by Metiria Turei
It was great to see the Ministry of Social Development report released yesterday confirming that our law to help keep children safe is working.
The MSD report found:
“I have not been able to find any evidence to show that parents are being subject to unnecessary state intervention for occasionally lightly smacking their children or of any other unintended consequences of the Act.”
I believe that one of the best things about our bill to help protect children (and Sue Bradford’s championing of it!) is that it has contributed to raising awareness of family violence and to changing peoples attitudes towards violence against children.
This can be seen in the significant rise in the people telling the police when they see children being assaulted and more abusive adults being arrested.
The MSD report found that increased prosecutions for child abuse:
“… may reflect increasing community awareness and intolerance of serious family violence. Many factors are likely to contribute to this. In my view this trend indicates that many New Zealanders wish to see the victims of such violence made safe and the perpetrators held to account.”
Everyone knows that New Zealand has a big problem with child abuse – our law helps to keep children safe but it won’t stop abuse by itself. It is a step in the right direction.
A lot more work is needed to make sure all our children are looked after. But there is hope – attitudes are changing, people are changing, our country is changing.
Published in Justice & Democracy | Society & Culture by Metiria Turei on Thu, November 12th, 2009
Tags: child abuse, crimes act, family violence, s59
More posts by Metiria Turei | more about Metiria Turei
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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Ya shoulda seen the postage-stamp sized column describing the findings, buried in the bowels of our rag today.
You’d larf’n'larf!
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This is why the law was important. If New Zealand was an intelligent country, it would have realised this. Unfortunately, we’re served by ignorants.
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Keeping kids safe???
Stop telling lies Miss Turei, 21 kids have been killed since Bradford said “now our kids will be safe”.
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Yes, and this ends could have easily been acheived, and probally to greater effect, had the bill been slightly different and had Sue not approached it so ideologically. Heck, if it had been approached differently more children would probally be saved, we – and Labour – would not have become gangrenous, and we may have even gotten political kudos from it. Instead, thanks to Sues blind ideological fury, we are out of government, sitting on the side lines with no ability to hold the government to account.
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I’m reminded of Rodney Hide-the-theft-before-they-see-it-I-can-always-do-a-tearful-apology-later.
Don’t know why, I’m just reminded of him.
Oh yes, that’s it! It was the word ‘lies’ in Big Bro’s post.
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Fly
Care to point me to your post where you attack John Haraw(h)ira for his theft of public funds?
Oh yes, I forgot, John is Maori and therefore he can do no wrong in the eyes of the Green party.
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Bro
Who?
Whatever. Everyone I talk to has had a gutsful of the despicable Rodney and want him expelled from Parliament. There are none so reviled as those who lie and steal from the tax payer under the guise of Righteousness.
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Fly
Nobody I talk to cares less what Rodney has done now that he has apologised, everybody I know wants the same apology from that brown thug John Harawira.
Deal with it Fly, Rodney is here to stay, the Greens……not so much.
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Nobody you talk to cares that Rodney Hide, Act Party leader, lied and misused taxpayer money, betrayed the principles he’s boasted of for so long, tried to avoid exposure and snivelled and whined in front of the nation in a pathetic farce of a face-saving ‘apology’?
Who do you hang out with Bro? Deaf, dumb and blind Actoid apologists?
This is the most gutless, clueless thing I’ve ever read from you!
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Fly
The people that I hang out with have very little time for Pollies, they see they all as liars, cheats and vermin, so when one of them owns up and pays the money back it goes down well with them.
That might be the reason that not one of them would ever vote for the Greens, they have seen your people lie about housing allowances, rort the electoral system so your co leader could use tax payer money to campaign, steal tax payer money for the 2005 election then take months and months to finally pay it back (all without an apology)
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“The people that I hang out with have very little time for Pollies, they see they all as liars, cheats and vermin, so when one of them owns up and pays the money back it goes down well with them.”
Unfortunately, people believing that makes many politicians behave badly, because they know that they will be thought dishonest even if they are honest, so they figure they may as well be dishonest. New Zealand politics is thus a victim of the curse of low expectations.
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Your ‘people’ have no time for thieving ‘pollies’, yet you say they don’t ‘care what Rodney has done’? I think your ‘friends’ are living inside your head, Bro!
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and how about that bill ‘double-dip-from-dipton’..eh bro..?
didyahear he got the first annual ‘grabby-award’..?
http://whoar.co.nz/2009/and-the-winner-of-the-first-annual-grabby-awardis-bill-englishenglish-altered-the-ownership-of-his-family-home-with-the-express-purpose-of-claiming-nearly-50000-a-year-from-the-taxpayer/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Phil – he’s most deserving of the award, most deserving, though Rodney gave him a bit of a run for a while, before assuming the ‘remorseful position’ and blubbering to the nation.
