August 5, 2009
If you are planning on advertising in the referendum, please take note of the Chief Electoral Office’s Postal Referendum Advertising Rules, which are reproduced here for clarity.
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A postal referendum on the question “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand” will run from Friday 31 July to Friday 21 August 2009.
Any individual or group can undertake advertising to promote either a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ vote on the referendum question.
Advertisers are subject to an expenditure limit of $50,000 (including GST).
Advertisements must contain a statement setting out the name and residential or business address of the person at whose direction it is being published. A Post Office box or website address is insufficient.
The expenditure limit applies to advertising that is used or appears to be being used to promote one of the answers to the referendum question, and is published or broadcast during the period from the 26 August 2008 until 21 August 2009.*
It is a serious offence for any person to, either alone or in combination with others, knowingly spend more than the $50,000 expenditure limit. The offence is subject to a fine of up to $20,000. Persons or organisations that formally or informally enter into an agreement or understanding about their referendum advertising should assume that they are subject to a single advertising expenditure limit.
Any person at whose direction an advertisement is published or broadcast must file a return of expenses with the Chief Electoral Office by 25 September 2009 (being one month after the date that the result of the referendum is declared under section 49 of the Referenda (Postal Voting) Act 2000).
The return must list where every advertisement was published or broadcast and the cost of every advertisement. A copy of a form for making a return of expenses for the postal referendum is available from the download panel on this page.
Advertisers who fail to meet these requirements are committing offences and may be referred to the Police.
The returns are open to public inspection.
It is an offence to print, distribute or deliver anything during the period from 28 July to 21 August that purports to be an imitation voting paper and that either has any direction or indication as to the way that the voter should vote or has anything on it that is likely to influence any vote.
The Chief Electoral Office is responsible for administering the advertising and expenditure provisions. If you have any questions about the rules please contact the Chief Electoral Office at: PO Box 3220, Wellington, Tel: (04) 495 0030, Fax: (04) 495 0031, Email: chief.electoral.office@justice.govt.nz
*The 26th of August is the date on which the Speaker of the House of Representatives presented the petition to the House after being certified as correct by the Clerk of the House under section 18(1)(a) of the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act. 21 August 2009 is the close of the voting period for the referendum.
August 5, 2009
Open Parachute has a cogent summary of the recent Police Statistics on the Child Discipline Law.
1: “Smacking” in itself is not an offence. The report had to consider offence codes which weren’t “smacking” but most likely to include “smacking” type incidents.
2: The legislation has had “minimal impact on police activity.”
3: During the review period “police attended 279 child assault events, 39 involved ‘minor acts of physical discipline’ and 8 involved smacking.”
4: There has been a decrease in ‘smacking events’ and ‘minor acts of physical discipline.’
5: There has been an increase (36) of ‘other child assault’ events. (We should be concerned about these).
6: “No prosecutions were made for ‘smacking’ events during this period.”
Read the whole article at Open Parachute.
August 4, 2009
On a Hiding to Nothing
Today (3 August) I received two pieces of mail in the post. The first was Build Magazine. The second was my voting paper for the so-called “so-called ‘anti-smacking’ law”. Seeing 89 glossy pages of engineering and building wisdom from the Building Research Association of New Zealand (BRANZ) alongside my voting paper got me thinking about the differences and similarities between engineering buildings and engineering societies. Now, the the building of societies is something we all share in and the big question is towards what are we building? I suspect that much of the opposition to the section 59 amendment (2007) to the Crimes Act 1961 comes from the notion that such legislative changes are in fact “Social Engineering” (or “PC”).
The “anti PC” argument goes that just changing the words does not change anything as we all know what we mean. Call a spade a spade. The counter argument is that there is a relationship between reality and the words we use to describe that reality. By changing the words we reshape the reality. Funny that the people who say the words don’t matter get so steamed up when the words are changed! This suggests to me that the words do matter. Anyone who has read Genesis might suspect that the spoken word is indeed reality-shaping. In Chapter 1 it is the word of God that brings the world into being. In Chapter 2 the naming of the animals and the spoken response of the man to the creation of the woman is fundamental to the relationship between humans with each other and the world around them.
So, what does it mean to rename “smacking” as “hitting” or to call either “criminal”? Quite a lot. Underneath the various arguments lies a profound two-fold question: What sort of world do we want to create and how do we want to relate to those with whom we share this world? Those of us who benefit from the way things are will probably opt for “smacking”, while the victims of violence or those who have to pick up the pieces will tend to go for “hitting”. Children will be pretty clear what they think is happening – if they are permitted to have an opinion.
