myself wondering what kind of a sadist they are for seeing sadism as amusing.
May 7th, 2007 at 7:32 am
jh said: One thing I admire about Rodney Hide he is straight.
Hmmm - seems he supports cannabis decriminalisation - check this out: http://www.rodneyhide.com/index.php/weblog/comments/drug_policy/.
At least there are some things I can agree with him on, but not section 59.
May 7th, 2007 at 10:19 am
zANavAShi Says:
May 4th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
You really need to get out in the world more and talk to some real people who have been effected by corporal punishment and stop spamming is with this bull$hit.
……………..
Most people , with regard to this debate, simply wouldn’t make the connection, between light smacking and sado-masicism. It is light smacking you want to ban and your side cannot draw a line between the two. Sue Bradford seems to think it is a primary motivation of (male) parents who smack.
If smacking lead to sado-masochism there would be data to support that.
Instead it is Sues impression and you say I have to get out and talk to…(”seek and ye shall find”). Your own anti-smacking link said that
[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
It was Sues intention to ban all smacking
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR6778.html
[The Greens are designing a bill that will stop parents physically punishing their children, in line with United Nations demands.
Green MP Sue Bradford says her bill will repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act, the provision that condones the use of physical force by parents against children.
“We want to end the situation where there is a legal defence to striking a child.�]
May 7th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
When they mentioned throwing bottles on the news tonight
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21684917-1702,00.html
I wondered which brand would take credit…. agreat photo oppurtunity.
jh
May 7th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR10801.html
Today is a great day for New Zealand’s children, who will soon be afforded the same protection from violence that adults are, the Green Party says.
…….
A fig leaf has replaced a grape leaf?
jh
May 8th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
JH,
This is a also good day for all those who have had their lives damaged by Section 59. I am another such survivor. I became suicidal in adulthood and attempted suicide due to the psychological damage caused by smacking in my childhood.
May 8th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
What affect would the new law/ amendmet have had on your situation? I presume when you say you were “smacked” you must have been “S-M-A-C-K-E-D”?
jh
May 8th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
In accordance of Section 59. Not ‘abused’ - but smacked.
May 8th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
JH,
To answer the first part of your question, this new legislation came 60 years too late to help my childhood situation.
However, the new legislation will give a very clear message to those Christian bigots and others that it is no longer acceptable to hit children with wooden spoons and other “implements� (as they like to call them). That is now outlawed under the new amendment.
Furthermore, if I ever witness anyone treat a child in the same way I was treated (that is, being hit with implements), I will report them to the police forthwith!
May 8th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Section 59 Survivor,
Thank you for having the courage to write your experiences and feelings on frogblog.
Hopefully our visitors to frogblog (with their voiciferous concern about the Law and retaining their individual “rights” to “discipline” their children with “the occasional smack”) will pause and think about the costs such “rights”
can have on other children.
Hopefully the removal of Section 59 will encourge more New Zealanders to look to the future … and to learn effective child raising techniques that do not involve physical violence or threats.
May 8th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Christian Schools The New Lepers
http://lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com/search?q=Christian+Schools
jh
May 8th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Many thanks for that Eredwen,
What needs follow now is a good education campaign to help those understand how many children (and children who are now adults, like myself - and others) can be damaged for life by humiliation, pain and fear, caused by smacking.
I noted some earlier comments made by zANavAShi about SM, BDSM and macho-sadism. I can strongly relate to what this blogger has said. The pain inflicted by smacking caused me to react sexually in my childhood which led to a life-long self-injury addiction. I began ‘pain-play’ at six-years of age, using gorse prickles and needles. The humiliation, psychological isolation and fear caused me to find ‘comfort’ by self-injuring. This became a major problem in my teens and adulthood when I progressed to cutting. This added to the anxiety I also suffered. The associated shame contributed to my suicidal tendencies. I had to undergo lots of psychotherapy to understand what happened to me as a child.
Had I not received psychotherapy early in my life, I could have easily ended up in a kink group doing BDSM myself – as a part of feeding my addiction.
there are a lot of young people out there who self-injure. If I could, I would like to reach out to help them overcome it.
May 8th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
JH,
I have already seen that, some time ago - what a load of rubbish!!!
Those schools need to be treated as lepers with their unprofessional and disgraceful behaviour.
May 8th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Eredwen - let me know when the child raising techniques you talk about are refined to a point where they result in outcomes as good as those achieved by non-physuical methods backed up with an occasional light smack.
Until then, my children’s outcomes are far more important than some idealogical theory that is goes little further than saying “physical punishment bad, psycological punishment good.”
And while children’s outcomes ( higher academic achievement, lower crime, lower violence, lower mental problems, etc ) are better for children who receive occasional light smacks, I will continue to use this method on the rare occasions when it is needed - to do otherwise would be detrimental to my children’s future.
May 8th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
JH,
This comment on that website was written by yours truly!
====================================
Lindsay,
You may find Martin Keast a “quietly spoken and thoughtful man�. However, you know as well as I do, that corporal punishment in schools is now illegal. Mr Keast is showing to be unprofessional to advocate such practices.
