The Press on the Referendum

I'll just quickly run over this article and make a few comments in bold.
Petition earns referendum on `child-smacking' law - The Press

New Zealanders will be asked to vote on the so-called anti-smacking law next year.
So-called? Well, that was what the Green Party called it initially.

Parliament's Clerk of the House said yesterday that a petition organised by Christian political activists had enough valid signatures to force a referendum.
Hah, just couldn't help yourselves could you? Yes, the petition question was written by Sheryl Savill who works for Focus on the Family. But look at the huge support nationwide, from a huge variety of people and groups.

Justice Minister Annette King said planning had begun to hold a postal vote on section 59 of the Crimes Amendment Act.

"The advice to me has been that it should be a postal referendum, and my latest advice is that it will take until about mid-next year to organise such a referendum properly," she said.

An audit of the petition found that 310,000 of the 390,000 signatures were valid.

That represented 25,000 more signatures than the 10 per cent of the national electorate required for a non-binding referendum.

Parliament's Speaker, Margaret Wilson, is expected to present the petition to the House on Tuesday, after which the Government will have one month to announce a date.

The referendum question will be: "Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?"

Petition organiser Larry Baldock, who founded the Christian-based Kiwi Party, said the vote should be held with this year's general election.

The Government has ruled this out, saying the petition had come too late and it would best be held as a postal ballot next year.

"It has been a long battle to assert the right of all New Zealanders to be heard on this controversial issue," Baldock said.

"Quite frankly, in a democracy it should not require so much effort. The referendum should be held at this year's election.

"None of the reasons being given by the Prime Minister for delaying it make any sense at all, and are simply a tactic for her to try to avoid this being an election issue."

Family First director Bob McCroskrie said the petition showed the strength of the opposition to the law.

Green Party MP Sue Bradford, whose child-discipline bill last year removed the defence of reasonable force from the Crimes Act, said she welcomed the ongoing debate.
Hah, did she? That's easy to believe.

"They put an enormous amount of effort, time and money into it, so it is not a surprise," Bradford said.

"We will continue to engage in the debate. It is all part of the process of changing the culture of violence in this country.

"The fact that these people are so determined to change the law back again just gives us more of an opportunity to educate people as to why we shouldn't be able to legally hit our children."

Bradford said the referendum question was misleading. "There is no such offence in New Zealand law as smacking. There never was and there isn't now. There is an offence of assault on a child."
Then why was your original bill drawn up as an "Anti-Smacking bill"?

She said that while the referendum was not binding, she would not trust a future National government not to change the law, despite the party's current support for the legislation after a last-minute deal with Labour.

"I've heard National MPs out and about basically dog-whistling to the Christian Right," she said.

National leader John Key has ruled out overturning the law if he becomes prime minister unless there was evidence of good parents being prosecuted.

Figures released by police have so far shown that has not happened.

Key did not return a call for comment yesterday.

Clark told Parliament in June that she had received "strong advice" from the Ministry of Justice that it was too late for a referendum to be held with this year's election.

She said the Government had accepted the ministry's advice that it would cause too much confusion, and a postal ballot next year was preferable.

The ministry said a postal referendum could cost taxpayers between $4.8 million and $6.4m.

A previous petition to force a referendum was ruled invalid when it was found it had failed to collect enough signatures.
No, it was not ruled invalid, and it was not a previous petition. It was the same petition for which we were granted another 2 months - as is usual practice, to make up the short-falling.

Clerk Confirms: Referendum to go Ahead

Kiwi Party Press Release
2pm, 22 August 2008

Kiwi Party Leader and CIR Petition organiser Larry Baldock welcomed the news today that the petition has been certified by the Clerk of the House of Representatives to have achieved sufficient signatures to force a referendum on the question, “should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”

“This is great news and a huge victory,” said Mr Baldock.
“It has been a long battle to assert the right of all New Zealanders to be heard on this controversial issue. Quite frankly in a democracy it should not require so much effort. I want to pay tribute to Sheryl Savill who was prepared to put her name to the petition, and the thousands of volunteers that have helped us collect over 390,000 signatures,” Mr Baldock said.

