Collins Judith: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Collins Judith: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:638;Page:8451] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 This debate is supposed to be about the purpose of this bill. I can tell members right now that the purpose of this bill is to decide who is in charge of our children. The members opposite want to be able to say that they know how to bring up our children. Not one of them cares about our children. Those members care only about themselves and their ability to strut on the world stage at the UN hold up a little flag and say: “Look what we did in New Zealand.” Not one part of this legislation will help the children who are killed in this country. Nobody in this Chamber will be able to deal with the real causes of child abuse by passing this bill. Not one child will be saved by this bill but families will be set asunder. 
I was amazed to hear tonight the argument from some Cabinet Ministers that we can trust the police to do whatever they want because they will always use their discretion in the right way. Well those Ministers should tell that to Mr Solanki of Hamilton. He went through a court case because he held his 12-year-old daughter by her shoulders against her will because he wanted to talk to her. The police were called; 111 was dialled. And they turned up—yes they did. The police prosecuted Mr Solanki. The case went right through the court and ended up in the Court of Appeal which said that it was very sorry to Mr Solanki because it was a stupid case and a waste of time. Why did that happen? Because Mr Solanki was not doing that to discipline his child so he was not able to do it. 
Jill Pettis 
: That’s now. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Right now—Mrs Pettis is absolutely right. Do members know that section 59 does not protect a father from that sort of police abuse—because that is exactly what happened? 
But Mr Solanki was not like me: he was brown so was treated differently from someone like me. I have heard in this Chamber tonight that the police will suddenly become serious and sensible about using their discretion. I have had members opposite say to me that I should not worry because this legislation will not affect people like me. What they actually mean is that it will not affect me because I am white. That is what the issue is about. It certainly will affect the people of Mangere. It certainly will affect the poor. It certainly will affect those who are not articulate. It certainly will affect those who have any other criminal convictions. It certainly will do so. That is exactly what this bill is about. It is about giving more power to the State so that it can tell us how to bring up our children. 
This bill comes from people who have no experience of raising children or whose experience simply has not been successful. Those people will criminalise our good parents. They will criminalise people who actually love and care for their children. This is not a fight about the power to smack or about anything like that. All that those women of the Labour Party will do—and by the way has anyone noticed that since Georgina Beyer left Parliament the Labour Party has lost one of its women—is to take good parents out of homes. They will take children out of homes and put them into Child Youth and Family care whereby as many people know children often do not get much care. Child Youth and Family has supposedly 13000 substantiated child abuse cases. The figure has more than doubled under this Government which has taken away responsibility for children from parents. The figure has more than doubled. Will this bill help any of those children? No it will not. 
This bill is about putting parents in their place. It is not about good parenting and it is not about benefiting children; it is about putting parents in their place. If that was not the purpose of the bill those people opposite would support my colleague Chester Borrows’ amendment to this clause. His amendment deals with the very sensible issue of not whipping children and not beating them with anything. It keeps discipline at the level it should be at. It is about good parenting and not about arresting or picking on parents just because they are poor inarticulate or might have done something else that is wrong. This is one of the most important bills in this Parliament and the reason is that 83 percent of the people in this country know that this Government has gone too far. This is a case of the nanny State gone mad. I am here tonight to help to save kids from the nanny State. The nanny State is no good; it is a bad nanny. It goes home at 5 o’clock every night; it does not care. The nanny State is not there at 3 o’clock in the morning. This bill is a disgrace.