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Family Integrity #177 -- Second Press Release Ideas

Dear Friends,

This is the 2nd message sent as a press release and to some MPs we need to lobby (for that list, see:
http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/files/MPs%20to%20target%20re%20smacking.xls).
Please use any of these ideas in your own letters to MPs and Editors of newspapers,

And do get hold of Larry Baldock's and Sheryl Savill's petition: it's easy to get signatures. Decide to collect 20 at least, then post them in straight away. See the home page at
www.familyintegrity.org.nz for instructions.

Also check out this site to help your lobbying efforts:
http://starstuddedsuperstep.com/s59/

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
http://www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz

Our Home....Our Castle


Sue Bradford is probably right when she says Police will not charge parents every time they smack their child or use any other form of reasonable force to correct children. The real threat in her Bill to subvert parental authority is far worse: CYFS will come threatening to take the children away. Nothing could be more traumatic to a child, especially since the Children, Young Persons and the Families Act, Section 39, gives a single social worker, operating on her own, authority to use whatever force in needed to enter private homes and tear children from the mother’s arms. The social worker doesn’t need proof that abuse has taken place; she only needs to suspect that “ill-treatment” is “likely” to happen. And CYFS is not accountable if she makes a mistake.

Section (2) of Bradford’s Bill makes the correction of children a criminal offence if one uses any hint of force whatsoever: a gesture, a threat to withdraw privileges, intimidation, an appeal to conscience or any kind of physical force. A core responsibility of parenting, the correction of their children, is being thoroughly subverted.

Section (1)(c) of Bradford’s Bill lets a parent slap a hand over a child’s mouth if he is about to repeat an offensive swear word. But if the parent says, “Don’t do it again, or you’ll be off to bed without dessert,” the parent has just committed criminal assault, worth as much as two years in jail. If there is uncertainty whether the parent’s actions were corrective or merely preventative, Section (3) of the Bill says the corrective interpretation must prevail, putting parents outside the law.


(First Alternative ending, which I sent to the Media)
Bradford’s Bill appears to be the product of a fevered mind, corrupted by power, attempting to force its philosophy of child autonomy and minimal parental authority and maximum state powers of intervention upon us all in order to advance the utopia of a radical feminist agenda where so-called “patriarchal structures” such as the nuclear family are completely destroyed or neutralised.


(Second Alternative ending which I sent to individual MPs)
I am genuinely afraid of what you as an MP may be unleasing on us parents. Are you against me, as a parent, correcting my children’s behaviour? Or is it just the use of any force, even the most light and reasonable, that you are against?

Please, this whole thing is mired in muddy thinking. Nothing apart from the word “assault” has been defined. What do you mean when you say, “correction” for example? Please vote to dump this Bill of Bradford’s, and if you can, get your colleagues to debate the real issues more thoroughly. It’s been nothing but a propaganda war so far.
 

Family Integrity # 176 -- Specific lobbying targets with email addresses

More ammo for us to use with MPs in pointing out to them the folly of banning smacking.

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
http://www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz

Our Home....Our Castle


http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0702/S00378.htm

MEDIA RELEASE
28 February 2007

14% Increase in Child Abuse despite Swedish Smacking Ban

Latest figures from Sweden reveal that more and more children are being abused in Sweden.


According to The Swedish Daily, there has been a 14% increase in child abuse cases in 2006 compared with 2005 figures.


This backs up earlier research showing that child abuse increased 489% in the 13 years following a ban on smacking, and assaults by minors against minors increased 672%.


In a 2000 Swedish Government report, it said "we see no tendency to a decrease in bullying at school or in leisure time during the last 20 years"


And in the European Crime and Safety Safety Report commissioned by the UN and European Commission released two weeks ago, Sweden had one of the worst assault and sexual violence rates in the EU.


Sweden's Children's Ombudsman Lena Nyberg said last year "In Sweden, many people believe that children have not been subjected to violence since the ban on corporal punishment was introduced, but this is not true."


