KEY POINTS:
Green MP Sue Bradford believes her anti-smacking bill will become law, but by a razor-thin majority.
The bill easily passed its second reading in Parliament last night, by 70 to 51.
And it looks likely to pass its third reading, in about three weeks.
It needs 61 votes to pass.
Here is a selection of the views received today.
What do you think?
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Wendy Harper
It is particularly ironic that the people who are opposed to this bill are also likely to be those who want to keep prisoners convicted of violent offences in jail for the full length of their sentence (if not for ever). Do they think that said offenders were spared the rod as children? Violence begets violence. Sue Bradfords bill will not just make children safer, but in the long term it will make our society safer.
Peter & Michelle Tai
Having just returned from the UK to raise our 2 under three year olds. We are absolutely astonished by the negative response towards the anti smacking bill. It reminds us of the same old views kiwis held a generation ago. The saying;"It never did me any harm" is not an argument or solution. What we should be asking is "Did it do me any good?" Surely as adults we can be taught different ways of disciplining our children. It is a small thing to learn, but given time it will become second nature and will produce a better environment for all children. Times change, and we need to grow with these changes. When the non smoking, and drink driving laws came in, people were sceptical that it would work, now we wouldn't have it any other way. We hope this important bill gets through.
Karen Shepherd
I am glad that the focus of this law change is shifting from absolutes in the area of discipline and onto definition of what is abuse, and what is not abuse. I had four under five years of age, and a disability that did not allow me to move faster than a toddler. Kids are pragmatic, and not born with a social conscience. They understood that disobedience meant a smack on the hand, or bottom, (delivered by a calm parent). It is part of a language of touch that children understand without explanation, along with cuddles, pats, rubs, tickles, wrestling, being held, and a firmly grasped hand. Their respect for my authority meant I could take them to get the groceries, and to the park, I could cross the road with them, take them to a kids movie, and countless other privileges that would have been impossible for them to experience had they been disobedient and disrespectful. I am staggered that our culture has such low expectations for our children. We deprive them of living a fuller life by indulging disobedience and disrespect. As my children have grown in respect and trust for my guidance I have enjoyed them immensely and take great pleasure in sharing my life with them. I am confused by the presentation of this bill whose proponents say "absolutely no force" and then call my concern over the targeting of smacking as a crime -hysteria. I feel that Sue Bradford has chosen words carefully to paint a poor picture of parents like me. On one hand we are violent, on the other we are hysterical. Yet I know myself to be thoughtful and measured in action. I have never punched (very different from a smack- think about it) another human, or yelled into someones face. Has Sue?
Roger Dalziell
Nanny state knows best again.
G Johnson
Once again a do-gooder can not see the forest for the trees. I am sure Mrs Bradfords intentions are good but this law change simply will not affect the people it needs to. In the mean time children who dont know the meaning of "no" are causing more and more damage to our society. Parents are responsible for the upbringing of their children and this law will only get in the way. Bin it please New Zealand.
Tim Saunders
The proposed law change is absurd. We are told that we should give our children "time out" instead, and that this is legal. But "time out", constitutes the crime of kidnapping as per section 209 of the Crimes Act, and also the tort of false imprisonment. Furthermore, how much "time out" is acceptable? How about a whole day? As there is no way of defining what is acceptable, How fortunate that it is forbidden by the Crimes Act.
Andrew Jull
So some pro-smackers have threatened Sue Bradfords life. I have not heard of any anti-smackers threatening Lester Burrows life. Could it be that violence begats violence?
Virginia Colees
As parents we need to be able to spank our children if we do not. then as they grow up, they think they can rule the house and not the parents, children are badly behaved now and they are going to be a lot worse.
