Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, April 29th, 2008 - 93 comments
Categories: child discipline, election 2008, families -
Tags: child discipline, dpf, election 2008, families, referendum, s59
Family First’s petition for a referendum on reversing the amendment to s59 of the Crimes Act that removed the defence of reasonable force for assault on a child (try saying that three times fast) has failed to get enough signatures. It needed 280,275 signatures and seemed to have enough but the Office of the Clerk found many of them were multiple or fake names.
Now, the pro-beaters have 2 months to find the 15,000 extra signatures they need to force a referendum. On the surface, that shouldn’t be hard. Family First has the money to get people out to collect names and polling data from David Farrar’s company Curia to help targeting groups. But it remains to be seen whether they will be able to get so many more names in time, they were already scrapping the barrel to get the names they have and some of the energy must be lost from their campaign after this failure.
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r0b
You live in some kind of delusional fantasy land if you think Cullen’s statements are not loaded with half truths.
HS, you’re a Tory, but you’re not usually a fool. So I’m going to assume that you’re just having a bad day today. I’ll say it again slowly.
Unicef. Said. It. Not. Michael. Cullen.
Ok? Clear now?
“new zealand has become a nation of infantilised adults”
No randal, sadly New Zealand has become a nation with high infanticide rates.
rob
Your a socialist so I’ll assume you are being deliberately obtuse.
I’ll say it again slowly – I don’t believe politician’s press releases and I suspect this one is much the same as the data on the trumpeting of NZ has the third best health system in the OECD that gets put up on this site every now and again which is also bullshit.
Unless you can direct me to the actual study from UNICEF that says we’re the third worst amongst developed countries I will remain sceptical.
Your a socialist
“You’re a social democrat” would be more accurate.
I’ll say it again slowly – I don’t believe politician’s press releases
Are you so desperate to avoid acknowledging the truth? The links I gave were to Herald articles, not press releases. One of them uses a stock photo of Cullen – who knows why because he’s not quoted. Is this the source of your confusion? Did you only look at the pictures?
Unless you can direct me to the actual study from UNICEF that says we’re the third worst amongst developed countries I will remain sceptical.
Knock yourself out: http://www.unicef.org/media/files/ChildPovertyReport.pdf
Or see various summaries such as from Save The Children:
http://www.savethechildren.org.nz/new_zealand/newsroom/nz_child_poverty.html
It is no secret how this came about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_National_Government_of_New_Zealand
Are you really so terrified of owning the legacy of the 90′s that you must try and write this off as a Cullen press release? Wake up!
Hey r0b, if National are responsible for poor social outcomes they must also responsible for the strong economy?
r0b, you’re a total knob. You cannot blame a 2005 report on the 1991 Budget (14 years before). If that is true, then none of Labour’s policies are going to help alleviate poverty/social welfare/social justice etc until, at least, 2014 (14 years on from the 2000 Budget). Now that’s ineffectiveness.
It’s lazy politics. It’s not even worth arguing with you.
But, while we’re making pathetically blind pot shots at random: I blame the Iraq War on David Lange’s Oxford speech, and the death of Mao is to blame for AIDS. How am I doing?
Hey r0b, if National are responsible for poor social outcomes they must also responsible for the strong economy?
Billy, that seems fair. To the extent that it was strong (a different debate).
r0b, you’re a total knob. You cannot blame a 2005 report on the 1991 Budget (14 years before).
Hoolian, perhaps you should just let the grown ups talk here. The 2005 report was based on 2001 and earlier data which therefore reflects the performance of the 90′s (and the legacy of the 91 budget). Big complex social problems to not switch on and off like light bulbs, addressing them is a long slow process and the outcome is measured over many years.
According to the report you’ve kindly linked for me to there is no data that states we were the third worst country for child poverty in the developed world if you’re talking about the indicator of child income poverty in isolation I would suggest that this is a little misleading as it’s a household income measure and bizarrely the USA is the worst among developed countries.
why not quote the deprivation index wherein NZ lies towards the middle or better of the field or medical deprivation etc etc .
My point being as I said before it would be worthwhile having some useful measurements to detremine which kids are really missing out on education, going to school hungry and are at risk.
r0b I also note your continued bleating about the previous National government and selective quoting from Wiki I’m not sure if you’re aware but Ruth Richardson is not running for parliament.
captcha ate Copeland (no thanks)
According to the report you’ve kindly linked for me to there is no data that states we were the third worst country for child poverty in the developed world
Well you’d better tell The Herald (which was who I was quoting). And you’d better tell Save The Children, because they seem pretty concerned.
if you’re talking about the indicator of child income poverty in isolation I would suggest that this is a little misleading as
First it was a plot by Michael Cullen. Now the stats don’t mean what they mean. Heaven forbid that HS is simply wrong.
why not quote the deprivation index wherein NZ lies towards the middle or better of the field or medical deprivation etc etc
Ask The Herald. Ask Save The Children.
My point being as I said before it would be worthwhile
So you did, and then you tried to blame it all on Michael Cullen.
