The ‘right to beat your child’ petition
Family First is fairly certain that it is going to reach the threshold 300,000 necessary signatures on its petitions to initiate a Citizen Initiated Referendum. This would allow its referenda to join the exhalted heights of the three other referenda questions of our time where we got to vote on how many firefighters we should have (89% thought ‘more’), how many MPs we should have (82% thought ‘less’), and whether we should be nice to victims of crime or not (92% in favour of being nice to victims).
So, what is it that Family First’s petition wants?
Well, first off it has two petitions not one.
The first one asks ‘Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?’
The answer in the current post s59 era is no, not in all cases. It’s useful to remember that smacking a child, just like smacking an adult, has always has been, technically, an assault (both before and after the repeal of s59 of the Crimes Act). Repealing s59 was not about removing parent’s right to discipline their children, it was about protecting our children from violence.
The second asks: ‘Should the government give urgent priority to understanding and addressing the wider causes of family breakdown, family violence and child abuse in New Zealand?’Â
To which the answer is clearly yes. Clearly the government should invest heavily in improving the quality, quantity and access to housing for all New Zealanders. It should ensure that all New Zealanders have the opportunity for meaningful, well paid, secure work. It should remove the financial barriers to education and opportunity.
So, what is it we’re voting on again?
January 29th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
The right to leading referenda questions, apparently.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Frog
Given that all Green party members are communists or former communists do you not think that this is something you should tell the voters?
You do not do yourself any favours by labeling 300,000 good parents as child beaters.
All along the Greens have told bare faced lies about this bill, Sue B even outdid herself by labeling all fathers who smack their kids pedophiles.
Perhaps it is time to admit that you got this one wrong or at least admit that it was NEVER about smacking but all about the right of the hard left (communist) govt to invade our living rooms.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Please post my comment
January 29th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Why do you guys insist on telling lies about this bill and the people who oppose this bill?
January 29th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
“To which the answer is clearly yes. Clearly the government should invest heavily in improving the quality, quantity and access to housing for all New Zealanders. It should ensure that all New Zealanders have the opportunity for meaningful, well paid, secure work. It should remove the financial barriers to education and opportunity.”
the devil is in the detail and this is where the Green party falls on its face by looking at a complex situations where there is little room to move and appearing to shoot from the hip.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I agree with the revised legislation, children should not have their rights erodded by any other person, especially grown adults. We do not discipline our child with smacking and she is one of the best behaved and well adjusted girls you’ll ever meet - based on other peoples feedback.
I was severely physically disciplined growing up, and I no longer have very much to do with that parent any longer, nor do we have anything to do with that kind of threatning home environment. Parents who hit should remember the kind of relationship they are creating and building (more like destroying) with their kids.
People who hit children AT ALL, should face the consequences.
I could not believe that family first had children collecting signitures for this referendum. Would they have got a smack if they refused?
January 29th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
The petition is clearly a waste of time. big bro has the answer: communists! For any question ‘What is the cause of [insert societal problem]?’. The answer is communist! (with expletives added). So why do we need a petition to answer this? Communists!
January 29th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Point is Bro, those behind the petition do want to beat children; that is the long and the short of it.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I think this Mike Moreu cartoon says it all, frog. I particularly like the “FAMILY FIST”.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I remember when an American youth was caught vandalising cars in Singapore. The Singaporeans wanted to whack him with the rotun. Bill Clinton intervened. It wouldn’t have hurt him to be a man I thought…….. musing…….
January 29th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
dbuckley
That is utter rubbish, but even it it was true you are suggesting that we legislate for the 5% of bad parents.
If you go with that argument then we would not allow anybody to drive a car simply because about 5% of drivers will drive drunk.
This bill was never about smacking, it is all about the left getting control of our kids.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Do you guys not see the irony in your persecution of the EB for telling half truths and lies (your words not mine) about the Green party yet you are more than happy to spread lies and half truths about the smacking bill and those who support the repeal of this bill.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
No Bro, you are deliberately misunderstanding me. Lets take this a step as a time.
To smack a child is - simply put - an act of violence, it is - literally - beating a child.
What some people argue is that under certain circumstances thats OK. And I don’t have a problem with that statement of belief.