Andrew Atkin
I think the National party has got this one right. We should get rid of the grey zone that allows abusive parents to get away with hitting their kids where it is clearly not warranted. Parents do not own their kids like animals that they can do what they want with - children, first and foremost, are their own people and are just as entitled to human rights and protection as the rest of us. I think it should be legal to smack a child on the bum or hand with only your bare hand, and when the child reaches a certain age--maybe 5 or 6 years--there should be no hitting allowed at all because other forms of punishment can be at least as effective. And parents should be encouraged to never hit their children in anger. However, if we are serious about getting rid of child abuse, then this anti-smacking bill will not count for much in itself. If we are serious about cutting back on abuse we need to start actively policing families with compulsory periodic interviews. A bit invasive I know; but serious child abuse literally ruins lives and children have no other effective defence against pathological parents. It would be a lesser of two evils.
G Hanson
The people who are beating their kids now are beating them to the extent that it is illegal anyway. These are the types of people who have no respect for the law and society anyway. This is bureaucracy on steroids.
Eddie Stewart
I think that if the law changes to disallow smacking, angry parents will be going home angrier with their kids. When they are naughty out in public, will deal with it worse than if they had of dealt with it instantly when it happened. I know parents who have smacked their kids with a paddle, because they were too big for a smack or wooden spoon. I am told this is a cultural thing and just the way it is done. I think that is the sort of thing we need to do away with. I have already had the police visit me because a person saw me smacking my 3 year old after he had tried to escape out of the car window while we were moving. The police were there within 10mins and my boy and I told them how he had been naughty and how I had given him a good whack on the arse. The police were very good about it and understood that I had done nothing excessive. However I fear if it were to happen again over a minor incident that I may lose my boy. Stop the beatings, keep the smacking.
Bab Kamath
Sue Bradford needs some mental evaluation, if she thinks she can highjack parents rights which are so few anyways by her unthinking careless and stupid proposal. Also if there are other ways to discipline a child lets hear some ways. Please do not throw time out and a naughty spot at us. Next it will be that speaking loudly and yelling is abuse. I am going behind bars pretty soon the way I yell at my kid.
Nina
How dare anyone tell me how to bring up my child! We made a decision through a lot of thought and love to have a child and through the years have smacked him when we felt it necessary, but have also cherished and loved him. And believe it or not Sue Bradford, he has not turned out to be a violent or angry adult thus far!! Children need to be guided and disciplined. Why else do we have legal ages for practically everything: school, drinking, driving, sex, etc, because we know that children need to be guided and shown the difference between what is right and what is wrong. And yes damn it! We don't always as human beings make the right/best decisions for our children all the time, but parents should not have this right taken away from them. Next we will be told which school to put them in and what the best employment for them is!! Wake up Sue Bradford and smell the coffee.
Jeannie
The anti smacking bill is hoping to prevent physical harm to children caused by undue force by a parent. I do not believe that this bill will prevent the kind of abuse it is aiming at - parents who respond that violently to a child will not refrain from doing so just because a law is in place making that kind of action illegal. The issues that lead to that kind of serious abuse and the strategies needed to address such behaviours are much more complex than passing legislation. I would like to raise another issue that I have not yet heard debated. What about the harm caused to children by being yelled at, sworn at, told they are useless, and so on. Last year I was in the foyer of a school and could clearly hear a student being yelled at by the deputy principal. I was appalled at the volume and the words he was using and I believe he was responding to the student in a totally unacceptable manner - certainly in a manner which would not be acceptable in an adult to adult interaction. No corporal punishment was allowed in this school, but was this a preferable option? Experiencing negative verbal messages can have major repercussions for a child. Just because the wounds arent visible it doesnt mean they dont exist.
Grant
JB, the "SPCC" was founded long before the SPCA. It is called "the family" which is headed by parents. This bill, like so many governmental measures, is using a stick instead of a carrot. Sue Bradford is behaving worse than what she imagines most parents are like with their offspring. She wants to stand over us with a stick and whack us with the law. All that most parents want to do is raise decent adult human beings. It should be illegal to "smack" honest, decent parents.
