NZ Herald FAIL

The NZ Herald has a section on child abuse. However they put smacking in the same category.

Smacking does not equal Child Abuse.

Open Letter FAIL

Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE) has published an open letter, claiming that it is sent out on behalf of the Yes Vote Coalition. Only thing is... it's not from the Yes Vote Coalition, but from SAVE leader Johny O'Donnel... I think somebody is going to be getting a smack!

Open letter published below...

Yes Vote Open Letter
Monday, 24 August 2009, 10:20 am
Press Release: YesVote Coalition

Dear the public,

A huge thanks must go to the nearly 90% of voters who chose to vote no in the recent referendum. Many thanks for putting our rights at risk, many thanks for ignoring our opinions of the law, many thanks for voting towards a repeal of our rights, many thanks for being miss lead by an ambiguous question and how could I forget a huge thanks for voting towards children being the only group of people in society you could legally hit- it shows great confidence in us as young people!

Demoralising was the response I got from our group called Students Against Violence Everywhere, despite our tireless efforts to protect our rights from right wing extremists the public still decided it was ok to hit us, not your wife or your husband, not your friend or family member, no it is children our most vulnerable citizens.

It gives us as young people great confidence in our country to think, that nearly 90% of you believe that we should have a law that says it's ok to hit children.

A true and honest thanks goes to those who vote positively, those who decided not to stand for the rights of children being put at risk, those who votes yes. We must thank you from the bottom of or hearts for having faith in us and believing that we shouldn't be hit.

Many thanks
Johny O'Donnell and the SAVE Team

ENDS

Foreign Funding FAIL

"Are we allowing foreign political interests to meddle in New Zealand’s electoral process? If so that’s very scary!" - writes the author of the Yes Vote blog in his article, USA Religious Right funds Vote No.

However a cursory glance at the Yes Vote blog reveals the hypocricy in this statement, as it reveals that the Yes Vote campaign has the support of a number of International pressure groups such as Save the Children, Barnados and Unicef.

Ultimate FAIL

The people have spoken.

54% (1,421,003 people) of the electoral roll have had their say on the issue of corrective smacking. An overwhelming

87.6%

of New Zealanders have stated their belief that a smack as part of good parental correction should not be a criminal offence.

This result doesn't merely reflect the polls conducted since 2005: it exceeds former polling.

This is the ultimate FAIL for the small Yes Vote group.

Fail quote of the day - Sue Bradford

3 News reports:

The MP who drafted the law change that banned smacking says it will be difficult to draw conclusions from tonight's referendum result.

Sure, In much the same way that Japan might say that it is difficult to draw conclusions from the result of WWII.

FAIL!


Update: Homepaddock lays the smack down... er, so to speak.

Smacking may have lifelong consequences - FAIL

Smacking may have lifelong consequences says the headline at the "Yes Vote" site.

“Suppose there are two medicines that work, but one has harmful side effects that don’t show up for 10 or 20 years. Even if one dose has only a tiny chance of an adverse effect, I think parents would want to avoid that risk. That’s the way they should think about spanking” -

Fear, uncertainty, doubt. A potent mix.

If only there were a study available that looked at those consequences and could give us some certainty about smacking?

Children who are smacked lightly with an open hand on the bottom, hand or leg do much the same in later life as those who are not smacked, found the Dunedin multidisciplinary health and development study, which has tracked 1000 children since they were born in the city in 1972-73.

So why the difference in supposed outcomes between the Dunedin and New Hampsire[sic]?

But the lead author of the physical punishment part of the Dunedin study, psychologist Jane Millichamp, said the project appeared to be the first long-term study in the world to separate out those who had merely been smacked with an open hand. [and those that had been abused]

So does the new study conflate abuse with smacking? Um, that would be a "yes and we're proud of it".

When asked, “Can you think of a situation when it’s OK for a husband to slap a wife in the face,” almost half of those who had grown up being spanked regularly (three or more times a week) said yes.

“If you want your child to grow up to be the kind of person who reasons instead of hits,” he says, “I can’t imagine why any parent would ever spank.”

Yet another rubbish "study" to throw on the pile.

FAIL!