Agenda Transcript: Chester Burrows & Sue Bradford
from http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0703/S00293.htm
Agenda Transcript: Chester Burrows & Sue Bradford
Monday, 19 March 2007, 8:33 am
Article: Agenda
AGENDA Saturday March 17 Chester Burrows, Sue Bradford, Lynne Pillay,
Barbara Stewart TO SMACK OR NOT TO SMACK?
And Bridget Liddell on NZ businesses in the USA
©Front Page Ltd 2007 but may be used provided attribution is made to
TVOne and "Agenda"
Part 1
LISA Green MP Sue Bradford's anti smacking bill is expected to pass into
law, but last minute stalling tactics by her opponents this week
succeeded in delaying the vote. The controversial bill would make it
illegal for parents to use any kind of physical force against their
child unless the child is in danger of hurting themselves or other.
Critics say it will criminalise good parents as well as bad. Sue
Bradford and National MP Chester Burrows who has proposed an amendment
to the bill join me now.
Sue if I can come to you first how are you gonna hold together your
support in the next few weeks seeing as you have this hiatus as such?
SUE BRADFORD - Green MP In fact I never expected the bill to be finished
this week, it's a bit of a misapprehension because on controversial
bills like this it's almost inevitable that the committee stages of the
bill are gonna take at least two or three sessions.
LISA So how are you going to hold your support over that time?
SUE Well so far we're doing fine, I think the MPs that have made up
their mind to support this bill are pretty staunch in that support now
and of course I'm hoping we might win one or two more over over the next
couple of weeks.
LISA But there has been talk in the media about some Labour MPs who
aren't exactly 100% behind it, who might waver within Labour, who do you
need to keep an eye on and keep talking to?
SUE I think you'd be best placed to ask a Labour MP that question but
I'm also aware of the other side of the coin is that there are National
Party MPs who strongly support what I'm trying to do and who are as
concerned as the Green Party is about the level of violence against
children in our community, so I think it goes both ways and in fact I'd
love to see the National Party MPs who support my bill freed up to give
their vote as well, so it works both ways.
LISA Should this be a conscience vote do you think?
SUE I think that it's up to each party to decide.
LISA You don't think that it's such a personal issue that people should
be able to cast their vote as their conscience directs them?
SUE Well I think it is up to each party, in our party it's a party vote
because our party has such a clear policy of non violence and belief in
what we're trying to do here, so I think it's up to each party to make
that decision.
LISA Okay let's bring Chester Burrows in here. Any particular Labour
Party MPs that you're gonna be chipping away at over this time Chester?
CHESTER Well I'm not gonna name them here because that would be contrary
to my purpose, but if you look at the voting history of about eight or
ten of their conservative MPs you'll know they're unhappy and when
they've been asked on television they've been obviously unhappy.
LISA So what discussions are you having with those people?
CHESTER Just restating the position and I think that the moves from the
Prime Minister this week has sort of changed all that, well the
revelation of the pre 2005 election comment shows that it's a whole new
game as far as the Labour Party caucus goes.
LISA So in your mind that comment you are talking about is some people
would suggest that Helen Clark has flipped in her support.
CHESTER Well it's quite obvious that she has, she's said she wouldn't
vote for a piece of legislation that prohibited smacking all the way
through this debate, Sue has agreed that her bill does prohibit
smacking.
SUE Can I just make a point on that, but it's actually illegal now to
smack your child. This point seems to have been missed throughout the
debate that under Section 194 of the Crimes Act an assault on a child
under 14 is actually a crime and what my bill is attempting to do is to
get rid of the defence of reasonable force for the purposes of
correction which provides a defence under law for people who assault
children under 14. I'm not creating some new offence of smacking which
seems to be the implication of some of my opponents.
LISA Look obviously there's much debate over this so arguably you could
say that neither side has a clear mandate, this is so hotly debated by
the public, so why legislate why not just educate?
CHESTER Well the fact is the legislation is there, at the moment you're
looking at removing it, so that's part of it. I believe the mandate is
there and if you look at public opinion the way that that's been gauged
nearly 20 times over the last two years it's about 80% of New Zealanders
think that parents shouldn't be liable for prosecution for smacking
their kids, that's the way it is.
LISA So do you think you're still in realistically with a chance when it
comes to the vote?
CHESTER Very strongly, you know there's a few people in the middle, we
know there's more than enough people who are unhappy. If this was a
conscience vote right across the parliament I'm absolutely convinced
that my amendment would win.
