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Greetings all,

Here is Bradford's "five points" form email she's sending out far and wide. Attached (below)is my response to it.

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



-----Original Message-----
From: Sue Bradford [mailto:Sue.Bradford@parliament.govt.nz]
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 11:39 AM
Subject: Section 59


Thank you for your email.

Firstly I must apologise for the delay in responding to your email. I hope you'll understand that this has been a very busy time for me and due to the volume of correspondence I am unable to respond personally to every email. I do however read and appreciate all considered correspondence on the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill.

I would like to respond to several of the points that have been raised in opposition to the Bill.

1. 80% + of the population is opposed to the repeal of Section 59.

A survey was done by UMR last year that found 37 % of participants agreed that Section 59 of the Crimes Act should be ended. This increased to 71 % who agreed that Section 59 of the Crimes Act should be ended, provided guidelines were developed to prevent prosecution for mild slaps and smacking. There was agreement from 64 % that this legislation should be ended if research showed that removing it would decrease child abuse, and from 53 % if research showed that physical punishment is not an effective method of discipline, and that it can be harmful. Research has shown that physical punishment is not effective, guidelines have and will be further developed to prevent frivolous prosecutions, therefore it seems the majority of the country support the Bill.

The questions that resulted in 80%+ of the population being against the bill, were framed in terms of the 'anti-smacking bill', which does not accurately represent the nature of the Bill and cannot therefore be considered a true indication of the peoples' voice. It does tell however tell us that we do need to do a lot more education regarding the purpose and content of this Bill.

The Bill has been more than 2 years in the parliamentary process, we have done thorough research, and heard hundreds of submissions. Nothing about this process has been undemocratic.

2. The Repeal of Section 59 will result in good parents being criminalised.

The Bill does not in anyway seek to criminalise or scare good parents. It sets out to remove the legal defence of reasonable force from the Crimes Act. The amended Bill also sets out four purposes where the use of reasonable force - for instance, to carry out the normal, everyday tasks of parenting - is permitted.

Domestic violence and domestic discipline are not the same thing - the Minister of Police has given reassurance that Police will not prosecute indiscriminately. Additionally the Police are developing guidelines about how to respond to complaints of assault on children if the Bill becomes law.

For the last 110 years it has been possible to be convicted for smacking your children, but the way the law has worked in practice is this: if the police receive a complaint, or believe an assault against a child has been sufficiently serious to warrant their attention, then they investigate. If after investigating the police believe there is a case to answer, then they press charges so whoever is suspected of committing the assault has to answer to the courts.

This will remain the same after the Bill has passed - nothing will change in terms of the procedure deciding whether an assault against a child goes before the courts.

The police will not suddenly start dragging parents before the courts because they were seen smacking their child on the hand in a supermarket. Charges will only be laid if after investigation the assault allegation appears sufficiently serious and credible to warrant bringing the case to court.

3. Section 59 is okay as it is.

Please refer to this article by the Youth Law Project for case examples of just some of the instances where Section 59 has been used in the courts http://www.youthlaw.co.nz/default.aspx?_z=128. I really can't imagine you would want to align yourself with such instances of abuse.

4. The Swedish case.
In Sweden, where there is similar legislation in place, the child death rate from abuse under the age of 15 is 0.5 per 100,000 children. In New Zealand the child death rate per 100,000 children under 15 is 1.2. That is more than twice the rate. Please refer to the following link for a more detailed analysis: http://epochnz.org.nz/images/stories/response_to_larzelere_on_sweden.pdf

5. Sue Bradford is trying to destroy the family.

That is the last thing I want to do. I want to strengthen families to support our children.

This Bill was my response to the call from over 50 child welfare organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand to ensure our legislation was consistent with international agreements, and other domestic anti-violence legislation. These organisations, including Plunket, come in contact with thousands of families every week and they believe this legislation is a priority. It is not the sole answer to the problems of child abuse, indeed it is just one small step. I am proud to be a part of this movement to create a safer country for all our children.

Yours sincerely.
Sue Bradford MP

Below, in this font, is a form email from Sue Bradford wherein she
answers five criticisms in this font of her Bill to repeal/rewrite
Section 59. In this font I respond to each of her answers.
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


From: Sue Bradford [mailto:Sue.Bradford@parliament.govt.nz]
Sent: Wednesday, 4 April 2007 4:10 p.m.
Subject: Section 59

Thank you for your email.

Firstly I must apologise for the delay in responding to your email. I hope you’ll understand that this has been a very busy time for me and due to the volume of correspondence I am unable to respond personally to every email. I do however read and appreciate all considered correspondence on the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill.

I would like to respond to several of the points that have been raised in opposition to the Bill.

1. 80% + of the population is opposed to the repeal of Section 59.
A survey was done by UMR last year that found 37 % of participants agreed that Section 59 of the Crimes Act should be ended. This increased to 71 % who agreed that Section 59 of the Crimes Act should be ended, provided guidelines were developed to prevent prosecution for mild slaps and smacking. There was agreement from 64 % that this legislation should be ended if research showed that removing it would decrease child abuse, and from 53 % if research showed that physical punishment is not an effective method of discipline, and that it can be harmful.
The questions that resulted in 80%+ of the population being against the bill, were framed in terms of the 'anti-smacking bill', which does not accurately represent the nature of the Bill and cannot therefore be considered a true indication of the peoples' voice. It does tell however tell us that we do need to do a lot more education regarding the purpose and content of this Bill.
The Bill has been more than 2 years in the parliamentary process, we have done thorough research, and heard hundreds of submissions. Nothing about this process has been undemocratic.

[Craig Smith]
It is sad and pathetic that Bradford would even challenge the obvious. Well over a dozen Internet polls have all shown the same thing: 80%+ of NZers are against her Bill. I just checked the results of a still-live one (3pm, 11 April 2007) at http://www.antismackingvote.co.nz. It had 24,460 votes (a separate email address is required for each vote), and 89% answered “No” to the question, “Do you support Sue Bradford’s Anti-smacking Bill?” and only 11% answered “Yes”. The Young Labour caucus put a poll on their website, and it too was heavily against the Bill....and Young Labour got caught trying to fiddle the results to look differently. Ask anyone out getting signatures for Larry Baldock’s CIR petition....people queue up to sign it!
The "research" to which Bradford here refers in unknown to me, unless it is the thoroughly unprofessional magazine survey done by the Littlies Lobby in April of 2005, the results of which were analysed by the same crowd UMR mentioned here.
But statistically, because of the way the responses were gathered, the "survey" is useless. It is more useless than the Internet polls, for at least those have fewer selective and exclusion factors involved than did the Littlies Lobby survey. In addition, the very criticism Bradford makes of the many other polls, at least 12, that have been done on the Internet -- the criticism about the way the wording was done on the questions themselves -- is also a criticism of the Littlies Lobby survey....the questions were biased and leading in themselves. But until we know what research Bradford is referring to here, how the data was collected, how many respondents there were and what questions were put to the people who responded, then we cannot know anything about the validity of this study to which she refers. There are three surveys that I know of that were done via proper research methodology:
The first was by the Ministry of Justice in 2001 titled, "Survey on Public Attitudes Toward the Physical Discipline of Children". It found that 80% of New Zealanders agreed with the statement: "A person parenting a child should be allowed, by law, to smack the child with an open hand if the child is naughty."
The full report on this research can be read at:
http://www.justice.govt.nz/pubs/reports/2001/children/index.html
The second survey that I know of was reported by former Commissioner for Children Dr Ian Iassell at a Child Abuse Conference in Wellington on 16 February 2006. It came from a telephone survey of 800 parents and showed that 82% believed it was okay to smack. (Ian Hassell told me personally that it was a sample of 1300 people).
This was reported on in the Dominion Post of 17 February 2006.
The third survey is a Bay of Plenty Times Insight Poll (conducted by Key Research as part of their regular Insight survey). Of the 300 surveyed, 250 (or 83%) disagreed with Ms Bradford's bill and thought parents should be allowed to smack. This was reported on in the BOP Times of 26 May 2006.
When Bradford says nothing about this process has been undemocratic, she is partly right. But at the first hearing of oral submissions by the Select Committee considering this Bill back in March 2006, it was revealed that Bradford, the author of the Bill, was sitting on the committee. This is clearly a conflict of interest situation, not endorsed by the principles of democracy. But there are plenty of precedents in NZ's Parliamentary history. The chair of the Committee, Lynn Pillay and the other Labour Party member of the committee, Anne Hartley, were totally shameless in their support of Bradford's Bill and clearly biased toward its passage. They were not at all objective. There were 10 presentations that day, all in favour of the Bill...it was a real media showcase: Barnardos, Save the Children, IHC, Families Commission, Childrens Commission, UNICEF, EPOCH, etc. Most of these groups said it was an opportunity for the Government to "show real leadership" in passing the bill in the face of majority opposition. In other words, they recognised they were outnumbered, and "real leadership" meant ignoring the democratic process and pass it over the clear wishes of the majority.
Bradford and co are becoming more and more brazen about how they put spin into their statements. They constantly equate the current Section 59's "reasonable force" with violence, severe beatings, thrashings, etc. Kiro was fond of saying Section 59 gives parents a license to beat their children. None of this is true, of course, for any fool will tell you that "reasonable force" is not beating, thrashing, etc. To maintain that they are the same, as do Clark, Bradford and Kiro, is to say that juries are typically too thick to tell the difference. This shows a marked disrespect for democracy by trying to misrepresent the situation by constantly using inaccurate and emotive
expressions like "severe beatings" and "thrashings" instead of "smacking" when in fact the juries decided it was a smacking using reasonable force by way of correction. And this kind of thing shows a shocking disrespect for our jury system.
This bill as proposed, reproduced below, doesn't get rid of the hated "reasonable force" that Bradford et al constantly say is a mask for severe beatings, thrashings, and other forms of violence. Bradford’s Bill now in fact outlines scenarios wherein one can use "reasonable force" or, using her own rhetoric, scenarios wherein one can legally thrash and severely beat one's child: to prevent harm, criminal, offensive or disruptive behaviour or when a beating is incidental to good care and parenting. According to subsection 2 of the proposed re-write of Section 59, the one time you must never use reasonable force is for the purpose of correction. In fact, subsection 3 of the bill says subsection 2 must prevail over subsection 1.
That is, if there is a question over whether a parent's smack or use of reasonable force was corrective or preventative or incidental to good care and parenting, the corrective interpretation must prevail, meaning when there is doubt about the intent, the parent must be considered quilty of planning correction for the child and therefore must be convicted.
Reasonable doubt normally requires an acquittal....one is found guilty only when it is beyond reasonable doubt, a legal precedent gained as part of our 800-year history of collected common law wisdom. But with this Bill, reasonable doubt requires a conviction, not an acquittal. Haven't Bradford and her colleagues on the Select Committee and Sir Geoffrey Palmer who drafted this Bill been clever to turn centuries of hard-won legal precedents on their head with a mere six words in subsection 3?
Brilliant. And reference to our common law heritage and precedent is ruled out of bounds anyway, just in case, by subsection 2. Bradford so hates the idea of parental correction of children, she is leaving nothing to chance.
The passage of this Bill will tip New Zealand into the cauldron of those countries which are totalitarian socialist dictatorships; places like Sweden & Germany. Sweden is best known for kidnapping children into foster care and monster children who control and terrorise their parents (see http://www.nkmr.org/english/the_children_are_embarrassing_sweden.htm and http://www.nkmr.org/english/we_are_bringing_up_a_generation_of_monsters.htm); Germany is known for its absolute intolerance of home schoolers and Christians who would dare to be different from the society the state's public schools is creating, explaining that "parallel societies" cannot be allowed (see: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54223).
As outlined in these last couple of paragraphs, the Bill itself is designed to destroy democracy. Worse than that, it will give our children into the hands of the state. And once we give the bureaucrats the children, we might just as well give them everything else. For once we've made the Big Compromise and given over our children, they WILL come for everything else.

