Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, August 22nd, 2009 - 223 comments
Categories: child discipline, referendum -
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I can’t say I’m all that surprised about the results of the ‘smacking’ referendum. As any good pollster will tell you, if you ask a leading question you’ll get the result you want.
And that’s exactly what we got. Contrary to what the beating lobby is claiming today, all this referendum tells us is that of the 54% of people who bothered voting, 88% think that “a smack as part of good parental correction” should not be criminal offence in New Zealand.
Unfortunately that tells us nothing about whether New Zealanders want to repeal the law.
I think it’s fair to say the results indicate a lot of parents are still confused or uneasy about the new law, and the Government is probably right to consider ways they can put parents’ minds at ease without re-introducing the kind of law that made it legal for people to viciously beat their children with riding crops or made them think it’s okay to punch their child in the face.
But I can’t help thinking we could have figured that out for ourselves without going through this wasteful $9 million PR exercise for the Christian Right.
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No countries with an Anglo Saxon heritage on the list. I could see the Canadians getting there (the French influence perhaps), but certainly not the USA, or Australia anytime soon.
No Asian, African, or Polynesian nations either. Indeed my personal experience with the Samoans (and I may be way off base here) is that they are especially protective of their child beating habits.
This whole thing does seem to have an especially cultural thread to it.
Redlogix:”This whole thing does seem to have an especially cultural thread to it.” Good point. Religious? Though I think that in China it is an unwritten law that they don’t hit kids.
And the true Koran believers are opposed to violence.
Maybe the Christian ethic has a lot to do with it. The missionary influence in Polynesia and historians would say that before the missionaries came to NZ, violence against children was unknown.
If anyone (child or otherwise) broke a tapu or rahui they were killed immediately. Is that not violent? Tariana and Co conveniently gloss over that.
“And the true Koran believers are opposed to violence.”
Just don’t suggest anything negative about the prophet or Islam – and don’t think about changing religion.
That Mohammed what a joker never raised arms in anger once.
What’s with you Ian you seem to think that Christianity is the only religion with skeletons in the closet and that Aotearoa was all milk and honey and happy pixies until the evil Europeans came to town.
Maybe the Christian ethic
But that conclusion is not directly supported by the list of countries above. Something of the Christian Protestant/Puritan heritage? Or does it date back earlier to the traditional of self-denial, the self-loathing misogyny of the monastic traditions? Certainly in modern times it is represented by the fundamentalists who interpret the Bible in an grossly illegitimate and literal fashion.
Perhaps for me is the greatest dissapointment in all this has been the response from the non-fundamentalist, mainstream Churches, many of whose members fully support the S59 repeal, but have been bullied into silence in the name of ‘Christian Unity’.
Redlogix: Yeah right. Maybe they lacked the “moral” courage to speak out or maybe they new that the divisions cut across the congregation. “Hells bells Father. Lets just hand out the usual esoteric rhetoric and avoid upsetting anyone.” Over on Public address Mark says that he totally supports the Repeal and is happy with its operation but he voted NO. That would be interesting if there were significant numbers who so vote eh?
Redlogix: “No countries with an Anglo Saxon heritage on the list…”
Angles and Saxons came from Germany.
Saxony is a state in Germany. Saxons colonised parts of the Netherlands, and Translyvania (Romania).
So some countries on the list have a Saxon heritage at least.
Bear in mind that NZ *is* on this list too. Corporal punishment in the home *is* illegal. The referedum has not changed that. Apparently, the National party does not see the result of the referendum as a reason to change this.
So, to be quite clear the new law will read
Spare the Rod – spoil the child?
we’ll need pamphlets and line drawings! Saatchis can do those,
Love marks or some such shizer
Well, well well. it looks like New Zealanders have been assessed – rightly in this case – as a bunch of fools by hard right Christians.
“…A group behind the “Vote No” bloc in the smacking referendum received around $1m over six years from a conservative American religious group…”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10592610&pnum=0
That group is Dr. James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family”.