LISA Why isn't it a conscience vote for National then?
CHESTER Well we're in exactly the same boat as the Green party here
funnily enough. I put up my proposal, 48 people in the caucus agreed
with it, not a single dissenting vote as far as my amendment goes, so
that's why it's a party vote.
LISA But you're still gonna have MPs if your amendment's not successful
who are gonna back Sue Bradford.
CHESTER Yeah and our party position is that we are voting against it,
those who want to exercise their conscience are able to do that, and
there's indications that they will.
LISA Let's bring our panel in on this discussion let's go to Bernard
Hickey, who is father of two, are you a proponent of smacking or not?
BERNARD HICKEY - Managing Editor, Fairfax No, no. I'm pleased to see the
bill go because as much as anything it creates a debate about this in
New Zealand. I think the mood is shifting particularly after the Kahui
twins, I personally think it's wrong to smack my children and I sort of
can't understand why people are so aggressively campaigning to retain
the right to hit their kids.
CHESTER But that's because the bill isn't about that, I've never been a
proponent of smacking either, I've never made the stupid comment that
you know it never hurt me or never did me any harm. This is purely about
whether parents who do smack should be rendered liable to prosecution,
it's not about whether smacking is good or bad or good parents smack or
good parents don't.
BERNARD Has anyone actually been prosecuted for smacking their kids?
CHESTER That isn't the point. What your saying if you go along that
track is well you know parliament doesn't make the law the Police do or
the courts do or whatever, in actual fact it's our job to make the law
and if we don't like it we should go somewhere else.
BERNARD And do you seriously believe that Police will prosecute parents
for smacking their kids?
CHESTER Some will and some have been prosecuted for similar acts
especially in the middle of a sort of custody dispute where there's been
estranged parents and access visits and I've got people in my electorate
who have been in that position, you know we are getting a lot of
anecdotal stuff.
LISA Let's bring Richard Long in here, is this muddying the waters do
you think for Sue Bradford's bill?
RICHARD LONG - Columnist Well I mean nobody likes smacking but it seems
to be this has created an almighty row and divided everybody including
parliament and it could have been solved so why on earth not have
accepted Chester's amendment which seems to me to have proved what a
trifling or transitory impact of a smack, like the kid throwing a
tantrum in a supermarket, or deliberately smashing an ornament, some
mild touch like that, and then parliament would have been totally united
if that had been accepted.
SUE To accept Chester Burrows amendment would be the worst possible
thing we could do for the kids of this country it would make the
situation worse than the status quo we have now because what it would
mean would be parliament and the state legitimising the level and degree
of violence that it's okay to use against children. What people keep
forgetting in this debate is it's about kids, about our babies, our
children and young people, we have such high levels of violence against
kids in our country as a result of this legacy of a culture of violence
we've brought with us in the 19th century and to turn that around we've
got to give kids the same protection under law that adults have. At the
moment if a husband beats his wife we wouldn't say well it's okay to
beat her in a trifling and transitory manner, what Chester's saying is
that if his amendment went through it would be okay to beat our kids in
this manner. So if you put a child's hand on an electric fence for a
moment that's okay, that's transitory, so it's actually - it's the State
legitimising the use of violence against kids and that's even worse than
what we've got now.
RICHARD It can't be worse than it is now, that woman got off for horse
whipping a child for goodness sake, that's really bad, so that wouldn't
take place under your bill or under Chester's amendment, but it wouldn't
provide the rather silly situation that we have now where someone could
report a mother for giving a child a mild slap in the supermarket for
kicking down a display, or deliberately breaking an ornament.
LISA So do you argue that that's not the case that you can actually use
a light smack, let's be clear on what your position is.
SUE Should my bill go through in its current form using physical force
for the purposes of discipline there will no longer be the defence of
reasonable force, but that does not mean that every parent who ever
smacks their child will suddenly be prosecuted and taken to court for
doing it.
CHESTER That's not what the words of your bill say.
SUE That's the myth that's been put out there in the community and has
unnecessarily terrified tens of thousands of ordinary decent parents.
RICHARD Can I focus on that one? I mean can you imagine the Police in
this day and age with their call centre that's always under criticism
not responding to a complaint, they'd have to?
SUE They're obliged to respond to complaints of assault on child and
don't we all think that's a wonderful thing, every time we hear of a
child death we say why didn't the Police do more, so of course they
should investigate, that does not mean that they arrest and prosecute,
they look at the Police prosecution guidelines how trivial the offence
was.