Current Section 59
59 Domestic Discipline
Every parent of a child and...every person in the place of the parent of a child is justified in using force by way of correction towards the child, if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances.

Proposed replacement 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).

2. The Repeal of Section 59 will result in good parents being
criminalised.
The Bill does not in anyway seek to criminalise or scare good parents. It sets out to remove the legal defence of reasonable force from the Crimes Act. The amended Bill also sets out four purposes where the use of reasonable force – for instance, to carry out the normal, everyday tasks of parenting – is permitted.
Domestic violence and domestic discipline are not the same thing - the Minister of Police has given reassurance that Police will not prosecute indiscriminately.
Additionally the Police are developing guidelines about how to respond to complaints of assault on children if the Bill becomes law.
For the last 110 years it has been possible to be convicted for smacking your children, but the way the law has worked in practice is this: if the police receive a complaint, or believe an assault against a child has been sufficiently serious to warrant their attention, then they investigate. If after investigating the police believe there is a case to answer, then they press charges so whoever is suspected of committing the assault has to answer to the courts.
This will remain the same after the Bill has passed - nothing will change in terms of the procedure deciding whether an assault against a child goes before the courts.
The police will not suddenly start dragging parents before the courts because they were seen smacking their child on the hand in a supermarket. Charges will only be laid if after investigation the assault allegation appears sufficiently serious and credible to warrant bringing the case to court.

[Craig Smith]
This is a load of double-talk. She is talking of intentions, that she does not intend to criminalise parents. But this is not entirely honest either. She intends for all parents to accept, embrace and adapt to her ideology....that any force of any description, regardless of how light or how reasonable, for the purposes of correction should become a criminal act....and if you parents don’t embrace Bradford’s ideology, then your actions will be criminalised. But of course the vast majority of parents understand that it is their core duty as parents to correct their children's behaviour, and that it often takes some degree of force and force in one form or another. At the very least it is the parent forcing his/her will on the child. If parents did not have any requirements or prohibitions in relation to their children, then there would be no need for correction. Perhaps this is the utopia of which Bradford dreams, but it is totally disconnected from reality. Parents must and do impose requirements and prohibitions on their children, not just for the sake of the parents, the family peace and harmony, but for the sake of the child who does not yet know right from wrong, good from bad, wise from unwise. In addition, society expects parents to train up children so that they fit in, know how to socialise and deal honestly and true and respectfully with others.
Perhaps it is extremely difficult for someone like Bradford who has made a reputation and a lifestyle of living outside of the law and of pushing to change the boundaries of the law…perhaps it is too hard for her to understand that many people strive always to live within the law. Bradford’s assurances that parents will not be charged and prosecuted left, right and centre is of little comfort since parents’ actions of using light and perfectly reasonable force to correct will become, by definition, actions outside the law. Such parents, who almost certainly constitute the vast majority, do not want even a POSSIBLE investigation and charge to be laid against them for doing what parents have a duty to do: correct their own children.
A text without a context is a pretext.
This is what Labour and the Greens are doing when they say that for the last 110 years smacking and time-out have been illegal.
That is like saying it has always been illegal for police to make arrests.
Looking solely at the legal definition of Assault in Section 2 of the Crimes Act shows that time-out, smacking and arresting all constitute acts of criminal assault. But taken in the context of the entire Act, it becomes obvious that Section 59 recognises parents have legitimate authority to use "reasonable force" - not unreasonable force -
to correct their children and that several other sections of the Act give police and even bystanders legitimate authority to use force - sometimes the Act doesn’t even specify that it must be "reasonable" - to arrest people for various reasons.
So Labour and the Greens reference the text of Section 2 of the Crimes Act, without the context of the rest of the Act, for the pretext of claiming that smacking and timeout are already illegal.
The second pretext employed by Labour and the Greens is to say that "all this Bill does" is remove the defense of "reasonable force" for correcting a child. So after telling us that the Bill won’t criminalise parents, because those who smack are already criminals, they add that from now on parents who smack or use any force at all to correct will have to be found guilty of assault, for there will no longer be a legal defense.
Labour and Green are saying, "You parents have always been criminals. From now on you have no refuge in law. If you use even reasonable force to correct your children for anything they do, you will be guilty of child assault. If you are seen or even suspected, you will be investigated. If you have corrected your child, you will be charged and you will be found guilty, for there is no longer a legal defense for correcting a child."
I have written statements from two Police Commissioners, Past Commissioner Robinson and present Commissioner Broad, that state, "If section 59 was repealed in its entirety, parents would not be authorised to use reasonable force by way of correction." and "[S]macking a child by way of corrective action would be an assault."
It is very clear and obvious, even from the wording of the Bill before Parliament, that any action toward a child that involved any force at all for corrective purposes will become, by definition, an act of assault, unjustified in law. Gregg O'Connor, President of the Police Association has said Police will have no discretion: when they see or hear of a smack...it will be an assault if Bradford’s Bill is passed, it will be regarded as a case of "domestic violence", and it will almost certainly be investigated and reported to CYFS. The Manawatu Evening Standard rang the Police recently and asked them if they would have to investigate any complaint about a parent lightly smacking a child for correction. They answered, “Yes.” Would they need to inform CYFS? Again, the Police answered, “Yes.” This was on the Standard’s front page of 30 March 2007.
Parents and children will have to go through this trauma of possibly being reported, or of actually being reported and investigated, regardless of what Bradford says, for any show of force, regardless of how light or reasonable, for doing what parents naturally do: correct errant behaviour. Some of these parents will end up with criminal charges.
Some will lose their children. This will happen because the parents used reasonable force to correct, not that they committed child abuse, because reasonable force used for correction will become a crime.

