Poll finds smacking making comeback

Photo / Kellie Blizard

Smacking children may be creeping back into favour following Government assurances that police will not prosecute parents for "light smacks", according to a new survey.

The poll of 1000 people by Curia Market Research found that 44 per cent of parents of children under 12 admitted to smacking their children in the past year "to correct their behaviour when [they] believed it was reasonable and appropriate to do so".

Previous polls asking the same question found that self-confessed smackers dropped from 48 per cent of parents in 2008 to 39 per cent last March as publicity about the "anti-smacking" law rose to a crescendo.

The latest survey suggests either that smacking may have increased slightly again or that parents have become more willing to admit to it.

A review last year found that police were not prosecuting any parents for smacking who would not have been prosecuted for assault before smacking for "correction" was banned in 2007.

The long-term historical trend is still away from smacking. Surveys by psychologists Jane and the late James Ritchie found that the number of parents of 4-year-olds who never smacked stayed below 10 per cent for 40 years, but a Herald repeat of their surveys last year found 39 per cent of mothers and 33 per cent of fathers now say they have never smacked.

The Curia polls, funded by Family First, also reveal a slow increase in support for the ban on smacking for correction, with the numbers saying they strongly or somewhat agree with the law rising from 29 per cent in 2007 to 33 per cent in the latest poll, after dipping during the referendum debate.

Numbers strongly or somewhat against the law rose from 62 per cent in 2007 to a peak of 71 per cent in 2008, but have fallen since to 65 per cent last March and 55 per cent in the latest poll.

Family First director Bob McCoskrie called on the Government to support Act MP John Boscawen's bill to allow force for correction if it does not cause more than "transitory and trifling" injury, does not use any weapon or instrument and is not "cruel or degrading".