LISA Let's bring Chester in on this, are the Police going to actually
follow up all those calls?
CHESTER Yes they are and if you look at the Police family violence
policy it says that if there's an offence disclosed the Police must
investigate. Now what's going to happen in an investigation, well the
Police come in are they going to allow the accused parent then to remain
in the house with a child who they consider a victim at that stage while
the investigation goes on - the family violence policy says at the
moment that when someone's going to be prosecuted it should be processed
by an arrest and the arrested person should stay overnight in a Police
cell, so you could look at an investigation being worse than the
prosecution when it eventually comes and parents being taken out of a
house or children being removed from the house for instance if the
mother supports the father who gave the smack the child could well be
removed from the house during the course of the investigation. It's
huge, you have to look at the black and white stuff that's in Sue's bill
and what that says, not say well we're just gonna hand this over to CYFS
and the Police to decide where the law is on this.
LISA So can you overturn it then?
CHESTER Yeah I think we can, it depends on what support we get, who's
prepared to stand up and be counted and if the Prime Minister really
wants to achieve what she said in 2005 she'll be voting for my amendment
and not Sue's bill because my amendment does what she said she wanted to
achieve.
Part 2 - To smack or not to smack?
LISA Well this morning we're discussing Sue Bradford's anti smacking
legislation and to carry the conversation on we're now joined by Lynne
Pillay from Labour and Barbara Steward from New Zealand First. If I can
start with you first Lynne, why can't Labour MPs vote according to their
consciences on this?
LYNNE PILLAY - Labour MP Well we discussed it in our caucus and in fact
the discussion happened just after the UNICEF report that very clearly
showed our appalling statistics actually around violence against
children.
LISA This is the one that showed New Zealand was in the top three for
child deaths under the age of 14, violent child deaths?
LYNNE That's right, and so there was a lot of discussion on it and we
decided as a caucus that we couldn't and that it wasn't really a
conscience issue it was an issue, a party issue about violence against
children in our society, and in terms of Section 59 the bill isn't about
anti smacking it's about the instances where Section 59's been used when
children have been literally thrashed and their parents have got off and
Richard referred to before with riding whips with blocks of wood and
also instances where children have been chained to their parents. We as
a caucus don't think that in this day and age that's acceptable
behaviour for parents to get off on.
LISA Alright let's bring Barbara Stewart in, you voted for the bill on
its second reading, you support Chester Burrows' amendment, why is that
the way to go?
BARBARA STEWART - New Zealand First MP I believe that that will allay
the fears that the parents of New Zealand actually have, I think there's
been a lot of misinformation about this particular bill and parents are
quite worried about the legalistic cloud that's actually hanging over
their heads at this particular point in time.
LISA So do you seriously believe if Sue Bradford's bill went through
that good decent parents would be dragged off from the supermarket if
they smacked their child, they'd be going to court?
BARBARA Well no not necessarily but that is the perception that the
parents have and of course we're here to represent people and the other
side of the coin has never ever been explained in the media or to
parents.
LISA Let's bring our panel in here, Lynne Pillay has brought up the
point that in the past Section 59 has been used as an excuse for rather
vicious beatings, but does anyone here believe that Sue Bradford's bill
is going to stop that kind of abuse of children, would the Kahui twins
still be alive if we had this law?
RICHARD It seems to me it's totally unfair to link the two, I mean New
Zealand is in a very bad way, every report that comes up says just how
bad we are, there's a certain - and it's non confined to the underclass
out there, but there's a lot of beating of children and a lot of killing
of children and just this week we had a father gaoled what 17 years for
drowning his baby and another woman in court for bouncing her baby off
the kerb, but this bill's got nothing to do with that, that's a
particular violence that's part of New Zealand society and it's not
confined to the underclass.
LISA So how is this bill going to stop that?
LYNNE It has everything to do with it because Section 59 is about a
defence it's not introducing a prosecution, the only time the defence is
used is when parents' behaviour has been so abhorrent that they have
been prosecuted and they have got off under that defence, the very case
you referred to, so the message to society is it is okay to hit your
child with a riding crop because parents got off. Now when the Police
are considering prosecution at the moment they have to look at the
likelihood of the prosecution succeeding. The benchmark is that because
some of these cases is that well it's not going to succeed because we've
had successfully defended cases where it has been deemed okay to hit our
children with blocks etc.