We all know the referendum question is badly worded but for my money the decriminalisation of violence towards children does not sit with a theology that sees each person as unique and special and as the bearer of the image of God. I am going to vote “Yes” because I am only too well aware of the anger and violence that I am capable of and because I want to be a better person. To vote “Yes” is to say that violence towards children is not acceptable. It means setting ourselves the challenge of living up to our own word.
The Build Magazine cover is minimalist. It features the words “Product Substitution” and below that, “Corrosion”. The article on product substitution warns of the dangers of using inferior and fake products in place of the ones specified. Violence is never an adequate substitute for love. Jesus demonstrates the genuine article. The corrosion article reminds us that – for buildings as for cars – “rust never sleeps”. Corrosion is what we do to children when we resort to force, till one day we look down and find that we ourselves have slowly and silently been eaten away from the inside. A “Yes” vote BRANZ us as people who want to help stop the rot.
Tom Innes is Senior Ecumenical Chaplain at University of Canterbury
August 4, 2009
Children who are subjected to moderate or worse hitting as part of parental correction do suffer psychological and physical harm.
New Zealand has a proud history of being the first to change legislation to improve the well-being of its citizens.
We were the first to give women the vote, the first to ban nuclear armed and powered warships from our waters and on June 21, 2007, the first English-speaking country to give children the same protection under law from assault as adults.
These actions define us as New Zealanders and tell the world about our values. They make me proud to be a New Zealander.
As a paediatrician working in child protection, I knew of many cases where the old Crimes Act Section 59 defence of reasonable force had been misused and of cases where police chose not to prosecute assaults against children, knowing the “reasonable force” defence would be claimed.
This is no longer possible with the new Section 59.
Since the law was changed we have seen research published demonstrating that adult attitudes towards hitting children have changed.
Police have used their discretion to not prosecute trivial or inconsequential assaults, as the new Section 59 allows them to do.
This is exactly what the legislation was intended to do. And yet the aim of the proponents of the referendum is to force the Government to bring back the defence of reasonable force.
Of course the question is misleading. Smacking is not good parental correction. It can and does escalate in some houses to serious assaults.
Most of the parents I have met who seriously assaulted their child believed they were disciplining them and doing them good. Children who are subjected to moderate or worse hitting as part of parental correction do suffer psychological and physical harm.
Children whose parents use other positive parenting techniques do better than children of parents who hit.
The question also includes a value judgment – how can something “good” be bad?
And finally, parents are not being criminalised for a light smack, as referendum proponents would have you believe.
Paediatricians’ clinics these days are filled with children with problem behaviour. While not all of it is the result of poor parenting, better parenting would help to reduce the numbers of children we see with the physical and emotional scars of abuse.
In a society that values children, we owe it to them to do everything we can to reduce violence in their lives and increase the use of positive parenting skills among parents.
So what are we to do with this question? We could simply ignore the referendum as the colossal waste of time and money it is, but this could be attributed to simple apathy rather than support for protecting children.
We could protest the question by ticking Yes and No, but this would be recorded as a spoiled vote, along with those filled in incorrectly.
Or we could vote Yes, and send a clear message to the Government that we believe in protecting all children from assault.
The Prime Minister has said he does not want to change the law because it is working and he has better things to do, like getting the economy out of recession. I agree. I do not want our parliamentarians wasting time on this issue.
A large Yes vote is the best way of putting this issue to rest once and for all.
So I am voting Yes in the referendum. If you don’t want our politicians wasting any more time on this, if you believe the law is working as intended, and if you believe children have the same right to be free of violence that adults do, you should do the same.
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Dr Russell Wills is a paediatrician in Hawkes Bay with a large child protection practice and is the clinical director of Maternal, Child and Youth Services at Hawkes Bay District Health Board. He is also spokesman for the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the Paediatric Society of New Zealand on the referendum issue.
August 3, 2009
Wellington, Aug 2 NZPA – Social Development Minister Paula Bennett will not vote in the smacking referendum she said today.
Instead she will “shut up” and listen.
“I think this is a time for politicians to listen, actually it wouldn’t do any harm for some of us to shut up for a while, see what the public think and then make some plans from there,” Ms Bennett told TV One’s Q+A programme.
Politicians had the opportunity to put forward their views every day, she said.
However, she said the current law appeared to be working.