3. Section 59 is okay as it is.
Please refer to this article by the Youth Law Project for case examples of just some of the instances where Section 59 has been used in the courts http://www.youthlaw.co.nz/default.aspx?_z=128. I really can’t imagine you would want to align yourself with such instances of abuse.

[Craig Smith]
In this website Bradford mentions, lawyer John Hancock was trying to find all the cases where Section 59 was used as a defense. He only found 18 cases over the 13 year period from 1990 through 2002. One of those, the famous "plank of wood" (which in fact was a piece of kindling 30cm by 2cm, the size of a standard wooden spoon), actually never had Section 59 brought up, for the jury acquitted the parent from a charge of assault under Section 194(a) of the Crimes Act as soon as they heard the facts. See http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/2007/04/hawkes-bay-father-4-x-2.html. So that means Section 59 only came up17 times in those 13 years or 1.3 times a year. In 10 of those cases, the person charged was found guilty; 1 needed a retrial; in 1 case the child was removed; and the parents were justified in only 5 cases in those 13 years, less than once every two years, showing that Section 59 does not let abusers off. In these cases of acquittal using a Section 59 defense, the juries composed of 12 people, after hearing all the evidence in excruciating detail, not wee snippets as are given in Hancock's review, unanimously found that the parents had used only reasonable force, not abuse or violence, and that it was used for corrective purposes, not to inflict injury, vent anger, take revenge or whatever.
Section 59 does work just fine as it is. But Bradford still insists that each of these parents are guilty of violently beating or thrashing their children and should have been found guilty of assault even though the juries found them innocent. Bradford clearly has another agenda in mind. She apparently does not like the idea that Section 59 allows parents to use a measure of reasonable force to back up their natural authority as parents. Because abuse and violence against children are already illegal under several other parts of the Crimes Act, including Section 59, removing Section 59 would only INCREASE by a vast measure what is considered violence against a child. This appears to be Bradford's agenda: criminalise parental use of their natural authority to correct their own children using reasonable force. When this is done, the only people who will be allowed to use force....and not even reasonable force....to correct children will be the police and social workers, agents of the state.
On the one hand Bradford wants people to have maximum freedoms, even to ruin themselves: keep the drinking age lower, legalise prostitution, leave the party drug P at the less-dangerous drug classification, legalise marijuana, lower the penalty for child pornography, not require birth mothers to name the fathers on the birth certificates. And she apparently wants maximum freedom for children to be out from under their parent’s corrective authority. But parents’ duty and responsibility to effectively train, discipline and correct their children’s behaviour is to be under the constant threat of a charge of criminal assault, while it is to her perfectly acceptable for state agents (police and social workers) to use force to correct wayward children.

4. The Swedish case.
In Sweden, where there is similar legislation in place, the child death rate from abuse under the age of 15 is 0.5 per 100,000 children. In New Zealand the child death rate per 100,000 children under 15 is 1.2. That is more than twice the rate. Please refer to the following link for a more detailed analysis:
http://epochnz.org.nz/images/stories/response_to_larzelere_on_sweden.pdf

[Craig Smith]
Bradford has been caught using shonky research statistics before. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjBKFKc2igU.
"Every year, eight to ten, sometimes as many as twelve children die in Sweden due to violence. This has been true for several years," said Morgan Johansson, Sweden's public health minister on 5 May 2006. Sweden's children's ombudsman Lena Nyberg added: "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." (see http://www.thelocal.se/3734/20060505/). There is a ton of research material about Sweden and other parts of the world under the "Research" and "Sweden" index tabs on http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz. See especially Dr Larzelere’s “Sweden Smacking Ban: More Harm than Good” and Chris Beckett’s “The Swedish Myth: the Corporal Punishment Ban and Child Death” both under the “Sweden” index tab at http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz.
The two researchers involved in analysing Sweden's situation in English are Dr Robert Larzelere of U. of Oklahoma and Dr Joan Durrant of U. of Manitoba. Using the same database, they have come to nearly opposite conclusions. Dr Larzelere’s works are on the Family Integrity website, http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz and http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/search/label/Robert%20E.%20Larzelere%20Ph.D. I spoke to Durrant face to face when she was out here a couple years ago. She confirmed that it was a war of world views and that in her opinion, one world view would have to triumph and the other would have to be put down. She is thoroughly against the traditional view of parental authority and favours the view of children as autonomous individuals living in a socialist utopia where nanny state runs and regulates virtually every thing. There is no thought of peaceful co-existence in her mind with cultures and philosophies and religions that compete with her ideology. Her ideas must prevail and all others that contradict or compete with hers must be criminalised.
Bradford is operating in the same vein. She and Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro and Beth Wood of UNICEF and others of the pro-repeal lobby take their marching orders from the extreme position of the UN Committee for the Rights of the Child. You must read their commentary on this issue which was published in June 2006 (see http://tinyurl.com/fvrwo). They equate corporal punishment with being "cruel and degrading" and that it is by nature "violence against children"; and that is just in Paragraph 1! In Paragraph 8 they say how such violence, "however light", must be prohibited in families as well as in schools. In Paragraph 31, all these evils are equated with "reasonable or moderate chastisement or correction." Such evils must clearly be legislated against, Paragraph 34. And Paragraph 29 says the Committee's ruling on this trumps the Bible or any other religious convictions or sacred writings. Paragraph 52 recommends that local governments recruit schools and youth groups to monitor and report on how individual families conform to this ideology. Bradford and the others obviously approve of these totalitarian tendencies.

5. Sue Bradford is trying to destroy the family.
That is the last thing I want to do. I want to strengthen families to support our children.
This Bill was my response to the call from over 50 child welfare organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand to ensure our legislation was consistent with international agreements, and other domestic anti-violence legislation. These organisations, including Plunket, come in contact with thousands of families every week and they believe this legislation is a priority. It is not the sole answer to the problems of child abuse, indeed it is just one small step. I am proud to be a part of this movement to create a safer country for all our children.

[Craig Smith]
Bradford here demonises parental authority that would use reasonable force to correct as being outside "domestic anti-violence legislation." She also mentions international agreements, meaning the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC). This document does not mention domestic discipline or child discipline or correction or corporal punishment at all. The UN Committee for the Rights of the Child freely admits "Article 19 and article 28(2) do not refer explicitly to corporal punishment. The travaux preparatoires for the Convention do not record any
discussion of corporal punishment during the drafting sessions." Then they give themselves a blank cheque to make UNCROC say what ever they want: "But the Convention, like all human rights instruments, must be regarded as a living instrument, whose interpretation develops over time." See http://tinyurl.com/fvrwo, paragraph 20.
Plunket and Barnardos and Save the Children and the others are mostly heavily funded by the Government and therefore subject to Government agendas. It suits the present Labour led NZ Government to remain in high gear in pushing through social engineering legislation such as this which will totally re-define the relation between parents and their own children and vastly increase the legal powers of state agents to intervene in the family for the flimsiest of reasons. In addition, these agencies thrive on family dysfunction. As more is created, as will happen via this bill, it means more jobs and projects for these organisations. They want to view themselves as essential, indispensable providers; they do not want to work themselves out of a job.
Barnardos in particular was infiltrated by Brenda Radcliffe who proceeded to take over and change the whole culture of the organisation, purging it of people who did not agree to making the repeal of Section 59 their number one priority. The Barnardos written submission on Section 59 was a formal repudiation of their founder, Dr Thomas Barnardo's thoroughly Christian evangelical world view and its replacement by the twin ideological guidelines of "secularism and rationalism". Check it out at http://www.barnardos.org.nz/AboutUs/writtensubmission.pdf with the words "NOT FOR PUBLIC USE" plastered across each page. They repudiate their founder's philosophy and world view but want to continue trading on the founder's massive goodwill and reputation as a Christian organisation. It is dispicable.
As Bradford says, this legislation is not the answer to the child abuse problem – it doesn't even address it at all -- but it is the first of many small steps as the pro-repeal showcase submitters all said on that first appearance before the Select Committee back in March 2006. Swedish lawyer Ruby Harrold-Claesson was stunned when she heard them say this, for it is precisely the strategy used by the totalitarians in Sweden to take over personal freedoms: it even has a name, "The tyranny of the small steps."
Children's Commissioner Cindy Kiro has talked about a programme to give every child a personal social worker at birth who will assess the child on academics, physical and mental and social health at four points during the school years. See http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/2007/04/26-october-2006-commissioner-for.html.
Former Family Court Judge Graeme MacCormick has an even more invasive programme to assess parents seven times before the child turns 14, with any form of child benefit payments being cancelled should the parents refuse the assessment. It was dubbed the parenting license. See http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/2007/04/19-september-2006-nzherald-parents.html.

