The case also had a political and social background, Mr Keegan [the defendant's counsel] said.

The premise of spare the rod and spoil the child came from the Bible and was the traditional belief of many who still believed in physical punishment and that the state should not interfere in the way children should be brought up.

It would take society a long time to make the change, Mr Keegan said.

The judge countered that he would have no compunction in jailing a man who assaulted his wife in the same way.

“This involves kicking and hitting with an alkathene pipe,” the judge said.

Mr Keegan said nuns at his boarding school had also used weapons, such as canes and straps, and would now face assault charges if they did the same today.

“I got caned but I never got kicked by my principal,” the judge responded.

Judge Roberts said he was concerned that the father had told the probation officer that he would not change. The father had said: “I won’t moderate my behaviour. I see no wrong in using violence.”

New Plymouth District Court Judge Allan Roberts later postponed the sentencing till March 19 and called for a new probation report after he was told the man now accepted he must change his ways.

Let’s hope he heeds the Judge, and does.

As I am sure everyone is excruciatingly well aware, we are right now in the middle of the postal referendum on the physical discipline of children.

Voting started on 31 July and finishes on 21 August.

At a cost of $9 million to the taxpayer, the referendum asks:

Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?

I reckon this question is both misleading and ambiguous.

A lot of people tell me they have no intention of voting, or are going to spoil their ballot paper, because they are angry about money being wasted on such a confused proposition.

Other people are keen to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ because they have strong views on the issue and want to vote regardless.

This includes me of course. I will be voting ‘Yes’ and encouraging others to do the same, as I see that voting ‘Yes’ is a vote for keeping the law as it is.

Parents are not being prosecuted in their droves for giving their children a ‘smack’.

There is actually no offence called ‘smacking’ in New Zealand law.

There is, however, an offence of ‘assault’ which has always been there.

What the law change in 2007 achieved was simply the removal of the defence of ‘reasonable force for the purpose of correction’ which in the past allowed some parents to get away with quite badly beating their children.

The ‘reasonable force’ defence also meant parents felt they had a state-sanctioned right to use physical force as a way of disciplining their children.

New Zealand made a huge step forward two years ago when Parliament voted by a huge majority to take away this defence and give our children the same legal protection from violence as we adults enjoy.

I hope that despite the anger people justifiably feel at the way in which money is being wasted on this confused referendum question, some of you at least will consider voting ‘yes’ as an expression of support for the law change.

People often ask me, ‘If you think this question is so ambiguous, what should the question have been?”

Of course it could have been any number of things, but I believe a much fairer question would have been something like ‘Should the defence of reasonable force for the purpose of correction be available to New Zealand parents?’

At least people would then have been a lot clearer on what they were voting for or against.

I have put a member’s bill forward seeking to ensure that in future when someone comes up with a proposal for a citizens’ initiated referendum, the Clerk of the House – who approves these questions – has more legal guidance on what should go forward.

I am suggesting that questions that are ambiguous complex, leading or misleading should not be accepted, and that the proposer keeps working on the question with the Clerk until it is clear and simple.

I am in discussions with the Minister of Justice about this at the moment, and hope the Government may change the law in this area as a result.

Meanwhile, the debate on whether our kids deserve a childhood free from violence continues, and will for a while yet, whatever the result on 21 August.

In just a couple of weeks we are all going to be asked to vote on the child discipline referendum question in a postal ballot.

Voting opens on 31 July and closes 21 August.

The debate we had for two years between 2005 and 2007 when my original member’s bill on s59 was before Parliament is happening all over again.

However, this time around, it feels as if the current controversy is as much about the referendum itself as it is about the physical punishment of children.

A lot of people have suddenly realized what the wording of the referendum question actually is, and are amazed that such an ambiguous proposition is what we will all be voting on.

Many think it is a total waste of $9 million of the taxpayers’ money, especially at a time when Government funding cuts are impacting on jobs and services.

For myself, I accept the democratic right of the referendum’s proponents to organise their CIR petition and I certainly acknowledge the hard work that went into collecting the huge number of signatures required.

What I do regret is that the question is not a clearer one.

That is why I have put up a new Member’s Bill aimed at ensuring the Clerk of the House, who approves referenda questions, will in future only let questions go forward for a petition when they are NOT ambiguous, complex, leading or misleading.

It appears the Government may pick this up, although nothing is certain yet.