HC
Making smacking illegal is not the way to go. I was brought up with a smack on the butt occasionally and it has done me no harm whatsoever. Sometimes time out doesn't always work. If its child abuse we are worried about, let us look at bringing in something to screen parents before they have even have children. We have to do that before we buy a dog so why not with babies too. Surely there should be certain criteria we should meet before being allowed to bring a new human life into this world, then perhaps the anger of having no money or other issues in the domestic world wont be taken out so much on innocent children to the point of it being child abuse. I think a light smack on the hand, bottom or leg is completely harmless and for those parents who want to raise children correctly in this world should be allowed to discipline their children in this manner if is so required at the time or the situation.
C Crook
If ever there was an issue taken out of context, the cyfswatch post is it. A look at the actual post shows it was an exercise in exaggeration to emphasise a point - a very good point. There were no threats against her safety. It is black humour. Grow up Sue.
Alan
While I think most times there are better ways of discipling a child than with a smack, it is ridiculous to criminalise it. But the issue is not just smacking. This bill removes the right of parents to use any force to discipline their children. While it does allow for force to be used if the child is disruptive (and let the battles continue over the legal definition of "disruptive"!) it does not allow for us to put a child in time out as punishment, yet our diet of parenting programs over recent years have consistently promoted time out as a suitable means of punishment. The implications of this bill have not been thought out by its proponents. Do not take our parenting tools away from us. Give us new ones by all means and let us try them first and get used to them. No craftsperson will work with ineffective tools if they have better ones. But let the craftsperson decide what works best. Let parents be parents.
Shannon
As a parent, it is a rare occasion when I smack my kids but I dont believe taking away parents right to smack their kids is going to make the right kind of difference. They are trying to decrease child abuse, but passing an anti-smacking bill is not going to do this, those parents who do go overboard with physical violence towards their children are still going to do it behind closed doors! When I was a child, my father had a belt that he used on us as discipline - he never abused it, but we always knew that if our behaviour was bad enough we would get the belt. I'd like to point out that myself and my two siblings have grown into pretty well-adjusted individuals, even though this was the case in our household!
Tawhilangi
What a farce! How much money do we pay our politicians? Have the not got better things to do than to continually degrade our ethics? Statistics do not lie! Sweden newly introduced no smacking policies, child abuse cases quadrupled. Netherlands legal to discipline kids, child abuse cases low. Japan corporal pinishment..child abuse non existent. England no smacking! Youth crime increased exponentially. We have got to wake up! What is this Sue Bradford pushing? Has she done any homework? Our country keeps adopting stupid policies that have already failed in many countries. Why? Problems began in our country when we started to model our rules and regulations to other so called modernised and westernised countries. I am a secondary school teacher who will never teach in this country again, I have taught in many countries around the world and I am totally saddened and disheartened with the discipline(or lack of it) that I have seen in our current schooling system. It is o ut of control,there is no more respect in our classrooms anymore. Why do we have teacher shortages, no teachers want to teach todays students it only takes 1 hooligan to ruin and destabilise a class. What can we do? Ring the parents whom are already disenchanted with there childs carelessness. We just keep going backwards..and we always will with ill conceived policies like this. I have voted for labour the last 20 years , its time for a change! Mr Key please do something about this. I love my children too much to let this bill pass. I want them to know whats right and wrong not just in my eyes but any person that interacts with them ie teachers, nurses, caregivers. The list goes on.
Ian T
Disciplining children is only one aspect of parenting. Important yes, but only one aspect of parenting. If I were prosecuted for smacking I would sue the agency and government for defamation. Why? cause I know no politician, CYFS worker, or program could provide better holistic parenting than I do.Dear MPs lead by example. On that shortlist betcha my parenting and family life is way more model New Zealand than theirs, and they think they know better.
