Editorial: A law to be proud of

Mark Dawson, Editor of Wanganui Chronicle

The last time I wrote about Winston Peters, he quickly fired back a few well-chosen barbs and concluded that I was an unwelcome immigrant who might be better back where I came from.

So I must be careful ... but, I'm afraid he's got it wrong again.

His New Zealand First party has pledged to repeal what is termed the "anti-smacking" law, a private member's bill put before Parliament in 2007 by Green MP Sue Bradford and passed by 113 votes to eight.

This pledge has been seized on by lobby group Family First which reported Mr Peters as saying: "... the anti-smacking law ... doesn't work."

Wrong, Winston - I have seen it work and so, perhaps unknowingly, have many others.

While not quite up there with being the first nation to give women the vote, Bradford's bill is arguably the piece of legislation in the past decade of which New Zealand can be most proud.

Having spent recent years dealing with unruly children, frustrated parents, the police, Child, Youth and Family and other social agencies, I have some evidence on which to draw when I say this.

The witless counter-arguments trotted out by Family First and NZ First are that New Zealand still has unacceptably high rates of child abuse, as though the "anti-smacking" bill was somehow to miraculously end the sort of horrific cases of beaten and killed children that we have seen too much of.

That's like saying: "If we make drugs illegal, people will stop taking them." Yeah, right.

This law is about sending a message on how we treat children, how we respect them, and it is about the environment in which we want them brought up.

Its effect is not on the child abusers who appear in high-profile court cases; its effect is on making what may be termed "decent and law-abiding" parents reflect on how they treat their kids when they have reached the end of their tether and their emotions are telling them to lash out.

Where a smack might have been the instinctive, or even the routine, course of action, they are pausing, taking a breath ... thinking again.