"The conclusion from Sweden's experience is quite clear," says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. "Bans on smacking do not affect rates of child abuse - in fact the evidence shows that it does more harm than good."


"And it would be in the best interests of kiwi families for MP's to consider the overwhelming evidence of the failures of smacking bans to lower child abuse - before they vote for Sue Bradford's 'anti-smacking' bill," says Mr McCoskrie.


Source:

New child abuse commission after Bobby death

http://www.thelocal.se/3734/20060505/

Child abuse increase in Sweden

http://www.svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=22620&a=768537&lid=senasteNytt_275

ENDS
 

Family Integrity # 175 -- Collecting Signatures easy

-----Original Message-----
From: S...@ihug.co.nz
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 5:24 PM
To: Craig Smith
Subject: Re: Family Integrity


Hi Craig,
Just like to say, Yes, you're right. It is easy getting signatures for petition. People just seem to be waiting for someone to come along so they can do something about the situation. My husband has collected about 100 signatures in 2 days with only 1 refusal, from trucking companies and the industrial areas he is around at work. One comment made to me today by a lady was, " I am so glad someone is doing something".
Regards.
S....


Download the petition and instructions from our homepage at http://www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz

Also, do visit http://starstuddedsuperstep.com/s59/ for help in emailing the MPs.

Both these things require urgent attention as the third and final reading of the Bill is likely to be on 14 or 28 March. There is now an urgency to lobby the MPs very hard. By email. By letter. By phone. By Fax. And collect signatures NOW to show the MPs that the Kiwi in the street doesn't want this bill to go through.

Regards,

Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity
http://www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz
 

Family Integrity # 174 - First Press Release Ideas

Family Integrity # 174 - First Press Release Ideas

Dear Friends,

I just sent this out as a press release and to MPs we need to lobby (for that list, see:

http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/files/MPs%20to%20target%20re%20smackig.xls).

Please use any of these ideas in your own letters to MPs and Editors of newspapers,

And do get hold of Larry Baldock's and Sheryl Savill's petition: it's easy to get signatures. Decide to collect 20 at least, then post them in straight away. See the home page at www.familyintegrity.org.nz for instructions.

Yours in the battle,

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


My wife and I understand discipline. We just celebrated 28 years of monogamous marriage in which we committed ourselves to each other til death do us part. During this time we’ve had 4 children and adopted 4 others. None of these children have ever been to school: we teach them ourselves at home. All are committed to lives of sobriety, chastity, hard work, respect and productivity. None have ever been on the dole, in jail, slept around, smoked dope, dropped drugs or gone nightclubbing. The 4 oldest have played Representative sport in NZ and travelled and worked overseas. Among them is a Legal Executive, a Marketing Director for a multi-million dollar book seller in the USA, an RNZAF Avionics Technician and a Highland Dancing instructor. The 5th one, aged 14, almost has enough flying hours to go solo. And even though our single income (working for a charitable trust) has been static at $22,500 for the past nine years, our house, appliances, furniture and all three vehicles are free-hold and we’ve all travelled overseas several times. Discipline makes all these things possible.

Discipline, training and correction are core parental responsibilities. That includes smacking disobedient and rebellious children, to bring them back into line. Please note: I said smacking, not hitting. The English language has these different words because they mean different things and carry significantly different baggage.

Why do MPs want to prohibit good parents from effectively correcting their children? Why do they want to criminalise smacking because intellectually or ideologically they cannot tell the difference between smacking and hitting? There are hundreds of parents who will not stop smacking if this ridiculous bill passes, just as a recent TVNZ poll demonstrated. Passing this Bill will alienate, threaten and criminalise the best allies any Government could ever have in the pursuit of a peaceful, orderly society: responsible, hands-on parents.
 

Family Integrity # 173 -- Look at this poll and vote in it - California

Family Integrity # 173 -- Look at this poll and vote in it - California

Here's an encouraging article from California where a state legislator has tried to ban smacking. And do vote in this poll on the website.