The clerk of the house has declared that 310,000 signatures were certified as valid.
This means there were over 25 000 more signatures than the 285 027 required by the CIR Act 1993 to force a referendum.

“The referendum should be held at this year’s election. None of the reasons being given by the Prime Minister for delaying it make any sense at all, and are simply a tactic for her to try and avoid this being an election issue. She will not drown out the voice of the people and should realise there is no point further angering everyone by delaying the inevitable.

“Justice delayed is justice denied, Prime Minister. 110 MPs should never have ignored 80% of the population in the first place, and the right thing to do now is to let every Kiwi have their say as quickly as possible.

“The Kiwi Party have made it our number one priority to ensure that voice of the people in this referendum is respected. There is ample evidence that good mums and dads are now being prosecuted by this new law, while there is no evidence that it has led to any reduction in the real child abuse we are all concerned about,” said Mr Baldock.

www.thekiwiparty.org.nz

A Note from Larry

Today is of course the 1st year anniversary of the passing of the anti-smacking law.

We have collected over 350,000 signatures on Sheryl Savills petition and have handed in approx. 296,000 signatures on my petition to understand and address the wider causes of family breakdown, family violence and child abuse.

I suggest we all have a drink of whatever we enjoy, or eat some chocolate, or do something to celebrate that we have come this far in our battle against this legislation and our fight for those being abused.

I am confident that our full celebration is not far away.

You can watch the youtube video clip of the press conference by clicking here.

You can read the text of the press conference here also. (click here)

There are some plans being formulated to collect the remaining signatures we need.

Can we all do our best to finish this as soon as possible?

'Many hands make light work' as they say. If you have an activity you are planning to collect signatures at and need volunteers please let me know and I will put out a schedule of the opportunities for the next few weeks.

Not long to go now and we can all enjoy a little break perhaps.

Warm regards, Larry

Child Abuse Petition Submitted

Press Release: The Kiwi Party - May 14 2008. I will add a few comments in bold.

Time for a new approach on addressing family breakdown, family violence and child abuse

“Today marks the end of 14 months of collecting signatures for a CIR petition in my name to request a referendum on the question, ‘should the Government give urgent priority to understanding and addressing the wider causes of family breakdown, family violence and child abuse in New Zealand?’ The collection of signatures for Sheryl Savill’s petition, which is a separate question entirely, is ongoing and we have now collected approx 350,000 for that petition. I will resubmit those when we are sure we have sufficient to cross the hurdle of the audit process. Our goal is 380,000, see www.unityforliberty.net.nz for a regularly updated signature count.

Today I will deliver approx 300,000 signatures to the Clerk of the House of Representatives for my petition and we will now await (once again) a seemingly bizarre audit process to be carried out according to the CIR Act 1993.

Whatever the outcome of this process, 300,000 signatures represent a huge response from the people of New Zealand who have consistently expressed their concern at our deplorable child abuse and family violence statistics. Absolutely. 300,000 Kiwis have put pen to paper, saying that they are sick and tired of the child-abuse and family-breakdown which continues, unabated - despite the untold millions of tax-payers money that the Government continues to throw at the problem - in the form of Cindy Kiro (Children's Commissioner), and the Families Commission - as well as countless other beurocracies busy accomplishing nothing good.

After nearly nine years of a Government lead by Helen Clark and supported entirely or in part by Jim Anderton, Jeannette Fitzsimons, Peter Dunne and Winston Peters, there is not a single statistic that can be referred to that shows their ‘lame duck policies’ have worked. This is despite huge tax surpluses and a strong economy.

A clear example of this is that we now have the Minister of Social Development openly acknowledging her own department’s report that reveals the poor are worse off under a Labour Government than after the ‘mother of all budgets’ in the 90’s.

This petition and these signatures are calling for greater action on understanding and then addressing the wider causes of family breakdown, family violence and child abuse.

