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Family Integrity # 158 -- California Crushers
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Some encouragement: voters in California trounced anti-smacking legislation before it was even introduced. We need to wake NZers up to do as they did: flood their MPs with phone calls.
http://www.savecalifornia.com/getpluggedin/news_details.php?newsid=66
Regards,
Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity
PO Box 9064
Palmerston North
New Zealand
Ph: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
Family.Integrity@xtra.co.nz
www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz
Our Home....Our Castle
Print out this brochure and pass around:
If Section 59 is Repealed, Kiss Your Children Good-Bye
www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz
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Family Integrity # 157 -- This is not a subtle request for money!!!
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Greetings all,
I'm forwarding this appeal, which comes from Bob McCoskrie's Family First organisation, for your consideration.
Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity
PO Box 9064
Palmerston North
New Zealand
Ph: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
Family.Integrity@xtra.co.nz
www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz
Our Home....Our Castle
-----Original Message-----
From: admin@familyfirst.org.nz [mailto:admin@familyfirst.org.nz]
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 10:37 AM
To: Craig Smith
Subject: This is not a subtle request for money!!!
05 Feb 2007
Hi Craig,
Sorry - no excuses on this one....
Thi$ i$ a blatant plea for
financial donation$!
Please help up oppose Sue Bradford's Anti-Smacking Bill - the 'wackiest bill of the year'!
Family First wants to get the facts into the public domain concerning the real causes of child abuse, the important role and rights of parents, and what the anti-smacking Bill is really about.
We have produced an advertisement which we would like to publish in the 2 major Sunday newspapers (Herald on Sunday and Sunday Star Times) just before the 2nd vote on this Bill (21 February). This ad campaign will accompany our OPEN LETTER which has had an unbelievable response following our call for signatories.
You can see the newspaper ad here -
http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/files/NEWSPAPER%20ADVERTISEMENT%20Portrt.pdf
The cost of the campaign is between $15,000 and $25,000 - the amount raised will determine the size and placing. (We already have a number of substantial donations pledged - any excess amount will be used to place ads in smaller newspapers.)
These ads will get the country, talkback hosts, social commentators and MP's talking - which is exactly what we want. Too many people are scared to speak up on this issue because they are labelled as child abusers or told that they condone violence. When the Families Commissioner stood before the Select Committee last year, he suggested that parents who smack are "violent" and committing "assault"!!
We need to challenge this ideology . A smacking ban will do more harm than good. 80% of kiwis consistently say that section 59 is not the problem.
(You can read a number of articles showing the dangers of this bill
http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/index.cfm/Action_Alert_/Anti_smacking_Bill)
If you would like to make a pledge towards this Campaign, please email admin@familyfirst.org.nz - then we can determine what level of advertising we can afford. Any amount (small or large) will help us reach our target.
You can make your donation online
http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/index.cfm/Support_us
(PLEASE EMAIL US SO WE CAN ALLOCATE THE DONATION ACCORDINGLY)
Thanks for your consideration, and for helping us defend the family.
Bob McCoskrie - National Director
www.familyfirst.org.nz | About us | Media Centre | Contact Us | Support Us |
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Family Integrity # 156 -- CIR
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Greetings,
Ex MP Larry Baldock is organising a CIR (Citizens Initiated Referendum), hoping to launch it on 22 February.
Attached is some more information on it (see links below). If you're able to help out, please email Larry at: l.baldock@xtra.co.nz
Regards,
Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity
CIR Change Agent Pledge form
CIR Frequently Asked Questions
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Family Integrity # 155 -- Back to work!
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Greetings
Now that the holiday break is over and we have lovely weather, it is time to begin thinking about serious things again. Section 59 will be at the top as one of the most important things to be dealing with this year. Please put it in the top 3 items of your priority list for the rest of January and February.
WHERE IS SECTION 59 UP TO:
The report of the Select Committee who considered this Bill to repeal Section 59 can be read at:
http://tinyurl.com/yk49lh
In the old Section 59 correction was the only motivation allowed in the use of reasonable force with children.
With this proposed new Section 59, correction is the only motivation specifically prohibited in the use of reasonable force, while other motivations are specifically allowed!
It is clear: the real motivation behind this Bill is not to stop the use of force with children, but to stop parents from correcting their children.
For information on how a private members Bill progresses through Parliament read here: http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz/page/887173
According to this, the earliest that the Bill will surface in Parliament is February 21. The second reading could be February 21.