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
http://www/FamilyIntegrity.org.nz

Our Home....Our Castle


http://www.nbcsandiego.com/11092679/detail.html

SURVEY

Is it acceptable to spank children?

Yes, it's a good tool.

It should only be used on older children.

No, violence is not an acceptable form of punishment.


No Proposal Could Stop Hitting With Objects

POSTED: 5:31 am PST February 23, 2007

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Parents can still spank their children in California.

San Francisco Bay-area Assemblywoman Sally Lieber has abandoned her campaign to make spanking a crime.

She said she is still opposed to spanking, but Lieber said the votes just aren't there to change the law. Instead, she's introducing legislation that would make it a crime to hit children with such items as a belt, switch or stick.

Lieber's anti-spanking bill attracted nationwide attention.

Conservatives and family values groups criticized it as government interference in family matters, and it was the subject of a parody on "Saturday Night Live."
 

Family Integrity #172 -- Piece of cake

Family Integrity #172 -- Piece of cake

Greetings,

I just got back from two hours standing at a wee table with the CIR Petitions at the Flea Market in Palmerston North.

Got 132 signatures.

Only two people voiced disagreement with Section 59.

Several said they don't agree with smacking, but agreed even less with banning it.

I would say in a loud voice, "Please sign the petition telling the Government not to make parents into criminals." People would stop in their tracks, turn around and dash back to sign it. Several said they knew they'd see this petition somewhere. I had a crowd around me most of the time. People waited patiently to sign while I explained more fully what it was all about.

Keep it simple....most people didn't care about the details....they just wanted to sign a petition supporting smacking. People are waiting for an opportunity to sign...please give them (your workmates, the folks at church, your neighbours, etc.) the opportunity to sign.

Download the petition and instruction forms
here, print them off, and start collecing. It really is a piece of cake.
 

Family Integrity # 171a -- Specific lobbying targets with email addresses

Family Integrity # 171a -- Specific lobbying targets with email addresses

Thanks to Bob McCoskrie of Family First for this list of MPs. These are the ones to target on a daily basis, folks. Go for it. [please click on the link below]

Regards,

Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity

http://www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz/page/903095

[Tip: when you click on the above link and thus open the file, left click on the 'E' above the list of email addresses, then put your cursor anywhere on that list and right click. Then left click on the word 'copy' that appears.

Then open up a new message in your email; put your own name in the box marked 'To...', then right click in the box marked 'Bcc...', and left click on the word 'Paste' that appears. This will put all those email addresses in that box, ready for you to send your message to each of those MPs.You may need to delete the word 'email' that appears with the email addresses.]
 

Family Integrity # 171 -- Petition

Dear Friends,

I do think we all need to get in behind this CIR (Citizens' Initiated Referendum) and each commit to collecting at least 20 signatures[please go to our home page to download the necessary forms]. This will be a piece of cake since poll after poll after poll consistently show that 80% of NZers don't want reasonable force as a method of child discipline banned. One of these petitions lines up with that position. The other says Parliament should investigate the REAL causes of child abuse.

Former MP Larry Baldock is behind these CIR Petitions. If we can get 300,000 signatures, the questions on the petition will be included with our voting papers at the next national elections. While the results are not binding on Parliament, they will be left in no doubt as to where NZers stand on the issues.

The Petitions can be downloaded from http://www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz

If you have any questions about how these petitions work, or what you are supposed to do, please email Larry Baldock at l.baldock@xtra.co.nz.

Thanks a million.

Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity
 

Family Integrity # 170 -- lobbying targets

Family Integrity # 170 -- lobbying targets


This will help us know whom to target in our lobbying.

Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity



From NZ Herald

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10425374&ref=emailfriend
Votes adding up for full smacking ban
5:00AM Friday February 23, 2007
By Mike Houlahan

Smacking seems certain to be banned when MPs cast their final votes on the issue in three weeks' time.

