Posts Tagged ‘section 59’

30 years without smacking

Written By: - Date published: 8:37 am, October 9th, 2009 - 21 comments

Sweden has had a smacking ban for 30 years. How is that working out? Stockholm When celebrating the 30th anniversary of the world’s first national ban on corporal punishment of children last month, Sweden’s social affairs minister, Göran Hägglund, claimed a dramatic success over something many Swedes now consider a scourge. “Colleagues from other countries […]

Let’s have a proper debate

Written By: - Date published: 11:36 am, September 7th, 2009 - 16 comments

Larry Baldock (organiser of the “smacking” referendum) has decided to launch a petition for another referendum on whether such referenda should be binding. His agenda of course is to keep flogging the dead horse of the s59 debate. Two more years? No thanks. The only way that I can deal with the prospect is to […]

Section 59 and child abuse

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, August 4th, 2009 - 26 comments

Late last week households around the country received their referendum envelope that asks “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence?” Leaving aside the ambiguity and lack of clarity in that question, the lack of opinion based on fact and any semblance of common sense apart from Chicken Licken Family […]

Should a…

Written By: - Date published: 5:00 pm, July 8th, 2009 - 37 comments

www.should-a.com, a website “created for the express purpose of openly mocking the citizen’s initiated referendum aimed at The Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007, popularly known as the Anti-smacking Amendment”. Awesome.

Hiding to nothing

Written By: - Date published: 3:06 pm, June 23rd, 2009 - 25 comments

Did anyone else detect a whiff of desperation in Family Fist’s PR offensive today championing the case of a man who lost control and repeatedly shoved his son to the ground because he refused to play in a rugby game? I mean, is this really the best they’ve got? A grown man who’s lost his […]

The mask slips

Written By: - Date published: 8:44 pm, June 22nd, 2009 - 102 comments

The child beating lobby launched its “Vote No” campaign site today. They’ve worked hard in this campaign to present themselves as regular Kiwis standing up for common sense values, so I find it interesting they’ve chosen to decorate the front page of their campaign with this racist, sexist cartoon: The cartoon is clearly designed to […]

Baldock gets a smacking

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, June 17th, 2009 - 97 comments

The folks at The Yes Vote point to a hilarious exchange this morning between Sean Plunket and Larry Baldock on Morning Report. Challenged repeatedly to come up with one single example of a parent who has been criminalised for smacking a child, Baldock fudged, then fudged some more, and then rounded it off with some […]

Anti-abuse law in action

Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, July 16th, 2008 - 40 comments

A front page story on Stuff at the moment is about a woman who systematically beat her child and has been successfully prosecuted and placed on home detention. According to the story the Tauranga mother’s initial excuse was that she was disciplining her child: When spoken to by police in February, Nelson admitted she sometimes […]

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