NEW BROCHURE:
We have a new brochure "Kiss your Children Goodbye" for passing out to people. Check it out here at the top of the www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz home page.
Please forward this link to your friends, neighbours and family.
We would also like to be able to give 1000s of this brochure away for free to people. Are you able to help with this by donating towards this cause? If so, then please send your donation to: Family Integrity, P O Box 9064, Palmerston North and mark your donation to be used for the printing of the brochure "Kiss your Children Goodbye".
WHAT SHOULD WE BE DOING NOW:
There needs to be a ground swell of people writing to the MPs for it is they who will be voting on this bill.
1. Therefore there continues to be an urgency for us all to be writing/visiting/phoning our MPs. All MP contact details can be found at: http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz/page/588413. Tell the MPs you are totally opposed to the repeal or the amendment of Section 59. Ask them to leave Section 59 just as it is and to simply dump Bradford's Bill as it is far too damaging to families.
2. We all need to be contacting our own MPs and all those that are able should also be contacting all the MPs
3. Contact should be via:
EMAIL: Consider sending an email to all the MPs using this link:
http://www.betterdemocracy.co.nz/email_mps.php
LETTER: A very effective way to lobby, no stamp required when sent to Parliament
FAX: This costs a bit more and is time consuming but effective.
PHONING: This is much easier to do than it would seem. You just ring the MPs office and say "Please add my name to the list of people you have who are against the Repeal or amendment of Section 59". You have to give your name of course and that is it.
VISIT: This is by far the hardest to do for some people. But this is most certainly the most effective way to lobby. We are fast running out of time for visiting our MPs. Parliament begins sitting again the week of February 12
4. Read this great press release from Family First on "CHILDREN'S NEEDS, NOT RIGHTS, SHOULD BE THE FOCUS"
http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/index.cfm/media_centre/published_articles/articles/children_s_needs__not_rights__should_be_the_focus.html
Click on the heading to read the whole article
5. Take a look at this Family First website. Family First is calling for people to advertise in papers: Protect parents from Bradford's anti-smacking Bill. Would you be willing to SPONSOR one of these advertisements in your local newspaper OR in a major newspaper? Click here for more information
http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/index.cfm/action_alert_/anti_smacking_bill.html
6. These are the days that Section 59 could come up in Parliament:
February 21
March 14 and 28
May 2 and 16
7. Ex MP Larry Baldock is organising a Citizens Initiated Referendum opposing this Bill and needs people to help as local contacts and co-ordinators. If you'd like to be involved, please email him at: l.baldock@xtra.co.nz.
8. Make a donation for the printing of "Kiss your Children Goodbye"
9. Order and distribute to friends, neighbours and relations the brochure "Kiss your Children Goodbye"
10. Forward this email and attachment to heaps of people - your friends, neighbours and relations
COMING EVENTS:
If you are in the South Island, then don't miss these meetings:
Hokitika, Oamaru and Christchurch
For more information go to: http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz/page/844292
We look forward to seeing you there.
Blessings
Craig and Barbara Smith
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Family Integrity # 154 -- Letter from Swedish Professor
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Dear Friends,
Ruby Harrold-Claesson forwarded an article from the NZ Herald to a University of Stockholm Professor who has written a very interesting reply. Here it is.
Regards,
Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity
Stockholm 11 January 2007
Ms Deborah Coddington
C/o The New Zealand Herald
P.O. Box 32
Auckland
New Zealand
Please forward
Dear Ms Coddington.
Your article titled “Anti-.smack campaign fails to pack a punch”, which appears to have been published in the New Zealand Herald July 30, 2006, has been brought to my attention and I think it calls from some comments, when read by a Swedish law professor. Indeed, for 7 years I was professor of Family Law at the University of Stockholm and even published a rather solid book on the Swedish family law as then it was (Family Law under change, Stockholm 1969 [Familjerätt i omvandling]). If you study our home page www.ioir.se, you will find a few more works on the same topic, some of them in English. You refer in your article to Professor Christian Diesen, who is indeed a law professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Stockholm as I am, but Dr Diesen is a Professor of Procedural Law, and not of Family Law or even Penal Law although he likes to express himself publicly in penal law matters. His perspective is therefore not necessarily always convincing when he ventures outside the procedural law. The fact that he has never heard of Mrs Ruby Harrold-Claesson is therefore not very surprising, nor does it blacken the reputation of Mrs Harrold-Claesson. I think that regrettably he has misled you somewhat in the matters you are discussing.