Bradford is definitely out to destroy the traditional family as we know it. In Parliament on 1 March 2007 Sue Bradford made the following comments during the first reading of the Births, Deaths, Marriages and Relationships Registration Amendment Bill: "...If this bill goes through there will therefore be a statutory obligation on fathers of children to make the notification, and an obligation on mothers to jointly make the notification with the father - whether they choose to or not.”
“Aside from the situation where a woman fears for the safety of herself or her baby, which would probably be covered by the "undue distress" exemption, there are a range of other situations where women may not wish to have the father of their child's name registered.
"One is where the woman is in a same-sex relationship, wants her partner to share parental responsibilities, but wants to conceive naturally rather than by assisted reproductive technology. Another is where the woman has a partner of the opposite sex who is infertile, but chooses to conceive naturally to another man. A third is where the woman simply wants to raise a child on her own without any involvement financially or emotionally from another parent. These are all reasonable choices for women to want to make, and choices that some women do make. Yet with the new section 9 proposed by this Bill, they are not choices that women will be lawfully
permitted to make.”
“... This aspect of the Bill is nothing short of draconian - it makes criminals out of women who wish to make choices to raise their children without the involvement of their biological father. ” (See http://www.hansard.parliament.govt.nz/hansard/Final/FINAL_2007_03_01.htm).
Bradford's ideology behind virtually every word she utters is so foreign and radical to anything average New Zealanders understand as normal and healthy that she is not to be taken seriously.


Yours sincerely.
Sue Bradford MP
 

5 April 2007 - Family Integrity #216 -- Response to Labour form letter

Dear Friends,

Below is a form letter being sent out by various Labour MPs in response to letters they receive on the Section 59 issue. I've responded to many of the inaccurate and supurious things these Labour ideologists say and thought you might be interested in the arguments yourselves.

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

(This one came from David Benson-Pope)

Thank you for your email regarding section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961.

Section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961 is currently available as a defence to parents or caregivers charged with offences involving the use of physical force to discipline their children.

You have strayed from the exactness which truth requires, and you will pay the price. During this entire debate, the pro-repeal lobby has been consistently incredibly sloppy, ill-informed and irresponsible in what they say about the issues surrounding the debate. Section 59 is used as a defense, but for the use of force that is for the purpose of correction and that is reasonable in the circumstances. This is a vital piece that you left out, because it causes further statements of yours to become lies.

In the type of case in which charges are usually laid, people who have violently abused their children, such as beating them with a piece of wood, have used this section to successfully
defend their actions.

This defence was recently used by a woman who beat her son with a riding crop. I have yet to meet a New Zealander who considers that acceptable. I'm sure you don't either and would agree therefore that the law that permits this must change.

Here is where your omission of the law stating that the force must be reasonable in the circumstances, plus your inaccurate and emotive use of words, mirroring the rest of the pro-repeal lobby's sloppy, ill-informed and irresponsible debate, causes you to be guilty of propagating lies. In both of these cases, the jury acquited the parents. That is to say, you can meet any of those 24 people who did consider the use of the riding crop not only acceptable but a case of reasonable force for correction. Were you there at the trial? Or did you collect your information from hearsay? Or do you actually read the sensationalised newspaper reports and form your own opinion of the judge and juries intelligence from those reports? Or worse still, does your information about these cases come from Bradford or Kiro?

Can you tell me when and where the piece of wood case took place? How big was the wood? What was the incident that led to the smack? Were there any marks involved? What did the boy say about it? What was the actual reason for acquittal? Why did the jury decide the parent (was it mum or dad?) was innocent if the boy, according to you, was violently abused, beaten with a piece of wood? You are clearly saying that the jury was populated by a pack of idiots who are too incompetent to tell the difference between a violently abusive beating and reasonable force. You are also implying that the jury system of justice is useless....or are you just saying it is useless when you don't like their decision, even though you know next to nothing of the details of the case?

I have spoken at length to the woman who, as you say, "beat her son" with a riding crop. How do you define "a beating"? What are the essential ingredients that set "beating" apart from "reasonable force"? Which of these were involved in this case? By what standard do you compose your list of essential ingredients? Is it simply your own opinion or is it informed from legal precedent? Can you tell me how many strokes she applied? Can you give me any indication of the strength behind the smacks? Can you tell me if the boy willingly submitted or not? Can you describe the relative differences between the size and weight of the boy and the size and weight of the mum? Do you know the ages of the boys in either case? What was the incident that caused the smacking? Again, where did you collect your information about this case and again, why do you think the jury acquitted her, especially when neither she nor her lawyer called any witnesses or spoke in her defence: she let the prosecution do all the talking...and he convinced the jury she was innocent! And why didn't the prosecution appeal the decision in either case?


The Justice and Electoral Committee has concluded its consideration of Ms Bradford's bill aimed at repealing section 59, and reported the Bill back to Parliament on 22 November 2006. The majority of the Committee recommended that the Bill proceed with amendments developed by the Law Commission, which is led by Sir Geoffrey Palmer.

The Bill seeks to protect our children

No, it does not. It seeks, as per Bradford's explanatory note, to remove protection from parents and to reduce their legal authority to use corrective force with their children to the same level as any passing stranger: to nil.





and remove a defence that is used by a small group of people who are charged with violently assaulting their children.

It is significant that you concede that Section 59 is only used by a small group of people. Lawyer John Hancock of the pro-repeal lobby, could only find 18 cases where such a defense was used in the 13 year period from 1990 to 2002, that is 1.4 cases a year. More that half of these returned a guilty verdict. So the defense is only successfully raised 0.7 times per year. We are talking about an insignificant number of cases. If you are really concerned about violence against children, and I note your own personal track record as a school teacher in this regard, you would do well to address the out-of-control bullying and drug use in schools. And why is it you care nothing for the 18,000 children slaughtered in their own mother's wombs each year? I would be interested to hear your apologetic for non-involvement on that one and why you think it is not violence of the most obscene and extreme kind when a mother is encouraged to pre-meditate upon the murder of her own child and then recruits others to help her search and destroy her own flesh and blood.

Complaints against violent parents are investigated now. That will not change, but they will no longer be able to use the defence that they were using "reasonable force" to excuse their actions. Good parents will not be at risk because of this change.

This is more irresponsible spin doctoring. You are saying that the label of "reasonable force" is routinely used to justify, using your words again, violent abuse and beatings; and none of the repeal lobby I have asked has yet been able to demonstrate that this charge is at all accurate or has any credibility. If it were true, then the rewritten version of Section 59 that you are now promoting is justifying violent abuse and beatings (which in your account of things is routinely equated with "reasonable force", a phrase still in the Bill) to stop offensive, disruptive, criminal or harmful behaviour or when incidental to good care and parenting. You cannot have it both ways: "reasonable force" is either violent abuse or it is reasaonable force. But you and the rest of the repeal lobby want to use the term in diametrically opposed ways whenever it suits you.

Good parents have everything to fear from this because it bans a lot more than light, reasonable smacking....it bans, no, it criminalises the use of reasonable force (how reasonable is that) used to correct children. This is criminalising a core responsibility of parenthood: correction. How does one correct bad behaviour, attitudes, speech, etc., into good habits without the use of force? At the very least it is the parent forcing his will upon the child. Good parents have requirements and prohibitions and do not let their children either wander or willfully go into error. They do not simply STOP them, as this bill allows.....good parents correct the errant behaviour. They make their children do the right and they do not let them do the wrong. Force, as per the Crimes Act Definition in Section 2, does not need to be physical force: intimidation or gestures will do. So, as I say, a lot more than smacking will be criminalised....virtually all efforts to correct children will be hamstrung.

We are not talking about punishment, for that is not permitted in either the current Section 59 or the rewrite....punishment was only mentioned in the amendment banning the cane in schools, for it was clear teachers were engaged in excessive and abusive and illegal punishment, which is not justified in the current Section 59 anyway.


I believe we all want to ensure that good and caring parents are supported whilst protecting children from abuse. The Government believes that the amendment to the Bill is a move in the right direction and the Government will be supporting the Bill with the amendment recommended by the select committee.

As I've said above, this rewrite of Section 59 is incredibly damaging to parental authority, which will damage their ability to parent effectively, and ineffective parenting will damge children. This bill will have no effect whatsoever on the kind of undisciplined and out-of-control parents who bash kids to death. This Bill is a move to establish Bradford's and the UN's extreme feminist ideology to attack the foundational structures of the traditional family: parental authority. This bill will harm all sectors of society, for none are untouched when every family suffers.

Under the amended Bill, section 59 would be replaced with a new provision to clarify that reasonable force may be used for the purposes of:

preventing or minimising harm to a child or another person; preventing a child from engaging or continuing to engage in criminal conduct, or offensive or disruptive behaviour; and performing the normal daily tasks of good care and parenting.

