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Sue Bradford Comes Out Hitting

Should a smack be a criminal offense? It's a simple question that politicians do not want answered, as either way the answer requires them to act on behalf of their constituents. Something they seem disinclined to do when actually up against the wall.

In any event, Sue Bradford makes it very clear jail is her end goal for good parents that might smack (not beat, not abuse) their child in discipline:

I still believe the strongest statement we can make to demonstrate our commitment to protecting our children from violence is to vote ‘yes’ in the postal referendum.

Sue still believes, has always believed that smacking should be illegal. Right, glad to have got that clear. Banning contrary opinions next on the agenda perhaps?

Comments

  1. Except that a lot of people are going to ignore the wording of the question and interpret it as a referendum on the changes that were made.

    Ambiguity was the reason it's removal was justified in my opinion, and this question is just as ambiguous. Asking what is "reasonable" is not an objective question. A jury in Napier found it reasonable that a man hit his 8 year old boy 12 times with a peice of wood. In Hamilton a man beat his 12 year old daughter with a hose pipe and was allowed to go free.

    Defining an objective limit of force is extremely difficult. Regardless of whether a law exists to allow physical discipline, it will most likely make mistakes. For me, the issue comes down to a pragmatic view of what is to gain, and what is to lose on either side.

    I think that if you take the view that the punishment was unjustified, the recent case of the "ear flick dad" showed a good example of the kind of mistake I thought was possible if s59 was removed. If you disregard the official outcome (that outcome being that he punched his child in the face - according to the Herald at least) and focus on the punishment, it provides an example of the level of punishment that is possible for light physical discipline.

    He received a suspended sentence and anger management.

    Compare this to the mistakes that are possible at the other end of the argument. Unanswered violence, the possible continuation of abuse, and less protection for the most vulnerable members of society.

    To me, this change in our law was about changing who gets the short end of the stick.

    Parents, who are unlikely to receive serious punishments, as part of a judges job is to make the punishment fit the crime.

    Or, children, who are unable to defend themselves, and are in real danger because of the ambiguity this law created.

    The uncertainty certain parents feel because of this law change is probably the biggest reason to vote no in this referendum, but I think that won't make much of a difference in the long term. I suspect that aspect will blow over eventually.

    I'll be voting yes, because I agreed with changes that were made.

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  2. Dave
    "A jury in Napier found it reasonable that a man hit his 8 year old boy 12 times with a peice of wood. In Hamilton a man beat his 12 year old daughter with a hose pipe and was allowed to go free."
    Were you there?
    I'm so tired of these highly inflated, condensed versions of so called beatings.
    If it was as you say Why wasn't it appealled?
    If a Jury of 12 of your peers and mine , who heard all the facts (Not just the medias version of the same) reached the decision i would have alot more confidence in the liklyhood of a fair outcome, than under any alternative proposal

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  3. What is this Bradford woman's view on abortion?

    If she is for abortion which i think she probably is, why not apply the following, borrowing from Ann Coulter, to smacking -

    I wouldn't kill a smack a child myself, but I wouldn't want to impose my moral values on others. No one is for smacking children. But how will criminalizing parents making difficult, often tragic, decisions be an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the smacking of children?

    If you don't believe in smacking children, then don't smack one Sue.

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  4. whitaker7plus: No I wasn't there, and you're right that it's pretty speculative.

    Although I'd rather not go into details, I do know of another case on a personal level however that does lead me to the conclusion that juries didn't always get it right under the previous law, so I think it's just as speculative to have confidence that a jury would be able to decide a fair outcome in all cases.

    The old law was quite subjective, as is the referendum question. I'd rather put more of the decision into the hands of judges who are able to tailor punishments, instead of juries who only get a "guilty" or "not guilty", especially when what a parent has to lose is fairly minor compared to a child who is suffering from genuine abuse. That's assuming it gets past the polices obligation to assess whether a prosecution is in public interest or not.

    The issue is not as black and white as either of more outspoken sides of the debate make it out to be. I certainly see why someone would want to oppose the changes that happened, but I don't.

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