Mrs Harrold-Claesson is not a typical blond, blue-eyed Swede. She is a black woman originating from Jamaica, with a university degree from a French university, and has learnt Swedish and taken a Swedish law degree. In Swedish legal circles she is somewhat an outsider, with a keen eye for some Swedish shortcomings. She is very much detested by the social bureaucracy because she is clever to discover mistakes and misjudgements on their part in those cases that have been entrusted to her. In a tightly knit society as the Swedish one, this rubs off into judicial circles as well, but the difficulties she has experienced there has not prevented her from carrying on her work nationally and internationally. Consequently, she is a well-known figure among people who have a quarrel with the social authorities - not the least among immigrants of her own colouring, and the fact that your referees - like Dr Diesen - seem so eager to discount her may be a compliment rather than the opposite.
The Anti-smacking legislation that was adopted in Sweden in 1979, indeed adopted by a minority Government , eager to cut a profile politically, was formulated in a rather disastrous way. It said “A child may not be exposed to corporal chastisement or other insulting treatment”. (SFS 1979 No 122, adopted 22 March 1979). It does not require any legal training to see that this is a completely nutty formulation : Most small children do not have sufficient linguistic command to understand that a comment is ‘insulting’ and there is no bottom age limit set. In fact, when the matter was brought before the European Commission of Human Rights in the case Blom and Others vs Sweden (Appl. 8811/79, inadmissible 13 May 1983, press releases B (80) 14, B (84) 21), the Swedish Government Agent suggested that the provision was not meant to be taken seriously, and consequently nothing to complain about. However, it turned out that personnel in schools and day-homes taught the children that it was criminal for their parents to spank them or somehow hit them, and the cases that attracted most publicity was naturally those in which children informed upon their parents and the parents were subjected to criminal proceedings. It goes without saying that the atmosphere in such a family thereafter was less than harmonious, and it was not unnatural that the social authorities thought it best to take the little informers into public care. A powerful tool had been put into the hands of the naughty little children, getting into their difficult teens, and it was often used although, at least in the beginning, these cases were mostly - but not always - dismissed in the courts. But there were other informers around - neighbours, disgruntled spouses, and career-prone social bureaucrats - and the governmental authorities thought it to be ‘progressive’ to drown the population with propaganda how good it was that corporal chastisement was outlawed in Sweden. They even invested resources in producing leaflets in Finnish and other foreign languages to tell passing tourists that when in Sweden spanking their kids was not permitted, whatever mischief the kids had done - as e.g. the older ones beating the younger ones, a rather frequent case. The way Emil was locked up in the wood cabin in Astrid Lindgren’s popular books was now criminal.
Of course, the usefulness of this kind of legislation was never put to the test, sociological or other. Nobody has ever proven that it has done any good to family life or children’s behaviour; such studies were taboo. To the social bureaucracy, the existence of the legislation was a triumph, emphasizing their enormous importance and securing good work opportunities, and the social bureaucracy increased in numbers all the time and became an important voter group that could not be ignored by the political parties. Consequently, this ridiculous piece of legislation is still with us.
It should be added that assault and battery - misshandel in Swedish - was always criminalized in Sweden, but it was not until the arrival of the anti-spanking provision in 1979 that it went nuts. The principle proclaimed is that you may not do to your children what you cannot do to your neighbour or a passer-by in the street.
I do not think that this Swedish legislation travels well to foreign countries.
Sincerely yours
Jacob W.F. Sundberg
Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus
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Family Integrity # 153 - A police officer who spanks his children
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Greetings for 2007!
Here is an encouraging breath of common sense from a Police Officer in the USA who is responding to a piece of anti-smacking propaganda in a USA newspaper.
Regards,
Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity
http://blogs.baltimoresun.com/news_local_rodricks/2006/12/a_police_office.html
A police officer who spanks his children.
Here's one of several responses to today's column, this from a person named Jeff Morgan who says he is a decorated police officer in Maryland:
Rodricks - First, I need to tell you that I am a police officer in the Baltimore region, but some place other than Baltimore City.
I read your Sunday article about how you told a parent in New Jersey that they "can't" hit their child and was surprised when you were told to mind your own business, by responding, "It IS my business."
Let me start by telling you that it is NOT your business if a parent disciplines their child by smacking the child on the rear. There is no law against it and I love it when some liberal do-gooder calls me to respond because they saw a parent disciplining their child in the supermarket.