What some of those people then try and do is redefine what they are doing as “not child beating”. And that is where we disagree. You think there is “smacking” that isn’t “child beating”. I don’t.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
dbuckley
Clearly smacking is not child beating, to suggest otherwise is both alarmist and duplicitous, it also leads many to think that your blind support for the S59 bill is more about state control than child welfare.
This shows up in the Greens failure to support the Burrows amendment, if Sue B had agreed with that this issue would be dead and buried, sadly Sue B has a true hatred for the right that will not allow her to consider ANY suggestion from them.
All this from a person who claims to be interested in protecting our kids.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
“Clearly smacking is not child beating”
Why not? The dictionary supports that it is. To suggest that “smacking” and “child beating” are fundamentally different I would say is pretty much the definition of “duplicitous”.
Lets be clear here: One party (that with less power) is having violence inflicted upon it by a stronger power, and that is pretty much the definition of a beating.
And my type of politics is not represented in NZ, I’m basically a civil libitarian, so it seems hard to fathom how I would be in favour of state control of just about anything about people, except as a very last resort. And preventing violence is one of those places.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
BB said: Sue B has a true hatred for the right that will not allow her to consider ANY suggestion from them.
Um, didn’t she agree to an amendment that John Key had a large part in formulating, BB?
The reason the Borrows amendment was unacceptable is that it attempted to define how much violence against children was tolerable on the basis of what effect that violence had on the child and whether or not an “implement” was used.
Of course, many parents will not and cannot anticipate whether physical discipline they are about to inflict will cause harm to a child that is more than “transitory and trifling”, and severe harm can be done without the use of an “implement”. It would have been an unworkable amendment.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Sigh!!!
Almost a year on and the lies keep coming.
January 29th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Well, if you’d stop talking, that might help.
Seriously. Where do you draw the line between smacking a child and abusing them? How can we allow one in the letter of the law and forbid the other?
I don’t think it’s even possible. I don’t think it’s appropriate to arrest parents for every time they get mad and physically lash out at their children, but yes, I do think that’s a harmful thing to do to children, and unnecessary to establish discipline. That said, it is not the government’s or the police force’s job to stop people from making parenting mistakes, and I’m glad the bill hasn’t been enforced that way.
How would you explicitly allow smacking without defining an “acceptable level of violence”, or defending abusers, BB? Lay it out for us, or stop trolling.
January 29th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Ari
I have not “trolled” on here for months, I will admit to doing so when I first joined but you chaps (and my very real desire to see something done about animal welfare) won me over.
The S59 debate is something that I have taken personally, when I and thousands of other fathers are accused by Sue B of being a pedophile I sure as hell am not going to take that laying down.
The Burrows amendment is what I support, a LITE smack for correction purposes is acceptable, child abuse is NOT.
January 29th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
that’s pretty sick. why those right-wing nutcases can’t understand that they’re putting people off with that kind of thing is beyond me.
i know of people who signed the petition against the homosexual law reform bill, but once they saw the petition presented to parliament with virginal children dressed in white robes singing hyms & such they immediately repudiated it.
i doubt the children even needed to be smacked to comply, they’re probably brainwashed into parroting their parent’s opinions already.
i’m just amazed that of all the terrible problems facing the world today, 300000 people consider the most pressing issue is their wish to smack their children. we’re talking about some seriously warped people here.
if that were so, the legislation would have been to ALLOW the government to smack your children. not to PREVENT you from doing so.
in the usa the law effectively allows the government to smack your children even if you yourself disagree & never smack them yourself - funnily enough the same people who are horrified by that situtation tend to be the ones who oppose parents smacking their kids too.
January 29th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
The burrows amendment tells people exactly how much they can hurt their kids. That’s not okay. It’s like defining an exact amount of nuclear weapons we can have in the world, or an exact amount of highly toxic poison we can unleash on our environments. It’s the same problem with an emissions trading scheme that doesn’t tax emissions.
Like I said, you’ve laid out an “acceptable level of violence”. Think for a minute about the consequences of that, will you? Is it acceptable to assault an adult so long as you don’t leave a bruise? No, not in the eyes of the law. Why are children any different? Were the doom sayers right when they claimed mass arrests of good parents? No.
So where is the consistent justification for an acceptable level of violence, BB?
