Dear Friends,
The question is: what do we do now that John Key and National appear to have completely surrendered the country to the radical feminist-Marxist agenda of Labour and the Greens by agreeing to an inconsequential amendment to let them get Bradford's anti-parenting bill through?
Let's just review a few quotes to bring into focus the nature of the people we are dealing with in parliament. And then we'll review a few facts:
A Collection of Quotes from Key, Clark & Bradford
"I will not support a bill that leaves otherwise good parents at the mercy of the police and the judiciary" -- John Key, press release, 18 April 2007.
"I think we largely live in a secular society, I think there are many religions operating in NZ and it is in the best interests of the state to make decisions that are on a secular basis so they don't discriminate. I'm no supporter of these hard right religions."
"Personally I have no problems with Civil Unions... there was an argument put forward that civil unions would undermine marriage, and I never believed that line....We have friends who are a gay couple bringing up children, I would support any gay or lesbian couple bringing up children, I would hope for them what I want for any children and that is for them to give the best parental instruction and love and attention that they can for the children that are in their care.....I don't care what people's sexual preferences are, It's for them to determine that....as far as I am concerned, is their business and their business alone."
Sexual 'preferences?' There's that scary word beloved of fundamentalist preachers. Does Key believe that we glbt people exercise a choice over our sexuality? "No. I believe it is innate. I am not an expert in these areas but I have had all these religious groups in my electoral office trying to argue that this is learned behavior, personally I believe that is crap. The only way I can express that is that I am not gay and that is not a conscious decision I made, it's just the way I feel. I assume that gay people have other feelings."
(These three paragraphs are from a 3 December 2006 interview with John Key at: http://www.gaynz.com/articles/templates/Political.asp?articleid=1587&zoneid=3. I'd like to point out that paedophilia and necrophilia and bestiality are other sexual preferences and I'm sure they too "have other feelings", John. So do you not care about those people's sexual preferences either?)
“Marriage has a lot of inappropriate connotations. It carries associations with religion, belief etc. My personal interest is in a secular society and I think a civil unions bill is very important….” - Helen Clark - Express Magazine 11 February 2004
NZ Prime Minister Rt Hon Helen Clark says the Government’s role is whatever the Government defines that role to be. - Dominion Post 4 March 2003. Spoken in reply to a question as to whether it was Government’s role to fund the next America’s Cup challenge to the tune of $5.6 million.
“[Remember] 2002, and Clark’s now infamous comment at the state banquet for the Queen that “New Zealand is now a secular country”, and grace would not be said at the meal.” - Investigate Magazine, Nov 2003.
“I felt really compromised. I think legal marriage is unnecessary and I would not have formalised the relationship [with husband Peter Davis] except for going into Parliament. I have always railed against it privately.” -- Helen Clark, Investigate Magazine, Nov 2003.
Retired political studies lecturer Ruth Butterworth, a long time friend of Clark’s, is quoted in Brian Edwards PR-piece, Helen, remembering the black mood at the “wedding”.
“She was resistant up to the last minute. I mean, she was crying on the day. It was just so awful because it was so deeply against her principles.” -- Investigate Magazine, Nov 2003.
Sue Bradford brought us: lowered drinking age and decriminalised prostitution. She tried to give us a less-dangerous classification for "P" and lowered penalties for child pornograpy. She is all for legalising marijuana and not requiring birth mothers to name the fathers on the birth certificates. She justifies this last item with the following words straight from Hansard of 1 March 2007 (see http://www.hansard.parliament.govt.nz/hansard/Final/FINAL_2007_03_01.htm) in a debate on the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill:
"...If this bill goes through there will therefore be a statutory obligation on fathers of children to make the notification, and an obligation on mothers to jointly make the notification with the father - whether they choose to or not.”
“Aside from the situation where a woman fears for the safety of herself or her baby, which would probably be covered by the "undue distress" exemption, there are a
range of other situations where women may not wish to have the father of their child's name registered.
"One is where the woman is in a same-sex relationship, wants her partner to share parental responsibilities, but wants to conceive naturally rather than by assisted
reproductive technology. Another is where the woman has a partner of the opposite sex who is infertile, but chooses to conceive naturally to another man. A third is where the woman simply wants to raise a child on her own without any involvement financially or emotionally from another parent. These are all reasonable choices for women to want to make, and choices that some women do make. Yet with the new section 9 proposed by this Bill, they are not choices that women will be lawfully permitted to make.”
“... This aspect of the Bill is nothing short of draconian - it makes criminals out of women who wish to make choices to raise their children without the involvement of their biological father. ”
(It seems to me that Bradford's ideology is so foreign and radical to anything average New Zealanders understand as normal and healthy that she is not to be taken seriously. Yet she and Clark are running the show and people like Key can't help themselves from falling in behind.)