After checking the child to make sure that no "abuse" has occurred, I always congratulate the parent for taking the time to correct their child in a way that will leave an impression upon the youngster. Then I advise the caller that there is no law against spanking in this country (for now) and I tell them to have a nice day. (You ought to see the surprise on their faces...I imagine they look alot like you did when you were told to mind your own business.)
I'm sure you have heard many people tell you the "I was spanked as a child and it didn't hurt me any" line. But there is a lot of truth to that line. If I hadn't been spanked by GOD-fearing parents who did not spare the rod, I would not be a police officer today and I shudder to think of what might have happened to me.
In your articles, you are always wondering what's wrong with this world, and what is wrong with the youth today. You always complain about absent fathers and drug users not having role models and how these kids are facing terrible odds. You never seem to understand that articles like yours LEAD to the problems we have. I can speak with authority on this subject, having worked the streets for 12 years. I can point out the children who have never been spanked. I can point out the children who have never been disciplined. You know why? Because I am always at their houses, handling the problems their parents were never willing to handle.
Finally, I enjoy telling you that I have two children, 5 and 2. They are spanked regularly and are turning into beautiful, well-behaved little people, thanks to the correction that they get. My wife (also a police officer) and I will continue to spank our children as long as they need it.
Spanking isn't "violence". It's correction. I know to a liberal like you, it's impossible to understand the difference. I only wish it had been me in that line ahead of you. I would have enjoyed telling you personally why people like you are responsible for the current state of our youth.
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Family Integrity # 151 -- Bill's new timetable
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Greetings
The report of the Select Committee who considered this Bill to repeal Section 59 can be read at:
http://tinyurl.com/yk49lh
The bulk of it is spin doctoring of the issues and not at all helpful. However, their proposed re-write of Section 59 is on the last two pages of the report, and it is crucial to become familiar with this. (It is reproduced below).
The old Section 59 only allowed one motivation for the use of reasonable force with children: correction. This proposed new Section 59 specifically prohibits only one motivation for the use of reasonable force with children: correction. Bradford has come clean at last: she wants to prohibit parents from correcting their own children. This proposed new bill allows reasonable force to be used in three areas: "preventing" harm, starting or continuing criminal behaviour, or starting or continuing offensive and disruptive behaviour. But parents are not allowed to use reasonable force to enforce good or right or proper behaviour. The proposed Bill is hopelessly contradictory and introduces a large number of words and concepts without defining them.
However, the one piece that is absolutely clear is that this new Bill intends to make it illegal for parents to use any force whatsoever to correct their own children.
1. Repeal of Section 59 has been in the Media a lot this week. Look here for some good reports:
http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/
http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz/page/557579
http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz/page/542939
tp://www.familyfirst.org.nz/index.cfm/action_alert_/anti_smacking_bill.html
2. Where to now: Look at http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz/page/887173
According to information on the Parliamentary web site, "A bill can be read a second time no sooner than the third sitting day after the select committee reports to the House." For Bradford's Bill on Section 59 it looks like this: the Select Committee's report was tabled in Parliament on 20 November 2006. The first sitting, that is, the first day Parliament sits to consider Private Members' Bills such as the one to repeal Section 59, is Wednesday 22 November 2006. Parliament sits to consider Private Members' Bills on every second Wednesday, that is, fortnightly. It is therefore probable that the second sitting day will be Wednesday 13 December 2006. So the probable third sitting, and the earliest that the Bill could be debated again in Parliament, is Wednesday 21 February 2007. So it appears that the next time Parliament addresses this Bill will be no sooner than Wednesday 21 February or possibly into March.
3. Stuff Poll results: Should parents be able to smack their children without fear of breaking the law?
Yes (7351 votes, 85.6%) , No (1004 votes, 11.7%) , Not sure (232 votes, 2.7%)
4. There, continues, therefore, to be an urgency for us all to be writing/visiting/phoning our MPs. All MP contact details can be found at: http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz/page/588413.
Tell the MPs you are totally opposed to the repeal or the amendment of Section 59. Ask them to leave Section 59 just as it is and to simply dump Bradford's Bill as it is far too damaging to families.
=============================================
Proposed Rewrite of Section 59
59 Parental Control
(1) Every parent of a child and every person in the place of a parent of the child is justified in using force if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances and is for the purpose of --
(a) preventing or minimising harm to the child or another person; or
(b) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in conduct that amounts to a criminal offence; or
(c) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in offensive or disruptive behaviour; or
(d) performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting.
(2) Nothing in subsection (1) or in any rule of common law justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction.
(3) Subsection (2) prevails over subsection (1).
Blessings,
Craig and Barbara Smith
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