LISA I see Barbara shaking her head here.
BARBARA Well I believe that the Police are obliged to investigate any
complaint that is made to them, that is what they're there for, so if
somebody phones up with a case or an example they're obliged to follow
it through.
LISA Is it all about though Bernard Hickey, is this all about saying we
have zero tolerance for violence?
BERNARD It's great that we're having this debate and that we're saying
to people it is wrong to hit your kids and to raise the level of focus
on this horrible record we have with killing our kids, it's perhaps the
Kahui twins is a case that's separate from this it would have obviously
not applied here, but when people are using a defence to allow them to
hit their kids with a horse whip and we're allowing this law to stay on
the books, that should be changed.
RICHARD But then why not have a compromise which would - I mean if
parliament is at loggerheads on this so is the entire community, so a
compromise along the lines of the Chester Burrows thing would have
brought parliament together as well as the community.
LYNNE Well I think in fact Plunket, Barnardoes, all the credible
organisations said exactly as Sue did, please don't introduce an
amendment that prescribes how to hit our children, because the SKIP
programme which is very successful in educating parents about
alternative ways, it will undermine that education process that you
spoke about before, so this is actually, the amendment to section 59 is
actually about protecting children in extreme situations. As Sue said
before, every time a parent actually takes their child out of school not
for illness but if they're going to go and see granny for the weekend in
Tauranga and they leave on Thursday or Friday, technically they're
breaking the law, are the Police marauding in and arresting them for
that, of course not. When high profile rugby players hit their mate in a
bar with a handbag do the Police maraud in and arrest them, of course
not. Commonsense prevails and it will continue to with guidelines.
LISA Barbara I just want to bring you here into the conversation again.
Phillip Field and Tariana Turia have both expressed concerns at various
points that this bill could criminalise good Maori and Pacific Island
parents, are those legitimate concerns?
BARBARA Well I believe they are because once the Police are phoned they
are obliged to come along and investigate, that is what we expect the
Police to do. There mightn't be a prosecution but your name perhaps
would be down there on the files and I believe that good parents don't
want that to happen, we all try our best as a parent.
LISA Richard how much do you see this as Labour paying back the Greens
for their support with the coalition?
RICHARD It's not in the formal understanding for support, but a lot of
people are thinking that maybe there is something particularly now that
Helen Clark's comments from pre the election or during the election
campaign have come out where she said she's absolutely against smacking,
and now maintains there's not change of stance, well demonstrably there
is a change of stance, so there may be a lot of people are thinking that
there's an understood arrangement between the two even though it's not
part of the formal agreement for confidence and supply.
LYNNE Lisa can I respond to that? That is absolute nonsense, and in fact
to do the right thing is not always the popular thing and as I said
before there was a bit discussion around it in our caucus and our
position is still the same. Parents will not be - I'd love to get this
group together in six months time and see how many parents have been
prosecuted for lightly smacking their child at the supermarket, it
simply won't happen. Every prosecution, any government intervention
always has to be in the best interests of the child.
LISA Let's bring Bernard in here because he is an anti smacking
proponent. Do you think Lynne Pillay is saying that sometimes you have
to do the right thing even if it's hard but does this go far enough,
could it be argued that Labour is sitting a little on the fence with
this as are the Greens they're trying to soften it a little bit to make
it acceptable for people?
BERNARD I think it's perfectly reasonable to remove that Section 59
which gives support to those people who are hitting their kids in a way
that the Police recognise is a problem and the prosecutors have taken
them to court.
LISA But this bill still would, according to Sue Bradford allow you to
give a light tap or a smack, so does it go far enough?
BERNARD I don't think that's an issue, we're really talking about people
who are abusing the law to abuse their kids, and I don't think it's a
problem that the nation's parents are afraid that they're gonna be
dragged out of their homes, that's simply not true, and anyway we have a
Police Force and a legal system which on the whole is sensible and I
don't think we're gonna have you know marauding bands of policemen
raiding people's houses.
LISA I want to bring Richard Long in here just for the final word. You
don't believe in smacking either but you just don't think this is gonna
work do you?
RICHARD I don't think this is the right bill no, but I would go along
with the Chester Burrows amendment and the problem that we're also
having to address, okay Police are not gonna go around grabbing parents
for smacking and throwing them in gaol or taking them to court, but
they're going to have to investigate if they get complaints, but it's
the waste of time, the waste of resources.
