Posts by Graeme Edgeler
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The referendum is not a vote on the law passed by Parliament removing the Section 59 defence for striking a child.
It is, in fact, another work of weasel words apparently aimed more at sentiment than a useful conclusion.
I disagree. It may not be exactly how I'd have worded it, but the wording is far short of the confusing law and order referendum. At present "a smack as part of good parental correction" is a criminal offence. Some people think it should not be. The broad phrasing allows for people to oppose the status quo, without necessarily supporting the status quo ante.
Do you want to return to the defence of reasonable force contained in section 59 before the 2007 amendment?
would result in a "no" from a lot of people who didn't like the then law but still didn't want to completely ban all physical discipline (perhaps supporting Chester Borrows' or John Key's wording).
Do you support section 59 in its present form?
could be answered "no" even by Ms Bradford herself, who I suspect still wants the whole section repealed.
An answer to this wording gives a very real sense of what people want the law to look like. If there's a majority then politicians will know whether most people want a total ban on all physical discipline.
Were a majority of voters to vote to the question "Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?" the next government could quite easily declare that the law serves such concerns quite well as it is.
If the majority voted "yes" you'd be right. But I suspect the majority will vote "no". The next government could quite easily declare that the law serves such concerns quite well , but they'd be lying through their teeth. A smack, even as part of good parental correction, is now a crime. And it was not before.
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Section 194(a) in the Crimes Act outlaws assulat on children. Section 59 offered a legal defence of reasonable force for purposes of correction. ... Assault on Children was never "legal".
False.
By analogy:
Section 209 of the Crimes Act outlaws kidnapping. Section 26 offers a legal defence of executing a lawful sentence to prison officials. Holding someone in prison against their will was never "legal".
or:
Section 196 of the Crimes Act outlaws assault. Section 32 offers a legal defence to a police officer arresting someone, and section 39 offers a legal defence to a police officer who uses reasonable force to effect that arrest. The police arresting people suspected of committing crimes has never been "legal".
This argument has always been a lie. And it was one of the reasons I got really annoyed with the pro-repeal crowd. They had plenty of great arguments to resort to without these falsehoods, yet they really didn't want to engage with anyone. Smacking children for the purposes of correction was always an assault, but it was legal.
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Kyle: here.
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Its from the Chief Electoral Office, dated March, and seems to say exactly what the Pm says it does.And if this had been released a couple of months ago when the decision was presumable made, without the PM using it as some sort of "Gotcha" we might have avoided all of this...
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At first glance I fail to see why four months isn't long enough to organise a simple referendum with one question and a yes/no answer. But there are likely to be complications that I don't know about.
The argument from the PM in the House today was that there would need to be more polling booths and staff to conduct voting and count the votes. People will take longer to vote, and require more explanation from polling staff, so to ensure queues aren't too long more staff at each polling booth, or more polling booths will keep this down. The planning for these matters for the election has been taking place for some time. etc.
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I/S - got in first this time :-)
Referendums certainly make more sense as a final veto to actual legislation, I agree.
In this case, however, I'm not sure whether your wording would be better - I imagine a fair proportion of people who signed the petition (if fewer who were behind it) actually support an amendment to the status quo ante, whether Chester Borrows' or John Key's. The wording of the question allows for such a possibility (smacking as part of good parental correction is illegal under the law now, but wouldn't be under either the status quo ante, or the Borrows or Key wording).
I note that you use the semi-loaded phrase "restored to its pre-child discipline bill state". The bill only became known as the child discipline bill very late in its passage, and only by a very small minority of people, the vast majority of whom fell on one side of the debate.
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The fundamental problem with CIR's is that they often reduce a grey issue into a simplistic yes/no answer.
That's also a problem with all law. The Greens will be faced supporting or opposing an Emissions Trading Scheme, and it's a yes/no question.
The motion is that the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill be read a third time, the question is that the motion be agreed to ... those who are of that opinion say 'aye' ... to the contrary 'no'.
Now do they say aye or no?
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Apparently they could have done it, but would have needed to have started in April.
This simply has to be false. We've had competently run snap elections on much much less than 7 months notice.
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And then you beat me to that too.
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Beat me too it, I/S. She also said there wasn't much if any cost differential between the two options.
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But -- with apologies for drifting back to the original post -- I still think GE nicely fingered the essentially bogus nature of Clark's logistical argument against having this question put on E-Day.
I was thinking of whining about how this post is already at four pages of comments, while some of my more considered pieces languish with far fewer, but I think you've hit it.