Blair
Sue Bradford and her support group have got this one completely wrong. Good parents will again live in fear of another piece of legislation that inhibits and prevents them from doing their job. Parents such as the Kahuis will do what they have always done with any piece of law - ignore it and continue to abuse their kids anyway. Unfortunately Sue and her friends in power are so out of touch with reality that they cant seem to see the truth on this issue, we have a good law it is simply not enforced by our courts. Any parent who is prosecuted for say taking a hose to their child or punching and kicking them, who then cries "reasonable force" when prosecuted should be laughed out of court before being jailed. This doesnt happen leading to the perception of failure and allowing intrusive legislation such as this to be put on the table as a solution. As with most PC "social engineering" undertaken by this government and its cronies this will only further weaken and undermine good families (of all types) ability to deal with their children, while those most unfit to raise kids will do as they have always done regardless of what Sue and Helen say.
Alice
I think smacking should definitely be banned. It sends out the wrong message to kids about violence. My dad has smacked me and my younger sister all our lives and now I am 15 and he still does it, but now pervertedly. My younger sister has been taught to use violence and now she is taller than me and she hits and scratches me brutally at any possible moment. Parents should use their intellect and maturity to show their authority, not because they are bigger and able to cause the most pain.
Izzy
I feel this is a scatter gun approach to try and solve a very important issue, that being the physical abuse of children in this country. Children are always testing the boundaries. As a child, I was taught with a swift smack when I had reached one. I find it insulting that Sue Bradfords bill questions our ability to parent our own children in our ethical way. From our prolific record of child abuse cases in this country I would like to think our Government departments would have gathered enough reoccurring statistics to isolate potential child abuse environments or indicators and to act on them. Lets face it! As terrible as it sounds a large majority of cases occur in lower social economic environments were people are not widely read, not educated, not trained, not accustomed to the normal standard of living that each of us experience and they have no money. A shotgun approach will never work. Sue Bradfords bill is victimizing good parents while leaving the most vulnerable children still wide open to abuse. Why not waste more of our Police resources following up a smacked child after he has drawn on the curtains. This is a serious problem and I think a concentrated effort focused on the problem areas is the only way we are going fix it. Not tainting everybody with the same brush, clogging our already inefficient police force with the task of supplying parental guidance.
Matthew Pilott
So many people, all with the same view saying: The bill is going to make me a criminal, the govt cant tell me what to do, I am still going to smack my child, etc. Bloody-minded idiocy. First, the bill will help to prevent child abuse by removing an excuse for it in the courts, that abuse was discipline. Secondly, think of contact sports - do all participants get branded criminals? No - show some common sense! Third - all the people complaining out there about the bill are probably the same ones who said that prostitution would become rampant after it was legalised, or that all the pubs will close down once smoking is illegal inside. Get your head out of the ground and check out reality! It's a lot better that you imagine, and this bill will be the same. Abusers wont be able to use the law you so dearly cherish as an excuse to abuse children, and you wont have to change a thing.
L Kaaho
If such a law does come to pass I can see a lot of false accusations and a lot of legal issues that are not necessary. Leave the bill as it is. My children do get a light smack every now again. If you want to stop child abuse making it illegal to smack is not going to stop it. Those people that beat their children are not going to stop just because someone in parliament told them too. I really infuriates me that those people tell us how to live and yet are not there to help clean up when it all goes wrong.
Peter McKay
About time Bradford go into the real world.
Jamie
I would smack my child to discipline them. Time-out might work some of the time. But, I think some of these kids need a good kick up the backside (not literally, you know what I mean), 14 year old car thieves, 13 year old pizza killers, youth gangs, as well as the odd spoilt kid in the checkout. I think this law will honestly be a "smack" in the face of todays society. Kids can almost get away with murder before getting a smack. Some of the ideas in parliament are just away with the fairies I reckon. Thats my opinion, each to their own.
