‘Anti-Smacking’ Lobby Submissions Analysed

Family Integrity representatives attended the first sitting of the Justice and Electoral Select Committee last Thursday to consider submissions on MP Sue Bradford’s Bill to repeal Section 59.

It was a showcase of the “heavies” lined up in favour of repeal: Save the Children, EPOCH, Familes Commission, UNICEF, Parent.org, Barnardos, Relationship Services, CCS, IHC and the Commissioner for Children. Each of these was totally in favour of repeal, and each was also absolutely opposed to any amendment or attempt to define what constitutes “reasonable force”. It was almost as if they were reading from the same script as each one mentioned the following 8 points:

1. Smacking is spanking is hitting is beating is violence is abuse.
2. This is not an anti-smacking Bill, it was an anti-violence Bill.
3. The repeal of Section 59 will not criminalise parents, and that is not our intention. We are sure the police will not prosecute light smacks.
4. Any attempt to define what constitutes “reasonable force” only validates the use of violence.
5. The existence of Section 59 says violence is acceptable.
6. The Select Committee had before it a golden opportunity to exercise real moral courage and leadership by repealing Section 59.
7. Parents cannot be expected to know what is best, as they are operating in the absence of any formal training while we experts have the benefit of modern day theory and practice.
8. Research only shows negative results of physical punishment.

All of these arguments are inconsistent and illogical and presumptuous for the following reasons:

First, conflating the terms smacking, hitting, beating, violence and abuse as though they all mean the same is an old muddle-the-language propaganda ploy. We have the different words because they mean different things. The batsman never spanks the ball, he hits it.

Second, even though the Parliamentary Committee Chair Lynne Pillay herself, was keen to establish that this was not an anti-smacking Bill (Families Commissioner Dr Prasad obliged and called it an anti-violence Bill), all the presenters spoke out clearly against smacking in any form. The IHC folks said “smacking” was often a euphemism for a real beating. UNICEF’s Beth Wood said Section 59 means you can be excused if you beat your child. Jeff Sanders of Relationship Services said that Section 59 affirmed violence against children is acceptable. That means they assume Section 59’s wording (“Every parent…is justified in using force by way of correction towards the child, if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances”) allows for beatings and other violence against children. Does this wording allow for such violence? No, these zealots are stretching things a fair bit. And the actual use of Section 59 in real court cases, a rare event at about 1.4 cases per year, most of those being found guilty of abuse, shows that it most definitely does not justify child violence.

So how do they come to such a ridiculous conclusion that “reasonable force” does equate with violence? Because they are religiously committed to the ideology of the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child, the group that monitors how well each country is conforming to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC). This Committee, according to Frances Joychild of the NZ Law Commission, has said that a smack, no matter how light, constitutes violence and abuse by definition. Now this UN Committee is made up of people from, among other
places, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Thailand, Egypt and Burkina Faso: not exactly showcases of children’s rights when they practise things such as intense suppression of religious minorities, beheading and stoning and cutting off of hands for various crimes, no political parties, no voting, child torture, child floggings, child death sentences, child
slavery, child prostitution. Why should New Zealand listen to such no-hopers?

Third, the obvious can no longer be ignored: repealing Section 59 will criminalise even the pacifist’s favourite method of discipline, “time out”. They all know it, especially since it is precisely the intention Bradford had in mind when she wrote the Bill, for she says so in the Bill’s Explanatory Note: “The effect of this amendment is that the statutory protection for use of force by parents and guardians will be removed. They will now be in the same position as everyone else so far as the use of force against children is concerned. The use of force on a child may constitute an assault under section 194(a) of the Crimes Act.”

What they intend is irrelevant, anyway, and they know that too: what counts is what wording in finally enacted.

What mystified Family Integrity observers was how every single presenter declared with such certainty that the Police would not prosecute parents who used force to correct their children when the whole object of the Bill is to remove any legal justification for doing just that. Select Committee Member Anne Tolley commented to the Children’s Commissioner Cindy Kiro that it was going to be quite a challenge to pass a law that wasn’t expected to be enforced. Kiro agreed. In addition, nobody offered to contact the Police Commissioner to get his opinion on it. That is because Dr Andrew Jack, PhD, the legal expert of the Police Commissioner’s Office wrote Family Integrity a letter on 11 August 2005 saying quite clearly, “If Section 59 was repealed in its entirety, parents would not be authorised to use reasonable force by way of correction….smacking of a child by way of corrective action would be an assault.” So if Section 59 is repealed, what discretion can Police use when all smacks are assaults and there is no longer any legal justification for reasonable smacks or light smacks (such as what Section 59 currently provides for parents)? They can use the same discretion they use now. So since Section 59 ain’t broke, why are these child advocacy groups so keen to fix it, especially when the parents of the children consitently poll at 80% in favour of leaving it as it is?