Subsections 1a and 1b of the bill are totally redundant as they are already covered by other parts of the crimes act. And in the areas of disruptive and offensive behaviour or what constitutes good care and parenting, the question no one has bothered to address is: by what standard? To me, good care and parenting are inseparable from correction, training and discipline. It would be child abuse NOT to incorporate these things. Who is defining the word "correction", since it is now to be regarded as an evil action toward children. What do you say "correction" means? No one else I've asked has bothered to give a definition. And by what standard shall I determine "offensive behaviour"? If the 13-year-old daughter wants to strut around topless in the privacy of her family house, how can the parents claim it is offensive if neither the police nor the city councils of Palmerston North, Auckland and Christchurch would declare toplessness in the centre of town at midday to be offensive, even though it was performed before pre-schoolers and some school children to promote pornography? You need to come up with something good on this one.


The Select Committee also recommended that a public information focus should be strengthened further.

The Government has already invested $10.8m over three years to establish the SKIP (Strategies with Kids - Information for Parents) programme. This programme promotes positive parenting and assists parents by informing them about effective, non-violent ways of disciplining children. The 2006 Budget provided an additional $14.8m over the next four years to enable this valuable programme to continue. I have included information about the programme, below.

It would be irresponsible to close this letter without reference to the unacceptable level of violence in our community, violence mostly against women and children. Everyone I discuss this matter with agrees we must do something.


Yours sincerely

David Benson-Pope
MP for Dunedin South


So get the police to charge the real bullies who are doing real physical, sexual and emotional damage on school grounds every day of the week. Enforce the many sections of the crimes act that already condemn violence and abuse against children. When you allow extremely realistic, gory and sexualised violence to be pumped into our society via TV, magazines, video games, DVDs, etc., and the bullying on campus and the drugs and the abortions and seriously consider assisted suicide and euthanasia, and go so very soft on real violent criminals when you catch them.....you have no credibility saying, "Something has to be done," and then threatening to charge good, everyday parents with assault, the ones who actually care enough to train self-discipline and self-control into their children, the ones who are part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Your commitment to this highly damaging, totally anti-family, anti-parent bill calls your judgement and competency into question. It also flags you as a person with a very scary attachment to a radical feminist, totalitarian ideology. By ignoring the 80% of voters who oppose this and ignoring the clear indications of how divisive this bill is going to be to our social cohesion, you show yourself to be no friend of democratic processes or the peace we all desire.
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
 

4 April 2007 - Family Integrity #215 -- CYFSWatch Poll

Another Poll

This one is on the CYFSWatch homepage, on the left, just a wee ways from the top.

While you're there, have a look around the CYFSWatch website. This is so frightening...and a glimpse of what more of us will experience from these over-zealous social workers who really are a law unto themselves at times because of the powers given to them in the Child, Young Persons and ther Families Act 1989 and the Care of Children Act 2004.

http://www.cyfswatch.org/

Would you vote for any MP that supported Sue Bradford's anti smacking bill!

(Votes: 229)

Yes!: 25.3% [58]
No!: 74.7% [171]



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
 

3 April 2007 - Family Integrity #214 -- Pretext

Dear Friends,

For Your Information:

A text without a context is a pretext.

This is what Labour and the Greens are doing now with the Bill to criminalise parents. They are saying that the historical and accepted understanding of smacking and time-out as legal expressions of Section 59’s “reasonable force” have, in fact, been illegal all this time.

That is like saying it has always been illegal for police to make arrests.

Looking solely at the legal definition of Assault in Section 2 of the Crimes Act shows that time-out, smacking and arresting all constitute acts of criminal assault. But taken in the context of the entire Act, it becomes obvious that Section 59 recognises parents have legitimate authority to use “reasonable force” - not unreasonable force - to correct their children and that several other sections of the Act give police and even bystanders legitimate authority to use force - sometimes the Act doesn’t even specify that it must be “reasonable” - to arrest people for various reasons.

So Labour and the Greens reference the text of Section 2 of the Crimes Act, without the context of the rest of the Act, for the pretext of claiming that smacking and time-out are already illegal.

The second pretext employed by Labour and the Greens is to say that “all this Bill does” is remove the defense of “reasonable force” for correcting a child. So after telling us that the Bill won’t criminalise parents, because those who smack are already criminals, they add that from now on parents who smack or use any force at all to correct will have to be found guilty of assault, for there will no longer be a legal defense.

Labour and Green are saying, “You parents have always been criminals. From now on you have no refuge in law. If you use even reasonable force to correct your children for anything they do, you will be guilty of child assault. If you are seen or even suspected, you will be investigated. If you have corrected your child, you will be charged and you will be found guilty, for there is no longer a legal defense for correcting a child.”

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
 

2 April 2007 - Family Integrity #213 -- Labour backs off

2 April 2007 - Family Integrity #213 -- Labour backs off

Dear Friends,

Here is a press release from Bradford's Office.

The great news is that the Labour government has decided to back away from pickiing up this Bill, so it may go on past May and into June.

Bradford here treats us all with her usual contempt by saying we will continue to spread misinformation about the Bill. Yet she says out of one side of her mouth, "this is an anti-beating, anti-child-violence bill, not a piece of legislation that will see tens of thousands of well-meaning parents dragged into court for the occasional light smack," and from the other side comes out with, "my original goal: To remove the defence of 'reasonable force' for the purposes of correction under s59 of the Crimes Act."

The only way one can make sense of this is to equate, as Bradford does every time she speaks on this, "reasonable force" with "beating" and "child-violence", for she claims that "severe beatings" and "violent abuse" and "thrashings" all regularly hide behind the label of "reasonable force". Yet her amended Bill does not get rid of this terminology, a move I thought would be her primary objective, since she calls it "an anti-beating, anti-child-violence" bill and since she reguarly claims that these terrible things parade around unnoticed behind this terminology. No! Her amended Bill allows for "reasonable force" or if I do as she regularly does and swap that term with others, we find that her Bill now allows for "severe beatings" to stop harmful or criminal or offensive or disruptive behaviour and allows " violent abuse" that is incidental to good care and parenting.

Her arguments are as illogical as ever.

Now, she also says her office is flooded with SUPPORT mail. OK. Let's flood her office with mail opposed to her Bill, pleading with her not to criminalise us and not to terrorise our families by having police and CYFS hanging over our heads all the time for simply using "reasonable force" to correct our children. For crying out loud, that is a core duty of parenting.

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






2 April 2007
Bradford still confident of Bill's success

The Government's decision not to pick up the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill will give opponents more time to further their misinformation campaign, but the Bill's sponsor Green Party MP is confident it will get through in the end.

"I intend to continue to work alongside the many organisations and individuals who support my Bill during the next two to three months to get the message out that this is an anti-beating, anti-child-violence bill, not a piece of legislation that will see tens of thousands of well-meaning parents dragged into court for the occasional light smack," Ms Bradford says.

The Bill is now unlikely to go through its Third Reading until June.

"This means that the opponents' campaign of misinformation is likely to continue until the bitter end. I am really concerned that this will continue to cause unnecessary fear among many ordinary decent parents.

"I am not surprised that the Government has chosen not to pick up my Bill. All along I felt this was far from certain given the length of time the remaining debate is likely to take and the controversial nature of the issue.

"What is most important to me is that the Bill passes in the end, in a shape that retains my original goal: To remove the defence of 'reasonable force' for the purposes of correction under s59 of the Crimes Act," Ms Bradford says.

Letters and emails and other forms of support continue to pour into my office at Parliament, far outnumbering communications from the Bill's opponents.

United Future MP Gordon Copeland's amendment to my Bill around the issue of 'time out', while well-meaning, is unnecessary.

The amendment put forward by the Select Committee already covers this - in sections (c) and (d) under 'Parental Control'.

While Mr Copeland does have an opinion from Peter McKenzie that the Bill as drafted does not deal with 'time out' the Law Commission has rejected this opinion, Ms Bradford says.

For more information

Sue Bradford, MP, 04 470 6720, 027 243 4239
Fran Tyler, 04 470 6679, 021 473 900
 

2 April 2007 - Subject: Family Integrity #212a -- Naked Grab for Power

2 April 2007 - Subject: Family Integrity #212 -- Naked Grab for Power

Naked Grab for Power

The Bill to repeal Section 59 is a clumsy and naked grab by the state to usurp the natural authority of parents over their own children.

It forbids parents from correcting their own children! Correction, changing bad behaviour and attitudes and language into good, is a core responsibility and expectation of all parents.

This Bill goes way beyond banning smacking. It removes parental authority. It forbids parents from correcting their own children. Correction of children is then legally authorized only by the agents of the state: the police, teachers, social workers.

This is home and family invasion on a gross scale. It is doing massive political and administrative violence to families. By interposing itself between parents and children, by rendering children’s parents impotent, it is doing great psychological and emotional damage to children. When parents are under constant threat of legal action by both Police and CYFS, the stress hampers their parenting and renders it less effective.