LISA Well will leave it there.
Agenda Transcript: Chester Burrows & Sue Bradford
Monday, 19 March 2007, 8:33 am
Article: Agenda
AGENDA Saturday March 17 Chester Burrows, Sue Bradford, Lynne Pillay,
Barbara Stewart TO SMACK OR NOT TO SMACK?
And Bridget Liddell on NZ businesses in the USA
©Front Page Ltd 2007 but may be used provided attribution is made to
TVOne and "Agenda"
Part 1
LISA Green MP Sue Bradford's anti smacking bill is expected to pass into
law, but last minute stalling tactics by her opponents this week
succeeded in delaying the vote. The controversial bill would make it
illegal for parents to use any kind of physical force against their
child unless the child is in danger of hurting themselves or other.
Critics say it will criminalise good parents as well as bad. Sue
Bradford and National MP Chester Burrows who has proposed an amendment
to the bill join me now.
Sue if I can come to you first how are you gonna hold together your
support in the next few weeks seeing as you have this hiatus as such?
SUE BRADFORD - Green MP In fact I never expected the bill to be finished
this week, it's a bit of a misapprehension because on controversial
bills like this it's almost inevitable that the committee stages of the
bill are gonna take at least two or three sessions.
LISA So how are you going to hold your support over that time?
SUE Well so far we're doing fine, I think the MPs that have made up
their mind to support this bill are pretty staunch in that support now
and of course I'm hoping we might win one or two more over over the next
couple of weeks.
LISA But there has been talk in the media about some Labour MPs who
aren't exactly 100% behind it, who might waver within Labour, who do you
need to keep an eye on and keep talking to?
SUE I think you'd be best placed to ask a Labour MP that question but
I'm also aware of the other side of the coin is that there are National
Party MPs who strongly support what I'm trying to do and who are as
concerned as the Green Party is about the level of violence against
children in our community, so I think it goes both ways and in fact I'd
love to see the National Party MPs who support my bill freed up to give
their vote as well, so it works both ways.
LISA Should this be a conscience vote do you think?
SUE I think that it's up to each party to decide.
LISA You don't think that it's such a personal issue that people should
be able to cast their vote as their conscience directs them?
SUE Well I think it is up to each party, in our party it's a party vote
because our party has such a clear policy of non violence and belief in
what we're trying to do here, so I think it's up to each party to make
that decision.
LISA Okay let's bring Chester Burrows in here. Any particular Labour
Party MPs that you're gonna be chipping away at over this time Chester?
CHESTER Well I'm not gonna name them here because that would be contrary
to my purpose, but if you look at the voting history of about eight or
ten of their conservative MPs you'll know they're unhappy and when
they've been asked on television they've been obviously unhappy.
LISA So what discussions are you having with those people?
CHESTER Just restating the position and I think that the moves from the
Prime Minister this week has sort of changed all that, well the
revelation of the pre 2005 election comment shows that it's a whole new
game as far as the Labour Party caucus goes.
LISA So in your mind that comment you are talking about is some people
would suggest that Helen Clark has flipped in her support.
CHESTER Well it's quite obvious that she has, she's said she wouldn't
vote for a piece of legislation that prohibited smacking all the way
through this debate, Sue has agreed that her bill does prohibit
smacking.
SUE Can I just make a point on that, but it's actually illegal now to
smack your child. This point seems to have been missed throughout the
debate that under Section 194 of the Crimes Act an assault on a child
under 14 is actually a crime and what my bill is attempting to do is to
get rid of the defence of reasonable force for the purposes of
correction which provides a defence under law for people who assault
children under 14. I'm not creating some new offence of smacking which
seems to be the implication of some of my opponents.
LISA Look obviously there's much debate over this so arguably you could
say that neither side has a clear mandate, this is so hotly debated by
the public, so why legislate why not just educate?
CHESTER Well the fact is the legislation is there, at the moment you're
looking at removing it, so that's part of it. I believe the mandate is
there and if you look at public opinion the way that that's been gauged
nearly 20 times over the last two years it's about 80% of New Zealanders
think that parents shouldn't be liable for prosecution for smacking
their kids, that's the way it is.
LISA So do you think you're still in realistically with a chance when it
comes to the vote?
CHESTER Very strongly, you know there's a few people in the middle, we
know there's more than enough people who are unhappy. If this was a
conscience vote right across the parliament I'm absolutely convinced
that my amendment would win.