Focus on the Family in the USA is chiefly notorious for its strident anti-gay homophobia, as well as all the usual fundamentalist clap trap like creationism.
New Zealander were sold a dishonest crock over S59. A bunch of Christian crackpots, who took pains to hide their fundamentalist religious agenda before the referendum, have managed to co-opt a majority of New Zealanders with their lies and propaganda.
I can see why Baldock is getting intoxicated on his success to the point he feels he can threaten the Prime Minister. He reckons he has got all the money he needs from his fundy bagmen in the USA.
Personally though, I get the feeling the heat has gone from this issue. After all, if key does nothing, who else have they got to vote for?
Yes Tom. Well spotted.Thanks. As I dimly remembered from the distant past the Christian lobby found that they couldn’t directly make a dent in the Electoral Process in NZ so they said that they will tackle influence in a different way. As the article says funding came from the far right “Christian Focus on the Family” USA. And scarily the money was well spent from the NO point of view. I suppose exposure might dampen their effectiveness?
Oh not those utter idiots.
Thanks for that Tom, here’s hoping this has much the same impact as Hager’s reveal of the Exclusive Brethren contributions to National’s election campaign.
And typical this comes AFTER the event.
I remember the expose of United Future and a fundy group AFTER the election. What is the story with journalists these days – gutless? incompetent? What?
I think New Zealanders would have been interested in the fact that the No vote campaign was being bankrolled from the US.
After all, if key does nothing, who else have they got to vote for?
The immediate implementation of all old testament law.
Nah, just kidding. One step at a time.
“…I suppose exposure might dampen their effectiveness?…”
You know, the Herald must have known about this for ages. This is hardly a new issue, the funding has gone on for FIVE YEARS. It wouldn’t been hard to look at where a Charity gets it’s money from, I imagine it is a matter of public record or at least easy for a journalist to discover.
It is interesting the Herald sat on it until AFTER the referendum result. My take on it is the Herald editorial board – which after all is the mouthpiece of the Auckland business community (A.K.A. The National party in a pin-stripe) – don’t want Key to be to badly damaged when he does not change the law, and the timing of this story is all about taking the heat out this issue and putting it to bed.
True. I wondered why it was placed well down the list 16th of topics rather than a headline?
“…I wondered why it was placed well down the list 16th of topics rather than a headline?”
They are probably to stupid to work out they’ve got a humdinger of a story, right there.
The silence from the right is amusing though. Imagine if Hugo Chavez had given Sue Bradford a million dollars to campaign for a yes vote.
Trevor Louden would be collecting his guns, donning his DPM and removing the camouflage from his bunker, Half of the aged posters at nominister would be in ambulances on their way to hospital with aneurysms and DPF would be demanding we allow US Marines to guard parliament to save us from the incipient Chavezista coup.
Were there question being asked earlier this year on the Standard about the possible funding of Sensible Sentencing, Family First and other groups, with the possibility that the funding was coming from USA for political reasons?
Wasteful exercise for the christian right? Everyone that voted was mobilized by the christian right? Are you sure?
Exactly. I couldn’t care less. They didn’t have any influence. Left is trying hard to justify a crushing defeat.
Hmm. “Crushing defeat”. 80 something percent of 50 something percent is hardly crushing. More to the point defeat implies losing something – that something will happen to change the status quo – and because everyone knows the law is fine and working well – nothing will actually happen.
Me – I’m gutted.
Na, but it means this referendum probably wouldn’t have even existed for people to mobilize behind without the American fundamentalists paying the bills for the local nutters to organise it.
Of course, someone else might have started one anyway.
Once you have labelled someone you have marginalised them.
Only two churches in NZ came out in favour of a “No” vote – the Muslim church and Ratana.
It is indeed enlightening to learn that 87% of 54% of Kiwis hold views on parenting which are closer to those of the Taliban than any of our modern spiritual leaders.