In a media release issued  on 10 December 2011, Family First NZ, a registered charity with the Charities Commission, states:

Family First  is rejecting claims by the Children’s Commissioner and others that rising child abuse statistics are ‘good news’ and ‘delightful’, and is repeating its call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into child abuse as a result of continuing ‘tragic’ figures. 

“It is time we stopped ‘marketing’ child abuse statistics and trying to give them a positive spin, under the illusion that we are succeeding. We need a reality check,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

 “The rates of child abuse have been rocketing up for the last decade – even before the flawed anti-smacking law was passed and the Family Violence awareness campaign began. Between 2003 and 2007 alone, notifications more than doubled from 31,000 to 72,000. The latest statistics give no confidence that children are any safer.”

 “To label our atrocious statistics as ‘good news’ and ‘delightful’ is an insult to the victims. Government groups cannot attribute the increase to greater awareness and better practice. The rates have been increasing markedly well before the public awareness campaigns, and the increase in admissions to Starship Hospital alone are proof that the problem is deterioriating.”

 “Alcohol and drug abuse are rampant in dysfunctional homes, family breakdown is a festering sore, and there is increasing violence in our culture. These are all signs that things will get worse before they get better.”

 “We have had Commission of Inquiries this year into the Pike river tragedy, the collapse of buildings and consequent loss of life in the Christchurch earthquake – yet no inquiry into one of the greatest social problems facing the country.”  

 “There seems to be no political party who is willing to front up to this issue on the scale required. Since the passing of the anti-smacking law, there have been at least 31 child abuse deaths. The rate continues unabated.”

 “The ongoing rates of child abuse are a wake-up call that children will never be safe until we are honest enough as a country to identify and tackle the real causes of child abuse. An independent Inquiry free of political correctness and point-scoring is essential. We need long-term solutions to a problem that has existed for far too long,” says Mr McCoskrie.

ENDS

See: www.familyfirst.org.nz

The Censorship Compliance Unit assessed the book, written by fundamentalist Christians Michael and Debi Pearl, and decided not to ban or restrict it. 

A spokesman for the Department of Internal Affairs, which the office and unit belong to, said while the book was contrary to section 59 of the Crimes Act, which stated a parent or guardian could not use any force on a child “for the purpose of correction”, that wasn’t sufficient reason to justify restricting or banning the 20-year-old book.

The complainant could, however, ask that the Office of Film and Literature Classification also investigate the book’s content.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/books/5664782/More-than-1300-books-banned-by-censor

 To Train Up A Child courted controversy worldwide after a California couple who followed its instructions were convicted of murdering their seven-year-old adopted daughter.

An American child abuse victim, now living in New Zealand, complained to Whitcoulls last month and the bookseller agreed to remove the book from its website.

They also made a complaint to the compliance unit.

The victim said he was shocked to find out the book was being sold in New Zealand, despite the country’s anti-smacking law.

“I’m not one to prevent books from being sold, but I think an instruction manual on how to enact violence on your child is a completely different story,” he said.

“New Zealand has such a high rate of child abuse and to instruct people on how to do this is just so irresponsible.”

Source: Fairfax NZ

“We’ve had approximately 35,000 hits on the website www.protectgoodparents.org.nz which hosts the DVD and contains legal advice for parents, almost 10,000 copies of the DVD have been distributed to the public, and views on YouTube have just passed the 5,000 ‘views’ mark,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. “Considering that this is a 30-minute documentary being hosted on YouTube, this is a very high number of views.”

 ”We estimate that up to 100,000 people have viewed the video because of families watching it, reports received of the DVD being shown in groups and community settings, and DVD’s being passed on.”

 ”Every politician has been sent a copy of the documentary which contains clear evidence that the anti-smacking law   is criminalising good families. Interestingly, not one politician has responded to us regarding the facts presented in the documentary. Either they have refused to watch it, are yet to watch it, or they have watched it but don’t care about the experiences of families as a result of the law,” says Mr McCoskrie.

 ”The documentary also proves that the report on the anti-smacking law requested by the Prime Minister John Key and headed by psychologist Nigel Latta failed to meet its terms of reference, was factually incorrect in places, and misrepresented the effects of the law.”

 ”At the recent Forum on the Family, both John Key and Labour leader Phil Goff said that they would amend the law if they saw evidence of good families being dragged before the courts and criminalised by the law. The evidence is now in. NZ families are becoming aware of the truth on this matter,” says Mr McCoskrie.

