Inconsistencies

Here's a couple of things that everyone's thinking, but not everyone is prepared to say:

1. The third point in Sue Bradford's Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill says:
"The purpose of this Act is to amend the principal Act to abolish the use of reasonable force by parents as a justification for disciplining children."

The oxymoronical wording of this point is surely evidence enough that Sue Bradford's proposed ammendment is ridiculous. When a society begins supporting the illegilisation of "reasonable" things, then that society has got issues. Big issues.


2. Many, if not most of the advocates of the repealling of Section 59 are linked in some way to Children's Right's organisations. Instead of hammering the law-abiding parents who want the best for the kids, why don't these community-spirited people and groups turn their attention to an issue that is affecting our country, and our country's children to a much greater extent? That issue is abortion. Compared with the murder of 17.5 thousand young children last year (see the statistics on www.stats.govt.nz, the smacking issue really does pale into insignificance!

Lets get our priorities sorted out New Zealand!

Polls: New Zealanders want to keep Section 59

1. Check out this article on Scoop.co.nz Massive Opposition to Repeal of Section 59

Keep Section 59: 83.8% (5,322 respondents)

Repeal Section 59: 12.6% (800 respondents)

Not sure: 3.6% (228 respondents)

2. Down the bottom of the polls page on Muriel Newman's site, you can see the results of her poll on the issue:

Keep Section 59: 97%

Repeal Section 59: 3%

Responses received: 1593

3. TV One Opinon Poll: see the article on the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards website

Support parent's right to use reasonable force: 93%

Against: 7%

The tvnz.co.nz poll is still active. Vote here:

tvnz.co.nz poll

4. New Zealand Herald online poll (mid 2005) see the article on www.nzherald.co.nz here

Keep Section 59: 71.2%

Repeal Section 59: 21%

5. Child abuse conference in Wellington, NZ. See: Society for the Promotion of Community Standards (second paragraph)

“Smacking is ok” 82%

“Keep Section 59” 60%