Hard News: Smack to the Future
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Scotty. Just don't hit your kids. Its like giving up smoking. A time of withdrawl symptoms, like itching, burning palms, sweating, but you can do it man. Just give it up!
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Holding back a struggling child who is trying to run across a busy road, burping a windy baby etc. Alll would be assaults if s59 went altogether.
I think sometimes we need to remind ourselves that laws are interpreted by people who aren't as moronic as Larry Baldock. Burping a baby is possibly the silliest example I've heard of yet over the past two years.
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Scotty. Just don't hit your kids. Its like giving up smoking. A time of withdrawl symptoms, like itching, burning palms, sweating, but you can do it man. Just give it up!
So because I point out that the law is messy and uncertain in some areas, that makes me a child beater?
Of course I may have missed the point of your last remark - maybe you were being humorous.
Burping a baby is possibly the silliest example I've heard of yet over the past two years.
I may have missed it, but I don't recall anyone arguing that burping a baby is currently illegal.
I was merely pointing out that there are actually sensible reasons for not repealing section 59 in its entirety. Otherwise some day to day parenting routines would be criminal. So removing the "performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting" provision may not be so wise.
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I was merely pointing out that there are actually sensible reasons for not repealing section 59 in its entirety. Otherwise some day to day parenting routines would be criminal. So removing the "performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting" provision may not be so wise.
On the other hand, there has never been an equivalent to S59 for adults, meaning that it is and has always been a criminal offence to push an adult out of the path of a bus or to slap them on the back if they're choking (or just to congratulate them), and yet people aren't being arrested and charged with assault left, right and centre due to such "day-to-day" actions.
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I was merely pointing out that there are actually sensible reasons for not repealing section 59 in its entirety. Otherwise some day to day parenting routines would be criminal.
What Josh said.
I don't believe we need to make our laws so detailed so as to prevent the entire legal system from being morons. Find me a police officer that would look twice at it, a judge that wouldn't throw it off and give anyone that brought it before him/her a good bollocking.
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Around this point I like to ask whether a legal guardian has ever been charged with kidnapping for making a child go to their room.
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but you can do it man. Just give it up!
GET A PERM!
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I may have missed it, but I don't recall anyone arguing that burping a baby is currently illegal.
Aw man, that notion would cause a highly entertaining uproar over a Kiwiblog, if somehow we could suggest it is so with a metaphorical straight face.
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Scotty: Just kidding. :) And trying to not let Craig get the last word.
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Scotty: Just kidding. :)
YOU THINK THIS IS A JOKE DO YOU!
JUST YOU WAIT TIL YOUR FATHER GETS HOME!
WHERE'S MY WOODEN SPOON!
WHERE'S YOUR RULER!
WHAT?, YOU LOST IT!
JUST YOU WAIT TIL YOUR FATHER GET"S HOME!MRS BALDOCK!!!
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Now that it appears there is going to be no change in the legislation I suggest we send the bill for this entire farce of a referendum to it's instigator, Larry Ballsup.
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Sofie! Were you spying on us? Word for word! Dammit. There should be a law that what we do to our kids in private is our own business! God knows!
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What Josh said.
Some of what Josh said is covered by section 48 of the Crimes Act. That's the "defence of others" provision. It applies to everyone, so I agree you could argue some parts of section 59 are unnecessary.
Around this point I like to ask whether a legal guardian has ever been charged with kidnapping for making a child go to their room.
Were a charge to be laid I imagine the defence might mention the powers granted to legal guardians under the Care of Children Act 2004. And if force were used to compel obedience section 59 could of course be relied on.
Pre 2004 they might have mentioned the Guardianship Act 1968. Pre 1968 - God knows. I do have a day job to do, you know...
Scotty: Just kidding. :)
Okay. Let me just scratch your name from my “those who must be punished when my reign of terrror begins” list (no smacking of course - just enforced time-outs)
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I imagine the defence might mention the powers granted to legal guardians under the Care of Children Act 2004.
I won't share my ignorance re: whether that would apply to assault too. I just thought I'd share what I found in my random glances:
Principles relevant to child’s welfare and best interests
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(e) the child’s safety must be protected and, in particular, he or she must be protected from all forms of violence (whether by members of his or her family, family group, whānau, hapu, or iwi, or by other persons): -
I won't share my ignorance re: whether that would apply to assault too. I just thought I'd share what I found in my random glances:
They are of course guiding principles only, not a set of rigid rules :)
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(no smacking of course - just enforced time-outs)
Hey, that's what I was doing already. No, I wern't spying, my dad called by with gifts for my man,(he never smacked me) so I gave him some time, y'know popular in the 70's. As you were. :)
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Seems Baldock arithmetic is about equal to his reading comprehension !
geoff
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A bit late to join this thread, but I couldn't help but agree with the speeding analogy. It moves us away fom the ideological debate which confuses the issue.