Fourth, every single one of these presenters was adamant that the Committee must not make any attempt to define “reasonable force”, as it only calibrates degrees of violence against children. Now think about this for a moment: they are not talking about calibrating or defining “unreasonable force”: that is already ruled out of bounds. They are opposed to calibrating “reasonable force” for that is the same as calibrating violence. “Reasonable force” is the same as violence is what they are saying. And they don’t want to calibrate it. But in the next breath they calibrate violence into a category known as “light smacks” which is so acceptable they do not intend for the police to prosecute it. And yet the IHC folks said force against children was very seldom reasonable. The Save the Children presenter said no force was ever
reasonable.

The anti-smacking lobby is now trying to be on both sides of the argument at the same time. This is either hypocrisy or muddle-headedness of the first order. “Light smacks” apparently qualify as “reasonable force” for the anti-smacking lobby does not want to criminalise it or see the police prosecute it. But they do not want to define “reasonable force”, for that is calibrating violence. They are keen to justify “light smacks” as “reasonable force”, calibrate it into a category which should not be criminalized or prosecuted when the whole objective of this Bill is to get rid of any legal justification for using “reasonable force”!

The picture that is emerging appears to show that Bradford, Kiro and co. do not want PARENTS to have the LEGAL justification, the LEGAL authority, to freely use reasonable force with their children. They appear to favour a system of selective application of the law wherein specific people, families and people groups can be targeted. We were told at the hearing that Police will use discretion based on guidelines they develop from time to time. Cindy Kiro in fact volunteered to help Police develop these guidelines which, one would presume, will further calibrate force beyond the vague term “light smacks”….even though she strongly disagrees with such calibration as it only validates the use of violence.

These so called child advocates do more flipping and flopping than a fish out of water.