School corporal punishment is not as benign as some may wish to think. As a result of the terror and humiliation of having to witness corporal punishment at school (I am now 59 years old) I have suffered psychological flashbacks and suicidal anxiety as a result. I am now medically retired.
As far as I am concerned it is appropriate that those Christian schools should be threatened with closure if they refuse to smarten up their act!
May 8th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
SouthernDave,
Re your message to Eredwen responding to my post:
I am not talking about the light smacking you are speaking about. I am talking about the physical punishment that was sanctioned under the, now defunct Section 59.
May 8th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
S59 Survivor - s59 sanctioned force that was “reasonable” in the circumstances. Out of the last 3-4000 court cases of assault on a child, it has only been known to have been used 17 times as a defence. Most of these times it failed.
99% of cases that are aquited (i.e. over 2000 of these cases) did NOT use s59 as a defence.
Out of these thousands of cases, only three are ever talked about, and in these it is not necessarily the law that was wrong - perhaps it was the juries decision. Arguably the decisions may have been right because the juries heard all the eveidence - the rest of us who aregue about it did not.
Also in each of these three cases the severity has been vastly exagerated by the anti-smacking loby. What was originally known as the four by two block of wood case turned out to be small piece of kindling, and the court found the grazing cause to the child was actually from a previous accident - not from the punishment.
However some would rather have us falsely believe this was a severe beating.
S59 defenses have FAILED when punishment was considered unreasonable, including punishments that caused injury, or were unduly harsh, or regular, or unfair (i.e. for a very young child soiling themselves).
So harsh physical punnishment was not sanctioned under s59., only reasonable punishment.
May 8th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
We seem to be suffering from the fact that the world is just a model in our heads and most of us have a different model from Sue Bradford who has managed to get her hands on the tiller.
jh
May 8th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
JH,
This is not about Sue Bradford. This is about children living in safe home environments. If you think the treatment I received as a child is acceptable, then you certainly need to think again. Are you trying to make light and / or attempting to minimise what I am saying?
Your last post probably says it all - you post meaningless garbage!!!
May 8th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
SouthernDave,
So what you are saying is that the treatment I received as a child is “reasonable”?.
May 8th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
S59 Survivor - No, I’m not making any statement at all about what happened to you as a child - because I don’t know what happened.
But I presume if it had such a severe effect it was probably because it was totally UNreasonable.
And if it was unreasonable then it wouldn’t stand up to s59 or child assault laws.
May 8th, 2007 at 11:11 pm
SouthernDave,
Your assumption is totally wrong. What I received as a child was legal under Section 59. SouthernDave, it was not the smacking that caused the damage it was the PAIN and HUMILATION caused by painful smacking (especially with implements) that stuffed up my life. So PLEASE do not assume anything or attempt to change my story.
I reiterate my previous post:
==============================
The pain inflicted by ‘normal’ smacking caused me to react sexually in my childhood which led to a life-long self-injury addiction. I began ‘pain-play’ at six-years of age, using gorse prickles and needles. The humiliation, psychological isolation and fear caused me to find ‘comfort’ by self-injuring. This became a major problem in my teens and adulthood when I progressed to cutting. This added to the anxiety I also suffered. The associated shame contributed to my suicidal tendencies. I had to undergo lots of psychotherapy to understand what happened to me as a child.
Had I not received psychotherapy early in my life, I could have easily ended up in a kink group doing BDSM myself – as a part of feeding my addiction.
there are a lot of young people out there who self-injure. If I could, I would like to reach out to help them overcome it.
======================================
May 8th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
SouthernDave,
If you do not believe me that hitting children with implements was sanctioned under Section 59, then I suggest you go to this website:
http://section59.blogspot.com/
And ask them if it is OK under Section 59 to ‘discipline’ children with implements to cause pain!!!
May 8th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
I’m confused - do you beleive your punishment was resonable or unreasonable?
May 8th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
SouthernDave,
I don’t understand your confusion. I was smacked in accordance with Section 59. What I received was ‘reasonable force’ under Section 59.
The pain from this smacking stuffed up my life - as is explained.
It cannot be clearer than that.
May 9th, 2007 at 12:04 am
S59 doesn’t actually state what is reasonable or not - that is up to the courts.
And the courts CAN and HAVE found that relavively minor punishments are unreasonable in a number of circumstances i.e. if they are used repetitively, maliciously etc.
If the punishment was not severe, but emotoional damage was caused, the courts can also find that the force is UNreasonable under s59.
And under the Bradford ammendment the SAME reasonable force can STILL be used, as long as it is used to prevent or stop the actions of a child, but not to “correct” them.
So yes, it can be clearer - I asked if YOU beleive your punishment was resonable or unreasonable?
May 9th, 2007 at 12:24 am
SouthernDave,
Are you not taking my story seriously?
