• Anti-smacking law: Key’s words don’t match his actions

This is from the NZ Herald:

Prime Minister John Key has reiterated his belief no change is needed to the anti-smacking law after a new review found cases were being dealt with properly.
[...]
“Lightly smacking a child will be in the course of parenting for some parents and I think that’s acceptable,” Mr Key said.

Asked if he had just said it was acceptable to lightly smack a child, Mr Key replied “Yes, I think so” and said the law was clear that such matters should not be treated as a criminal offence [that is only true if the smack is not for the 'purpose of correction' and is given for one of the permitted reasons].

“It’s up to individual parents to decide how they’re going to parent their children. My view is that it will depend on the circumstances and how you want to raise your child,” Mr Key said.

“Some people will continue to lightly smack their child for correction, some will not. It is up to them to decide.”

Let’s get this straight: Key is endorsing a law that specifically makes it illegal to smack a child ‘for the purpose of correction’ whilst also saying the following:

• “Lightly smacking a child will be in the course of parenting for some parents and I think that’s acceptable”
• “It’s up to individual parents to decide how they’re going to parent their children”
• “Some people will continue to lightly smack their child for correction, some will not. It is up to them to decide”

Mr Key, I am very glad to hear that you agree that light smacking is acceptable, and that you think it is up to parents to make a choice about smacking for the purposes of correction. Please tell me why you continue to support a law that is contrary to what you say you believe, because I and, I suspect, a great many other New Zealanders are confused about the difference between your beliefs and your actions. I urge you to put your beliefs into action and change this law; this would also be a great way of showing respect to the 1,470,755 Kiwis who voted against the anti-smacking law in the recent referendum.

Related post:
Referendum on anti-smacking law: John Key gives the finger

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Here’s the full text of section 59 of the Crimes Act:

Parental State control

(1) Every parent of a child and every person in the place of a parent of the child is justified in using force if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances and is for the purpose of—

(a) preventing or minimising harm to the child or another person; or

(b) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in conduct that amounts to a criminal offence; or

(c) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in offensive or disruptive behaviour; or

(d) performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting.

(2) Nothing in subsection (1) or in any rule of common law justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction.

(3) Subsection (2) prevails over subsection (1).

(4) To avoid doubt, it is affirmed that the 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.

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• Democracy is dictatorship: a response to Bob McCoskrie’s letter

Today Bob McCoskrie of Family First has sent out a letter titled “A personal note from Bob McCoskrie“, where he states why he is going on The March For Democracy this Saturday (the background to all this is explained in my earlier post).

In his letter Bob shows how governments have repeatedly ignored the results of citizen-initiated referenda, including the latest one on the anti-smacking law. 1.57 million people voted against that law, while Peter Dunne (who voted for the anti-smacking law) says that a petition signed by 45,000 people who wanted daylight saving extended is ‘overwhelming support’. If 45,000 is overwhelming support, what on earth is 1,570,000?

After showing how the various referenda with strong results have been ignored, Bob says

I want NZ to be a place of DEMOCRACY not DICTATORSHIP

I do not wish to criticise Bob in any way, but apparently he, like 99.99% of people, does not realise that democracy is dictatorship by the majority. Allow me to explain.

87.4% of a representative sample of the population have voted against the anti-smacking law. If they have their way and the anti-smacking law is repealed (or amended) then that 87.4% of the population will be imposing their will upon the 12.6% of the population who want the anti-smacking law retained as it is. That is dictatorship by the majority.

Presently the government is in favour of retaining the anti-smacking law without changes, so it is ignoring what is commonly called the will of the people. That is dictatorship by the minority, i.e. the 122 politicians in parliament who think that they know best.

My point is this: democracy is always a dictatorship. The real question today is this: which dictator will decide what happens to the anti-smacking law? Presently Mr Minority (the government) is deciding. I believe that it is a lesser evil when Mr Majority (the 87.4%) decides what happens to the anti-smacking law, and that is why I will be marching on Saturday.

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Have you ever wondered why this country is a mess and why we always have dishonest politicians? When you realise which majority is ruling NZ and appointing the politicians it will all make sense. The answers are in my post The problem with democracy – Part One.

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• So-called abused children to go onto database

The NZ Herald is reporting that

Child abuse alerts are to be placed on a national health database, so that doctors will know if there are past concerns about a family.

The little-known Medical Warning System, run by the Ministry of Health, has been traditionally used by doctors to check for patients’ allergies to drugs. But as part of an upgrade, doctors and officials plan to add notes about any record of child abuse.

So, you take little Jonny to the doctor for an ear infection and the doctor sees an alert, therefore he takes a close look at your child for signs of abuse. This is simply a means of turning doctors into unpaid policemen, if they aren’t that already: Big Brother is watching you. To put it another way, your family doctor is the eyes of Big Brother. This is a classic example of what civil rights activists call ‘function creep’, i.e. something helpful is turned into something harmful. This database plan shows that the government will take any opportunity that allows it to increase its control of citizens.

What’s the definition of abuse, the threshold for putting a child on this database? No one is sure yet, but the NZ Herald says

Starship hospital paediatrician Dr Patrick Kelly said a working group was still discussing the criteria to be used. He believed the minimum threshold would have to be a notification (a complaint about abuse or neglect) to Child Youth and Family.