Sometimes drivers travel at 5km over the limit (a criminal offense ) but the police will excercise discretion. Another driver may go 20km over the limit and be fined or prosecuted. Same offense. Speeding.
Or could we say "Should speeding as a part of good everyday driving be a criminal offense in New Zealand?"
I don't like receiving tickets for being 12k over the speed limit on a clear downhill run on a dry, empty, semi-rural road with good visibility.( Those revenue gathering bastards! ) but I broke the law, and I'm glad there is a law, otherwise...
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I used that analogy (or near enough) about speeding in me blog a few weeks ago...
"And fifthly, the ads on radio are absurd. Saying that parents have always had the right not to smack and imagine how they would feel if a law change said that all parents had to smack?!
That is such a f**king dumb line of logic it beggars belief. It's a bit like saying that they should put the speed limits up to 60kmph because people who go under 50 have always had the right to go under 50 and imagine how they would feel if we made them drive above 60 at all times. Or non drug users have always had the right not to take drugs and so imagine how they'd feel if we told them they had to take crack once a week. Although in saying that, this whole referendum makes me wonder if some people haven't been living that lifestyle before coming up with it.....Also the idea that this law won't make child abuse go away is entirely correct. Just the same as speed limits won't make speeding go away and coaching won't make a team win every time they take the field. Especially not one with 3 old has beens coaching it (I use 'coaching' in the loosest sense possible). But it will certainly reduce it in the same way that speed limits reduce deaths and coaching improves performance (well usually anyway)."
I love cut n paste.
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If it ain't broke...why 'fix' it?
I think it's quite clear that large numbers of New Zealanders weren't sure what the law had become. So one reason is: certainty.
The media has a helluva lot to answer for.
Abso-fucking-lutely.
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Trouble with speeding car analogy is that true easy to tell if by numbers you broke the law. Smacking measured? My youngest from literally the moment he was born could bellow. I guess if he was smacked he could have persuaded the whole world that he was in enormous agony.
Morgan I wonder who confused the population? Any thoughts and why would they? -
I don't expect Yellow Pages-like briefing books on every area of public policy, but a little respect for my ability to think beyond soundbites and human interest sob stories would be appreciated. And I'm still to be convinced that CIR add anything meaningful to public policy debates worth having.
I feel unappreciated in every aspect of the governance of the country but I still want to have my little say. To opt out is to not be heard. That's why answered the question that was asked. It wasn't hard, it wasn't really confusing, and the opinions on it don't seem very divided.
Or could we say "Should speeding as a part of good everyday driving be a criminal offense in New Zealand?"
I've been busted for speeding a few times. But I've never had a criminal conviction for it. I would certainly oppose a law that made light speeding a criminal offense, whether or not it gave the cops discretion to decide whether they like me enough not to bust me.
Furthermore, comparisons to speeding assume the wrongness of speeding, whereas in the case of corrective smacking there's still a case to answer, both at a practical and a moral level. At least over a million NZers seem to think so.
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Are laws often changed because of what people believe to be true?
I'm sure you could find a million drivers who would agree that speed has no influence on road safety and should not be prosecuted.
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Are laws often changed because of what people believe to be true?
I hope so.
I'm sure you could find a million drivers who would agree that speed has no influence on road safety and should not be prosecuted.
Far be it from me to suggest speculation.
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STOP.............
The problem isn't really the law or the fact that $9 million that could have been spent better elsewhere was spent on “this”.
The problem is that a lot of the households that are involved in beating children to death have a prevalence of drug and alcohol use or abuse. The sensational deaths and beatings are only the tip of a rather ugly iceberg.
In the last week or so three girls under the age of three have died - likely beaten to death.
I can’t see it that the law either way will make a blind bit of difference to those most at risk and those that are abusing them.
NZ has become a basket case where most seem to have an overwhelming sense of entitlement and an under whelming sense of responsibility. That aspect was equally true for both sides of this argument, which was set about to prove the other side very, very wrong regardless.
If “government” is capable of leadership it could harness the issue and lead it in the direction to create something right.
The people in society that deal with the end result of the “child abuse” should be involved in creating something that deconstructs "the abuse". Those are the people we (government) should listen to first on behalf of children and infants at risk.
Everything else seems to me to be off the point/issue.
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