 ”This is now a matter of integrity for our political leaders.”

For more Information and Media Interviews, contact Family First:

Bob McCoskrie – National Director 
Mob. 027 55 555 42

www.familyfirst.org.nz

It is disturbing that the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill to be passed by the government is denying parents the right to be tried by their peers on crucial family issues. 

 “By removing the right to juries for crimes punishable by less than three years in prison, the Government has not thought carefully about the implications that would have for parents who are prosecuted for minor acts of physical discipline or smacking,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

“The anti-smacking debate has led to an ill-conceived, clumsy and confusing law and if this new regime is implemented, it would further exasperate good parents who find themselves before the courts because it takes away their choice to choose to be tried before their peers.”

“The new regime also suggests that an assault – including domestic assaults – is a more minor offence, yet a conviction of assault is actually a serious conviction. And it is vital that parents have the right retained to choose to be judged by their peers rather than by a judge.”

When a similar proposal was put forward in the UK, the Law Society opposed it warning that “a conviction for an offence of dishonesty, irrespective of value, has fundamental implications for a person’s job prospects, ability to obtain insurance, and right to travel freely, among many other potential consequences. It would be entirely wrong if they did not have a right to jury trial before suffering such life-changing effects. Trial by jury is a fundamental right in cases where the defendant is at risk of imprisonment for a serious criminal offence or loss of their good reputation. Juries enhance the transparency of the court process and promote public confidence in the criminal justice system and the rule of law.”

The Queensland Law Society was also concerned when similar provisions were proposed, labelling it “deeply disturbing”.

Jonathan Krebs, convenor of NZ’s Law Society criminal law subcommittee said that an important consideration was the “impact on the fundamental right of everybody in our society to have a fair trial.”

“It is disturbing that the government is willing to put costs and budgets before the right to justice for parents,” says Mr McCoskrie.

ENDS
Family First NZ Spokesperson

Bob McCoskrie – National Director

Family First NZ [a registered charity with the Charities Commission] says that the anti-smacking law is criminalizing good parents and only the common sense of juries is protecting parents from the actions of politicians. It is challenging Prime Minister John Key to amend the [so-called 'anti-smacking'] law that he has labeled “a dog’s breakfast”, and introduce the amendment that he lobbied for before he became Prime Minister which decriminalizes reasonable force for the purpose of correction

“A father was acquitted in the Wellington District Court today by a jury which threw out three charges of assault. The judge also threw out another charge of assault which the police had laid because of the father physically restraining the child, saying that it was clearly an act of reasonable force to control a disruptive and unruly child. All these charges related to a dad with no previous involvement with CYF,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

“The dad was blocked from seeing his son for over a year while awaiting trial, although cynically, the police tempted him with the offer of allowing contact if he pleaded guilty there and then, which would have resulted in him carrying assault convictions on his record.”

 “Ironically, in the same court yesterday, a grandmother was charged for not restraining her grandchild and forcibly sending her to school. As the dad’s defence lawyer stated in court to the jury, parents are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.”

“Parenting in New Zealand has been put on trial. The politicians have dealt a heavy legislative blow to parents, and parents are feeling disempowered, disrespected, and demonised as child abusers,” says Mr McCoskrie.

“As well as that, the police are caught in the middle trying to balance the zero tolerance approach to family violence against the so-called discretion offered under the anti-smacking law.”

Family First NZ is challenging Prime Minister John Key to amend the law that he has labeled a dog’s breakfast, and introduce the amendment that he lobbied for before he became Prime Minister which decriminalizes reasonable force for the purpose of correction.

“NZ’ers have no confidence in this law and are confused by it,” says Mr McCoskrie. “Good parents and grandparents doing their darndest deserve the support of the state – not criminalisation.”

ENDS

See www.familyfirst.org.nz

A Christchurch musician has successfully had his conviction for assaulting his four-year-old son quashed by the highest court in the land. The Supreme Court said today there would be no retrial ordered.

 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10685029 James Louis Mason, 53, was found guilty at a Christchurch District Court trial last year of punching his son in the face and pulling his ear in December 2007. He was acquitted on two other assault charges. Mason denied all charges, but said he pulled the child’s hair and flicked his ear to stop him going back into a dangerous situation on his bike on the Bridge of Remembrance ramp in central Christchurch where his two-year-old brother had fallen and hurt his head.

