No Smacking Bill – special feature
Recent ‘Classic Quotes’ regarding the Anti-smacking law and the upcoming Referendum
The anti-smacking Referendum has been confirmed to be held between 31 July 2009 and 21 August 2009. It will be a postal ballot.
We thought that we would feature some recent ‘classic quotes’ from politicians and leaders who have ignored the weight of public opinion and lobbied and voted for a flawed law that has impacted on good families – so sit back and be astounded!
Phil Goff – Leader Labour Party
Interviewer: Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?
Phil Goff: Well my answer to that is no it shouldn’t be a criminal offence
Q+A’s Paul Holmes interviews Labour’s Phil Goff TVNZ Sunday 12 April 2009
Family First Comment: But with respect Mr Goff, you voted for a law that made it a criminal offence. But at least he did answer the question, unlike….
Bill English – Deputy PM
INTERVIEWER: Well, did you think – do you think a smack should be allowed as part of good parental correction?
BILL ENGLISH: Well, look, I think the law, as it is, is the law of the land and needs to be enforced in a sensible way. And…
INTERVIEWER: But do you think a smack should be allowed as part of good parental correction?
BILL ENGLISH: I – I think the law, as it is, is the law of the land that should be enforced. If there is evidence that it is being enforced in instances where it’s – where it’s inappropriate because the event is trivial or [indistinct]…
INTERVIEWER: No, no. Sorry, Minister, I just wanted to know whether you could answer that, that should – do you think a smack should be allowed as part of good parental correction?
BILL ENGLISH: Look, it’s a matter of complying with the law of the land.
Radio Live 14 April 2009 READ Full Transcript
Family First Comment: Mr English is asked five times a simple yes or no question. He refuses to answer it five times! Unfortunately he has the unenviable task of defending the indefensible.
Cindy Kiro – Children’s Commissioner
The Wellingtonian newspaper: Did you smack your kids?
Kiro:I tried a couple of times. When my oldest was in nappies and was showing an interest in putting things into plug-points, I smacked him. And when they got to about eight or 10, I might have tried it, but I knew it was useless and pointless.
The Wellingtonian 8 April 2009
Family First Comment: Yep – this is the same ‘Cindy Kiro’ that said “we know more about parenting and child health and development now than we did in our parents’, grandparents’ and great grandparents’ times.”!!!
Andrew Little – Labour President
He has smacked his son once or twice, “but our approach is non- violent discipline, and he is a pretty well-balanced kid”.
Dominion Post 6 December 2008
Family First Comment: So a parent can use a smack but have a non-violent discipline approach. Yep – we agree!!
Chris Carter – Labour MP
“What I’m concerned about is that good parents will be punished for the bad behaviour of their kid..”
(Chris Carter criticising National’s truancy plan Dec 08)
Family First Comment: Ironic!
What does all this tell us?
Couple of things…
This collection needs wider publicity Julie
Comment by Alastair — Wed 22nd April 2009 @ 10:35 am
What did you have in mind? Or maybe a better question: How wide?
Comment by julie — Wed 22nd April 2009 @ 10:56 am
As soon as Watch comes back I will put it there. Presumably it comes from Family first, there publicity machine should be into it, Muriel’s Newsletter, And as far as it will go.
Comment by Alastair — Wed 22nd April 2009 @ 1:37 pm
Bill English I will tell you all about the laws of the land.
Do you know sir that a judge can serve you with a for life protection order on only condition that your female partner had a perception that you were violent. That is her perception that matters. and that is the law of the land sir. They call it psychological abuse. any thing goes there
in order to secure a client for the family court and various sub contractors.
Last year the family court forcibly separated me from my children and wife. That is the law of the land.
The tactic for doing so was easy: Threaten her with removal of children.
I understand. It is not tolerable for the court to have its judges, staff, officers(lawyers) idling without a job. They need to create them, fabricate them. The family court bends the law at every corner and there is no where to complain. I went to see the feminist Tim Barnett and he just ignored me. He rode to parliament on my back and family 3 times. When It mattered he told me to hire a lawyer. We are an educated family and my children had everything for a healthy upbringing until we were caught in the deep trawling net of the family court.
They threatened my wife and wanted me to just plead guilty and accept their violence and course of action. Yes sir The family court is a violent organization. They traumatized my children, my wife and my self for life. This is the kind of violence the government needs to get rid of.
Gullible NZers do not know about this. They think their judges and lawyers are state of the art.
Last year Bill I voted for your party for the first time as I wanted to send Labour(my family) out of power. I did not believe once that you are going to change things with regard the moral corruption of the family court as you are incapable of doing so just as is the family court incapable of serving justice and fairness.
The family court used their computer based decision making tools and rhetoric to destroy my family in order to provide good performance statistics for the government and milk my family of its assets. So they decided I was violent and set a course to prove themselves right.
The rot is deep and within. Meanwhile the family court is digging whole’s for other men, who invariably will keep digging. Some commit suicide, some violently respond to court abuse not knowing that the court set about to prove themselves right.
Veitch do not do it. That is exactly what they want you to do: become violent and prove them right.
You are lucky to have an incredible wife. Your ‘friends’ let you down, your lawyer used you and you paid 5000 thousand to the very group who instigated all this against you. This is called racket with all the force of the law. Yes Veitch do not do it.
What a sad nation.
Comment by tren Christchurch — Wed 22nd April 2009 @ 7:29 pm
March 2010: The rot is really setting in now. In today’s news there were two stories. One was about truancy, over 30,000 children truanting PLUS another 2500 “long-term” truants who were not even enrolled in schools. The government’s response: encourage schools to prosecute their parents, and double the money for schools to handle truancy, mainly it seems to fund these prosecutions. No mention of the possible causes of increased truancy. Such as the family-wrecking DPB that has encouraged epidemic levels of sole motherhoood and the widespread expulsion of fathers from children’s lives (except to provide money). Such as feminist encouragement of contempt for men and fathers, like calling Fathers Day a “day of shame”. Such as feminist ideology defining fathers’ typical styles of child discipline as evil and having them made illegal (e.g. physical force now “physical violence”, a big male voice expressing anger now “verbal violence”, honest criticism now “emotional violence”). Such as the the widespread disrespect for authority that has developed since feminist ideology convinced us that children have various fake “rights” including the right not to be physically punished at school (didn’t they predict that without corporal punishment children would love their schooling and truancy would reduce?). So now truancy, one small drop in the ocean of problems resulting from these enlightened feminist policies, is costing us double, around $10 million this year to try to fix. You ain’t seen nothing yet!
Coincidentally, the other news story today told us the High Court upheld a sentence of 15 months’ imprisonment for a mother who physically punished her son for truanting. Yes, the beating left bruises and welts and may well have been excessive. The father has yet to be sentenced for a lesser role even though his actions may well not have been excessive. So, if your children truant then you will be convicted and punished, and if you try and stop them truanting in any but the acceptable manner you will be convicted and punished. The state sees no need to support parental authority, that’s so male. We haven’t been told what the acceptable manner for responding to our child’s truancy is, and when we do there probably won’t be any good evidence that it works. In fact, if it does work they will soon make it illegal too. Never mind doubling truancy money, we had better double the number of prisons as we prosecute parents for attempting to discipline their children and then for their children’s resulting bad behaviour, not to mention the prison needs of the hordes of poorly socialized, limitless, self-entitled children growing up.
Comment by Hans Laven — Tue 2nd March 2010 @ 8:21 pm