January 29th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Or to put into a context you might relate to, BB, given your passionate support of animal welfare, it is like defining the exact size of the sow crate a pig can be confined in and the exact length of time this is acceptable for, despite the likelihood that different pigs may have different tolerances because of their anatomical, physiological and psychological traits, and then, if the rules have been transgress, deciding whether any harm has come to a particular pig through an assessment by an animal psychologist and a veterinarian, before deciding whether there has been a criminal offence committed.
Criminality must be defined by the actions and intent of the perpetrator, not by the effect, intended or unintended, on the victim. The latter is a relevant factor in sentencing someone who is convicted of an offence, but should not be a determining factor of whether an offence has actually occurred.
Mind you, the Borrows amendment, applied to violence against animals, would at least be better than the hopeless law we have now.
January 29th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
BTW, BB, the National MP’s name is “Borrows”, not “Burrows”.
I’m afraid the joke doesn’t work when the answer to “What do you call a man with 50 rabbits up his backside?” is “Chester”, rather than “Warren”.
Apologies to anyone called Warren, and to animal welfare advocates, of whom I am one, but I just couldn’t resist.
January 29th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Mainstream New Zealanders …they remain quiet about Apartheid, they sit back and say nothing when Iraq is invaded, they say nothing about Darfur, Kenya, torture in Guantanamo, the environment, global warming,poverty in NZ, but hell take away their “right” to hit children and they’re out there marching on the streets and passing around petitions. Good to see everyone has their priorities in order.
January 29th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Toad
Good try but disciplining children with a lite smack is nothing like the sods who stick pigs in crates (How I would like to do the same to them as they do to their pigs)
The context is both unfair and unreasonable.
And my apologies to the Borrows family.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
dbuckley argued “To smack a child is - simply put - an act of violence, it is - literally - beating a child.”
While the law regards smacking, beating and battery as being exactly the same, common usage recognises an obvious difference. One can administer a smack, one cannot administer a beat or a batter.
But the law goes even further, it doesn’t regard any of these as an act of violence, it simply regards tham as “touching without consent”. Thus s59, as interpreted legally rather by common usage, makes it an offence to restrain a child about to dart out into the road or to take a child’s hand while crossing the road unless with the child’s consent.
Apparently children need to learn life’s lessons the hard way. After all is said and done, a child who runs out in front of a bus isn’t going to make the same mistake twice. Dead children rarely do.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Ari: you say
You’d probably agree that it isn’t appropriate to arrest parents who get into physical confrontations with their children either, if the child is behaving aggressively and there is no other way of controlling him/her.
I find it disappointing that 120 odd of our leaders couldn’t find a way to express that in law. I know I’m being paranoid when I imagine that some busybody in the supermarket is going to dob me in for manhandling the apoplectic two year old (they have the strength of a rabid chimp, by the way). The present state of the legislation, or at least my perception of it, is what’s causing that paranoia.
I’m not paranoid enough to imagine that there are 300,000 people in New Zealand who are agitating for the right to beat their children. Most of them just want to be left alone to raise their kids. It’s hard enough to begin with.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Bob McCroskie:� So you do not want to see smacking banned?�
Helen Clark: “Absolutely not, I think you are trying to defy human nature.�
I’m antismacking, but if Clark hasn’t signed the petition then she’s a complete hippocrate. The Hollow Woman.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
I’m not paranoid enough to imagine that there are 300,000 people in New Zealand who are agitating for the right to beat their children. Most of them just want to be left alone to raise their kids. It’s hard enough to begin with.
Well said Will. The Frog attitude to this reveals only their inability to see deeper than their misguided point of view.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
The reason the Borrows amendment was unacceptable is that it attempted to define how much violence against children was tolerable on the basis of what effect that violence had on the child and whether or not an “implement� was used.
Actually rejected it the other way as well, I know because it was my suggestion. Defining what was unacceptable violence was rejected. Defining what WAS acceptable was rejected. No definition but the police could decide what is inconsequential or not, and CYF gets into the act quite early.
Sorry Toad, I don’t accept that you make laws by letting the police decide what is and isn’t illegal. That IS Parliament’s job. This is not uncommon here in NZ. As a way to implement a “rule of law” however, it sucks swamp water.
We just did the same thing with the EFB for crissakes. The Electoral Commission gets to decide all manner of complex stuff and nobody knows what the law is until it gets taken through a whole lot of courts and a lot of precedent is created.