Fifth, Section 59, they say, is to blame for most of this country’s woes in the area of child abuse. Its existence has created a culture of violence toward children. If only this legal justification for parents to use “reasonable force” were repealed, it would send a clear message to society that child violence will not be tolerated. Again, they equate “reasonable force” with violence.
As evidence of the claim that the mere existence of Section 59 breeds violence in this country, reference has been constantly made to the cases where courts allegedly justified parents who, it was said by the pro-repeal lobby, committed acts of violence and abuse upon their children. The one case specifically mentioned during this Committee hearing was the lady in Timaru, the one Children’s Commissioner Cindy
Kiro has on many occasions in the past referred to as the “horse whip lady”. At this hearing, Kiro expressed her disappointment that the jury in Timaru acquitted her, justified the force she used on her child, which, in Kiro’s view, was clearly abusive.
Now just consider what’s going on here. Dr Kiro, not having been at the Timaru court, and already having shown her tendency to irresponsible exaggeration (the “horse whip” turned out to be an 18 inch riding crop, and the “bamboo cane” she has mentioned in the past turned out to be a bamboo garden stake, smaller around than your pinkey), insists that her opinion is superior to and should be regarded by her hearers as more accurate than the unanimous decision of 12 of her peers who had all the details of the case laid out before them in excruciating detail. As a matter of record, the Timaru lady’s son voluntarily submitted to the discipline; the school was so impressed with his immensely improved behaviour that they commended his mum for it; the lady made no statements in her own defense, neither did she or her lawyer call any witnesses. They let the prosecution have free rein to do all they could to prove her guilty, and in so doing they convinced the jury she was justified and innocent. And the prosecution did not appeal the jury’s decision. Yet Kiro’s paternalism and arrogance toward this parent and toward the jury system is still so great, that she still cannot stop herself from publically denigrating them both.
The other case the anti-smacking lobby continually refers to is the “wooden plank” incident in Hawkes Bay. First of all, we must note that they rarely ever refer to any but these two. That’s because cases of suspected child abuse where Section 59 is brought up are very rare, about 1.4 a year, according to YouthLaw soliciter John Hancock of Action for Children and Youth Aotearoa, part of the anti-smacking lobby. And in the majority of these cases, the defendant is found guilty. That means that Section 59 is working very well: parents who are tried using a Section 59 defence and who are justified are less than one a year and closer to one every two years.
Well, it turns out the “wooden plank” has also referred to as a “2 by 4”. It was in fact a 30cm x 2cm stick, the same size as a wooden spoon. The boy had lied to his dad about stealing $40 from a visitor to the house, submitted willingly to the smacking and testified in Court that the injuries to his back had been sustained by serious abrasions caused by an accident that occurred several days earlier while roller-skating. Now most surprising in this case is that Section 59 was not used as a defense. So the anti-smacking lobby shouldn’t even be using this as an example.
In addition to this type of dishonesty, the anti-smacking group somehow manage to bring up the names of children visciously and brutally murdered – Lillibing, James Whakaruru, Delcelia Witika, Tangaroa Matiu, Coral Burrows, Saliel Aplin, Olympia Jetson and Mereana Edmonds, whose killers are behind bars – and talk as though there is some kind of link between these monsters’ actions and the “reasonable force” wording of Section 59. But there is no link at all. Section 59 was never brought up in any of these cases. And yet the Barnardos group said at this hearing, “How many more James Whakarurus and Lillybings do we need to sacrifice for the sake of Section 59?” What on earth are they talking about? Please, where is the logic in that?
Sixth, the Select Committee was encouraged to ignore the nay-sayers they would hear from in subsequent submissions (Dr Kiro was especially articulate in emphasising this) and to seize this opportunity to show real moral courage and leadership. That is, ignore overwhelming public opinion in favour of retaining Section 59 and repeal it anyway.
Seventh, several presenters affirmed that parents do not have the benefit of “modern child rearing theory and practice”. The implication is that the 80% of New Zealanders who disagree with outlawing reasonable force are in the dark really, and fairly ignorant. And so these lobby groups want to use the force of law to bring us ignorant parents into line with their own peculiar biases and prejudices.
And these folks are biased; they have agendas, make no mistake about that. John Bowis of Save the Children said, “No force is reasonable.” This is hardly a majority opinion. Maree Russell of EPOCH said smacking is morally wrong, that children have a right to the physical integrity of their bodies, as do adults. Of course, she didn’t bother to qualify that statement to allow for parents wiping children’s bottoms or to
allow for state agents in the form of teachers, police and truancy officers to require children to attend schooling institutions several hours a day, five days a week for nine months a year for ten years and to sit where they are told in non-ergonomically designed chairs and to wear uniforms, whether they like it or not, just as adult prisoners have severe limitations on the physical integrity of their bodies as to where
they can go and what they can do. Dr Prasad of the Families Commission said Parliament cannot wait for majority opinion to favour non-smacking disciplinary measures, but must take the lead and “give the strongest signal possible about violence”, presumably by repealing Section 59. If they repeal it but then don’t prosecute, as they all affirmed was the intention, how will that send any message at all about violence?
The CCS crowd was really confusing: they straight-up admitted that even though their client parents insisted that they needed a larger parenting tool-kit, one that included various types of force, to deal with their disabled children, CCS as an organisation disagreed with these very parents they claimed to be serving and wanted full repeal with no definition of “reasonable force.”
The clincher was the comment made by UNICEF CEO Dennis McKinley: “All the opposition to repeal of Section 59 is coming from parents, and since they are the ones likely to be prosecuted, it is understandable.” Perhaps Dennis was being more honest than most: his words were that parents are the ones “likely” to be prosecuted. It was clear that none of these groups perceived parents as the resident experts on child training and discipline, as the ones most highly motivated and possessing the greatest degree of commitment toward their own children’s best interests, as the ones who know their own children most intimately by virtue of spending the most time with the children. These child advocacy groups made it clear that they know what’s best for other people’s children. The picture they painted is an adversarial one of parents against children with their various child advocacy groups as the good guys coming to rescue the children from their brutish, uninformed and selfish parents.
Eighth, most of them made reference to research showing only negative effects of violence toward children. All researchers, and nearly every parent, would agree on this. What was left unmentioned is the research on the effects of mild corporal discipline, “light smacks”, research that took care to exclude clear and obvious cases of criminal abuse against children in its statistics. Such studies by people such as Dr
Diana Baumrind of University of California at Berkley, Dr Robert Larzelere of the Univerisity of Nebraska and Dr Rex Ahdar of the University of Otago have shown positive effects of corporal correction. They uncovered the personal and methodological biases employed by researchers such as Dr Murray Strauss of the University of New Hampshire, Dr Joan Durrant of the University of Manitoba and Dr Anne Smith of the University of Otago. (Dr Larzelere states that he and Dr Durrant used the same set of Swedish data to arrive at opposite conclusions.) They highlighted the impossibility of isolating episodes of corporal correction from all other life experiences in a person in order to show a causal link between such episodes and negative social behaviours. (All researchers will admit this when pressed, but the pro-repeal researchers often fail to bring this up in their discussion documents and also use wording such as, “research has shown conclusively…”, “we know from research that…”, etc.) And Dr Ahdar has demonstrated how illogical and arrogant is the paternalism consistently employed by the anti-smacking lobby’s arguments.
On top of the commentary contained in the clinical and academic research, there is the social and legal commentary of a unique group known as the Nordic Committee for Human Rights (NCHR). This is a collection of lawyers from the various Scandinavian countries who have seen the destruction of families caused by both prosecution of parents who practise corporal discipline (now defined in these countries as assault) and by social welfare agents removing the children from the
homes where parents are accused of practising corporal discipline (accused of assault). This NCHR is dedicated to rectifying this anti-smacking legislation because it is so damaging to their societies. See www.nkmr.org .
Family Integrity hopes the Justice and Electoral Select Committee will pay attention to such people who have been down this proposed road and are now sadly occupied with picking up the many pieces.