We begin our question with the call to “understand’, as that is the first step to solving any problem. Clearly this Government does not have any understanding of the real causes of our problems and has simply continued to keep bringing so many ‘ambulance at the bottom of the cliff’ type responses that there is no parking space left. What we really need are some solid fences constructed at the top.

Our social statistics reveal such systemic problems within our society that the Kiwi Party believes the Government should urgently appoint an independent Royal Commission to respond to this. Surely it is time to look for new answers and solutions?

Anti-smacking advocate and nanny state zealot Sue Bradford, now admits (contrary to her earlier claims) that her Anti Smacking Bill was never intended to address the causes of child abuse and reduce our awful statistics for child maltreatment deaths.

Anyone with a modicum of common sense now acknowledges that with 7 child deaths in less than a year, Bradford's Bill is a feel-good fantasy dressed up as a complete waste of time, unless of course Bradford's real plan was to deconstruct the traditional family unit." Wow, I completely agree Larry. A dangerous but brave question to ask.

Clerk Reports on Petition: 20,000 signatures to go

"Smacking law petition fails to gather enough valid signatures" screams the headline on the TV3 news site.

NewstalkZB picks up the story, picking up on comments from Sue Bradford, the Green MP who introduced the Anti-Smacking bill. "The opponents of the "anti-smacking" law are being told to move on, as their petition calling for the repeal of the legislation change does not have enough valid signatures to force a referendum."

Stuff.co.nz presents a confused story, claiming that the petition organisers have been dealt a "major blow".

David Farrar at Kiwiblog tells it like it is.

"They needed 285,027 signatures valid signatures. They got 324,216 but a sample found around 11% were not able to be found on the electoral roll plus 1% illegible and 0.5% duplicates. This is about normal off mory.

So their valid signatures were calculated as 269,500 so they need 16,000 more valid signatures which is probably 20,000 more total signatures to be safe.

I suspect the Government is nervous about having every voter reminded of the law they are primarily identified with, at the very point at which they are voting."

Meanwhile, Bob McCoskrie doesn't have any time for the media hype, and gets to the main point, which is:

"the success of the petition demanding a public referendum on the highly unpopular and extremist anti-smacking law shows that politicians should respond now, not after the election, to the wishes of NZ parents."

The Clerk of the House has disqualified 16,294 signatures - this comes as no surprise, despite the wild exaggerations from the mainstream media. In fact, this is a relatively low number of signatures to be crossed out, as we see in an excerpt from this article (23 Feb 08) from the Section 59 blog:

"In the last petition demanding a referendum (Norm Wither's 1999 law and order referendum), almost 60,000 signatures were disallowed by the Clerks who check the validity of the signatures."

"We have already collected an additional 20,000 signatures" says Larry Baldock in his Press Release, 29 April 2008, “We were always concerned about the hurdles to be crossed in the audit process, said Mr Baldock, and for that reason we continued collecting signatures after we handed in the 324,511 signatures on Feb 29th."

Click here to download the petition form. If you haven't already, sign it, get your friends and family to sign it, and then send it to the address on the bottom of the form.

Petition calling for referendum on "anti-smacking" law results unclear

It is unclear whether we have gained enough signatures on the petition calling for a referendum on the 'anti-smacking' law to have it put on the ballot paper.

The Kiwi Party leader put out this press release explaining the results.

Kiwi Party Leader and anti-smacking petition organiser Larry Baldock confirmed today that the preliminary results from Sheryl Savill’s petition to force a referendum on the question, ‘should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offense in NZ?’ was going to be very close to being just under or over the required threshold.

A total of 324,316 signatures were handed in on Feb 29th. To succeed in forcing a referendum it is required to have the certified signatures of 10% of those enrolled on the electoral role which on that day was 285,027. That would therefore require a success rate of 87.88% from the audit process undertaken by the Chief Registrar of Electors. A random sample of 29,501 signatures was taken and checked individually against the electoral role with 25,754 qualifying as certified correct.