My parents DID NOT KNOW that what they were doing was harmful to me. If my parents knew what was happening to me as a child, I am sure they would have stopped smacking me. And as a child I did not know what was happening to me either. All I felt was the pain, shame, fear and humiliation that led to my suicidal anxiety and self-injury behaviour.
By the time I reached adulthood I carried the shame through life and attempted suicide, and by then, it was too late to undo the damage.
You may ask - did my parents not know when I started self-harming?.
NO because I did it in secret and it remained hidden until I found the courage to reveal it to another human being during therapy. The associated shame kept it hidden as a private secret for years.
Your last posting certainly has highlighted the common ignorance surrounding child smacking and the damage resulting from it.
I think you need to read my self-injury story in full.
===============================================
May 2007
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT TO SELF INJURY
A true-life story
Pain was a major participant in my childhood – both psychological and physical. I experienced terror in my childhood. I was forced to witness pain and humiliation being inflicted on my peers as well as on myself at school - in the name of “discipline�. “Smackings� from my parents all contributed to my fear and isolation. This childhood treatment resulted in “pain play� that served as an escape from the psychological pain and isolation caused by corporal punishment.
As an adult, I came to realise that this behaviour has its roots set deep in childhood. The causes are very complex. Drawing from my own experiences, it is the result of psychological humiliation, caused by the common use of corporal punishment. The fear and anxiety generated by such treatment induced isolation that cannot be expressed in childhood. The outcome is the expression of pain and solace in childhood dysfunctional play. My story explains some of this phenomenon.
The psychological shame and fear surrounding such behaviour has been very devastating. For a very long time I never spoke about it. The associated isolation has also been unbearable. This caused me to become suicidal. Later in life, this led to two suicide attempts – the second attempt being almost a success. Throughout my childhood and into adulthood my self-injury was a closely guarded secret. It was many years before I found the courage to speak to another human being about my pain play behaviour.
When I was around five or six years old, I would go into gorse bushes. I would use the prickles to jab myself. This produced a sexual arousal, which interacted with the pain – similar to the pain inflicted by corporal punishment. Inflicting pain on a child can cause damaging sexual arousal that can be devastating later in life. (This apparantly happens with some children and I happen fall into that group, which I discovered years later when receiving professional help to understand what happened to me as a child). It is from here that the pain play behaviour developed. I began to use this to create secret self-induced “fun� and “comfort�. This became my way of dealing with the isolation I experienced as a child.
I used several methods to “create� pain in my childhood and teenage years. One was by dripping hot wax on to my arms or legs with a candle. I invented this in my early teens, or perhaps even earlier than that. Later, the behaviour began to take on a new turn when I began self-mutilation by cutting and burning myself. But sewing needles and pins were my most favoured options in my childhood for “playing�.
The description “pain play� may not be exactly accurate either. Because it is rather, the repression of pain that is a major component of the play. I now understand that this behaviour is very addictive. I also understand (from psychotherapy treatment with specialised psychologists) that the addiction comes from the endorphin release in the body while pain is being induced under controlled conditions. The higher the “endorphin rush� the higher is the pain threshold. Under “normal� conditions, I have a very low pain threshold. During “pain play� I choose sites to pierce or cut that would usually be very painful indeed. Pushing needles through at normally painful sites induces a high excitement at levels that I could never experience at any other time. This certainly puts me out of touch with reality. No wonder it served such an important role in my childhood. In BME and BDSM circles this phenomenon is described as “subspace�.
In my late teens and into my twenties, this pain play and self-injury behaviour remained a closely guarded secret. This secrecy was enforced by the fear and shame surrounding the behaviour. I was certain in my own mind that I was the “only one in the world� who did such things to myself. I have since discovered that this behaviour is common within our society.
A life-long struggle with my shame has finally ended. Instead, the shame is now appropriately placed at the feet of those who caused distress and pain in my childhood. Those who advocate hitting children in under the guise of “discipline� like my parents and school teachers, now appropriately carry the burden of that shame. I take a pragmatic approach that I should have been able to do years before. My confidence has been a long time coming. This writing serves to completely remove my shame, secrecy and psychological pain. I now claim my dignity that was taken from me as a child. Today, I bear physical scars from my many years of self-injury and ‘pain play’.
I need to be able to safely and appropriately speak about my behaviour. So every time some ignorant fool condones child “smacking� to cause pain I provide my true story with purpose.
Section 59 Survivor
Palmerston North
New Zealand
Self-injury information:
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/self_injury.htm
May 9th, 2007 at 12:27 am
In the past, an s59 defence usually fails when -
The child is very young
The child is over 16
The child is hit on the head
There is bruising.
There is an injury
There is emotional damage
An instrument has been used.
Where the child did nothing wrong.
Where alcohol is involved.
Where there is a history of violence.
s59 has failed where a father gave two smacks on the bottom because a child soiled himself.
s59 has failed when a child was smacked on the hand and botom for letting the bath overflow, because it was acompanied withy verbal abuse.
s59 has failed when the purpose of the punishment were not for correction - i.e. it was for control or for self gratification.
