But there were evil people, and they were called innocent

A few months ago, an anti-smacker made some comments on this blog. Pondering his comments, something was bothering me about  his view of the Riding crop case. The question that the anti-smackers have always asked is effectively “how do guilty people get called innocent” – that is, “how do child abusers get away with it”. The…

Section 59 is about reasonable force

Over at Mac Doctor’s, there’s a bit of discussion about Section 59. I focus on part of a reply I made there: This has been caused by the law which made beating children (with love or otherwise) illegal. No, it made reasonable force illegal. REASONABLE force. It seems you can’t argue on this without lying.…

Every New Zealander needs to watch this video

It’s very clear that the smacking law, and the attitude that it has encouraged CYFS to cultivate, are doing serious destruction to some families – destruction far worse than any light smack could ever do. Hat Tip Big News

New Smacking Case

There’s a new case the Perfect Parent Lobby are adding to their “abused but let off by the courts” file*. The lead juror in the child cruelty case said she was “embarrassed to be a New Zealander” because the couple on trial were “good decent parents trying to instil a sense of responsibility”. But former…

Shame on you Amnesty

There is only one blogger that I know of in this country who has ever advocated using government power to shut down dissent. But that does not protect the children of the [people*] who organised this referendum, the people who [disagree with me**]. Those children need our protection now, and it is absolutely the business…

Extremists

Interesting how the Tea Party gets described by One News as “extremist”, even with more than a quarter of the population supporting them. Interesting because, I’ve never heard the “Yes Vote” campaign described in those terms in spite of far smaller support (6% of the voting public supported them) and a ridiculously fundamentalist position on…

Another Smacking Review

From Family First’s Email… [or, via twitter, the release] Family First NZ says that the latest police statistics on the anti-smacking law trivialize the real impact of the anti-smacking law and fail to reflect the widespread confusion over the effect of the law, the impact on parenting and parental authority, the continued opposition to the…

Sue Bradford claims knowledge that doesn’t exist, Barnardos has “resources”!

Seems that someone just twigged that Nigel Latta tells parents to lock their children in their rooms for timeout. Which is funny, because it strongly suggests that certain “child advocates” weren’t watching when those comments were broadcast to the nation. But former Green MP Bradford, whose anti-smacking bill afforded children the same legal protection from…

The quick summary of the Investigate Article on the Latta Review

Having read the actual Investigate article twice, the cases seem to boil down to the following: Family first announce that a parent has been prosecuted for smacking. Latta looks up the case in CYFS files and discovers other accusations. Doesn’t check the court documents, as he considers these to be irrelevant. Declares he has more…

Section 59 Reviewer Lied to Public

This is very bad, not for Latta and Key so much, but for New Zealand. However, somewhere between being given those terms of reference and delivering his report, Nigel Latta appears to have done a stunningly good impersonation of Pinocchio being led down the garden path by “Honest John” and “Gideon”, in the form of…