Mr Baldock said “If I did my own simple maths on those figures we would then estimate that we had a success rate of 87.29%

“However I am informed by the Clerk that the Government Statistician needs 90 hours to complete a very complicated mathematical formula to officially ascertain the number of correct signatures. I have no idea why this must take so long and whether there will be any great variation from my simple maths. It begins to look like the Duckworth-Lewis system of determining the results in rain shortened One Day Cricket matches, and we all know how they turn out, usually in the other teams favour! said Mr Baldock.

The final result must be given to the Speaker of the House of Representatives no later than next Tuesday April 29th by the Clerk of the House.

_________________________________________

So if you take 87.29% of the 324316 signatures collected we get 283095 correct signatures. That is 1935 signatures short. Lets see what the Clerk has to say on Tuesday.
_____________________________________
Also posted at NZ Debate

Hypocrisy from Peter Dunne

Hypocrisy Again From Mr Dunne

Peter Dunne is in trouble after saying that the people should decide in a referendum on MMP. This is very inconsistent as he would hate to see a referendum on the "anti-smacking" law.

Larry Baldock picked up on it and put out this press release.

_____________________________________________________

Peter Dunne is reported in the Dominion Post as saying it is "time for the people to decide." He refers to the need to have a referendum on the review of the MMP system of New Zealand politics.

Mr Dunne fails to acknowledge that there is already a referendum waiting in the wings. It has the numbers - over 600,000 combined signatures from the voting public of New Zealand, calling for:

a.. A referendum on the controversial anti-smacking laws. b.. The establishment of a Royal Commission into indentifying the real causes of family breakdown, dysfunction and child abuse" says Larry Baldock, leader of Kiwi Party.

"Let's have one referendum at a time. The people have called for it and good democratic governance would not stand in the way of it being held."

Mr Dunne, in his apparent new found respect for 'the people to decide,' can now declare his intention to respect the referendum on repealing the anti-smacking bill he voted for, in order to be legitimately consistent".

Mr Dunne suggests that "MMP is working out in practice to be a little different from what was intended..."

The Kiwi Party suggests that is because party leaders like Mr Dunne have ignored the will of those that elected them and have signed up to support a Government ideology that does not have the support of the vast majority of New Zealanders.

There are many voters who see the passing of controversial laws as 'somewhat different than what they intended their chosen party to vote for'.

"Yes, "It's time", Mr Dunne to let the people to decide - so let's see how the citizens of New Zealand respond to the Referendum right in front of them".

"We can then monitor the politicians response in due course". Says Mr Baldock.

Presentation of Petition for Referendum

The Cartoon they didn't publish...

click for a larger version

This cartoon was created by Stan Blanch in response to The Press's two highly offensive cartoons, targeting Family First and Larry Baldock, and accusing them of being pro child-abuse. When you have to sink to the level of making a joke of child abuse, there is something terribly wrong. Or of slandering - yes, that word - slandering such a man as Bob McCoskrie who has led the charge with the Five Point Action Plan to combat child abuse in New Zealand. You can view the two cartoons below...

The Press is not worth the paper it is written on.

Anti-smacking petition closes in on signature target

This from Stuff.co.nz

Organisers of a petition to force an election-day referendum on anti-smacking laws say they are just 5000 signatures short of their target.

They have until the end of this month to reach 300,000 and are confident they can do it.

Parliament passed the bill that outlaws smacking in May last year, and within weeks opponents were organising the petition against it.

Former United Future MP, and now leader of the new Kiwi Party, Larry Baldock said last night that the total was 295,000. "Technically, we only need 286,000 but we always aimed for 300,000 to make sure we have a bit of a buffer," he said. "We could lose 10 per cent or 20 per cent of them, so we'll continue to collect. But we're certainly going to have enough to meet the requirements on the 29th."

The buffer is needed because the signatures on citizen-initiated referenda are put through a rigorous checking process by electoral authorities.

Some previous petitions have been handed in with enough signatures but so many were lost during checking that they failed to meet the requirements.

The result of a referendum on the laws will not be binding on the Government.

The legislation bans the smacking of children as a punishment, although "reasonable force" can still be used to stop them harming themselves or others. -- NZPA

_____________________________________

It's great to see that we are almost there, and it is also great news to hear that we only actually need 286,000 not 303,000.