LISA Why isn't it a conscience vote for National then?
CHESTER Well we're in exactly the same boat as the Green party here
funnily enough. I put up my proposal, 48 people in the caucus agreed
with it, not a single dissenting vote as far as my amendment goes, so
that's why it's a party vote.
LISA But you're still gonna have MPs if your amendment's not successful
who are gonna back Sue Bradford.
CHESTER Yeah and our party position is that we are voting against it,
those who want to exercise their conscience are able to do that, and
there's indications that they will.
LISA Let's bring our panel in on this discussion let's go to Bernard
Hickey, who is father of two, are you a proponent of smacking or not?
BERNARD HICKEY - Managing Editor, Fairfax No, no. I'm pleased to see the
bill go because as much as anything it creates a debate about this in
New Zealand. I think the mood is shifting particularly after the Kahui
twins, I personally think it's wrong to smack my children and I sort of
can't understand why people are so aggressively campaigning to retain
the right to hit their kids.
CHESTER But that's because the bill isn't about that, I've never been a
proponent of smacking either, I've never made the stupid comment that
you know it never hurt me or never did me any harm. This is purely about
whether parents who do smack should be rendered liable to prosecution,
it's not about whether smacking is good or bad or good parents smack or
good parents don't.
BERNARD Has anyone actually been prosecuted for smacking their kids?
CHESTER That isn't the point. What your saying if you go along that
track is well you know parliament doesn't make the law the Police do or
the courts do or whatever, in actual fact it's our job to make the law
and if we don't like it we should go somewhere else.
BERNARD And do you seriously believe that Police will prosecute parents
for smacking their kids?
CHESTER Some will and some have been prosecuted for similar acts
especially in the middle of a sort of custody dispute where there's been
estranged parents and access visits and I've got people in my electorate
who have been in that position, you know we are getting a lot of
anecdotal stuff.
LISA Let's bring Richard Long in here, is this muddying the waters do
you think for Sue Bradford's bill?
RICHARD LONG - Columnist Well I mean nobody likes smacking but it seems
to be this has created an almighty row and divided everybody including
parliament and it could have been solved so why on earth not have
accepted Chester's amendment which seems to me to have proved what a
trifling or transitory impact of a smack, like the kid throwing a
tantrum in a supermarket, or deliberately smashing an ornament, some
mild touch like that, and then parliament would have been totally united
if that had been accepted.
SUE To accept Chester Burrows amendment would be the worst possible
thing we could do for the kids of this country it would make the
situation worse than the status quo we have now because what it would
mean would be parliament and the state legitimising the level and degree
of violence that it's okay to use against children. What people keep
forgetting in this debate is it's about kids, about our babies, our
children and young people, we have such high levels of violence against
kids in our country as a result of this legacy of a culture of violence
we've brought with us in the 19th century and to turn that around we've
got to give kids the same protection under law that adults have. At the
moment if a husband beats his wife we wouldn't say well it's okay to
beat her in a trifling and transitory manner, what Chester's saying is
that if his amendment went through it would be okay to beat our kids in
this manner. So if you put a child's hand on an electric fence for a
moment that's okay, that's transitory, so it's actually - it's the State
legitimising the use of violence against kids and that's even worse than
what we've got now.
RICHARD It can't be worse than it is now, that woman got off for horse
whipping a child for goodness sake, that's really bad, so that wouldn't
take place under your bill or under Chester's amendment, but it wouldn't
provide the rather silly situation that we have now where someone could
report a mother for giving a child a mild slap in the supermarket for
kicking down a display, or deliberately breaking an ornament.
LISA So do you argue that that's not the case that you can actually use
a light smack, let's be clear on what your position is.
SUE Should my bill go through in its current form using physical force
for the purposes of discipline there will no longer be the defence of
reasonable force, but that does not mean that every parent who ever
smacks their child will suddenly be prosecuted and taken to court for
doing it.
CHESTER That's not what the words of your bill say.
SUE That's the myth that's been put out there in the community and has
unnecessarily terrified tens of thousands of ordinary decent parents.
RICHARD Can I focus on that one? I mean can you imagine the Police in
this day and age with their call centre that's always under criticism
not responding to a complaint, they'd have to?
SUE They're obliged to respond to complaints of assault on child and
don't we all think that's a wonderful thing, every time we hear of a
child death we say why didn't the Police do more, so of course they
should investigate, that does not mean that they arrest and prosecute,
they look at the Police prosecution guidelines how trivial the offence
was.