There are at least two aspects of this Bill which are to be feared:
Correction, deemed even today in law to be "justified" or "right", is soon to be thoroughly condemned as wrong. Why is this? What's the evil in "correction" that this bill is trying to "correct"?
In spite of the grand amendment to the re-write of Section 59, please note that whereas the old Section 59 said parents were "justified" -- had done what is right and therefore could not be held guilty -- in using reasonable force for the purpose of correcting their own children, in this Bill the use of any force for the purpose of correcting your own child (that is, not just smacking) is clearly and emphatically declared to be outside the law. It is referred to even in this wonderful amendment itself as an "offence", even when it is inconsequential. The correction of children by parents is now legally condemned if one uses any force above the level of "inconsequential".
So what is "inconsequential" force when used for correction? I would suggest it is force that has no consequences; that it failed to correct the child's behaviour.
The debate has raged over smacking, and so the focus is on physical force, but the bill condemns simply "force". Smacking is not mentioned in the re-write of Section 59, so someone looking to prosecute parents for "correcting" a child may consider any kind of force in any form. Until this is defined or limited to only physical force, what other kinds of force will be ruled illegal, and how many families will have to be destroyed by the justice system's machinations in order to get those precedents and definitions. (Yesterday's post quoted Police Commissioner Howard Broad saying that they will get there, using the courts and the Police Complaints Authority...an indication that it will take time and a number of families as fodder for the court's grist mill).
Now force is at the bare minimum: to force the parent's will upon that of the child. It can be physical. I would suggest it can also be moral force, appeals to tradition or one's faith or religious or philosophical or ethical or cultural or ethnic practices, withdrawal of privileges, grounding, reasoning, striking a bargain, etc. These forms of force might be considered positive and reasonable and valid by most. But if a clever lawyer ever names any of these as a form of force that is more than inconsequential -- that is, use of this form of force actually corrected the child -- then surely that parent has committed an offence...the offence of correcting a child using force.
Until "correction" and "force" are defined in law, anything can happen.
(As an aside, other forms of force that most would consider negative and unhealthy include verbal scolding and character assassination and emotional manipulation, intimidation, threats, isolation, humiliation, etc., etc. One of these is more likely to be affirmed in a court of law as an illegal use of force for correction. Because it is not physical force, the door is then opened to specifically condemn also the positive and reasonable forms of non-physical force mentioned earlier, if they succeed in correcting children. It appears that with this bill, correcting children, no matter how it is done, will be forever after classed as a crime, one that merely awaits a legal precedent to be set by some anti-family, anti-parent lawyer testing such a prosecution of correction by non-physical use of force in court. It will happen one day.)
Having a reasonable doubt normally acquits people in court. This bill requires a court to convict people when a doubt exists.
It is obvious that it is "correction" that is being written into law as a criminal activity, not the use of "reasonable force". "Reasonable force" was said by Bradford to hide all manner of severe beatings and abuse. But she did not remove the term "reasonable force" from the re-write. Instead it is now right there in subsection 1 of the Bill before Parliament, and is said to be justified when used to do all sorts of things to children, but not to correct them.
The really scary part of this bill is that subsection 2 condemns the correction of children and then subsection 3 requires that subsection 2 prevail over subsection 1. (The entire re-write is reprinted below.) So if a nosey neighbour accuses you of abusing your child and you end up in court defending yourself, if the court cannot determine, that is, has doubts about whether the force you used was for correction of offensive behaviour or for prevention of offensive behaviour, because they have a doubt, subsection 3 requires the court to make the corrective interpretation prevail over the preventative interpretation. And since the court is required to find that you used the force to correct your child, you will be convicted of child assault, worth as much as 2 years in jail (see Section 194a of the Crimes Act).
Maxim Institute also makes a helpful analysis of this amendment at: http://www.maxim.org.nz/index.cfm/policy___research/article?id=994. They also agree it is totally useless.
Re-written Section 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 disuptive 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 police have the discretion not to prosecute complaints against parents of any child, or those standing in place of any 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 pursuing a prosecution.
So What Do We Do Now?
Same as before: lobby your MP furiously and every other MP as well.
Castigate John Key from one end to the other.
Demand that they define "correction".
Ask if this forbidden "correction" is the same as "discipline" or "training" or "chastisement".
Ask them if it is true that contrary to normal understandings of justice wherein one is only guilty when it is proven beyond reasonable doubt, juries will now be required to return a guilty verdict when there is reasonable doubt about the purpose of the force used?
Write these same questions to your local newspaper editors.
Ask these same questions on talk back radio.
Pray for God's deliverance from this disaster.
Update your passports. Reactivate your Australian contacts.
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
www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz
http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/
Our Home....Our Castle
if Section59 is repealed - or replaced...
YOU CAN KISS YOUR CHILDREN GOODBYE.
http://www.storesonline.com/members/846699/uploaded/Brochure_-_Kiss_Children_Goodbye_7.pdf
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