Despite my reservations about the referendum question, I am also busy encouraging all those who support the s59 law change to vote ‘Yes’.

Our new law is working well. Parents are not being prosecuted in their thousands for trivial assaults on children; and above all children deserve the same protection in law as we adults enjoy.

I also reckon the sentence handed down to Christchurch man Jimmy Mason the other day was an example of entirely appropriate sentencing for assault on a child. Help with anger management will, I hope, be more useful to Mr Mason and his family than any kind of more punitive sentence.

Some people ask what the effect of the whole s59 controversy has been on me personally.

The worst period was in early 2007 before my bill became law, when some people became very abusive, threatening violence and even death.

Others make the most amazingly offensive personal remarks, or accuse me of never having had children. In fact I’ve had five, including twins, and can speak from rather extensive personal experience about the realities of parenthood.

However, the nature and source of some of the worst abuse has only served to reinforce my belief that violence breeds violence, both in thought and deed.

I will continue to do everything I can to work for a society in which parents bring up children without assaulting them. Every small step we make in this direction more than compensates for any amount of vitriol.

It is great that Mr Angus is not shying away from being the advocate for children that his new role demands, rather than taking the kind of risk adverse approach one might have suspected from a former senior bureaucrat in the Ministry of Social Development.

What a relief it is that Christine Rankin did in fact decline the Government’s evident offer of the post of Children’s Commissioner because, as she said in the Dominion Post of 12 May (not available on-line):

I was talked to about (the children’s commissioner job) but I have not applied for that role.

I have a really successful business in Auckland that I love and I don’t really want to live in Wellington.

Instead – as we all know – she took up the post of part time Families Commissioner.

She and her fellow new Commissioner Bruce Pilbrow started work in their $565 per day roles last week, on 1 June.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the Families Commission now, with one third of its six part time Commissioners – Pilbrow and Rankin – opposed to the law change which now sees children offered the same legal protection against assault as that enjoyed by adults.

The Children’s Commission has had a lucky escape, at least for now.

On the other hand, the future of the Families Commission is decidedly murky.

It is difficult to see how an organisation set up to advocate for the wellbeing of all New Zealand families will work around the fact that two of its Commissioners have actually campaigned to restore the ‘reasonable force’ defence for child discipline.

The role of Social Development Minister Paula Bennett in all this is not 100% clear either, but the evidence so far points to the fact that she is a key Rankin supporter and that she has done a lot to ensure Rankin ended up with a key role in at least one of these two organisations.

My real worry here is that the Minister may in fact be an opponent of the s59 law change herself, despite the fact she voted for it in 2007 – especially in the light of comments she made on a radio talkback show last week:

Asked for her view on the referendum question, “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” she said, “No, I don’t, I believe that actually good parenting should be left to do that in their different ways in their different homes and I don’t have an interest in going into people’s homes and telling them how to parent.”

I hope Ms Bennett will soon release a statement unequivocally supporting the s59 amendment, especially with voting in the postal referendum on this issue starting at the end of July.

It would be sad indeed for the children of this country if we had not only two Families Commissioners but also a Minister of Social Development who actually believe that there should be a legal defence available when parents hit, whack or smack their children in the name of discipline.

Mr Boscawen is clearly keen on appealing to the sentiments stirred up by the referendum’s promoters, having lost his impetus on electoral reform now that the Government has picked up that issue.

The good news is that I doubt very much that John Key and the National Party want to be diverted into another huge wrangle over the question of whether it should be legal to beat our kids for the purpose of discipline. They may of course decide that such a debate would make a nice distraction from the twin impacts of global recession and climate change.

However, Mr Key has so far shown no appetite for turning back the clock on keeping our children safe from violence.

The PM has repeatedly said that National won’t reverse the s59 amendment unless there is evidence of the police prosecuting parents for trivial or inconsequential assaults.

The three police reviews so far show no sign of this happening, despite the cases used as part of Family First’s hugely expensive newspaper advertising campaign.  Barnardos New Zealand, Save the Children, Plunket, Jigsaw, National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges Inc, Te Kahui Mana Ririki, EPOCH New Zealand all say the new law is fair, sensible, and working well.

Because of privacy issues it is impossible for anyone to make a clear judgement about the full story behind the cases used in the ads – and when Family First and friends have talked about identifiable cases before the courts, there has always been more to the story than first meets the eye.

The real agenda behind both the referendum and Mr Boscawen’s bill is clearly to create a new law which defines the level and nature of violence parents can legally use on their children.