LISA Let's bring Chester in on this, are the Police going to actually
follow up all those calls?
CHESTER Yes they are and if you look at the Police family violence
policy it says that if there's an offence disclosed the Police must
investigate. Now what's going to happen in an investigation, well the
Police come in are they going to allow the accused parent then to remain
in the house with a child who they consider a victim at that stage while
the investigation goes on - the family violence policy says at the
moment that when someone's going to be prosecuted it should be processed
by an arrest and the arrested person should stay overnight in a Police
cell, so you could look at an investigation being worse than the
prosecution when it eventually comes and parents being taken out of a
house or children being removed from the house for instance if the
mother supports the father who gave the smack the child could well be
removed from the house during the course of the investigation. It's
huge, you have to look at the black and white stuff that's in Sue's bill
and what that says, not say well we're just gonna hand this over to CYFS
and the Police to decide where the law is on this.
LISA So can you overturn it then?
CHESTER Yeah I think we can, it depends on what support we get, who's
prepared to stand up and be counted and if the Prime Minister really
wants to achieve what she said in 2005 she'll be voting for my amendment
and not Sue's bill because my amendment does what she said she wanted to
achieve.
Part 2 - To smack or not to smack?
LISA Well this morning we're discussing Sue Bradford's anti smacking
legislation and to carry the conversation on we're now joined by Lynne
Pillay from Labour and Barbara Steward from New Zealand First. If I can
start with you first Lynne, why can't Labour MPs vote according to their
consciences on this?
LYNNE PILLAY - Labour MP Well we discussed it in our caucus and in fact
the discussion happened just after the UNICEF report that very clearly
showed our appalling statistics actually around violence against
children.
LISA This is the one that showed New Zealand was in the top three for
child deaths under the age of 14, violent child deaths?
LYNNE That's right, and so there was a lot of discussion on it and we
decided as a caucus that we couldn't and that it wasn't really a
conscience issue it was an issue, a party issue about violence against
children in our society, and in terms of Section 59 the bill isn't about
anti smacking it's about the instances where Section 59's been used when
children have been literally thrashed and their parents have got off and
Richard referred to before with riding whips with blocks of wood and
also instances where children have been chained to their parents. We as
a caucus don't think that in this day and age that's acceptable
behaviour for parents to get off on.
LISA Alright let's bring Barbara Stewart in, you voted for the bill on
its second reading, you support Chester Burrows' amendment, why is that
the way to go?
BARBARA STEWART - New Zealand First MP I believe that that will allay
the fears that the parents of New Zealand actually have, I think there's
been a lot of misinformation about this particular bill and parents are
quite worried about the legalistic cloud that's actually hanging over
their heads at this particular point in time.
LISA So do you seriously believe if Sue Bradford's bill went through
that good decent parents would be dragged off from the supermarket if
they smacked their child, they'd be going to court?
BARBARA Well no not necessarily but that is the perception that the
parents have and of course we're here to represent people and the other
side of the coin has never ever been explained in the media or to
parents.
LISA Let's bring our panel in here, Lynne Pillay has brought up the
point that in the past Section 59 has been used as an excuse for rather
vicious beatings, but does anyone here believe that Sue Bradford's bill
is going to stop that kind of abuse of children, would the Kahui twins
still be alive if we had this law?
RICHARD It seems to me it's totally unfair to link the two, I mean New
Zealand is in a very bad way, every report that comes up says just how
bad we are, there's a certain - and it's non confined to the underclass
out there, but there's a lot of beating of children and a lot of killing
of children and just this week we had a father gaoled what 17 years for
drowning his baby and another woman in court for bouncing her baby off
the kerb, but this bill's got nothing to do with that, that's a
particular violence that's part of New Zealand society and it's not
confined to the underclass.
LISA So how is this bill going to stop that?
LYNNE It has everything to do with it because Section 59 is about a
defence it's not introducing a prosecution, the only time the defence is
used is when parents' behaviour has been so abhorrent that they have
been prosecuted and they have got off under that defence, the very case
you referred to, so the message to society is it is okay to hit your
child with a riding crop because parents got off. Now when the Police
are considering prosecution at the moment they have to look at the
likelihood of the prosecution succeeding. The benchmark is that because
some of these cases is that well it's not going to succeed because we've
had successfully defended cases where it has been deemed okay to hit our
children with blocks etc.
LISA I see Barbara shaking her head here.