I submit to you that simple and clear laws are a hell of a lot better than what comes out of this parliament, and that lack of clarity and simplicity is going to make the clear and simple New Zealander, and I think most kiwis are clear minded and crave simplicity in this sort of thing, reject the message.
We’d better pick up evacuees from the sinking labour ship if we intend to poll over 5% and we’d better be prepared to talk with National.
Although as things stand I can more easily imagine National and Labour getting together to freeze out all the rest of us.
respectfully
BJ
January 29th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
So, what is it that Family First’s petition wants?
Nothing. It’s not Family First’s petition.Duh.
January 29th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Andrew you wrote at 4.01p.m.;
“that’s pretty sick. why those right-wing nutcases can’t understand that they’re putting people off with that kind of thing is beyond me.”
How many right wing nutcases are there in NZ Andrew? 5?, 30? 300,000?
The polls that suggested 80% of the population were against the repeal of S59
Are 80% of the population right wing nutcases?
January 29th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
I would have thought an organisation who calls themselves ‘Family First’ would back the ammended legislation up to the hilt and more. The sooner they are ignored, the better.
aladin
January 29th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Barnsley Bill said: The polls that suggested 80% of the population were against the repeal of S59
Well, it was probably not that high Bill, but I’ll accept it was a majority, which is why Parliament listened, and amended it, rather than just simply repealed it. John Key, Sue Bradford, and Helen Clark and their Parties all, in this case, took on board the public feeling and amended the Bill accordingly.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Will said: You’d probably agree that it isn’t appropriate to arrest parents who get into physical confrontations with their children either, if the child is behaving aggressively and there is no other way of controlling him/her.
That’s precisely what the current law does, Will. Reasonable force is permissible to prevent offensive or disruptive behaviour by a child occcurring or continuing under the amendment agreed to by Parliament.
Don’t believe FAMILY FIST’s propaganda - they are being economical with the truth for their own ends.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
No, it was about protecting our children from violence, by removing parents’ rights to use reasonable force to discipline their children.
You can do better than that, frog - you know that’s just dishonest. If that’s the law, then shaking someone’s hand is an assault. But we know it’s not. There was a defence, that means that no criminal assault was committed if you fell within the ambit of that defence.
I think you may be confusing a violent assault, with an assault. A smack (now because there is no longer a defence, and previously, if it fell outside the defence) was an assault. Not all assaults are violent assaults, some are just plain assaults. The suggestion that every use of force - no matter how minor that force - is violent is laughable. Chambers dictionary defines violent as “marked by or using extreme physical force”, the Oxford dictionary defines violence as “physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill”.
You can argue that parents should not be permitted to use any force against their children. There are a bunch of excellent reasons for this, some of which the Greens made, and many which they did not. I think you could have won this argument had you tried to make it - accept that some people have used non-violent force, but explain to them why even that isn’t okay. You chose the low-road, however. The lightest smack is the same as a beating, all force for punishment is violent, etc.
You could have argued that both violent force and non-violent force against children should be illegal (with the same reassurance for parents that they probably wouldn’t face court) - you should have argued that - but instead you tried to argue that violent assaults should be banned (but that all assaults are violent). People, many of whom have never and would never spank their kids just instinctively knew that wasn’t true - so you lost the debate before it began.
We need to ban the use of any force against children to stem violent child abuse - good argument.
We need to the use of any force against children because it is violent child abuse - bad argument.
Why do you persist in making the bad arguments over the good?
January 30th, 2008 at 12:10 am
That’s pretty patronising. I haven’t been presented with their petition, I haven’t read it, and I haven’t signed it.
Who defines “reasonable force”? Who defines “disruptive behaviour”? In BJ’s words “I submit to you that simple and clear laws are a hell of a lot better than what comes out of this parliament”.
January 30th, 2008 at 6:51 am
…I don’t accept that you make laws by letting the police decide what is and isn’t illegal. That IS Parliament’s job. This is not uncommon here in NZ. As a way to implement a “rule of lawâ€? however, it sucks swamp water.
An excellent summing up of why this bill was crap. After all the “swamp water” of emotive bollocks about child beating has been waded through, here’s the nub of why they shouldn’t have voted it into law.
We just did the same thing with the EFB for crissakes. The Electoral Commission gets to decide all manner of complex stuff and nobody knows what the law is until it gets taken through a whole lot of courts and a lot of precedent is created.