He was sentenced to nine months supervision and an order to undertake programmes as directed by the Probation Service. He then unsuccessfully appealed his conviction at the Court of Appeal before taking his case to the Supreme Court.

In its decision released today, the Supreme Court said Mason’s conviction must be quashed as two counts of assault had been included in one charge.

“The special nature of the present case is the distinctly different nature and seriousness of the two alleged assaults and the practical possibility of a particular defence for one of them only,” it said.

The inclusion denied Mason the chance to clearly defend the act of ear-pulling.

“It was a jury question whether that action (if proved) was a use of reasonable force to prevent or minimise harm to the child by stopping him from riding his bike down the ramp… “But it was exceedingly unlikely that the jury would be of that view if it concluded that the child’s face had been punched,” it said.

The case was earlier considered a test of anti-smacking laws. – NZPA

The full text of the Supreme Court  judgment and reasons can be found at: www.courtsofnz.govt.nz.

Also see story:

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/father-s-assault-conviction-quashed-3876725

Published: 10:45AM Wednesday November 03, 2010 Source: Newstalk ZB / ONE News

After the 1990 referendum when 70 percent of respondents voted for MMP Mike Moore said the people had not spoken they had screamed.  What can we say about the anti smacking referendum?  The people did not scream, they shrieked!  The difference is that Jim Bolger listened but John Key chooses to interpret a shriek as a whimper.  According to him and I quote, 1.6 million New Zealanders, “still have some concerns and want a high degree of comfort”.  It is not concern or comfort Mr Key should be addressing but all those ‘No’ boxes containing a big tick.

The issue now goes well beyond to smack or not to smack.  It’s about our democracy.  Correct me if I am wrong, but we have never given our prime ministers a mandate to ignore us, but to represent us.  The received wisdom holds that democracy is supposed to heed the will of the people.  A condescending attempt at appeasement demeans the clear will of the electorate. 

The instances when politicians have used their imagined mandate to act against the public will and common sense are now legion.  Lowering the legal drinking age and then giving the liquor industry the green light to concoct and advertise an array of teenage elixirs was breathtakingly irresponsible.  Privatising the telecom industry and power grid without ensuring there would be effective competition and significant re-investment defies comprehension.  Insult has followed injury.  We have now saddled our younger generation with an unbridled drinking culture we actually wanted to harness and allowed excessive profit taking by key industries. 

Unless John Key acts decisively on the anti-smacking legislation we can all cry bitter tears for our democracy.  It will have become a charade.  When elected representative deny the will of the people by hiding behind the law the time to make citizens initiated referenda binding on government has come.

But that is only half the story. Pointing the bone at our elected representatives is just one side of a tarnished coin.  We need to look at ourselves.  The old adage that we get the government we deserve reminds us that we are responsible for its quality.  If we fail to protect our interests we can hardly complain when our ancient democratic rights are ignored.  Perhaps after 800 years another King John needs to be dragged to Runnymede.

At a time like this two historians lurking in the back pages of history need to be lifted out and dusted off.  Professor Alexander Tyler, writing three centuries back and Sir Arnold Toynbee, who completed an epic study of 21civilisations some 70 years ago, would not be surprised by today’s events.  Tyler concluded that nations pass through an eight stage process, lifting themselves out of bondage to grasp liberty and abundance before sliding back into subjugation.  He traced this downward spiral through complacency to apathy and then dependency.  From there the path back to bondage is only a short hop.

Toynbee identified five states that defined a civilisation in decline – truancy, abandon, guilt, drift and promiscuity (not of the sexual kind).  He concluded that civilisations mark their demise with an uncritical acceptance of just about anything, over indulgence in distracting entertainments and a self defeating attitude bedded in a sense of powerlessness.  The fact that Tyler and Toynbee were separated by centuries and yet reached similar conclusions is truly spooky. 

If our elected representatives at either the national level or local level can get away with dismissing the will of the people or denying us an effective voice we have to ask some serious questions about ourselves.  Are we too distracted by entertainments, too complacent, too fatalistic to critically examine the state of our nation?  Are we too apathetic to fight for real change?  When our governing institutions rely on legislation or policy weapons to say you do what we want or we will make you, we have a problem. If we append to that a national psyche wedded to a nanny state we have dependency.  If we then add to this mix a government that thinks it can do what it wants despite the rest of us we don’t have democracy any more.  All that is left is a looming bondage and the spectral shadows of two dead historians who saw it coming because it has happened before.  

