The NZ 'anti-correction law' - 'What it says!' - your 'unemotional' guide to Section 59

Renton Maclachlan brings a brief, clear, unemotional, analysis for Kiwis of Sue Bradford's 'anti-correction law'. See it for yourself and find out what it means! Be confused no more! And vote 'NO!' in the referendum in August!

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• section59
• Sue Bradford
• anti-smacking
• smacking referendum
• John Key
• section 59
• yes vote
• yes vote coalition
• Deborah Morris-Travers
• Renton Maclachlan

[dihle12]

to many dogooder idiots maybe you clowns should look after troubled teens and show the rest of us how good you are if not then shut your hole dickheads

[rynso]

@dihle12 : ...one highly intelligent comment...

[hippynz]

They take away the right to punish a child, then moan that parents are not disciplining their children. So because parents cannot discipline their children, children can now do what ever they want knowing they will not be punished.

[corsair0001]

continued further: too should be convicted of assault as that is what you did.

Might does not make right. Right makes right. A child like anyone else is more likely to comply with a rule if they understand it and its purpose. to extend this also concerns the explanation 'because I said so' this is not an explaination. A parent should explain the reasons for the rules. To finish my first point, time out, grounding, loss of toys etc are all means of correction. Smacking should not be.

[corsair0001]

continued. Your example of stopping a child running onto the road fits neatly into my second point. Something must be made very clear, hitting a child is not the only way to 'correct' a child. We do not accept violence in the correction of criminals yet many do for children. This is unacceptable. Hitting a child should be a criminal offence because it is unethical and further would make the law concistant. If you hit a convicted criminal you are charged with assault, if you hit a child, you...

[corsair0001]

Saying it is illegal not to correct your child is simply a lie. You CAN correct your child, you simply can't use violence. The question to be asked is: what if at all is reasonable force?

This can be debated, and should. I am continuously dissapointed as to the wording used. Personaly the only times I would accept violence would be in self defence or that of others, also in the instance where the child is in danger or endangering othersand must be 'pulled' away or restraned.

[headlessrd]

It should be a criminal offence to smack a child because any attempt to define an acceptable level of violence against a child leaves the law open to abuse, as occurred when "reasonable force" was still a legal defence in a case of child abuse.

Some have said that it is necessary to use force to prevent a child from being harmed. However the current law provides for the use of reasonable force to prevent a child being harmed, harming others or harming property.

[rexde48]

Let's be honest about another thing then. The Prime Minister has already admitted that this referendum is not going to change anything. That opinion is shared by most MPs. The law was created to prevent the defence of "reasonable force" when a child comes to harm for the purposes of "correction". That is what the police will aim to prosecute. Not all parenting. You have clearly not listened to any of my earlier arguments about your mistaken views, so I cannot see any point in going any further.

[rynso]

Several things:

1. The disagreement represented by the referendum and the polls which consistently show 70-80% of Kiwis oppose this law, is that smacking is not necessarily - nor in the vast majority of cases, 'unreasonable force'.

2. Smacking is not necessarily 'physical harming'.

3. Genuine 'physical harming' could conceivably be 'reasonable force' in some circumstances.

4. Unreasonable force was always against the law and was dealt to. No new law was required.

So yeah, let's be honest...

[rexde48]

Well, lets be honest, every one knows that when it comes down to it, it is designed to stop the unreasonable use of force for correction in the form of smacking or other physical harming.