Bro – just opened my weekly newspaper to see the cartoon, beautifully drawn, of a suited and tied crocodile, weeping balefully, crocodile tears and guess who’s name is branded on his hide …
Curiously, there’s not a mention, not a mention of the Green Party. Not a mention. There are interviews also, of members of the public, all randomly chosen on the topic of spouses travelling with MPs on overseas jaunts. All, bar one, say Rodney was wrong. None mentioned the Greens. None. Odd eh!
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Phool
You are the last person who should talk about the theft of public money given you are one of the nations biggest parasites.
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Careful with the “rhetoric”, children. You know frogs frown on personal attacks.
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It is not a personal attack Valis, it is a statement of fact.
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Not true Big Bro.
Don’t follow Rodney’s example. Keep it truthful.
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Um, big bro, this is a thread about child abuse.
You have managed to threadjack it to being one about supposed political corruption.
FYI, I am as hot (or even more so) about political corruption as you are. Including admitting that Jeanette’s and Catherine’s lack of communication over the rent on the house they were living in was “not a good look”, as Bill English would have said. But that was a mistake – English’s was a contrivance.
Anyway, back to topic, what’s your prescription for reducing instances of child abuse in NZ BB?
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No, they are being subjected to unnecessary state intervention in how they raise their own kids. That there is no evidence that that parents are being prosecuted for lightly smacking their children could mean that either the police are turning a blind eye (which means the law is an ass) or that parents are reluctant to smack their kids (which would obviously please the Radford supporters but doesn’t imply that kids are better off).
So there has been a significant rise in children being assaulted, since the bill was passed into law. So, in what way is it protecting children?
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- “Green law is helping to keep children safe”
This would be laughable, if it weren’t so serious.
Those who harm children are entirely unnaffected by your ignorant bandstanding law.
Meanwhile, decent parents are under the cosh.
The only ones who benefit are strutting Green politicians.
Plus ca change.
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“The review has found no evidence to show that parents are being subject to unnecessary state intervention for occasionally lightly smacking their children.
“I think this review goes some way to comforting parents that the law is being interpreted in the way it was intended.
Editorial: Vote a fiasco:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/2779529/Editorial-Vote-a-fiasco
It would be repugnant were children in this country returned to the brutal position of being exempted from the assault laws that apply to adults. It would be reprehensible if the progressive change in parenting that the reform is bringing about were halted. It is in this change of attitude that the law will be beneficial, not in the number of cases it brings to court.
Legal proceedings are costly and intrusive for a family; the cause of non-violent rearing is not advanced by a stream of parents being hauled into court.
The police realise this, and their administration of the legislation has been exemplary. They have initiated legal proceedings only for gross violations of the law and talked through other instances.
It is the fact that the law frowns on smacking that will encourage parents to rethink and change their behaviour towards their children such is the influence of formal sanctions in altering humans’ attitudes.
[problem is that those people who were opposed to the law don't agree that they are doing anything wrong]
Therefore, a decade from now if section 59 remains on the statute books New Zealand parenting is likely to be dominated less by physical coercion and more by smart nurturing.
[assumes physical coercion (as practised doesn't) have a role: all in all the government is saying it is never o.k. to smack, therefore taking sides and using a one size fits all approach].
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This sort of thing gets under peoples skins. People will move on more clear issues but getting between little johnny and Mums hand because you have a superiority complex………weeeeeeell!? People have years of experiences (generations) and you have selective studies.
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Sofistek,
“they are being subjected to unnecessary state intervention in how they raise their own kids”
I agree. In an attempt to prevent kids from being beaten, the state tries to indentify kids at risk. The more proactive the state is, the more unneccesary intervention there will be… but also the more kids will be prevented from getting the bash as not all of the intervention is unnescessary.
“the law is an ass” Yes. But it looks like it will have some very positive benefits
“So there has been a significant rise in children being assaulted” More likely to be related to more reporting, which, don’t you think is a good thing?
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Unfortunately, we don’t know if that last bit is true. Supporters of the law change just assume it to be the case. Is such a change likely to stop those who would abuse their children anyway (given that those who did would have been breaking the law, at it was)?
You say it is likely the result of more reporting but that would be just a guess, as the article didn’t even offer an opinion on that. So it may be that the new law is really having no impact at all.
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