Anti-smacking law likely to come under more heavy fire this year

This from the Gisborne Herald

Politicians look like being confronted, challenged and possibly embarrassed by the prospect of a referendum on the anti-smacking law later this year, almost certainly held in tandem with the next election.

Opponents of the controversial legislation initiated by Green MP Sue Bradford are now close to the 300,000 signatures necessary to force a citizen's initiated referenda.

Almost 5000 signatures were obtained last weekend, including 1000 at the World Cup of Motorsport event at Taupo, 720 at a "blues, brews and barbecues" event in Hastings and other tallies from A&P Shows.

The current total of almost 268,000 represents a gain of 43,000 in the past two months, suggesting no diminution of public feeling on the issue.

Principal organiser Larry Baldock told The Gisborne Herald: "We've got to keep it moving, but we're pretty confident we'll be able to see this through to a referendum."

Two petitions are being canvassed with a deadline of February 28 to obtain the signatures of at least 10 percent of registered electors and present them to the Clerk of the House of Representatives.

The first -- "Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand? -- is in the name of Aucklander Sheryl Savill, a mother-of-two who works with Focus on the Family and whose husband is a policeman.

The second, in Mr Baldock's name, is "Should the Government give urgent priority to understanding and addressing the wider causes of family breakdown, family violence and child abuse in New Zealand?"

As a former United Future MP Mr Baldock has been the public face of the campaign since the petitions began circulating a year ago, with strong support from volunteers, organised groups and churches.

The terms for organising and conducting Citizen's Initiated Referenda (CIR) are defined by legislation enacted by the Bolger administration in 1993, since when only two petitions have reached the point of forcing a plebiscite.

Interesting stuff . . . but even a referendum result is not binding on the Government.

_________________________________________________________________________
If you haven't signed this petition then you need to, go to www.unityforliberty.net.nz/petition.html and print it sign it and send it. oh and get your mates to sign it too !!

250,000 Signatures Collected

"This is a message to Sue Bradford and Helen Clark and all those who thought they could ignore good decent Mum’s and Dad’s in this country who are trying to do their best with the most important job in the world. No Helen, it’s not being Prime Minister, it is raising good kids."

"The referendum is coming which will allow every New Zealander to have their say. If the PM, Sue Bradford and all the MP’s who supported it had any respect for democracy they would have called for the referendum themselves!"

Click here for the Press Release from Larry Baldock

Larry Baldock & Bradford on Radio NZ

Larry comments on the false "3 Month Review" issued by the Police recently. Bradford attempts to defend the flawed piece of legislation with her name on it. Larry brings up the salient question "if there have been no prosecutions - then what is the point of the law?"

The below clip is six minutes long and well worth a listen.

Right click here and choose "save" to download the MP3 file

Audio from: www.radionz.co.nz

The good, the Bad and the Ugly:

Repeal in Pictures

Clark: Prime Minister"I definitely see children as destroying my lifestyle"
from www.investigatemagazine.com

Simon Barnet, MoreFM Radio

UNICEF lists the key factors for child abuse as: family breakdown, alcohol, drugs, poverty, low education and so on. Smacking is not even mentioned!

Larry Baldock: Future NZ

New Zealand is a democracy! 80% of everyday Kiwis don't want Bradford's bill, so we will have a referendum!

Hone Harawira, Maori MP

Before white man came, we let our kids go wherever they wanted.

Bradford, Green MP

A light smack is child abuse!

The hug
With you all the way Sue...

The handshake
Welcome my son... Welcome to the Machine!

Katherine Rich, National MP
Section 59 let parents off for beating their children with planks of wood and horse-whips, to within an inch of their lives...

Cindy Kiro, "children's commissioner"
"well I think umm... if you know what a light smack is, [then there is] probably nothing much [wrong with it]"
from Campbell Live interview

John Key, leader of National Party
Peace in our time!

Unless indicated with quotation marks, captions are to be read as comments, not quotes.