Lindsay Mitchell's blog

Comments before and after Andy Moore: http://section59.blogspot.com/

Lindsay Mitchell delivers another fantastic, well thought out article. She here breaks down the UN Report which groups such as Save the Children, and people such as Bradford and Clark enjoy quoting from so much.

http://lindsaymitchell.blogspot.com/2007/05/save-your-outrage.html

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"More propaganda from left-wing organisations. Save The Children are deploring New Zealand's ranking of 20th of 44 developed countries in child status.

The report shows New Zealand has a long way to go in protecting children under five. Out of 43 more developed countries, New Zealand ranks 20th in child wellbeing. In fact, New Zealand falls well behind Malta and Slovenia.

New Zealand's under-5 mortality for 2005, the major factor in this rating, was 6 per 1,000 live births. Sharing this exact same statistic were Australia, Canada, Ireland, Malta and the United Kingdom.

Of course then comes the predictable reference to section 59 removal and what a difference that will make.

"Not only will the Bill better protect children, but it will also enable New Zealand to meet its international and moral responsibility to protect children from abuse. As a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1993 we have agreed to protect children from all types of mistreatment including physical punishment," says Save the Children New Zealand's Executive Director, John Bowis.

Of the countries with a mortality rate of 4 per 1,000 Finland, Sweden, Norway and Italy have banned smacking. Czech Republic, Japan and Slovenia have not. It's the same mixed picture across the countries with a mortality rate of 5.

Mortality rates don't equal deaths due to maltreatment alone but they are treated as such by people with leftist agendas."
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I'll just add another point. The left have chosen ridiculously small countries to quote from their report. Slovenia's population estimate at July 2006 was 2,010,347. And get this, Malta's population estimate at July 2006 was 400,214. One could assume that if Malta had a population the size of New Zealand's, it's child death rate would be 60 deaths per 1000 children under the age of five. What sort of standard is this Bradford? How dare you even compare New Zealand to Malta?

So of course they are going to have lower child death statistics!

Do your research before swallowing everything they tell you people!