If the definition of abuse is a complaint then thousands of children will be on the database without good reason, because many complaints are made when no abuse has occurred. Even if the definition of abuse was a so-called proven case of abuse we would have a major problem. Why so?  Because we live in a country where smacking ‘for the purposes of correction’ is illegal, and therefore constitutes child abuse in the state’s twisted view of the world.

So, if you give little Jonny a swat on the rump steak to teach him that flushing the cat down the toilet is a naughty deed and then Child, Youth & Family find out about it, your family doctor will be told that you’re a child abuser.

Do you, Joe Public, get any say in any of this? Of course not.

Less government, more freedom I say.

The government ignored overwhelming public opposition to the anti-smacking law.

Join the March For Democracy on November 21.

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• Deborah Coddington has lost the plot

The comments button is at the bottom right of this post.

Deborah Coddington is supposedly a libertarian, a person “passionately advocating individual liberty”, according to the cover of her 1998 book Liberty Belle. Now she says this:

Here’s a question for the Act Party: If its leader would sacrifice his ministerial portfolio for his “one law for all” policy, why does this party of principle advocate a different law for children when someone accused of perpetrating violence against a child comes before the court?

I cringe when I read overseas headlines proclaiming that despite New Zealand’s dreadful reputation for child abuse, we want to defy international trends and bring back pro-smacking legislation [1].

How to explain why we’d do this, especially if you talk about child murders like James Whakaruru or Nia Glassie? [2]

Commentators who sneer Sue Bradford’s law change hasn’t saved a child from death miss the point.

It’s illegal to hit an adult but that doesn’t stop adults from murdering each other. [3] (source)

That is not a libertarian position. A libertarian does not support a law which restricts personal liberty by making it illegal for parents to use force for “the purposes of correction”. A libertarian does not support a law by which a totalitarian nanny state controls how parents respond when their children misbehave. As for calling a smack – usually a swat on the rump steak or similar – “violence”, that is a gross distortion of the truth befitting a Marxist like Sue Bradford and conduct unbecoming for a libertarian.

Deborah Coddington has lost the plot and I cannot consider someone who holds her views to be a libertarian or a passionate advocate for individual liberty. Perhaps she’s headed back to her left wing roots.

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1. Coddington has fallen for the fallacy/lie which says that outlawing smacking will reduce child abuse, and making smacking legal again will lead to a rise in child abuse.

2. This argument is specious in the extreme because it’s pretty obvious that the people who murdered these children won’t be bothered by an anti-smacking law.

3. They don’t miss the point, but Coddington does here. People point out (“sneer”) that the anti-smacking law doesn’t save lives because for a long time Bradford said that the anti-smacking law was about reducing child abuse. When she announced her anti-smacking bill she said “Section 59 [of the Crimes Act, which then permitted smacking] adds to the whole culture of abuse of children that is still so rampant in New Zealand society”. Several years later she said “the epidemic of child abuse and child violence in this country continues. My bill was never intended to solve this problem” (source). As I said in my earlier post, Sue Bradford Is A Liar.

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• Referendum on anti-smacking law: John Key gives the finger

The comments button is at the bottom right of this post.

So, 87% of those who sent in a referendum response said that smacking should not be a criminal offence. Then John Key said:

"Up Yours"

John Key also said

“The referendum result reinforces the message that New Zealand parents do not want to see themselves criminalised for a light smack” (source)

Ten out of ten John. For your information, section 59 of the crimes act does criminalise those parents who give a “light smack” for the “purposes of correction”.  You cannot “give parents comfort” that they will “not be criminalised for lightly smacking their children” unless you repeal the law. When you try to give comfort to parents whilst refusing to repeal the law you are like a fireman who tries to give comfort to a person trapped in a car whilst refusing to attempt to free that person.

87.4% of a representative sample of New Zealanders have sent this message to you. Why are you ignoring the message? Perhaps you have purchased Helen Clark’s jackboots. Perhaps you have forgotten that you are appointed to serve, not to rule.

I see that John Key will kill John Boscawen’s bill which aims to amend the anti-smacking law. Boscawen’s proposal would be a great improvement on the present situation, but it is still totalitarian in so far as it allows the state to control how parents respond when their children misbehave. When the state defines our “rights” it in fact limits our rights, and Boscawen’s bill would have this effect. Consider this: how did people become so dependent on the state that they think that the state must define what is good and acceptable parenting?

As I say, Boscawen’s proposal would be a great improvement on the present situation, but there are a couple of major flaws in it:

1. It would criminalise cruel and degrading punishment. Whilst I am not in favour of this type of punishment, the problem is that these are subjective intangibles and thus the interpretation of the meaning of them is wide open: for example, a judge might decide that was degrading to smack a child in public and send a parent to prison for doing so.
2. It would not allow the use of instruments. A good purpose-built smacking instrument, an example of which I have seen used, delivers trifling and transitory pain with extremely low risk of injury (because only a light swat is required to induce a corrective effect and the design makes it difficult to inflict injury). On the other hand, it is very easy to inflict bruising when smacking with a hand, and if Boscawen’s bill was passed you’d be a criminal for doing so.

The bottom line is this: the state has no right to control how parents respond when a child misbehaves. John Key should heed the message and decriminalise “light smacking”.

What do you think about John Key’s response to the referendum result?

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