This Bill will combine with the law of compulsory school attendance to give the state political machine the major role to legally control and influence the children of this country. Why? Because the Bill transfers from parents to the agents of the state the authority to correct children; and the schooling system serves as the state’s major tool of social engineering, a channel for political propaganda.

And once we give the state bureaucrats our children, we might just as well give them everything else…they will come for it soon enough anyway. Once we make the big compromise with regard to our children, nothing else matters any more.

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
 

2 April 2007 - Family Integrity #212 -- New way to email MPs!

Dear Friends,

http://starstuddedsuperstep.com/section59/htm/mp_vote.htm

This has got to be the easiest way for every Kiwi to email the pro-repeal, pro-Bradford's Bill MPs.

It's dead easy, just click on a hyperlink and the email program opens up - saves quite a bit of hassle.


Use it all day today, tomorrow and Wednesday to lobby these MPs.

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
 

2 April 2007 - Family Integrity #210 -- Another Feilding Protest Rally

Diane Woodward of Feilding is holding anohter, 2nd, protest rally against Bradford's Bill to ban parental authority.

It is for TODAY, Monday 2 April, 12 noon at the Feilding Clock Tower.

See you there.

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
 

31 March 2007 - Family Integrity #209 -- The Latest

What's the latest?

Labour thought out loud about putting Bradford's Bill under urgency and so ram it through before the Easter break that way. But all that did was stir up opposition to this Bill even more.

Labour is now thinking out loud that they might change Bradford's Private Member's Bill (which can only be considered on every second Wednesday) into a Government Bill, which can be considered at any time. They say they'll make a decision on that this Tuesday (3 April). Political commentators say this will work, and that it will enable the Bill to get pushed through by Thursday.

About 3 National MPs who said they were going to vote for the Bill have come out to say they are against it now. But the Bill will get 63 votes without any National votes: Labour, Greens, Maori, Progressive, Dunne (UF), Woolerton and Donnelly (NZF) make 63. Only 61 are needed to pass.

The Bill is giving Labour and Greens a golden opportunity to show how clever they are at telling lies and feeding out misinformation. They say it won't ban smacking, though Police have confirmed it clearly will. So Labour say that smacking has, in fact, been illegal all these years anyway, and that the Bill will only remove a legal defense. So they want us to believe that they are not making smacking illegal, just making it impossible for parents to legally defend themselves if they ever smack a child, however lightly.

They are also getting more and more emotive in how they equate the current Section 59's "reasonable force" with violence, severe beatings, thrashings, etc. Kiro was fond of saying Section 59 gives parents a license to beat their chidlren. None of this is true, of course, for any fool will tell you that "reasonable force" is not beating, thrashing, etc. To maintain that they are the same, as do Clark, Bradford and Kiro, is to say that juries are typically too thick to tell the difference.

This bill as proposed, reproduced below, doesn't get rid of the hated "reasonable force" that Bradford et al constantly say is a mask for severe beatings, thrashings, and other forms of violence. It in fact outlines scenarios wherein one can use "reasonable force" or, in their rhetoric, scenarios wherein one can legally thrash and severely beat one's child: to prevent harm, criminal, offensive or disruptive behaviour or when a beating is incidental to good care and parenting. The one time you must never use reasonable force is for the purpose of correction.


In fact, subsection 3 of the bill says subsection 2 must prevail over subsection 1. That is, if there is a question over whether a parent's smack or use of reasonable force was corrective or preventative or incidental to good care and parenting, the corrective interpretation must prevail, meaning when there is doubt about the intent, the parent must be considered quilty of planning correction for the child and therefore must be convicted. Reasonable doubt normally acquits....with this Bill, reasonable doubt requires a conviction. Haven't Bradford and her colleagues on the Select Committee and Sir Geoffrey Palmer who drafted this Bill been clever to turn centuries of hard-won legal precedents on their head with a mere six words in subsection 3? Brilliant.

The passage of this Bill will tip New Zealand into the cauldron of those countries which are totalitarian socialist dictatorships; places like Sweden & Germany. Sweden is best known for kidnapping children into foster care and monster children who control and terrorise their parents; Germany is known for its absolute intolerance of home schoolers and Christians who would dare to be different from the society the state's public schools is creating, explaining that "parallel societies" cannot be allowed.

The Bill will give our children into the hands of the state. And once we give the bureaucrats the children, we might just as well give them everything else. For once we've made the Big Compromise and given over our children, they WILL come for everything else.

Continue to email and ring and fax and write to the MPs. Lobby to the last minute. See our home page for things to do: http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz.


Proposed replacement 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).


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
 

29 March 2007 - Family Integrity #208 -- Speeches at Parliament today

Greetings all,

Three things:

1. The Government dropped its bid to ram the Bill through Parliament under Urgency. This is old news now, being about 2 days stale.
2. The Government has apparently changed this anti-smacking, anti-parental authority Bill from a Private Member's Bill (which can only be debated every second week) into a Government Bill (which can be debated every day.
3.There have been very successful marches at Masterton, Nelson and Feilding over the last few days and one each in Christchurch and Wellington today, Wednesday 28 March. At this link you'll find videos of the speeches made at the Wellington march.

http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/search/label/YouTube

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
 

26 March 2007 -Family Integrity #207 -- Con Job

26 March 2007 - Family Integrity #207 -- Con Job

This is must reading: the government's argument to repeal Section 59 is a con job.

http://www.nzcpd.com/weekly74.htm

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
 

24 March 2007 - Family Integrity #206 -- 13th Press Release ideas: Sold Out

24 March 2007 - Family Integrity #206 -- 13th Press Release ideas: Sold Out


Dear Friends,

Write to your MP!! Write, email, fax, phone....keep the pressure on as much as you can.

We've known Labour and Greens don't play by rules they stick to. So they plan to ram the Bill through under Urgency Wednesday 28 March, so it could all be over in a few days. And unless Labour has a meltdown, the core responsibility of parenting, correcting your children, will become a crime.

There are protest marches planned for Feilding, Christchurch, Wellington and Nelson. Rangiora and Masterton have both had successful marches. See http or http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/search/label/Coming%20Events for details.

Here's a You Tube film of Larry Baldock explaining the Petition: http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/search/label/YouTube


New You Tube shorts you want to check out plus press releases, etc: http://christiannews.co.nz/

Websites for information on protest Marches:

http://smackingback.blogspot.com/


http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/search/label/Coming%20Events


http://www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz/page/844292


This is the 13th 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 http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz for instructions.

Also check out this site for protest March details and 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
http://www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz

Our Home....Our Castle


Selling Out

The Maori Party is really in the gun. What they’ve done to their own culture, selling out to a radical form of feminism that most Pakeha won’t even endorse, letting two other political parties direct their own party’s steps over the clear wishes of 80% or more of their own people is really quite reprehensible, even more reprehensible than the goose-stepping-on-your-face distain Labour shows for its constituents.

Bradford’s Bill to criminalise the act of parental correction of children will re-define the entire parent-child and child-family relationships. Cutting the child out of the context of its own whanau, separating it from its parents and bestowing upon the child a set of “rights” determined by the political state without consulting the parents, whanau or cultural norms is a completely foreign way to treat tamariki.

“The best interests of the child” is the mantra of these Internationalists who fawn at the hand of the United Nations…and that means a child considered on its own, without reference to parents, whanau or cultural links. The child is not just seen as an autonomous individual, but one with individual rights. Who bestows these rights? The state. Who will protect these rights? The state and its agents (social workers, police, teachers and increasingly the staff of Plunket, Barnardos, doctors’ offices, etc.). And from whom does the child need protection that its rights should not be infringed? Parents. Parents are the prime suspects at all times in the eyes of nanny state and its agents.

Be afraid, parents, of Bradford’s Bill to criminalise you. Be very afraid. Be outraged, Maori people, for you have been sold over to bondage.

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
 

23 March 2007 - Family Integrity #204 -- Another Protest March

23 March 2007 - Family Integrity #204 -- Another Protest March

Friends,

It is official:

There will be a protest gathering in Feilding on Monday, 12 noon, at the
clock tower. Bring balloons and placards.

Bring all your friends, too!

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
 

23 March 2007 - Family Integrity #203 -- Top Story of Scoop Politics

Here is another glimpse into the future as to how this Bill is going to be applied....and this took place here in NZ already.

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

-----Original Message-----
From: David Lane [mailto:david.lane@paradise.net.nz]
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 6:57 PM
To: Craig Smith; 'Craig. Barbara. Smith@Xtra. Nz'
Subject: Top Story of Scoop Politics


http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0703/S00310.htm

Removal of S. 59 Defence Will Split up Families

Friday, 23 March 2007, 5:15 pm
Press Release: Society For Promotion Of Community Standards Inc.
23 March 2007
Removal of S. 59 Defence Will Split up Families

A tragic case involving the criminalisation of two experienced, mature and loving foster parents for lightly smacking their foster boy for his extensive vandalism, and the splitting up for good of their family, serves as a serious warning to New Zealanders of what will happen if Sue Bradford’s “silly” and “ridiculous” bill, that seeks to repeal s. 59, becomes law. (These very same pejorative words were used by the Prime Minister Helen Clark in a live interview, in the context of her giving support to Bradford’s bill, to rubbish section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961 which provides a justification for parents to use “reasonable force” in the context of corrective domestic discipline of their kids).

