The ballot for a Member’s bill to be introduced resulted in the following bill being drawn:
2. John Boscawen Crimes (Reasonable Parental Control and Correction) Amendment Bill
The introduction of the bill will be announced at 2.00 pm today, and the bill set down for first reading.
Why does this 1% of a party continue to make my life hell.
He has done some great work – especially all his work against the Electoral Finance Act.
If the lack of Maori seats on the Auckland council is “Making your life hell” it would seem that in fact your tendancy to overdramatise is in fact making your opionion impossible to take seriously.
Trevor will you and your caucus colleges support this bill to select committee?
Golden opportunity for you Trev, run with it!
This bill is an outrage because it won’t let good Kiwi parents hit their children with wooden spoons.
I hope the Labour Party takes the principled stand and listens to the public, and refuses to allow this watered down bill to go to select committee.
We should all bask in the wisdom of Sir Larry Baldock (knighted for services to child discipline):
Mr Baldock said his proposal, unlike the Boscawen bill, would let parents hit their children with instruments such as a wooden spoon.
“I’m not opposed to the wooden spoon or ruler because you can control things with that better than you can with an open hand.”
I will support it going to the Committee so people can have their say again. No guarantee after that.
Trevor – Should a smack as part of good caucus correction be a political offence in New Zealand?
Stop press – we’ve now got the bill. Sending it to a committee would mislead people into thinking a change would occur. That would be unfair and I’ll vote against it.
Trevor, at 3:17 it was “I will support it” and at 4:44 it was “I’ll vote against it”. Exactly what in the Bill triggered such a staggering 180 degree flip flop?
Prob more considered reflection rather than bill detail.
Not half as much a flipflip as John “flip flop” Key. TV3 is reporting him as supporting aspects of the bill and Scoop is reporting him as opposing it.
Is one of them wrong or are they just confused by him?
Links are at http://www.3news.co.nz/Home/Story/tabid/209/articleID/118344/cat/525/Default.aspx and http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2804348/Govt-won-t-support-ACT-smacking-bill
Correction
The TV3 link now says
“[Flip flop] earlier expressed partial support for the bill this afternoon, but has since clarified his statement and said there will be no support for the bill.”
Just a few weeks ago on your trip about New Plymouth, there was a caption that Labour was going to start to listen to what the people were saying. How quick it takes for that sentiment to be lost. This whole saga has been a bad case of how the political system fails the public. Initially labour manipulated this with not allowing a conscience vote, then delaying the referendum, and now the PM deciding to tell the police & CYPs NOT to perform their duties when a criminal act has occurred. Where else does the leader override the law, and criminal law at that !!!
“Prob more considered reflection rather than bill detail.”
Or the party whips having a word??
Key’s decision will cause major divisions in the National caucus. Has anybody asked Chester Borrows if he stands by his own amendment? Or any of the other National MPs who had argued so strongly for it? Are the press gallery asleep, or these days do they just wait for a press release to give them a story?
There’s a civil war brewing. National supporters are furious on the blogs. Here’s one quote:
“As for Key I have two words for him and they rhyme with “plucking banker”.”
That’s from Blair Mulholland, who stood for the National party candidacy in the Mt Albert by-election. Strong stuff.
Good on ya for not supporting it.
Although Trevor, bit surprised it took you so long to realise that a bill from the ACT party is bad. Let’s make it real simple. Anything ACT supports = stupid/evil/mean/lame. Therefore, anything ACT supports, Labour should not support. QED.
@ frank – and to think they allow people with such a shallow view vote.
ACT did a lot of good arguing against the horrific EFA that labour brought in. A lot of what they do is excellent work.
Amendment to s59 of the Crimes Act (I refuse to call it by its other name) is about protecting those children whose parents may beat them. Scratch that. Its about those parents going to jail for a long time. Under the old law, parents who beat their children almost to death could get off or get reduced sentences if they said they were using reasonable force. Now the problem we’ve got is, what the heck is reasonable force? You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere and trying to define this based only on case law isn’t really that great. Reasonable judgment is a moral statement and it isn’t right to have such ambiguous terms in law (and there are hundreds of them). s59 is also about giving our most defenseless members of society the same legal rights against assault as an adult. Its about equaling the score a little bit. Just because you are the child’s parent doesn’t mean that you should have the right to beat them.
in 50 years time, we will look back on s59 in the same light that we look at slavery and wife beating now. Abhorrent.
Andy B there is still the ability to smack and be within the law all that has changed is the abilty to smack for correctional purposes and be in some cases to be protected by S59. And if we talk of giving the same rights to children as adults then you try to place an adult in time out and not be technically committing an assult.
From a strategic point of view, I think Labour should support the bill to the select committee. This is for one simple reason – the longer this issue drags out the more damage it will do to National. The issue was a significant factor in bringing down the last government, in my opinion, so it’s in Labour’s interests to to let National suffer over the matter for a while too.
Just look at the frothing over at Kiwiblog: http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2009/08/boscawen_smacking_bill_drawn.html
jarbury:
1. that wouldn’t work – National + the Greens is a majority =)
2. it doesn’t matter – the debate is almost certainly going to last a while: Boscawen doesn’t currently have the numbers to get it to select committee, so he’ll postpone the first reading debate to try to work on the numbers … maybe the early months of election year?
Yeah I did the sums after making that comment and worked that out Graeme.
Is that even more reason for Labour to vote for the bill though? Knowing that they could do so without actually worrying that it might pass…. you know, justify it on the basis that “88% of people in the referendum seem to indicate they want this issue looked at again, we’re putting our out of touch perception behind us and supporting what the people seem to want.”
Personally, I would be grump at Labour if they did something like that. However, strategically it might make sense.
@jarbury – Nice, so a bit of electorate deception is fine as long as you get what you want. Good to see the left are still the same devious bunch I abandoned after 25 years. Strategically it might make sense? Good grief.
Can’t you see that this ignoring of public democracy helped lose the last election. and no I do not want to worry that I may be in cells if I forcibly carry a kid to his room. That would be an assualt on an adult even though some may need it. Sue Bradford in Frogblog showed a total contempt for democracy, research or parent worries.