Official statement on smacking from the Childrens Commission
(BTW Bradfords bill to go to select committee 65-54)
Well, it took six weeks and about 10 phone calls, but I finally have a 785 word statement from the Office of the Children's Commissioner on smacking. The reason I asked for one was that the Office supported a repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Act, but did not want to ban smacking. I specifically asked for a question to be answered as nobody could give me a verbal answer as they "would have to get back to me on that one".
The question:If banning smacking does not make smacking illegal, what section in the Crimes Act will make it legal? The statement doesn't answer the question. It doesnt evem mention the word "discipline". I wonder why? I can email the statement if requsted by anyone.
The Commissioner says a repeal is fundamental and necessary step to ensure that New Zealand children grow up in a safe and secure family environment, free from all forms of violence, because it has been been used to acquit adults of serious assaults on children. Someone name just one recent case? Not just an assault - a serious assault.
It also said that repeal of Section 59 will not result in prosecution of parents who use mild physical punishment occasionally and neasures in other counries did not create an offence for which parents can be arrested and convicted. Furthermore, overseas experience suggests such changes also encourage a decrease in adult to adult violence. This is rubbish.
The Commissioner also believes that trying to develop a definition of acceptable use of force against children is futile and contradicts the goal of promoting violence-free childhoods.Such repeal is imperative to ensure that New Zealand children enjoy improved opportunity to reach their full potential
The statement also says that legislative action must be accompanied by resourcing of comprehensive support for parents, and public education about key principles of child development. So who is going to provide it - the Office of the Childrens Commissioner?
Thew OCC also acknowledges a need for police and other statutory authorities to have clear guidance as to what constitutes an assault on a child, which requires charges to be laid. So who and what s to provide that guidance? Obviously not the law. Perhaps the courts?
It also says that current policy and practice ( can you believe it?) already provides a formal relationship between police and the Department of Child Youth and Family Services to guide decision-making about prosecution and care and protection, in cases of suspected abuse of children.
And by the way, the ACC thing is still in the pipeline..
6 comments:
In Wonderland, legislation means exactly what the Mad Hatter wants it to mean.
So why do most child health and
welfare professional organisations support the Bradford bill, then?
Craig
Craig, several reasons:
1. They see and hear of truly horrible cases of abuse. That makes them pre-disposed to taking ANY action, without critical analysis of the broader consequences.
2. A small bunch of political activists, who are fanatical about the causes of problems in society want the state to have far greater control. Social communism has been tried, and resulted in the deaths of thousands of children in Russia, but these people will "be different" this time around, but still using the same core philosophy.
3. These activists are prominent in the larger organisations and promote the link between real abuse and s59, when no link actually exists. They twist the truth, bury the negative stories and exagerrate other stories to help their case.
4. Good people fall for the line, becuase they are focused on the abuse cases, and not the effect of criminalisation of parents without evidence.
If you at least read all of the posts on this blog site, and the links they lead to, it should not take you long to see many of these cases, reports and "overseas proof" have all been debunked.
Sweden is by far the best example, so do some reading to find out how violence has increased since the smakcing ban, how 20,000 children have been removed from parents, and the court cases around many of those cases.
Then go read up on other places in the world, like Cuba, China, North Korea, Russia.
For some reason, when life is all rosy in NZ and we have a lot to be thankful for, people assume that all of the law changes will only make things better. They can make things WORSE. That is why they need to be debated. Shit can happen, and this "its always somewhere else" mentality is just damn foolish.
Sue K. has stated she ultimately wants to ban smacking. That is her goal. There are consequences to that action, and Sweden proves the consequences are NOT accpetable.
This is step 1. Note how these people RESIST any attempt to define a smack, to define reasonable force, to work with the term "discipline". Discuss this with anti-smackers for any length, and they will finally admit that even smacking is abuse.
And it will not stop there.
Hey David
No it won't stop there will it Craig?
next year the hates crimes bill ehh!
Only if Helengrad continues.
best
Mike
Is the commissioner for children a mother?
Yes, and she has admitted smacking her kids. Now that she's middle aged like Sue Bradford, and not bringing up kids, she feels she needs to say that kids should noy be smacked at all.
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