“Certainly I suppose I see that through Child Youth and Family, and through being the minister for that, that I am not alarmed by anything that seems to have changed drastically in the last couple of years.”
August 2, 2009
Johny O’Donnell, a leader of Students Against Violence Everywhere (the SAVE Movement) gave the following speech on Parliament Steps last Thursday.
Tena Koutou Katoa
I stand before you today to represent the views of the many rangatahi up and down Aotearoa who are calling on adults to vote in support of violence free homes. I stand with just three of our group of passionate rangitahi who have joined the Students Against Violence Everywhere youth movement and are dedicated to making a difference to our society.
There is a gap in our society and it is youth opinions. Perhaps the government and everyday citizens would be better informed if youth get a better say, I think the referendum is a clear example of young people’s rights and opinions being overlooked.
This law is the difference between us having equal rights to be protected from violence or having less rights than adults and animals. So this issue is a very important topic for young people, surely we would get a say in this issue. Our rights to be brought up in violence free homes are being threatened by groups who are only thinking about adults and it disgusts me that these people are ok with our children being brought up on violence as a form of discipline. As quoted by SAVE member Manaaki Walker “Violence is a ripple effect. It starts off as a drop in the water but soon creates a ripple effect which disturbs all the waters. This is no different than smacking a child. It may start as a smack but can trigger other violent behaviours from both the parent and the child. We need to keep our waters calm and let children have peace in their own homes”.
Smacking is violence and it is harmful, we need to make change to our parenting methods. I want to be a part of a generation that eradicates all forms of physical punishment because it is ineffective, unnecessary, harmful to children and a mind set of some kiwi parents that this is the only option. This law is about positive change and it is happening, good parents are not being criminalised and our attitudes are changing. Child abuse is no longer excused because of discipline.
In a recent survey held on the SAVE movement website 69% of youth voted yes to the question Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand? 69% of our young people are urging adults to take this opportunity to do the right thing – be the voice that we can’t be and speak for us.
This question was one of many questions aimed at canvassing young peoples opinions and 100 people from as young as 10 years old participated in our online survey from all around New Zealand. We also asked should there be the defence of discipline in child abuse cases? A clear 81% of youth said no. Further that 82% believed that young people deserved a better say on this issue. And when asked what best describes the referendum question 45% of participants said it was absolutely shocking and shouldn’t be allowed, while 24% said it was not very good and miss leading. Just 8% thought that the referendum question was excellent.
So lets clear this up once and for all young people of this country are calling for people to vote yes and I am only echoing that call. The time has come for people to listen to youth opinions and protect our rights to be free from all forms of violence including physical punishment. I can only ask that you do the right thing and speak for us- physical punishment is harmful, it’s a waste of time and can only encourage other forms of violence- there is no line between a smack and other violence- the whole lot of it needs to be gone from our homes. Lets not put this change under threat please vote yes in the referendum.
No reira
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.
August 2, 2009
The New Zealand Herald’s Political Editor Claire Trevett reports on how MPs will be voting in the referendum. The overwhelming majority of MPs will either vote YES or abstain, and only five said they would be voting no.
Of particular interest is Chester Borrows, who “had supported the petition to force the referendum before the compromise law was passed in 2007 – said he would not vote and did not believe the law should be changed.”
VOTING YES
Labour: Steve Chadwick, Charles Chauvel, Kelvin Davis, Darien Fenton, Parekura Horomia, Moana Mackey, Su’a William Sio, Maryan Street. Progressives: Jim Anderton.
United Future: Peter Dunne.
Green Party: Sue Bradford, Keith Locke, Kennedy Graham, Metiria Turei, Russel Norman, Jeanette Fitzsimons, Sue Kedgley, Kevin Hague, Catherine Delahunty.
Maori Party: Te Ururoa Flavell (if votes), Hone Harawira, Rahui Katene.
NOT/ PROBABLY NOT VOTING
National: David Bennett, Jackie Blue, Chester Borrows, David Carter, Judith Collins, Chris Finlayson, Tim Groser, Nathan Guy, Tau Henare, Steven Joyce, Nikki Kaye, John Key, Todd McClay, Tony Ryall, Katrina Shanks, Nick Smith, Anne Tolley, Chris Tremain, Louise Upston, Michael Woodhouse.
Maori Party: Tariana Turia.
Labour: Phil Goff, Annette King, Trevor Mallard, Damien O’Connor.
* Spoiling ballot paper: Clayton Cosgrove, Rajen Prasad.