Published with permission of author Chris Salt.

Source: Nelson Mail 5 September 2009

Recent Articles on the Issue from NZ Herald

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-smacking-debate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501165&objectid=10595856

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10596584

The Rt. Hon. John Key might be very astute on financial matters but he appears to have little idea how the law should work in a true democracy. He will not be Prime Minister forever. Another government might tell the police to ignore his instructions and enforce the law as it is currently written.

John Boscawen’s Private Member’s Bill is almost identical to an amendment to the Bradford bill that Key was very much in favour of. If there was a referendum on the question of keeping the existing law or going back to the original Section 59, the Society is sure that the majority of New Zealanders would vote for a law change. Granted, there were a handful of doubtful verdicts which the jury may have got wrong over a period of about 15 years prior to the law change. However, the law did not need changing. But that is now history.

ACT’s John Boscawen bill is a genuine compromise and certainly a lot better than a law that the Prime Minister described today on Radio Live as “a complete and utter dog’s breakfast”.

The Referendum about the so called “anti-smacking” law (the name which Sue Bradford herself originally gave to her Bill) is really about how children should be corrected according to former MP & now President of the Kiwi Party Gordon Copeland.

“Smacking and taking a child to time out are now criminal acts in New Zealand’ said Mr Copeland. “But only when they are used for the purpose of correction that is to rebuke or punish, in order to improve a child’s behaviour”.

“At the heart of this debate therefore there are really two questions.
Firstly do children need to be corrected?”

“Most of us would answer this question with an emphatic “yes”. However  some would just as emphatically answer “no” because they believe that children are  born virtuous and will automatically, as if by instinct, grow up to become unselfish & loving adults!  I believe, with the wisdom of the ages, that  both children & and adults need to be corrected.”

“Secondly should parents be permitted by law to smack or take their children to time out as part of good & loving parenting?”

“I believe that the answer to this question is also yes. Note that, consistent with the Referendum question, the qualification is that we are here talking about these correction techniques used by good parents. I am not saying that hitting with a jug core or locking a child in a dark room are acceptable correction techniques, because they are not! Those are the actions of bad parents who need to be corrected (there’s that word again) by the law of the land”.

“Are we capable of making that distinction clear in law? Of course we are and we should. The training, education and correction of children, accompanied by large lashings of love & good fun, are the central tasks of parenting. Simply stated that is what good parents do!”

“When it comes to correction parents should have the freedom, under the law, to use a variety of ways to achieve the outcome which they seek, namely an improvement in behaviour, in ways which are appropriate to the circumstances & age of the child. This includes appropriate verbal correction, smacking, timeout and as the child grows older, grounding & the loss of privileges. Parenting on a day by day basis is never one dimensional.”

“I believe that these decisions must be made by parents and by parents alone! The State has no role to play and it is wrong for politicians to outlaw smacking and the use of time out in these circumstances. They have no mandate to do so. This matter was not widely raised in the 2005 Elections.  The issue made its way onto the floor of Parliament through a private Members Bill.”

“The claim that smacking and time out should be criminalised to bring the correction of children into line with the correction of adults is a fallacy.”

“We correct adults through fines, community service and prison sentences but none of these apply to children for the simple reason that they are children! The law always has & always will make that distinction.”

“I’m delighted that there is to be a Referendum on this issue and the question “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand” is crystal clear. Let’s use the opportunity to deliver a message to the Beehive which politicians will ignore at their peril because this issue really is for the sake of our children, our grandchildren & all generations to come.”

Gordon Copeland is a former MP who left United Future to become an Independent because of his strong opposition to the criminalisation of smacking and time out for the purposes of correcting children.
Contact: 
Phone 04 388 9805
Cell 027 472 6998

Ian Harris tells us (“Honest to God,” Dominion Post, [Dominion Post. Saturday July 11, 2009. Page B5], reproduced at the YesVote website at http://yesvote.org.nz/2009/07/17/the-bibles-harsh-view-rejected/) that we should reject the “harsh views” on child rearing found in the Bible.

Mr Harris, unfortunately, joins many of those who promote the criminalisation of good parents by muddying the waters. He notes, for example, that someone who defends the right to use physical discipline also believes that children (like adults) are sinners. He then announces that since “progressive” Christians (by which he seems to mean those who no longer accept Christian theology) realise that this is based on an antiquated view, we should likewise reject the right to use physical discipline and we should criminalise those who do.

Read the full article here.