Ruth Richardson is not running for parliament.
Which has nothing to do with the legacy of child poverty that her government left New Zealand.
r0b you clearly have no interest in rational debate keep on being a slippery socialist if you like….. sorry I mean a slippery social democrat.
Fine HS, and you keep trying to explain away the issues.
No that’s the politicans’ jobs … and yours apparently
HS, as the record shows, you have been desperately trying to first deny and then explain away the increase in childhood poverty that was a legacy of the National government of the 1990s.
Perhaps you should ask yourself why you go to such lengths as persistently blaming Michael Cullen when it was repeatedly explained to you that he had nothing to do with the material cited. Why are you so desperate to avoid truth? Is it because you couldn’t bring yourself to vote for National if you acknowledged it?
As a medical professional you must know first hand the long lasting health effects of child poverty (especially via maternal / prenatal / childhood nutrition). You are also presumably trained to evaluate facts. Perhaps you should take off your blinkers long enough to do so.
This is my final contribution to a discussion that has gone on much too long. Farewell.
r0b your original link was to a press release from Michael Cullen’s office hence my scepticism.
HS, in a calmer mood now, and purely as a matter of fact here, my first post in this thread was “May 5, 2008 at 9:36 am” and contained links to two articles in The Herald. At no time have I linked to a press release from Cullen’s office.
Whatever r0b I pretty sure what I linked to originally but will take your word for it – as an aside in relation to your wittering about Richardson – remember why that budget was necessary.
Helen Clark as deputy Prime Minister and Labour’s key strategist at the 1990 election helped perpetrate the big lie of that campaign.
In 1990, New Zealand was teetering towards economic recession. But the Labour Cabinet kept claiming right up to election day that the Government’s accounts were in surplus.
National Prime Minister Jim Bolger’s plans for a decent society were scuppered when he was confronted by officials just one day after the election with news of a serious fiscal crisis that they had kept secret under Labour’s orders.
The Bank of New Zealand was about to go belly-up, something senior Labour ministers had known about for weeks, and the Treasury was forecasting a $3.7 billion deficit for the 1991/92 year which would blow out to a $5.2 billion deficit by 1993/94 unless drastic actions were taken.
Bolger’s Cabinet had to cut costs to avert a major credit rating downgrade for New Zealand.
These are the conditions that led to the mother of all budgets
Whatever r0b I pretty sure what I linked to originally but will take your word for it
OK, that just pegged my bullshit meter again. You don’t need to take my word for it, the links are right there upthread for all to see. You bizarre Cullen obsession is yours and yours alone. I think you saw his photo in The Herald piece and just switched off your brain. Then you then ignored several direct statements that Cullen had nothing to do with it. Sorry HS, this is not your best work.
as an aside in relation to your wittering about Richardson – remember why that budget was necessary
Nice cut and paste plagiarism HS, that’s really putting the thought in. Yes, the incoming National government inherited a financial mess (though a much smaller one than the incoming Labour government before it in 1984). It was a mess created by the right wing extremists who went on to found ACT. Hurrah for right wing economic theory! And yes, bizarrely, that happened under the flag of a Labour government.
A budgetary response was certainly required. But it didn’t have to be a sustained attack on the poor. Richardson could have raised taxes instead. She didn’t. The National government made a conscious effort to have the poorest members of society carry the can for failed right wing economic policy. This lead to increased poverty and child poverty in during the 1990s in NZ. Despite your delusional rearguard actions HS, the history of this period has already been written.
Looking back at Scribes comments on Bradford deeming it an “antismacking bill”, I am amazed to find that nowhere in his link does Bradford deem her bill “antismacking”.
Have another look Scribe. Your comprehension skills are way off.
‘She could have raised taxes’ – brilliant more insane carping from the Labour party
Get it Dan it’s “Child beating” anyone against this bill is supporting child beating and is a child beater – it must be true because the Standard said so.
hs,
Yes the phrase “childbeating” is an err… beatup.
But then so was the term “Anti-Smacking Bill”. That came from the well-funded fundamentalist groups who believe that they have a Divine Right to beat their children in order to instill the “Fear of God” into them. Yes I’m serious. I’ve listened to them with my own ears. But at the same time I accept that the vast majority of kiwis who have opposed the Bill are at the same time totally opposed to physically abusing children.
So why then is it so hard to understand that those of us who supported the Bill were in the main not at all interested in banning the trivial and transient smacking that some parents occasionally resort to out of either monemetary frustration or lack of a better alternative to hand?
The repeal of S59 was NEVER about most of the nonsense that has been spouted about it. It has however achieved two simple things:
1. It placed the legal questions around assault on children on pretty much exactly the same grounds as assault on adults. There was never any reason why children should have enjoyed LESS protection at law than do adults.
2. It has generated a long overdue debate over some deeply held and dysfunctional attitudes New Zealanders have around child-rearing, domestic violence. If it had done nothing else, this has made it all worthwhile.
Red
agreed