Yesterday, New Zealand First MP Doug Woolerton confirmed he would back Green MP Sue Bradford's bill and would oppose an amendment which might have derailed it. His decision, plus confirmation from at least two National MPs that they will back Ms Bradford's bill, virtually ensures smacking will be forbidden.

The biggest hurdle to smacking being banned remains a proposed amendment by National MP Chester Borrows, but since at least 63 MPs in the 121-MP Parliament are expected to vote against it, it seems doomed to fail.

If the amendment is lost, at least 65 MPs could then vote for Ms Bradford's bill. It needs 61 votes to pass.

Yesterday Mr Borrows believed he needed to secure four more votes to pass his amendment, and said he would do his best over the next three weeks to get them.
"I will have to concentrate on those people who haven't fully declared their hand yet, or people whose arguments I think are not necessarily exclusionary of my amendment."

However, the loss of Mr Woolerton's vote will be a major impediment to Mr Borrow's chances of success.

"Even though the words are nicer, it would still allow people to sneak out under the reasonable-force-type argument in a court," Mr Woolerton said, adding he would support Ms Bradford's bill.

National MPs are obliged to back their party's position and vote for the amendment.
Yesterday two MPs, education spokeswoman Katherine Rich and women's affairs spokeswoman Jackie Blue, confirmed that, if the amendment was lost, they would vote for Ms Bradford's bill, while Port Waikato MP Paul Hutchison said he was likely to vote for it.

If the bill became law, parents would be able to use physical force only to restrain their children from hurting themselves and other people, from being disruptive or to stop them committing a crime.

Mr Borrows' amendment would allow parents to use reasonable force with an impact which was "trifling or transitory" to discipline their children.

Ms Bradford has said she will withdraw her bill altogether if the Borrows amendment is passed.

Dr Hutchison conceded it seemed contradictory if he voted to allow smacking, then voted to ban it.

"Yes there is contradiction, and yes I am quite aware that defining it has been problematical internationally, but at least what it [the amendment] does is give clear signals that overt abuse is absolutely inappropriate."

Dr Hutchison said he was deeply concerned about violence against children, and also to preserve parental freedom.

"On balance there is an inconsistency that adults by law can't hit other adults, and yet I as a 90kg, 6ft individual have a defence against hitting a 2-year-old."

Mrs Rich said Mr Borrows had worked hard on his amendment and that she would support it. However, some of the Bradford bill's provisions were commonsense.

Two other National MPs, backbencher Paula Bennett and Justice spokesman Simon Power, are still considering whether to support Ms Bradford's bill.

Mr Borrows said he would not support Ms Bradford's bill if his amendment failed.
 

Family Integrity # 169 -- The Voting record

Family Integrity # 169 -- The Voting record

Greetings all.

As we've all heard, Bradford's Bill to remove parental authority passed its second reading. Now, those who listened to the broadcast of the proceedings may recall that they voted twice. The reason is related to the Select Committee's report on Bradford's Bill as it was originally written. The Select Committee recommended that the Bill be re-written. As we've commented earlier, the re-write is a dog's breakfast, apparently unworkable and hopelessly contradictory. But apparently it was designed to have the same effect as total repeal.

Anyway, because the Select Committee was not unanimous in recommending the re-write (the two National Party members of the Committee, Chester Borrows and Nicki Wagner didn't like it at all), the whole of Parliament had to first vote to accept or reject the re-write. They voted to accept it. The second vote was then to move the re-written Bill past the second reading into the next stage of consideration. The vote was 70 in favour, 51 against. Here is a breakdown of the votes:

Labour: all 49 in favour.
National: 42 against, 6 in favour: the six were, Katherine Rich, Simon Power, Paula Bennett, Jackie Blue, Chester Borrows, Paul Hutchison.
NZ First: 4 against, 3 in favour: the three were, Brian Donnelly, Doug Woolerton, Barbara Stewart.
Green: all 6 in favour.
Maori: all 4 in favour.
United Future: 2 against, 1 in favour, that being Peter Dunne.
ACT: all 2 against.
Progressive: 1 in favour.
Taito Fields: 1 against.