Arguably the Bradford ammendment allows force in a new area - for “prevention” which wouldn’t have been allowed previously. Effectively it has stopped force for correction, and replaced it with allowing force for prevention
May 9th, 2007 at 12:29 am
SouthernDave,
you said:
So yes, it can be clearer - I asked if YOU beleive your punishment was resonable or unreasonable?
OK SouthernDave, I will make it even clearer to you.
It was reasonable for my parents to hit me. It was also reasonable for me to attempt suicide twice. But it was unreasonable for me to survive it.
Good night!!!
May 9th, 2007 at 12:54 am
Fair enough, but I still have no idea of whether you thought the punishment was reasonable or not.
Clearly you’ve had a traumatic life, and thanks for sharing that with us.
I’m genuinely interested in knowing if you felt the punishments were unreasonable i.e. too harsh, or too regular, or not deserved etc.
May 9th, 2007 at 1:16 am
SouthernDave,
I feel really disappointed that you need to ask that question again.
As a child I thought my parents “were doing the right thing” to me. As a child I thought the sexual responses, the pain and the fear and anxiety resulting from smacking was acceptable and that it was ‘normal’. As a child I thought it was normal to be full of shame when I ‘played with pain’. As a child I thought it was normal to have sexual secrets evolving around pain that was totally taboo to speak about. As a child I thought the punishments were reasonable.
Does that answer your question?
May 9th, 2007 at 1:27 am
SouthernDave,
I forgot to add:
If you need me to affirm what I think now - that is, if the punishments were ‘reasonable’?
The short answer:
NO!!!!!!!!!
May 9th, 2007 at 1:35 am
Yes it does, sort of, thanks.
My angle is that I have two small children, and all reasearch I’ve found, (including from people who are effectively known as anti-smacking reasearchers) is that there is no harm caused by an ocassional light smack to back up other non-physical punishments.
In fact according to Otago University research this type of discipline delivers better outcomes for children in all areas (including fewer psycological problems) than even completely non-physical punishments.
And of course I am very interested in the best possible outrcomes for my children.
I suppose what I was trying to find out is if you thought the punishment was reasonable compared to the above terms - i.e. a light smack used only occasionally to back up other non-physical discipline, or something that was harsher, and/or and used regularly, or if you thought it was not deserved.
May 9th, 2007 at 1:39 am
Section 59 Survivor - Do you think the same thing would have happened to you if had recieved a light smack on rare occasions?
(by rare I’m talking about a light smack perhaps five or six times per year at a maximum between the ages of 2 and 6)
May 9th, 2007 at 1:54 am
SouthernDave,
Your disrespect to Section 59 Survivor and others who have spoken up here to say they they were effected by smacking that was considered “perfectly reasonable under Section 59″ is so astonishingly insensitive you should be ashamed of yourself!
Is it not bad enough that people like us - who were psychologically harmed by the kind of behaviour you so persistently purport to be “harmless” and consequently been unable to enjoy the kind of ordinary every day family life and loving relationships that pig-headed argumentative pro-smackers like yourself take for granted - have had to live with the shame and humiliation of what happened to us?
But now we are forced to suffer secondary shaming and humiliation by people of your ilk in the blogosphere and the media and from ignorant people in our everyday lives who treat us with anything ranging from utter disdain to outright aggression - and marginalise us and our very real experiences and suffering because of your need to defend your own self-righteous neanderthal practices at any cost.
I wretch inside every time I imagine the thought that people with such monumental ignorance towards the potential psychological pain and shame which a child can internalise and carry in silence with them for sometimes YEARS before they ever have the courage to seek help could actually be raising children of their own in such ignorance.
Another way you have totally disrespected our experiences here is your constant misquoting of research to support your own ignorant opinions. I have watched you make untrue claims about that Otago research study so many times that I have wanted to scream and act out self-destructively because I feel so enraged at your insensitivity.
Since there has been no room to discuss these things here with the atmosphere that you have created for us, I decided to blog about this on my own website a few weeks ago:
http://thewatermelon.org/content/view/35/98/
You and several others here have made it virtually impossible for people who might potentially have a sensitive story to share about the way Section 59 effected their lives in a very REAL WAY on this blog to come forward for fear of getting yet another barrage of your smug spamming and hyper-insensitivity.
How many more years are survivors of smacking to be forced into shameful silence because of people like you who are too callous to LISTEN? It is people like YOU that should be carrying this shame we have had to carry - NOT US!
May 9th, 2007 at 1:58 am
SouthernDave,
I am not an expert on this, but what you are describing seems to be OK to me. I think you may be concerned that an occasional light smack could do harm to your children? The Otago University research may be correct about occasional light smacking.
Look, SouthernDave, I do not want to advise you, because I really cannot confidently answer your question.
If my parents had used occasional light smacking and not inflicted pain, I think my life may have turned out differently. I would have been a happy child and a properly functioning adult.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:06 am
Section 59 Survivor - thanks for that - in my roundabout way that was what I was trying to find out.