An equally-excellent summing up of why that bill was crap. Same approach of leaving some other poor sods to figure out who’s going to be arrested and who isn’t. That’s twice in one year - so why would anyone really want to give these incompetents another 3 years in charge of the legislature?
January 30th, 2008 at 7:37 am
The fact that this topic is still able to generate a heated debate means that despite the plans of Clark and Bradford it is still going to be a huge election issue, I did warn you that the public will not forget.
The election will be all about the EFB, S59, tax cuts and crime, on all of these issues the Greens are in bed with Labour and that is not a good sign for the future of the party, you have eight months to divorce yourself from Labour or face oblivion.
January 30th, 2008 at 8:53 am
psycho_milt says: “…nobody knows what the law is until it gets taken through a whole lot of courts and a lot of precedent is created”
Thats the way English law system works, and has served us (and a multitudes of other jurisdictions) well for centuries. It’s nothing unique to S59, or to the current NZ government.
The real frustration is with legislation that doesn’t get firmed out with precedent. The Privacy Act is one such law; there have been very few substantive judgments (and thus a lack of precedent) on virtually anything the Privacy Act says, so it is still a total mystery what it means. Anything that looked like it was going to involve a decent row with a precedent at the end of it has been settled out of court…
January 30th, 2008 at 11:08 am
a lite smack! well that sounds so fresh & modern! you could just market that in a snazzy sipper bottle. not at all threatening.
i believe the amended legislation has that situation covered, although i doubt the truth of your view that the judicial fraternity ever interpreted the law that way.
no barnsley bill, i was obviously referring to the people who used children to collect signatures as right-wing nutcases.
identify with them if you will.
these seem to be winning issues for the greens except for tax cuts. i suspect national will be annoyed that tax cuts is relegated to one issue among many.
January 30th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
They way I and a lot of other people see it is that there should not be laws in place that prevent parents from disciplining their children with a smack. The parents themselves should not use excessive force when disciplining their children. I have had this conversation a number of times with people from the Zimbabwean and other migrant communities who see a need for that kind of discipline. How did we justify this? We took a look at the kids who a born and raised here and those who came from overseas after having experienced their sort of culture and type of discipline – majority of the children from migrant communities are more well behaved and have respect for their elders and themselves. The children of migrant communities who were born or moved here early in life do not seem to have the same morals as would be expected of them in the homelands and seem to have less morals and are rebellious. These changes in behaviour are scaring parents but at the same time, what can they do. They are after all in a foreign land thus they must conform to not only the rules and regulations of the land they live in but their way of life as well.
Living Zimbabwe
January 30th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Big Bro
Assault or not if I saw you walking, knowingly or unknowingly, into danger (into path of bus, off of a high place) I will grab you and push you out of the way if I possibly can.
If anybody has a problem with that, tough!
S59 never gave me the right to smack, slap, hit or beat my child. It gave me a defence if I was so charged. But *only* in the case of a child.
In the above case of me saving Big Bro from accident or suicide I am not sure what defence I would have, and I do not care. But it would be the same for Big Bro as for my child. That is how it should be.
peace
W
January 30th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
BigBro you say:
“Given that all Green party members are communists or former communists do you not think that this is something you should tell the voters?”
I am a Green party member, and have never been a communist.
Therefore your statement is a lie.
So, you also say: “Why do you guys insist on telling lies “…
Mr Pot meet Mr Kettle.
Wide sweeping statements such the above quote from you are really not useful at all, and only serve to undermine any other arguments you may have. Please try to rise above the sophomoric name-calling.
January 30th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
jingyang
I wondered how long it would take for somebody to reply to that comment.
For the record I do not think all Greens are communists, (although I do worry about the few MP’s and aspiring MP’s who have communist links) I made that comment in frustration at the labeling of all those who oppose S59 as child beaters.
I merely used it as an example of the lies and half truth that surround this nasty little bill.
Not all Greens are communists and not all those who oppose the S59 bill are child beaters (or pedophiles) I wish everybody could remember that.
January 31st, 2008 at 9:04 am
BB said on January 29th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
BB then said on January 30th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Make up your mind BB. You either mean one thing or the other, or else you are here trolling. Now I will have to take everything you say here as likely to flip flop in a later post ;(