Helen Clark, who has never had children (nor have her two male Labour party whips who are forcing all Labour MPs to support Bradford’s flawed bill,) has been quite wrong to rubbish s. 59. About 80-90 percent of New Zealanders strongly disagree with her. Based on extensive nation-wide polls over the last two years, they all want s. 59 retained and oppose Bradford’s flawed bill that has now become Clark’s troublesome ‘baby’. The remaining 10 to 20 percent who have swallowed Bradford’s rhetoric find it hard to believe that the government authorities will take kids away from good parents for formal complaints of smacking "correctly", should the bill become law. "It's just not going to happen for good parents who smack correctly" they scream at opponents of the bill. These vitriolic ideologues are already obsessed with proselytising their beliefs that only bad and inadequate parents smack their kids for corrective purposes.

For More .... Go To.....

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0703/S00310.htm
 

23 March 2007 - Family Integrity #202 -- A Sue Bradford child, coming to your country soon!

23 March 2007 - Family Integrity #202 -- A Sue Bradford child, coming to your country soon!

Dear Friends,

Forgive me for passing this video clip on, as I find the punch-line anti-Christian, offensive and thoroughly anti-children. However, since the video is Swedish, the wee commentary below by Swedish lawyer Ruby Harrold-Claesson, who has taken an intense interest in our situation and feeds us material nearly every day, really should give us cause for great concern.

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


-----Original Message-----
From: Christian News New Zealand [mailto:christiannewz@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 6:46 AM
To: Christian News New Zealand
Subject: A Sue Bradford child, coming to your country soon!



Voted Best Commercial in Europe


What great timing. Just in time for the anti-smacking bill!

This video is 40 seconds long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkWcwJyagW4

or



From Swedish Lawyer Ruby Harrold-Claesson:

I hope you realise that this is a little Swedish boy and his "impotent" Swedish father. He swore at his father "Jävla Pappa!" (Damned Daddy).

That's the way Swedish children behave. (They would say the same to their teachers or any other adult.) The father didn't dare do anything else than put the things back on the shelves, blow up his cheeks and look helpless. Also, notice the other shoppers' reactions. No one dares say anything.
 

23 March 2007 - Family Integrity #201 -- 12th Press Release Ideas

23 March 2007 - Family Integrity #201 -- 12th Press Release Ideas

Dear Friends,

We've known Labour and Greens don't play by rules they stick to. So they plan to ram the Bill through under Urgency Wednesday 28 March, so it will all be over in less than a week. And unless Labour has a meltdown, the core responsibility of parenting, correcting your children, will become a crime.

There are protest marches planned for Christchurch, Rangiora, Masterton, Wellington and Nelson. See http://www.politik.co.nz or http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/search/label/Coming%20Events


Here's a You Tube film of Larry Baldock explaining the Petition: http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/search/label/YouTube

New You Tube shorts you want to check out plus press releases, etc: http://christiannews.co.nz/

Websites for information on protest Marches:

http://smackingback.blogspot.com/


http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/search/label/Coming%20Events

http://www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz/page/844292


This is the 12th 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 http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz for instructions.

Also check out this site for protest March details and 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


It Isn't True

I’ve listened to enough. People are way too polite in saying Green MP Sue Bradford’s motivations are pure and her heart is set on the protection of defenceless children from violence and abuse.

This is simply not true: it is only the smoke screen for her sinister agenda. It is obvious that this Bill does nothing to help abused children or nail abusive parents, but it will make criminals of the best parents in the country.

Physical violence and abuse toward children is not Bradford’s or Labour’s concern: it is the God-ordained authority and influence that parents have over their own children that Bradford is out to neutralise. She hates the idea that parents can legally inculcate and enforce their own traditional Christian family values into their children without being forced to give her radical-feminist-Green values equal time. So her Bill specifically targets “correction”: parents are to be forbidden to correct a child’s bad behaviour, attitudes, speech, grammar, dress or hygiene habits into good ones, regardless of how light or reasonable is the force they use to make the correction.

If parents cannot correct their children, who then can? Government agents getting their directions from the Top, where Sue Bradford intends to dwell. Truancy officers, social workers and police all have legal powers to use even unreasonable force to remove children from families and to ensure attendance at state schooling and propaganda centres (staffed by more Government agents known as school teachers), anger management and drug dependency courses as well as living where they’re told, be it in foster families or a prison.

While a simple dictator would be happy controlling the military and the economy and thickly lining his own pockets, Bradford’s & Labour’s agenda, like the worst Reds of Mao’s China and the USSR, is totalitarianism: they know what’s best for you and me and will control us, our personal thought lives and our children. In this way they hope to claim personal starring roles in Hegel’s idea that “the State is god walking on earth”.

Like Sue and Helen’s older sister Eve, they have a desire to be as god, knowing and determining for themselves - and everyone else while they’re at it - what constitutes good and evil. Eve fell for it. Looks like these two have fallen for it too. May God have mercy on us all.
 

21 March 2007 - Family Integrity #200 -- 11th Press Release Ideas

21 March - Family Integrity #200 -- 11th Press Release Ideas

Dear Friends,

New You Tube shorts you want to check out plus press releases, etc: http://christiannews.co.nz/

Websites for information on protest Marches:

http://smackingback.blogspot.com/

http://familyintegrity.blogspot.com/search/label/Coming%20Events


http://www.FamilyIntegrity.org.nz/page/844292


This is the 11th 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 http://www.familyintegrity.org.nz for instructions.

Also check out this site for protest March details and 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

By What Standard?
Bradford’s bill to repeal parental authority is simply insane. The only reason anyone pays it any attention at all is out of a sense of being polite and unwilling to say in public that this idea is completely detached from reality. First, it demonises “correction” of children. This is a core responsibility of parenting. We correct our children’s behaviour, attitudes, speech, grammar, dress and even tone of voice. Bradford is clearly subversive toward parenting in her intentions.

Second, it is clearly unwanted by the vast majority of the population. To continue to drive it through is not just unrepresentative and undemocratic, it is highly irresponsible and exposes its thoroughly ideological rather than any logical or beneficial motives. It will wreck any chance of forming the social peace and harmony the MPs all say they want to develop.

Third, it is hopelessly vague and unenforceable. “Reasonable force” is allowed to stop offensive or disruptive behaviour. But the Bill fails to specify by what standard “offensive” and “disruptive” are to be judged? If the 13-year-old daughter wants to strut around topless in the privacy of her family house, how can the parents claim it is offensive if neither the police nor the city councils of Palmerston North, Auckland and Christchurch would declare toplessness in the centre of town at midday to be offensive, even though it was performed before pre-schoolers and some school children to promote pornography?

Will the parents be trusted to make the call, according to the dictates of their own privately held standards, or will they be forced to conform to some national standard deemed to be acceptable on an ad hoc basis? If it is Bradford’s standards - which include approval of prostitution, dope smoking, lowered drinking age and lesbians getting a guy at the pub to impregnate one of them and casting him aside so the lesbians can have a live baby to toy with - it will only prove that this country is no longer a good place to bring up kids. Dump Bradford’s Bill.
 

16 March 2007 - Family Integrity #198 -- A new video clip on YouTube

16 March 2007 - Family Integrity #198 -- A new video clip on YouTube

Hi Guys

Links below are to former NZ Police Commissioner John Jamieson's comments on Bradford's Bill.

Spread the links far and wide. They need to go to the media.

If sending to media - or to anyone, tell them to use the YouTube keyword
'section59' and all the Bradford and section 59 clips will come up,
including the Timaru Lady's story.

Former Commissioner of Police on Bradfords Bill SLOW BB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iZcSK4cn4Y

Former Commissioner of Police on Bradfords Bill FAST BB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD0vDo-LfX4

Former Commissioner of Police on Bradfords Bill 56K DIALUP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAhQxMw9A2E">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAhQxMw9A2E

All the best
 

15 March 2007 - Family Integrity #197 -- Smacking Bill - It's Not Over Yet

15 March 2007 - Family Integrity #197 -- Smacking Bill - It's Not Over Yet

Dear Friends,

Bob says it all right here:

15 Mar 2007

Hi Craig,


It isn't over yet !


The Anti-Smacking Bill can still be defeated - but we need your voice

Firstly, an apology . We apologise for having sent out so many emails recently over this issue. We have only received 2-3 complaints BUT this debate is simply indicative of a major issue in NZ - who should raise your children - parents or politicians? How much should the State control good family life?

Now back to the business!

We need your voice.