Clearly we have to reduce violence against children, but not go as far as Sweden like some people want us to. Over there, 35,000 children have been taken away from their parents.
I’m sure a vast number of those children, if not most of them, will have enduring problems because of what their government has done to them.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:14 am
Section 59 survivor, you should not have felt the need to respond to that.
What I see happening here is that SouthernDave is making a weasely manoeuvre to entrap you by this line of questioning. I have seen him operate this way from the moment this section 59 debate began here.
Anything he says cannot be taken as a sincere question that he is seeking a sincerely enlightening answer for and he will be coming back at you any moment now to use your reply as a way to marginalise your experiences and feather his own arguments.
The fact of the matter that SouthernDave has so conveniently overlooked within the web of lies and misdirection that he tries to weave to support his own selfish position is that only 29% of children in this country are being disciplined by the “open handed smacking” that he is so pig-headedly intent on defending.
SouthernDave doesn’t give a flying fu@k about the other 51% of our children are hit with objects or more severe punishment that results in physical wounds (as stated by his favourite “amazing” research study that I thoroughly debunked in my blog over at The Watermelon).
SouthernDave needs to be right at all costs - he is a narcissist to the core. Trying to have a reasoned conversation with him is a waste of oxygen - trust me, I have learned this to my own detriment in the past.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:15 am
Oh look, as I was composing me reply…. just as predicted…
May 9th, 2007 at 2:17 am
PS @ Section 59 survivor: the Otago research study makes NO SUCH CLAIMS - this is a lie SouthernDave has invented which he thinks if he repeats often enough then we will complacently accept it as fact.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:25 am
Navashi - researchers - even anti smacking ones - purport that they’ve found no negative effects from an occasional light smack that backs up other discipline.
NOT used regularly, NOT used harshly.
I want to know what will result in the best outcome for my kids.
However the rest of your verbal abuse and name-calling does not deserve a reply.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:51 am
Oh and is that any less abusive than the weasely passive-aggressive way that you persistently misspell my name?
Or the smug condescending way that you consistently have tried to talk down to me and rudely railroad me with your marginalisations since this debate began way-back-when?
You have an obsession with being right at all costs with no regard to the collateral damage your tactics have on others emotionally. You have a narcissistic self-image that you are some kind of “expert in the field” - despite proving time and time again that you are incapable of even interpreting a simple research paper accurately.
Everything you have to say is just blah-blah-blah-blah-blah to me now and the only reason I stepped back into this debate with you tonight is because I saw you were about to entrap yet another unsuspecting survivor in your web of self-righteous bull$hit.
I wish you would just f$%K off and go find yourself a nice little church group who can pat you on your back and tell you what a wonderful loving daddy god thinks you are.
May 9th, 2007 at 8:24 am
zANavAShi said: PS @ Section 59 survivor: the Otago research study makes NO SUCH CLAIMS
Yeah, I’ve been wondering about this for some time Zana. I’ve read and re-read the report from the University of Otago study, and can’t find what SouthernDave asserts are among its findings. Was wondering if we were reading the same report!
SouthernDave - if this is what it says in the report, could you post the precise quote from it here so the rest of us can find it.
May 9th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Hi zANavAShi,
I may get in touch with Otago University and see what they say. I just did a quick search in Google, but found nothing there.
http://www.otago.ac.nz/research/publications_reports.html
Perhaps SouthernDave could actually show the research report he speaks about.
I was just giving SouthernDave the benefit of the doubt, and indicating that ‘light smacking’ under the new legislation is still legal.
My major concern is causing pain and fear in children by smacking that may cause similar long-term damage as I have suffered.
May 9th, 2007 at 8:37 am
toad said,
=========================================
SouthernDave - if this is what it says in the report, could you post the precise quote from it here so the rest of us can find it.
=========================================
Here!!! Here!!!
May 9th, 2007 at 8:52 am
I wish I had thought earlier, and insisted to SouthernDave that he produce same facts about the research - he claims exists.
It was 2:00 am in the morning and I was getting very tired.
May 9th, 2007 at 11:37 am
Section 59 survivor, the link to the Otago research study is inside the blog I wrote about this over at The Watermelon. You will also find a printable version of the research paper in The Watermelon downloads archives (only viewable to registered logged in members).
Sadly, I have seen too much of SouthernDave’s behaviour on this blog over the last few months to be able to give him the benefit of the doubt any more about his sincerity. His lack of sensitivity towards people who who have tried to voice their personal experiences on the smacking issue and his pathological inability to respond to them with even so much as a “sorry you had to go through that” speaks volumes about him. Just look at the way he tried to entrap you into “quantifiying” your experiences - that was insensitivity bordering on the sadistic FFS!
I have come to the opinion over time that SouthernDave is either a sock puppet for some merry little band of born again christians who has been sent here to frogblog to wear us down “nicely” in the guise of being the “soft sensible voice of the concerned good parents of New Zealand” - frogblogs very own little Simon Barnett clone… or (just as creepy) that he is some kind of obsessive compulsive narcissist.