I continue to be astounded by the thinking of so many New Zealanders who still think it is ‘Not OK” to use violence on another adult, but that it is OK to legally assault children, who after all are so much more vulnerable than we grownups.

Of course the argument then comes back, ‘smacking, whacking or hitting is OK if I do it – that’s not really violence at all.’

But I invite those who think this way to consider the fact that children are battered daily by parents who believe the level of violence they are inflicting is minor; and also to consider what it might feel like for a small person to be assaulted and humiliated by a much larger person.

In the months ahead, we in the Green Party will continue to do everything we can to defend the 2007 s59 law change alongside the many community organizations and church groups who share our belief that the ability of children to grow up free from violence transcends any perceived right of parents to beat their children as part of family discipline.

 But now I find out why thanks to Roger Douglas’s blog:

The cost of doing business in New Zealand is in many ways, beyond belief.

•   Resource Management Act.
•   Nutty regulation (dogs); anti-smacking legislation.
•   Emissions Trading Scheme.

Yup, section 59 is increasing the cost of doing business in New Zealand.  Maybe it’s because if you haven’t given your child a good beating with a hosepipe in the morning you’re not feeling at your most productive when you get to work?  Or maybe violence against children was being used as a productivity measure by parents who employed their own children in their businesses? Who knows. Anyway it is somehow linked to the impact dogs and nuts have on business expenses. And these guys claim they know about the big issues facing the economy. 

There has been a lot of discussion that pacific people will vote on morality issues like section 59.  It might be though that what is really on their mind in the polling booth is the morality of what we are doing to the people of Kiribati and Tuvalu, by doing nothing of significance on climate change.

Photo  credit: Luigig

“We are training people in hand-to-hand combat and how to handle situations.

“I want this group to be legalised. If they don’t allow it, that’s when we might have to employ Triads to protect our community,” he said.

Yeap, that’s the way – got a gang problem in your neighbourhood – why not hire a crime syndicate to take care of it?   After all I hear it’s working well in Sicily. And you have to admit New Zealand would be a whole lot stauncher and cooler with a few more high profile gangs like Traids, the Illumnati and Yakusi gracing our streets.  That would show those small South Auckland punk gangs a thing or two about how to blow up a P lab in real style.

Really, it is after all, only an extension of what the Sensible Sentencing Trust seems to be calling for – heavily armed police officers and courts working together, behaving in the nature of powerful gangs, distributing retribution a la Judge Dredd, and avoiding that time consuming and pink liberal ‘due process’ concept.

Afterthought – There are two good but totally unrelated posts from contradiction, one on the true cost of the trucking industry and one on the ‘anti smacking‘ bill. Personally, I think the good thing that came out of the truck protest is the focus it has put on the alternative forms of freight transport like coastal shipping, and the potential alternatives like rail.

First his views on Peak Oil:

Yeah, I’m not sure I entirely buy the peak oil argument. I guess, if it’s real, and demand really is greater than the world’s ability to supply, then you’ll certainly see technology being invoked that will make things more competitive…

I’m of a view that these kind of sustained oil prices will see all sorts of reserves around the world opened up. From New Zealand’s point of view I think we all accept there is a fair bit of oil around New Zealand but it is expensive to get out. At a hundred dollars a barrel however, it’s competitive…

I think the supply side will respond

Why is it the peak oil deniers (or should I say ‘sceptics’) always settle for the ‘don’t worry if things get too bad we’ll just invent a new gizmo to solve the problem’ solution?

Then he traverses climate change:

But look, I think climate change is a long term problem and needs long term solutions. It is right for New Zealand to play its part in the world, it’s crazy for New Zealand to lead the world if that means massive drop in jobs and economic growth, and that’s what it does mean.

So, at least no longer any scepticism here. But this ‘slowly slowly’ response needs to be contrasted with the IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri

“If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”

Of course it’s hard for Key to say much else when he believes in unlimited growth at all costs. If you’re in debt, the answer is just grow your way out of it:

New Zealand doesn’t have a debt problem it has a growth problem and a competitiveness problem.

And, finally on an unrelated topic, watch Key try to extract himself from the s59 bill that he previously lauded and voted for.

I think the last straw was really smacking. While we put up a compromise, and it was the right thing to do because it delivered something that was half workable, I think for a lot of new Zealanders it was the final straw.