More on Section 59
Support for Sue B’s Bill, which would repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act, is emerging from important quarters.
Yesterday, the 560 delegates at Plunket’s national conference voted almost unanimously to support the Bill. The organisation’s President, Kaye Crowther, told the Dominion Post that the Bill would be:
A way of changing the culture of violence and sending a clear message to all that violence against children is not condoned.
Then, this morning, on Breakfast TV, Prime Minister Helen Clark signalled personal support for Section 59’s repeal. She made clear, as so many of the Bill’s opponents (including this Herald editorial) have not, that repealing Section 59 will not criminalise parents for lightly smacking their kids. All it will do is make it much, much easier for the police to prosecute child abusers because the Section 59 defence - which has been successfully used to escape prosecution for using horse whips and planks of wood to hit kids - will no longer be available to them.
It’s as yet unclear whether Labour will take a party line on sending the Bill to select committee or whether it will be left as a conscience issue. That decision, due to be taken at tomorrow’s Labour Caucus meeting, will be crucial in deciding the Bill’s fate.
Meanwhile, Dominion Post political editor Tracy Watkins has pointed out that the timing of Sue B’s Bill being debated in Parliament is opportune. In her “Political Week” column this morning, she writes:
Members’ night provides [MPs] with a priceless opportunity to take away the ability of the Government of the day to dictate the timing of a debate it might rather shove on the backburner. Green MP Sue Bradford succeeded in achieving that this week, when her bill … was drawn from the random ballot that decides which members’ bills will be debated by Parliament. Like many members’ bills, it has been lurking in the ballot for years, waiting to be pulled from the hat. And, as often happens with members’ bills, it has arrived on the political agenda with uncanny timing.
But the last word on the issue, for now, should go to Sue B, the MP championing the cause for voiceless children. The following is a quote for which the Dominion Post gave her 8 out of 10 in their political dispatches section today:
New Zealand has laws that protect adults from being assaulted by other adults and even laws that protect animals from being mistreated, but not children.
UPDATE: Add the New Zealand Law Society and Every Child Counts to the list of organisations supporting Sue B’s Bill.