BARBARA Well I believe that the Police are obliged to investigate any
complaint that is made to them, that is what they're there for, so if
somebody phones up with a case or an example they're obliged to follow
it through.
LISA Is it all about though Bernard Hickey, is this all about saying we
have zero tolerance for violence?
BERNARD It's great that we're having this debate and that we're saying
to people it is wrong to hit your kids and to raise the level of focus
on this horrible record we have with killing our kids, it's perhaps the
Kahui twins is a case that's separate from this it would have obviously
not applied here, but when people are using a defence to allow them to
hit their kids with a horse whip and we're allowing this law to stay on
the books, that should be changed.
RICHARD But then why not have a compromise which would - I mean if
parliament is at loggerheads on this so is the entire community, so a
compromise along the lines of the Chester Burrows thing would have
brought parliament together as well as the community.
LYNNE Well I think in fact Plunket, Barnardoes, all the credible
organisations said exactly as Sue did, please don't introduce an
amendment that prescribes how to hit our children, because the SKIP
programme which is very successful in educating parents about
alternative ways, it will undermine that education process that you
spoke about before, so this is actually, the amendment to section 59 is
actually about protecting children in extreme situations. As Sue said
before, every time a parent actually takes their child out of school not
for illness but if they're going to go and see granny for the weekend in
Tauranga and they leave on Thursday or Friday, technically they're
breaking the law, are the Police marauding in and arresting them for
that, of course not. When high profile rugby players hit their mate in a
bar with a handbag do the Police maraud in and arrest them, of course
not. Commonsense prevails and it will continue to with guidelines.
LISA Barbara I just want to bring you here into the conversation again.
Phillip Field and Tariana Turia have both expressed concerns at various
points that this bill could criminalise good Maori and Pacific Island
parents, are those legitimate concerns?
BARBARA Well I believe they are because once the Police are phoned they
are obliged to come along and investigate, that is what we expect the
Police to do. There mightn't be a prosecution but your name perhaps
would be down there on the files and I believe that good parents don't
want that to happen, we all try our best as a parent.
LISA Richard how much do you see this as Labour paying back the Greens
for their support with the coalition?
RICHARD It's not in the formal understanding for support, but a lot of
people are thinking that maybe there is something particularly now that
Helen Clark's comments from pre the election or during the election
campaign have come out where she said she's absolutely against smacking,
and now maintains there's not change of stance, well demonstrably there
is a change of stance, so there may be a lot of people are thinking that
there's an understood arrangement between the two even though it's not
part of the formal agreement for confidence and supply.
LYNNE Lisa can I respond to that? That is absolute nonsense, and in fact
to do the right thing is not always the popular thing and as I said
before there was a bit discussion around it in our caucus and our
position is still the same. Parents will not be - I'd love to get this
group together in six months time and see how many parents have been
prosecuted for lightly smacking their child at the supermarket, it
simply won't happen. Every prosecution, any government intervention
always has to be in the best interests of the child.
LISA Let's bring Bernard in here because he is an anti smacking
proponent. Do you think Lynne Pillay is saying that sometimes you have
to do the right thing even if it's hard but does this go far enough,
could it be argued that Labour is sitting a little on the fence with
this as are the Greens they're trying to soften it a little bit to make
it acceptable for people?
BERNARD I think it's perfectly reasonable to remove that Section 59
which gives support to those people who are hitting their kids in a way
that the Police recognise is a problem and the prosecutors have taken
them to court.
LISA But this bill still would, according to Sue Bradford allow you to
give a light tap or a smack, so does it go far enough?
BERNARD I don't think that's an issue, we're really talking about people
who are abusing the law to abuse their kids, and I don't think it's a
problem that the nation's parents are afraid that they're gonna be
dragged out of their homes, that's simply not true, and anyway we have a
Police Force and a legal system which on the whole is sensible and I
don't think we're gonna have you know marauding bands of policemen
raiding people's houses.
LISA I want to bring Richard Long in here just for the final word. You
don't believe in smacking either but you just don't think this is gonna
work do you?
RICHARD I don't think this is the right bill no, but I would go along
with the Chester Burrows amendment and the problem that we're also
having to address, okay Police are not gonna go around grabbing parents
for smacking and throwing them in gaol or taking them to court, but
they're going to have to investigate if they get complaints, but it's
the waste of time, the waste of resources.
LISA Well will leave it there.
posted by Andy at
6:06 PM
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