If SouthernDave seriously is who is says he is (and not the aforementioned sock puppet) it is significant to note that he is a paid professional thug - you don’t hire a person to work as a bouncer unless they have overtly neanderthal qualities about them and pig-headed determination (some of the most vile thugs I have ever met work as bouncers). Also significant to note is that he is frequently up at 4 or 5 in the morning dogmatically picking to bits the latest posts of the day and you have to wonder what kind of a “good parent” could emotionally meet the needs of their kids when they are sleep-deprived as a result of their internet obsession.
Another thing to note about SouthernDave’s modus operandi, which is not so easy to recognise beneath the compulsive obsessiveness of his responding, is that every which way he tries to engage an anti-smacker in his “ever so seemingly sensible” conversation it is ALWAYS to draw the conversation back to himself and inveigle some kind of affirmation from his opponent that he is really just being a “kind, reasonable and thoughtful daddy”. It’s all about ME ME ME ME ME ME ME! I believe he is actually more obsessed with the need to “be seen as a good parent” than he is to actually “be” one.
What kind of truly “good parent” has the such a voracious and insatiable need to be seen as being “good”? Doesn’t this just reek of a person who “protesteth too much”?
I have had the suspicion for a while now that SouthernDave might be motivated by his own shame. I would not be surprised to discover that in his real life he is separated from his partner because he beats his kids and - unwilling to confront the reality of what he did - he lives a sad lonely life on the internet trying to find solace for his guilty soul by seeking strokes for himself. Some of the most abusive people I have met in my life were also the ones that protested the most loudly about their own “virtuousness” or “righteousness”.
Yes I have a very finely tuned bull$hit detector when it comes to people who “protesth too much” and I find it ringing constantly in SouthernDave’s general direction.
Moving right along…. thanks for your reply Toad.
We have been so thoroughly deluged by SouthernDave with so much erroneous cherry-picked SPAM from such questionable sources that I doubt many of us even bothered to think of going back to the original source on this one.
I smelled a decomposing rat the moment I heard him claim that the research paper deduced smacked children performed better in society and that non-smacked children are “hysterical” (yes folks, do a frogblog search - he has actually cited “hysterical” many times in reference to the Otago study) because non-physical discipline “traumatises them more than a light smack”. Reputable research papers simply DON’T make claims like that!
There is not one claim about the Otago study made by SouthernDave that is factually accurate and yet he still persists on parroting those lies over and over again - did he really think nobody would bother to actually go READ the report?
I did an academic research study 2 yrs ago as part of one of my Uni teaching papers, so that has taught me to examine research papers with a very critical eye - especially in regards to their methodology used. I set out reading the Otago study with a specific emphasis on critiquing it’s research methods (in the mistaken assumption that SouthernDave had actually cited their study conclusions accurately) and was horrified at what he so cheerfully claims to be “amazing”.
The most glaring thing revealed by this research paper from my perspective is that New Zealand is still so culturally entrenched in this antediluvian colonial attitude towards parenting children. It is a shameful indictment on the image we have of our culture and the most powerful evidence I have seen to date that we must urgently confront this attitude - even if it means we have to drag our society kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
Section 59 survivor, don’t be too hard on yourself. I fell for this ruse of his a few times before I got wise to his tactics. If I had seen SouthernDave trying to box you in like this sooner I would have jumped in sooner. Watch me morph into a blood curdling tigress at the mere scent of a sign that people like us are about to inadvertently stumble into a situation where they are likely to suffer secondary shaming.
We need to recognise and be wary of people like SouthernDave who are pathologically incapable of recognising what REAL human courage it takes to share as you did here. I applaud you for your bravery to speak here and to take your testimony to parliament. Amazing courage!
My deepest respects,
Zana
May 9th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Go Zana!
May 9th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Zana, for your own sake, please stop the verbal abuse, the obsession, and the bizarre assumptions about my religious views. marital status, etc - you’re assumptions are completely wrong on every count.
Toad - here is one part of the Otago Uni multidisciplinary study - an article published in the NZ Medical Journal - one of 600 articles from this study that have been published in NZ and international scientific journals -
http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/119-1228/1818/
For this part of the study, the nearly thousand participants were divided into four groups depending on the punishment they were given as a child -
No physical punishment;
Being smacked with open hand;
Being hit with an object;
Extreme physical punishment.
From the article, the following percentages claimed to be “very upset” by their punishment -
No physical punishment; 62%
Being smacked with open hand; 54%
Being hit with an object; 62%
Extreme physical punishment. 79%
The following percentages of each group were seen to be distressed in the interviews when talking about their punishment as a child (done as 26 years olds)
No physical punishment; 1%
Being smacked with open hand; 1%
Being hit with an object; 2%
Extreme physical punishment. 22%
The study noted the differences between extreme punishment and the three other categories is quite asubstantial.
When interviewed on radio, the study authors stated that the lowest levels of violence as an adult, lowest criminal activity, lowest mental health problems and highest academic achievement came from the group whose worst punishment was being smacked with an open hand, closely followed by the no-physical punishment group.