Matthew Muir
Sue Bradford has shown herself to be totally disingenuous. In one breath she says that she does not want to criminalise good parents and that those giving an occasional smack have nothing to fear from her bill ( a view contradicted by the Police yesterday).But when Chester Burrows very sensible amendment is put forward she quickly shows her true colours - those of a radical idealogue whose mission is to indeed to criminalise good parents who see a light smack as one of the tools available to them to protect and guide their children. The constant refrain of the far left is that the state should stay out of peoples private lives. Thus many of the liberal reforms of the last few years. How hypocritical this bill is in that context. The role of the State is to protect children from violence. Subject to that qualification it has no role in telling parents how to rear their children. This is a monstrous challenge to the rights and responsibilities of every good parent in NZ.
Caroline
I thought I was cynical enough about politics these days that it could no longer surprise me. However, I am surprised, and genuinely appalled, that Sue Bradfords bill looks set to pass. It staggers me that our elected representatives are so willing to completely ignore the overwhelming majority of the public who oppose this bill. They are supposed to be listening to what the people want, and in this case, the people have said a resounding no. What has happened to our democracy? As for Sue Bradford, I believe she has every right to disapprove of smacking as a form of discipline. However, she also needs to accept that the vast majority of the population does not agree with her, as the opinion polls have made very clear. She is using her position as an MP to force every parent in this country to comply with her minority beliefs. I support her right to her opinion, but I do not believe she should have the right to force that opinion on the rest of us.
Barbara-Ann
I have never hit my children and do not agree with other people hitting their children. There is to much violence in New Zealand towards children and we have children and babies being killed because of this. They are innocent and sometimes helpless to defend themselves against their parents and other humans. We would not pick on someone our own size so why do it to a little child or baby. If they is what you need to do to have power, I feel sorry for you.
Angela Northey
Sue Bradfords bill making it illegal to smack your children will do nothing to curb the growing trend of children being killed or badly abused by their parents. All it will do is to turn good and reponsible parents into criminals. The law as it stands gives police the right to prosecute parents who abuse their children. What we really need to do is make it illegal for people to protect abusers, the police should have wider powers to charge people who obstuct any investigations into child abuse and murder.
Jenny
What ever happened to referendums and gauging what the parents/people of NZ would like? Obviously we are not considered intelligent enough by the Government to have a say at all in this even though it affects all of our futures greatly. Kids these days dont have enough respect and discipline as it is let alone bring in this stupid bill. My son is 8 and when he goes off the rails a bit, one smack seems to see him right for a good 12 months. Just have a look at the crime that goes on in the UK amongst teenagers since they took away parents rights to smack Give us a say.
Electra
All the debate on this bill seems to be over whether parents should or shouldnt smack their children. However, the real issue is whether it should be illegal to smack your children, and whether a tap on the wrist equals child abuse. What is upsetting the majority of people is the inconsistency of the argument. On the one hand, the new bill will legally imply that a tap on the wrist is child abuse. On the other hand, of course people who just tap their child on the wrist wont actually be prosecuted. The professed goal of this bill is to send a clear message. Its proponents seem to have forgotten the first rule of parenting, which should also apply to the laws of society - be consistent. Real child abuse in NZ is a horrific problem, despite the fact that last time I looked it was still illegal. Please can we address some real needs instead namely providing better support to parents who need it, and helping children in danger?
Mike
Once again the nanny state imposes on all the innocent people measures that potentially make them criminals but does not even attempt to tackle the real issue of the Kahui twins and the kids that got stabbed in Wellington. About time some of these people in Government got a real job and saw what life was really like!
G Ward
With New Zealands appalling child abuse figures, it is understandable that parliamentarians are anxious to do something to rectify the situation. However, I emphatically believe that if the anti smacking bill should become law, it will do little to deter those who inflict grievous bodily harm on their children. It is hard to contemplate what happens in the mind of one who inflicts such violence on defenceless children. But I would imagine that if a parent is enraged and out of control, they are not going to give a thought to possible prosecution and are going to go through with thrashing (not smacking) their child. It is the parents who lose control when discipling their children that are causing children of this country serious injury and creating atrocious child abuse statistics. It is the parents that smack their children in a controlled and level headed way that will become criminals.
