KEY POINTS:
Parents who smack their children don't necessarily think it is an effective form of discipline, a survey has found.
Less than a third of primary caregivers who physically punished a child in the four weeks before responding to the latest New Zealand Health Survey considered it to be an effective punishment.
The study found physical punishment was one of the least used forms of discipline in the period, with 10 per cent of children aged from 0 to 14 years having had it in that time.
Maori and Pacific boys and 2 to 4-year-olds were the most likely to be physically punished.
About 5 per cent of all primary caregivers surveyed considered physical punishment to be an effective form of discipline.
The findings follow last year's law change outlawing the use of parental force against children for purposes of correction.
The survey - conducted between October 2006 and November last year - spanned the period before and after the legislation
Green MP Sue Bradford, whose private member's bill removed from the Crimes Act the statutory defence of reasonable force to correct a child, said it was pleasing to see the findings on punishment.
"There actually is a high percentage of people in the population who think that physical discipline isn't the way to go," said Ms Bradford.
"Even people who are using it on the whole don't consider it to be effective."
Ms Bradford said the 17,000 sample size meant the study was more robust and scientific than those commissioned by lobby groups, such as Family First, which she dubbed "highly inaccurate".
A Family First study released late last month found that 48 per cent of respondents with children under 12 had smacked their child after the law change.
Family First's national director, Bob McCoskrie, said then that he was surprised the polling found so many parents admitting they had flouted the law.
He said 51 per cent of mothers had admitted continuing to smack.
"For a new law to be ignored by so many people who are willing to risk a police or Child, Youth and Family investigation indicates just how out of step with reality this law is."