Here is another link to more of the Multidisciplinary Groups research
http://dunedinstudy.otago.ac.nz/
Much of it is groundbreaking on an international level.
The bizarre thing about this whole debate here is were are argueing between the two groups shown to have the best results, instead of concentrating on stamping out abuse that causes the vast majority of all the problems
The factors associated with that abuse are well known (and do not include light smacking), but I haven’t heard of a single polititian willing to address these issues. In fact the only person I’ve ever heard bring them up is Simon Barnett, though CYFS have in the past issued a publication about the known factors that are associated with child abuse - I’ll try to find it if you are interested in the factors associated with child abuse.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Section 59 Survivor wrote ” I may get in touch with Otago University and see what they say. I just did a quick search in Google, but found nothing there.”
try this - the study has it’s own website separate from the main Otago Uni one -
http://dunedinstudy.otago.ac.nz/contactus.html
May 9th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Section 59 Survivor said: I was just giving SouthernDave the benefit of the doubt, and indicating that ‘light smacking’ under the new legislation is still legal.
Respectfully, I don’t think it will be legal.
There is a difference between what is “illegal” and what is “criminally illegal”. For example, it is illegal for a single woman applying for a domestic purposes benefit to refuse to identify in law the father of her child. But it is not criminally illegal - she cannot be prosecuted if she doesn’t. Use of force for the purpose of dicipline will always be illegal under the Bill, but only sometimes will it become criminally illegal.
It crosses the boundary if it is not “inconsequential”. The”bash” with a piece of wood or a hosepipe causing injury will obvously be criminally illegal. But if a child were to be smacked 15 or 20 times a day for trivial indiscretions, that too would no longer be inconsequential, and could and should result in prosecution and conviction, even if each smack were “light”.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Hi SouthernDave,
Many thanks for that information, I do appreciate it.
I printed out a hard copy and had a quick read through it. The findings certainly make disturbing reading.
On the abstract: 80% report physical punishment.
But 45% report being hit with an object.
6% report extreme physical punishment as the severe form.
Then on the Parents report: (research done in 1990’s)
Half of parents hit children once a week or more.
70% smacked
11% hit with object such as strap
2% report ‘thrashings’.
Recipient reports: (1997)
78% received physical punishment on a infrequent basis
8% on a regular basis
4% report harsh physical punishment.
There is more, but this highlights the seriousness of the situation.
In another source I noted:
* 80% of our children have been physically hit during their childhood
* 47% of our children are still being physically punished in their adolescent years
* 71% of our children are being physically punished on a regular basis
* 51% of our children are hit with objects or more severe punishment that results in physical wounds
When you take all these figures over the whole population, there a lot of children being hit with objects.
Yes, the law change was essential to give a clear message.
Again, SouthernDave, many thanks.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Toad “But if a child were to be smacked 15 or 20 times a day for trivial indiscretions, that too would no longer be inconsequential, and could and should result in prosecution and conviction, even if each smack were “lightâ€?.”
Under current s59 the above would been considered unreasonable as well. There have been convictions for just two light smacks on more than one occasion. The s59 defence failed because the punishment was considered unreasoanble becuse the indiscretion was trivial.
However the s59 defence has succeeded at other times then CYFS had police press charges for just a single smack, because the indiscretion was serious (setting fires inside the house, and letting the handbrake off nearly causing a serious accident).
The new bill stops resonable force for correction but now if does allow it for prevention. Surely this opens a whole new can of worms.
May 9th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Section 59 Survivor - I think you hit on a good point that is not discussed a great deal - the frequency of the punishment.
Additionally the way all punishments are administered, their frequency, reasonableness, and how they conform to the indiscretion, how they are explained, and how the child/parent relationship continues immediately after the punishment are in some case just as important or even more important thean the type of punishment, whether it be physical or non-physical.
My experience is that giving a light smack teaches my children that for serious discipline breaches there are serious consequences - a particularly valuable thing to know when they get older and start driving, going out etc.
However as a consequence of an occasional light smack (last time over 18 months ago for my 6 year old) I find there is a big reduction in all bad behaviour and usual punishments (time out, loss of privaleges, telling off) all become far less frequent. So in my experience this is an additional positive consequence.
I think the smacking/anti smacking debate is far too simplistic. We need to find out what causes damage, and what does not, and this has a lot to do with how ALL punishments are adminsitered AS WELL AS the type of punishment.
May 9th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
SouthernDave,
It is not a straight-forward issue. Damage can be caused by lots of forces, including verbal abuse.
At the end of the day, all I wanted to set out to do is to say how physical punishment ruined my life and how this occurred. This must help other parents like yourself, become aware of the hidden damaging responses. I am pleased that, at least you now have the awareness as to how a developing human being can be permanently damaged by fear and pain. This must help you NOT to make the same mistakes my parents did.
Smacking a child is like rolling the dice.