If 10 votes would swing from being in favour to being against, the vote would then be 60 in favour, 61 against, and the Bill would be killed. If we assume that the 51 who were against it will remain against it at the third reading, we can see that the ones to lobby to change their vote from being in favour to against are:

the 6 National
the 3 NZ First
Peter Dunne
the 4 Maori

The strategy of national is to see Chester Borrow's amendment put forward and voted in. They reckon then that National will vote as a block FOR the bill as it will be amended by Borrow's amendment, and that there will be plenty of other votes FOR the amended version that it will pass in that form. Bradford has said that if Borrow's amendment gets in, she will pull the Bill and kill it on the spot (as the Bill's author she can apparently do that).

I would be pleased if Bradford pulled the bill. I would not be pleased to see the Bill go through with Borrow's amendment, for I do not like the amendment. Why? Because it is based on the false assumption that there is something wrong with Section 59 as it stands. That violence and abuse against children have been justified by juries and/or judges. I do not accept that. No body has come up with any evidence that this has happened.

Further, one of the pro-repeal speakers in Parliament during the debate before the vote, I think it was a Labour speaker, said she'd vote in favour of Borrow's amendment because it was a step in the right direction.....meaning a step closer to full repeal of Section 59. I agree that Borrow's amendment is a step, a big step, in the direction of full repeal.

Further, Borrow's amendment prohits the use of smacking with implements. This will put many Christians who take Proverbs 22:15 as a definite directive to use a rod of correction, rather than one's hand, into the position of being either compromised in their faith or outside the law.

Further, as Borrows has said, his amendment "drastically lowers the bar on the level of force that can be justified by Section 59". The legitimate use of force is a measure of one's legitimate authority. The degree to which parent's legitimate use of force is diminished is also a measure of how much their authority is diminished. And it is also a measure of how much authority/legitimate use of force is transferred from parents to agents of the state, i.e., CYFs social workers.

Nicky Wagner, National, made the best speech of the ones I heard before the vote (I missed a couple of them). She said this entire hooha around the Bill for the last year or so has been one big cop out: it was letting people appear to be dealing with a serious issue: the level of child abuse in NZ: without actually addressing any of the real issues. Banning smacking (or reducing parental authority via Borrow's amendment, I say) will only harm good parents and not affect the causes of child abuse in NZ: drug and alcohol abuse, the culture of violence being pumped into society via the entertainment media, the culture of violence and total disregard for life surrounding the abortion industry and the increased acceptance of assisted suicide and euthanasia; bullying at schools, etc.

I would add that Bradford's Bill to repeal Section 59 is an attempt to force her philosophy of child autonomy and minimal parental authority and maximum state powers of intervention in order to advance the utopia of a radical feminist agenda where so-called "patriarchal structures" such as the nuclear family are completely destroyed or neutralised.

Now, I have said that I cannot agree with Borrow's amendment. I would prefer to work for a return to the status quo....leaving Section 59 intact, just as it is. This puts me offside with people with whom I want to work closely, who see the passage of Borrow's amendment as the only workable compromise situation. Well, sorry, but I don't want to compromise. I hope to write "10 reasons to retain Section 59 as it is" soon, so will leave further explanation till then. But it does seem to me that if an MP stood up and declared his or her intention to fight for a return to Section 59 as is, and to simply dump this Bill, that MP would have 80% of NZers lined up behind. It does seem from listening to MPs, even "conservative" ones on the one hand and people in the street and on talk back radio on the other, that all MPs really are out of touch with what the silent majority want.

Keep lobbying your MP.

Regards,

Craig Smith
National Director
Family Integrity
http://www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz
 




 

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