The Labour party has been 'whipped' (interesting terminology!) to vote the way the Prime Minister has told them. BUT there are a number of Labour MP's who are not happy! And they are starting to speak up.

We need to help them!!!!!!

Please email, phone or write to the following family-friendly Labour MP's
* ask them to demand a conscience vote in the Labour party
* ask them to vote to protect good parents doing a great job
* ask them to support Chester Borrow's amendment defining reasonable force but not criminalising parents who use appropriate correction and discipline

Keep it simple! Keep it polite! Do it now!

Cosgrove Clayton Waimakariri clayton.cosgrove@parliament.govt.nz 04 470 6593
Cunliffe David New Lynn dcunliffe@ministers.govt.nz d.cunliffe@xtra.co.nz 04 470 6667
Duynhoven Harry New Plymouth hduynhoven@ministers.govt.nz duynhoven.mp@xtra.co.nz 04 471 9321
Gosche Mark Maungakiekie mark.gosche@parliament.govt.nz 04 471 9586
Hawkins George Manurewa george.hawkins@parliament.govt.nz 04 471 9411
Hereora Dave dave.hereora@parliament.govt.nz 04 470 6969
Hughes Darren Otaki darren.hughes@parliament.govt.nz electorateoffice@darrenhughes.co.nz 04 471 9732
Laban Luamanuvao Mana wlaban@ministers.govt.nz mana.electorate@xtra.co.nz 04 470 6584
Mahuta Nanaia Tainui n.mahuta@ministers.govt.nz tainuielectorate@xtra.co.nz 04 470 6571
Moroney Sue sue.moroney@parliament.govt.nz 04 471 9578
O'Connor Damien West Coast - Tasman doconnor@ministers.govt.nz cecelia.motueka@xtra.co.nz 04 470 6574
Okeroa Mahara Te Tai Tonga mahara.okeroa@parliament.govt.nz tetaitonga.chch@xtra.co.nz 04 470 6585
Parker David d.parker@ministers.govt.nz sue@davidparkermp.gen.nz 04 471 9815
Ririnui Mita mririnui@ministers.govt.nz 04 470 6577
Robertson Ross Manukau East ross.robertson@parliament.govt.nz 04 471 9873
Samuels Dover dsamuels@ministers.govt.nz 04 470 6560
Street Maryan maryan.street@parliament.govt.nz 04 471 9107
Swain Paul Rimutaka paul.swain@parliament.govt.nz rebecca.leahy@parliament.govt.nz 04 471 9841

To email all of them at one time, copy and paste this:
clayton.cosgrove@parliament.govt.nz ; dcunliffe@ministers.govt.nz ; d.cunliffe@xtra.co.nz ; hduynhoven@ministers.govt.nz ; duynhoven.mp@xtra.co.nz ; mark.gosche@parliament.govt.nz ; george.hawkins@parliament.govt.nz ; george.hawkins@parliament.govt.nz ; dave.hereora@parliament.govt.nz ; darren.hughes@parliament.govt.nz ; electorateoffice@darrenhughes.co.nz ; wlaban@ministers.govt.nz ; mana.electorate@xtra.co.nz ; n.mahuta@ministers.govt.nz ;
tainuielectorate@xtra.co.nz ; sue.moroney@parliament.govt.nz ; doconnor@ministers.govt.nz ; cecelia.motueka@xtra.co.nz ; mahara.okeroa@parliament.govt.nz ; tetaitonga.chch@xtra.co.nz ; d.parker@ministers.govt.nz ; sue@davidparkermp.gen.nz ; mririnui@ministers.govt.nz ; ross.robertson@parliament.govt.nz ; dsamuels@ministers.govt.nz ; maryan.street@parliament.govt.nz ; paul.swain@parliament.govt.nz ; rebecca.leahy@parliament.govt.nz ;

We need your effort.

Please download the petition forms and collect signatures.

These forms can be downloaded at http://www.familyfirst.org.nz/index.cfm/sign_the_petitions.html

Although the petition does not need to be completed for 12 months, we want to send a loud clear message to MP's as soon as possible that they should be tackling the real causes of child abuse.

Thanks for your efforts - the family is worth defending!

Bob McCoskrie
National Director

http://www.familyfirst.org.nz | About us | Media Centre | Contact Us | Support Us |
To unsubscribe, click here


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
 

14 March 2007 - Family Integrity #196 -- Listen to debates online

14 March 2007 - Family Integrity #196 -- Listen to debates online

Dear Friends,

Listen on-line to Parliament Debate Section 59 Bill at:

http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/live/parliament

They are debating something else just now, but will go through until 6pm. They reconvene at 7:30 and go through to 10pm.

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
 

13 March 2007 - Family Integrity #194 -- 10th Press Release Ideas

13 March 2007 - Family Integrity #194 -- 10th Press Release Ideas

Dear Friends,

This is the 10th 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 http://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


Strangers Can but Parents Can't

Bradford’s misguided Bill to repeal Section 59 is incredibly short sighted in a number of ways. One is that she failed to notice Section 60 of the Crimes Act, right next door to Section 59. Section 60 justifies the use of “reasonable force” toward children, elderly and anyone else at the captain’s or pilot’s command by even passengers and crew on a ship or aircraft “for the purpose of maintaining good order and discipline”.

Will that force be considered justified if used by parents in the home, in the car or in the shopping trolley? Isn’t “maintaining good order and discipline” also “incidental to good care and parenting” (which Bradford says is to be legal), or will it be defined as correction (which Bradford will insist makes it a crime)?

It is not at all clear what Bradford means by “correction”. Is it not reasonable that parents should have as much authority in their homes and vehicles and shopping trolleys as captains and pilots have on their craft? Or will this Bill land us in the situation where strangers in the form of passengers and crew can use reasonable force on my children to maintain good order and discipline on the ferry ship in the calms of Wellington harbour, but my wife and I are not allowed to use it on our own children in our own van to maintain good order and discipline while driving through the chaos of Wellington highways.

This ridiculous Bill is focused on criminalizing the benign corrective force used by nearly every good and caring parent in the country…..while doing nothing whatsoever to weed out the dysfunctional child abusing households. Dump the Bill.
 

13 March 2007 - Family Integrity #193 -- Anti-Smacking Bill: Who should the politicians listen to?

13 March 2007 - Family Integrity #193 -- Anti-Smacking Bill: Who should the politicians listen to?


Dear Friends,

An encouraging message.

Blessings,
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


13 Mar 2007
Hi Craig,

WHO SHOULD THE POLITICIANS LISTEN TO?

Summary of Polls over last 2 years

(% = Opposed to repeal of s59 / Opposed to Bradford Bill / Opposed to banning reasonable smacking)

2007
March
TV3 News Poll 83%

February
NZ Herald 90% (3874 votes)
TVNZ website 87%

2006
July
STUFF website 82% (6700 votes!)
TVNZ website 88%

May
Bay of Plenty Times 83%

February
Child Abuse Conference! 82%
STUFF website 84%
Dominion Post 82%

2005
March
STUFF website 86%

July
NZ Herald 71%

June
STUFF website 82%



THE POLITICIANS SHOULD LISTEN TO KIWIS


REJECT BRADFORD'S 'ANTI SMACKING' BILL


http://www.familyfirst.org.nz | About us | Media Centre | Contact Us | Support Us
 

12 March 2007 - Family Integrity #192 -- Ninth Press Release Ideas

12 March 2007 - Family Integrity #192 -- Ninth Press Release Ideas

Dear Friends,

This is the 9th 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 http://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



Unenforcable Due to Lack of Definitions

The “Home Invasion” Bill of Sue Bradford’s to rewrite Section 59 is so thoroughly subversive of traditional, common-sense parenting, it will be impossible to enforce. Smacking is not defined. Bradford constantly equates it with hitting and beating, but this Bill neither affirms nor denies her sentiments on that. Historically smacking has been lumped into the category of “reasonable force” in Section 59, and this has been Bradford's argument: that even severe hitting and beating are constantly hiding behind the phrase "reasonable force". But does Bradford’s rewrite of Section 59 eliminate the phrase? No! Her nutty Bill actually says, "reasonable force" is justified when “performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting.” If Bradford's rhetoric has any credibility at all, then also "severe hitting and beating" are justified when done “incidental to good care and parenting”.

Bradford's Bill also fails to define what actually constitutes “the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting.” Most folks would agree that it covers things like correction. But "correction" is the one thing Bradford has been careful to specifically forbid in this bill. “Correction”, however, is not defined either, so it will become a lawyers’ feeding frenzy to get as many of these cases to court to hammer out definitions, damaging another child and another family with every case.

This Bill's purpose is to criminalise parents for correcting their children, a core duty of parenting. It has absolutely nothing to offer abused children in dysfunctional families. Dump the Bill.
 




 
 

Equipping parents to do battle to protect the integrity of their family