Wednesday, June 24, 2009

"Stay on message" - FAIL

In parliament, Sue Bradford defended her bill, making it clear that she wanted to stop serious assaults on children.
I would like to take a brief call to make a direct response to Mr Copeland. Of course, as far as I know, there has never been a conviction or a prosecution of someone once lightly smacking a child. That is simply because we have the defence of reasonable force under section 59 of the Crimes Act, which is for the purpose of correction. It is this section this bill seeks to repeal. The problem is that at the moment we have cases where people who severely beat their children escape conviction in court under section 59 of the Crimes Act. The whole point is that this bill is not an anti-smacking bill; it is an anti-beating bill.
She was even happy for smacking to continue... well, back then she was.
"We could ... say as part of the commentary that it's not our intention to criminalise parents for putting their children into a room for time-out or for physically removing them from danger or for lightly smacking them - which are all the things that the bill has been accused of doing."
Today, her supporters are not quite staying on message...
"Promoters of the referendum on child discipline must be truly desperate if they are willing to make a father who repeatedly pushes over his 7-year-old their new poster-boy for 'a smack as a part of good parental correction'," she said.

Ms Morris-Travers said all parents got tired and frustrated but the actions being raised were not good parental correction.
No beating here, not even smacking. No, a man was pushed through the courts for pushing his child.

And, in spite of clear statements from Sue Bradford that she thought light smacking was ok, and that her bill was not even designed to make that illegal, her supporters are attacking a man for a mere push.

In this case, any harm done to the child is far, far overshadowed by the trauma inflicted on himself and his family by the court case.

LAW DESIGN - FAIL
MISSION CREEP - FAIL
KEEPING YOUR WORD - FAIL
REASSURING GOOD PARENTS THEY WON'T BE CRIMINALIZED - FAIL
STAY ON MESSAGE - FAIL

PROTECTING FAMILIES AND CHILDREN...

MASSIVE FAIL.

2 comments:

  1. Pushing a 7 year old boy to the ground 3 times is good parenting? Is a good method to teach him "not to let the team down"? Are you mad?

    This case has nothing whatsoever to do with S59. In fact, it shouldn't even be police business. Why is it being used as an example of S59 amendment mayhem? Can Family First not examine what actually happened? It's own goal territory.

    The problem with S59 and it's supporters is that the intent is the State, or more specificaaly Sue Bradford, can tell parents what and how their children will learn. The smacking part is irrelevent. Who cares if people smack. Kids don't die from a smack. They die from being bashed with cut of lengths of 4x2, having boiling water poured on them, having their skulls fractured, being picked up by the legs and dropped on their heads.

    Where does smacking come into that?

    And what happens when we find these half dead and dying children?

    We let the killers go free.

    We let them refuse to answer questions.

    We give media air time to spokeswomen for the family who tries to sell the idea it's a maori sovereignty issue.

    We let crime scenes be commercially cleaned before the investigation team goes in.

    We do it all for cultural sensitivities sake.

    In the meantime, the bloke that smacks his child for good corrective purpose meets the cops on his way out of the supermarket. Then he meets Cypfs. Then he meets lawyers, social workers all manner of time wasting expensive intrusions.

    But his child is alive and well.

    If you can't tell the difference between a corrective smack and fatal physical abuse you're a bloody idiot - or an angry deceitful activist. An activist is willing to dictate how families will run, but not willing to supply any support to them or carry any responsibility.

    Not emotional, not financial, nothing.

    Activists just sit there, spouting intellectual reports, misleading the public with adjusted information.

    Where is the education that Bradford promised would run parallel to S59 amendment? Where the fuck is it? Yeah that's right. It doesn't exist. It never has and never will because it's all about official control and nothing to do with children, their lives, their families or society in general.

    It's all about the activist and their personal values and their problems and their projections.

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  2. It's not good parenting.

    But it's vastly more trivial than what Sue Bradford said would still not be crimilalised by her bill - that's the fail.

    I agree that this isn't section 59... to a point. The problem is that S59 has tipped the playing field to the point where parents can't so much as sneeze without close investigation of what they did.

    Bob sent out an email today, I suggest you get a hand on it if you want to know the full story.

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