What's the latest?
Labour thought out loud about putting Bradford's Bill under urgency and so ram it through before the Easter break that way. But all that did was stir up opposition to this Bill even more.
Labour is now thinking out loud that they might change Bradford's Private Member's Bill (which can only be considered on every second Wednesday) into a Government Bill, which can be considered at any time. They say they'll make a decision on that this Tuesday (3 April). Political commentators say this will work, and that it will enable the Bill to get pushed through by Thursday.
About 3 National MPs who said they were going to vote for the Bill have come out to say they are against it now. But the Bill will get 63 votes without any National votes: Labour, Greens, Maori, Progressive, Dunne (UF), Woolerton and Donnelly (NZF) make 63. Only 61 are needed to pass.
The Bill is giving Labour and Greens a golden opportunity to show how clever they are at telling lies and feeding out misinformation. They say it won't ban smacking, though Police have confirmed it clearly will. So Labour say that smacking has, in fact, been illegal all these years anyway, and that the Bill will only remove a legal defense. So they want us to believe that they are not making smacking illegal, just making it impossible for parents to legally defend themselves if they ever smack a child, however lightly.
They are also getting more and more emotive in how they equate the current Section 59's "reasonable force" with violence, severe beatings, thrashings, etc. Kiro was fond of saying Section 59 gives parents a license to beat their chidlren. None of this is true, of course, for any fool will tell you that "reasonable force" is not beating, thrashing, etc. To maintain that they are the same, as do Clark, Bradford and Kiro, is to say that juries are typically too thick to tell the difference.
This bill as proposed, reproduced below, doesn't get rid of the hated "reasonable force" that Bradford et al constantly say is a mask for severe beatings, thrashings, and other forms of violence. It in fact outlines scenarios wherein one can use "reasonable force" or, in their rhetoric, scenarios wherein one can legally thrash and severely beat one's child: to prevent harm, criminal, offensive or disruptive behaviour or when a beating is incidental to good care and parenting. The one time you must never use reasonable force is for the purpose of correction.
In fact, subsection 3 of the bill says subsection 2 must prevail over subsection 1. That is, if there is a question over whether a parent's smack or use of reasonable force was corrective or preventative or incidental to good care and parenting, the corrective interpretation must prevail, meaning when there is doubt about the intent, the parent must be considered quilty of planning correction for the child and therefore must be convicted. Reasonable doubt normally acquits....with this Bill, reasonable doubt requires a conviction. Haven't Bradford and her colleagues on the Select Committee and Sir Geoffrey Palmer who drafted this Bill been clever to turn centuries of hard-won legal precedents on their head with a mere six words in subsection 3? Brilliant.
The passage of this Bill will tip New Zealand into the cauldron of those countries which are totalitarian socialist dictatorships; places like Sweden & Germany. Sweden is best known for kidnapping children into foster care and monster children who control and terrorise their parents; Germany is known for its absolute intolerance of home schoolers and Christians who would dare to be different from the society the state's public schools is creating, explaining that "parallel societies" cannot be allowed.
The Bill will give our children into the hands of the state. And once we give the bureaucrats the children, we might just as well give them everything else. For once we've made the Big Compromise and given over our children, they WILL come for everything else.
Continue to email and ring and fax and write to the MPs. Lobby to the last minute. See our home page for things to do: http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz.
Proposed replacement of section 59
59 Parental 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).
Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity
PO Box 9064
Palmerston North
New Zealand
Ph: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
Family.Integrity@xtra.co.nz
http://www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz
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