VOTING NO
National: Cam Calder, Tim Macindoe.
Act: John Boscawen, David Garrett, Heather Roy.
Tags: Anne Tolley, Annette King, Cam Calder, Catherine Delahunty, charles chauvel, Chester Borrows, Chris Finlayson, Chris Tremain, Damien O'Connor, Darien Fenton, David Bennett, David Carter, David Garrett, Heather Roy, Hone Harawira, Jackie Blue, Jeanette Fitzsimons, Jim Anderton, John Boscawen, john key, Judith Collins, Katrina Shanks, Keith Locke, Kelvin Davis, Kennedy Graham, Kevin Hague, Louise Upston, Maryan Street, Metiria Turei, Michael Woodhouse, Moana Mackey, mp, mps, Nathan Guy, Nick Smith, Nikki Kaye, Parekura Horomia, parliament, peter dunne, phil goff, Rahui Katene, russel norman, Steve Chadwick, Steven Joyce, Su'a William Sio, sue bradford, Sue Kedgley, tariana turia, Tau Henare, Te Ururoa Flavell, Tim Groser, Tim Macindoe, Todd McClay, Tony Ryall, Trevor Mallard
August 2, 2009
There was a nice piece in yesterday’s Herald by John Roughan: Sinister undertones to referendum instigators, in which John rightly brings into question what Bob McCoskrie and friends mean by “correction”. He concludes that what the instigators of this referendum are really after is the restoration of their right to give their kids a good hiding.
There is something very creepy about this smacking referendum now arriving in the mail. What exactly do the citizens behind this initiative, men like Bob McCoskrie, mean by “good parental correction”?
Their publicity pretends they mean nothing more than the smack that an anxious or annoyed parent might use to stop or prevent dangerous or offensive behaviour. But that can’t be all they want because the law now expressly permits the use of parental force for exactly those purposes.
Roughan lays out a detailed analysis of why the existing Child Discipline Law allows “good parental correction”, and concludes:
Those who initiated the referendum know what the new law says. They know it permits reasonable force for all the preventive situations they are fond of citing.
They pretend it does not because they could not attract majority support for the restoration of the right to flog children. Don’t be deceived by them. Should a smack, as part of good parental correction, be a criminal offence in New Zealand? Absolutely.
Read the full article.
August 2, 2009
The New Zealand Nurses’ Organisation (NZNO) is supportive of the current child protection legislation.
Chief executive officer, Geoff Annals, is frustrated by the referendum question. “There can be little doubt that a better worded question could have been asked. The issue is whether it should be lawful to use violence against children.”
“As an organisation of 43,000 health professionals and carers we are clear that any steps that can be taken to protect our children from violence should be. The evidence shows this is a law that is working and must be retained,” Annals said.
“New Zealand has a shameful record on child abuse. Clearly our culture needs to change to view violence, in any form, as unacceptable,” Annals said.
July 31, 2009
Catholic aid agency Caritas Aotearoa NZ is backing a “Yes” vote in the upcoming smacking referendum, but acknowledges people could, in good conscience, vote either way.
A citizens initiated referendum on the question “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” runs from July 31 to August 21. The result is not binding.
The referendum came about after a 390,000-signature petition last year.
The Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007 allows reasonable force to be used for limited reasons, but not for correction. The act removed a wide-ranging defence of reasonable force.
A parliamentary compromise in 2007 saw police given discretion not to prosecute where the force used is inconsequential.
Caritas believes the law is therefore a good balance between child protection and the rights of families to make decisions for themselves without undue government interference, often described as subsidiarity.
This is in line with Catholic social teaching and prevents unnecessary prosecutions, Caritas said in statement.
The bishops’ conference also sought a balanced solution in their 2007 statement “Children are Precious Gifts”.
Because the referendum is seen politically as a vote of support for or opposition to the current law, Caritas recommends a “Yes” vote.
Director Mike Smith said the referendum question will not give a clear answer about child discipline because a person could support the 2007 compromise while voting either way.
Thus the “ambiguous” question means “many New Zealanders who support efforts to reduce violence against children may, in good conscience, still feel obliged to vote ‘No'”.
Caritas called for more parental education and believes referendum funding could have been better used this way.
A police activity review showed that there were no prosecutions brought for child assault which involved smacking between October and April.
Out of 279 “child assault events” attended, 39 involved minor acts of physical discipline and eight involved smacking. Police prosecuted four of the former and none of the latter.
