• Deborah Coddington has lost the plot

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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

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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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• MP Nikki Kaye wants to interfere with your life

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The NZ Herald is continuing its anti-smacking campaign and quotes Member of Parliament Nikki Kaye as saying

New National MP Nikki Kaye said she could not comfortably vote on the [referendum] question.

“My worry is that many people I talk to see a ‘yes’ vote as a vote to reduce family violence and a ‘no’ vote as a vote to stop the Government interfering and telling them how to bring up their kids. I believe in reducing family violence and Government interference in people’s lives.”

“I believe in… Government interference in people’s lives“.

It doesn’t get any plainer than that, and her statement confirms what I’ve been saying since I started this blog. Sorry, but I can’t resist this: I TOLD YOU SO.

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Paula Bennett is also a totalitarian, so she and Nikki Kaye should start a club. The details are in my earlier post titled…

Paula Bennett claims ownership of all New Zealand children

How many other National Members of Parliament are eligible to join this evil cabal?

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• How to run a referendum in a banana republic

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Who's the monkey that's running this referendum?

This is from Sideswipe:

A reader writes: “Doesn’t the TV referendum info-vertisement showing the voting paper being given a tick in the ‘Yes’ box actually contaminate the democratic process?”

I haven’t seen the advertisement, but if that is true it is somewhere between a breach of ethics and outright manipulative corruption. In view of the number of the government’s organs and allies that have come out with pro-smacking opinions lately I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this was a deliberate ploy on the part of the government.

Then there’s the see-through envelopes which are provided for returning your ballot paper. That’s real banana-republic behaviour if ever I saw it. I am 99% certain that mail is read and sorted by machine unless the machines can’t read the address, so we’re reasonably safe.

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• John Key’s hypocrisy and arrogance regarding the anti-smacking law

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In my earlier post I put up videos showing Sue Bradford’s lies and arrogance regarding the anti-smacking law. Now I’ll show you that John Key is no better.

Not long before the anti-smacking law was passed Key said

The Labour Government has shown utter contempt for New Zealanders and the democratic process with its plan to railroad the anti-smacking bill through Parliament…

“The Labour-led Government knows the measure is deeply unpopular, so it plans to act against the wishes of the majority of Kiwis and ram the bill through under urgency.

“This is a deeply cynical abuse of power as Labour tries to clear the decks of this controversial issue.

“Helen Clark has refused to let her MPs vote the way they really think on this bill. To ram it through under the cover of urgency shows just how out of touch her government has become.

“Now, not content with riding over the top of the wishes of some of her MPs, she wants to ride over the top of the wishes of the majority of New Zealanders – while she’s out of the country.

“The Prime Minister also knows that she has been caught out saying one thing about the smacking ban before the election, and giving a different answer afterwards.

“This is arrogant and cynical government at its very worst. This is not about good law, this is about Labour’s political damage control.” (source)

Key then went on to vote for the law, so by his own definition he was and still is

• showing utter contempt for New Zealanders and the democratic process
• supporting a law that he knows is deeply unpopular
• acting against the wishes of the majority of Kiwis
• riding over the top of the wishes of the majority of New Zealanders
• participating in arrogant and cynical government at its very worst
• guilty of saying different things at different times on one subject, just as he accuses of Labour of doing

Later, after after the anti-smacking law was passed, John Key demonstrated his arrogance, just as Sue Bradford did in her video:

[Question from the public] Seeing as both parties went against over 80 per cent of the population to repeal Section 59 (the provision that allowed parents to smack their children) what will they do when the referendum says to reinstate it – will they follow the wishes of the public or think they know best?
Dorothy Brown, Rangiora

[John Key] The purpose of putting up the compromise position that we did was to ensure that the law would be administered as we thought was appropriate, which is to give parents some leeway for lightly smacking a child. Inconsequentially smacking a child was something that the police would not investigate. So our view is as long as the police continue to administer the law as the compromise intended and we don’t see examples where good parents are criminalised for lightly smacking a child, then we think the law’s working. As I have said if we see examples where good parents are criminalised for lightly smacking a child then we will actively seek to change the law but I am confident that the law is working and will continue to work.

We’ll have respect for what the referendum says, but it wouldn’t make us change our mind because there is no point in changing the law if it is working as intended but what it should do I think is give any future Parliament the confidence to know that they should take the steps to change the law if the law isn’t administered in the way that I think this Parliament intended it to be. (Emphasis added. Taken from my earlier post)

Isn’t it wonderful having the internet, which makes it so easy to find out who which hypocritical, arrogant, totalitarian politicians want to tell people how to raise their children. Key has no real respect for public opinion, but we should still make a stand for freedom:

Related posts:

Arrant arrogance (read this first)

The anti-smacking law lets citizens be agents of state terrorism

If you want to be free to parent then put your money where your mouth is

The anti-smacking law will cause the death of children

Sue Bradford’s arrogance regarding the anti-smacking bill

If you want to read more use the category selector on the right.

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