May 9th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Section 59 Survivor - while a lot of the Otago Uni research is still difficult to access at present, the sister study in Christchurch has a wealth of information available (you could spend months on this one).
They have a large number of studies that compare all sorts of childhood and adolecent behaviour, and treatments, with later mainly negative outcomes. They usually set out to establish if these links are cause and effect of if there are other factors.
If you have the time and inclination, dozens of studies are available under “publications” at the following link -
http://www.chmeds.ac.nz/research/chds/pub2001_3.htm
May 9th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Hi SouthernDave,
Thanks for that. I will check them out - when time allows.
May 10th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Southern Dave said:
When interviewed on radio, the study authors stated that the lowest levels of violence as an adult, lowest criminal activity, lowest mental health problems and highest academic achievement came from the group whose worst punishment was being smacked with an open hand, closely followed by the no-physical punishment group.
That would contradict what Sue Bradford and Cindy Kiro say, wouldn’t it?. jh
May 10th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Zan
zANavAShi Says:
May 9th, 2007 at 11:37 am
The most glaring thing revealed by this research paper from my perspective is that New Zealand is still so culturally entrenched in this antediluvian colonial attitude towards parenting children. It is a shameful indictment on the image we have of our culture and the most powerful evidence I have seen to date that we must urgently confront this attitude - even if it means we have to drag our society kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
============
You must be reffering to the majority ..”what a load of…” attitude.
The problem is the we see you as ideologically motivated nutters rather than dispationate sensible types.
Ciny Kiro stated quite catagorically that it is never appropriate to smack, however the link you provided from an anti-smacking site clearly contradicted that.
That is the point of contention, your side is trying to close the door completely on the occasional light smack but you are having to lie to do it
(ie there is a small Inconvienient Wrinkle in your argument).
I think there is a larger issue that people should never be harmed, no matter what they do, whereas, I believe that people should feel that if they cross certain boundaries, they will be harmed.
jh
May 10th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
JH,
What exactly are you inferring by this statement??
The problem is the we see you as ideologically motivated nutters rather than dispationate sensible types.
If that is a derogatory statement on your part, you had better withdraw it forthwith!!
May 10th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Southern Dave, (also JH, et al):
I really wonder why you continue to frequent this blog.
What does Southern Dave hope to achieve by subjecting us (over and over and over again) to his interpretation of the Otago University Study (plus his “take” on the Law without section 59)? WE ARE CERTAINLY NOT SLOW LEARNERS!
SD: If you want to “lightly smack” your kids (within reason) that is your decision. I really wonder WHY you have gone to such (repetivie) lengths to try and convince us that your method is the best way to raise/treat kids? Is this because you have a need to be seen as “RIGHT”? (and was this need a major reason for choosing to hit your kids in the first place?)
Personally as far as the Law Change goes, I continue to have confidence in Sue Bradford’s ability to consult widely and to do a thorough and reliable job, and I have confidence in Sir Geoffrey Palmer (et al) to use their considerable expertise and experience to accurately predict how the changed wording of the (new) Law will, in fact, be interpreted by the Courts.
So PLEASE give us a rest from your repetitive “nay saying”!
May 10th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
jh “That would contradict what Sue Bradford and Cindy Kiro say, wouldn’t it?. jh”
Sue, Cindy, Plunket, Barnados and Save the Children ALL told the select committee that in Sweden only one child dies from abuse every 4 years (actually Cindy Kiro claimed it was much less than this)
However the Swedish government says the figure is on average 40 dead children every 4 years.
I find it dispicable - absolutely disgusting - for these Kiwis to lie and disregard 98% of murdered children in Sweden.
I respect their right to an opinion, but for SUe and others to lie and disregard these murdered children fills me with disgust.
May 10th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Eredwen - I’m not giving you my take on the Otago Study - I’m just giving you links, reporting the findings, and telling you what the researchers said.
If you disagree with it, I don’t care - why don’t you take it up with the researchers of the world renowned study and with the 600 peer reviewed articles published in scientific journals.
Perhaps you could do your own study of 1000 new births, study them all until the year 2039, bring them all home from all around the world on a regular basis - THEN - you may have the same amount of information to be able to make an arguement with them.
OR you could leave alone those parents whose achieve the top outcomes for their children, and instead go after those who beat, abuse and harm their children.
May 11th, 2007 at 1:24 am
I am still waiting for SouthernDave to provide us with a DIRECT link to the page that cites the connection between performance outcomes and the hitting of children.
I have scoured the entire list of articles on both of the websites he has pasted links to and I cannot find a single reference. And I can assure you that there is not one single reference in is oft-quoted Otago study “On The Receiving End” which makes any such connection.
Of the 71 research papers listed on the Christchurch Health and Development Study he directs us to there is only one that is a specific study about child violence which concludes that “mothers at greatest risk of physically punishing or mistreating their child was that of a young woman with a personal history of strict parenting” - but absolutely no studies that make any positive correlation between smacking and “top outcomes for children”.
So just where are these “600 peer reviewed articles” that supposedly support your claims SouthernDave? I want to see specific citations from