Chris
I am stunned by people who argue that pets and animals have more rights than children! I can (and is desirable) tie my dog up through the day to prevent it wandering. An animal can be sold to another person if I want to. If my dog bites somebody the expectation is that it will be destroyed. If the animal develops a condition that reduces its quality of life (or even if simply no longer desired) I can have it put down. I cant see anyone getting away with carrying on that behaviour with children. It is an unnecessary distraction from the real issues this bill raises to compare animals to children.
Kristine
I cant understand how someone without any children can tell the other parents in this country how they should raise there kids ! My child ran out onto the road because she knew that I was too heavily pregnant and i couldnt catch her. When I did, I gave her a few hearty smacks on the behind so she understood the fear and anger that I had as I watched a holden narrowly miss her. A smacked behind is certainly appropriate at times.
Max Percy
Leave the Act as it is, although in reality that is not going to happen now that it has got pass its 2nd reading. Even though there appears massive voters opposition to the proposed Bill Politicians with their "nanny state" thinking and PC madness will press on regardless. If politicians want to turn their back on the masses then they should leave parliament and take up employment as conductors. Most of what I wanted to express about this Bill has already been said other than this. Is this the same Green Party that opposed the raising of the age in regards to our young people that could access pornographic material and opposed in Parliment the change of class classification of the "P" drug to class A? And as far as the proponents argument " that adults do no not hit adults so why children" how stupid is that? Adults do not have sex with children. Finally, even though I strongly oppose the bill in its present form, I think it is pretty gutless and a real low life that would threaten Sue or any politician simply because one has a different viewpoint .So whoever you are and you are reading this take a good look at yourself and show some brains.
Angela Ford
What right does Sue Bradford have to dictate to 4 million New Zealanders how to raise their children? This country will produce a generation of P addicts, gangsters and criminals because their parents right to discipline them was taken away from them! Sue, for the sake of my child, I will continue to smack her when she ill treats others, is disrespectful to her elders and does not obey the rules of my home!
JB
The SPCA was founded more than forty years before the Society for the Prevention Of Cruelty to Children. Interesting that more than a century later, our pets still have more rights than our children. Thank God for people like Sue Bradford.
Seth
I am neither elderly nor very articulate, however when I was young I was smacked when the situation deserved called for it. I dont believe I have any consequential complexes because of it, and I believe it helped me to become the disciplined young man that I am. It was far more effective than time out, more clear cut that a sharp word and more final about a matter than any grounding could manage. And it made the distinction between what was very wrong (punishment was smacking) and what was disapproved of. this bill will only serve to impinge upon the disciplinary rights of the parents who use smacking properly. Also, I cant believe that the government would imagine that people who have the disregard to beat there children and then pass it off as discipline will stop beating their children, simply because there is a law against it. Considering it is only a very small amount of offenders who are caught and then convicted, proportionate to the amount who do and get away with it. In short I believe the ruling will do more to get in the way of good parents, than it will to stop the actions of the horrific people who would see there cause to hitting there children.
Chris Patrick
Smacking is not abuse. Light smacking, warming the behind, all watered down terms for hitting a child. We hit young children because we can, as parents we are a lot bigger and a lot stronger than a very young child and therefore able to hit them and intimidate them without the fear of retaliation. I suggest also that we rely on the fear from the child of being smacked and threatening the child with hitting and saying the next one will be harder. As time goes by and our children grow up we all forget about that period in our lives when might was right and say smacking never hurt me and look how well they have turned out. But for some the memories of those tough days and years live on and are not brushed under the carpet so easily. You will get a lot more respect from your children and be proud to say I never hit my children when they were young, they will love you more not less.
>> Go to a selection of yesterday's views
