Bradford Sue: Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Bradford Sue: Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:627;Page:22086] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 I move  
That the Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that this bill be considered by the Justice and Electoral Committee. 
The bill that I am presenting to the House tonight is a chance for Aotearoa New Zealand to take a step into the future and rid ourselves of an archaic law that legitimises the use of quite serious force against our children. At the moment judges and juries have it within their power to find parents not guilty of assault when for example they beat their children with things like belts canes hosepipes jug cords pieces of wood and horse crops. My bill simply seeks to repeal section 59 of the Crimes Act—nothing more and nothing less. 
In law section 59 allows a defence of reasonable force when a parent is charged with assaulting his or her child even when that assault is carried out with objects like these. In practice section 59 conveys the message to all New Zealanders that the State thinks it is legitimate and OK to use so-called reasonable force against those who at least until they grow up are smaller weaker and less mature than we are. What I am not doing is proposing a new law that might for example make it a crime to lightly smack a child or to physically restrain a child when such restraint is manifestly necessary such as when a toddler is closing in on a power point with a fork in hand. I am not seeking in any way to criminalise ordinary parents. I just want to remove a legal defence that is used when some people seriously hit or beat their children with objects like those mentioned. 
It is a nonsense to say that as so many of my political opponents are doing at the moment should repeal of section 59 happen parents will suddenly be subject to arrest prosecution and conviction if they lightly smack their child. There is no way the Department of Child Youth and Family Services will abruptly abandon its huge current caseload to remove children from parents who smack them as United Future ridiculously alleges; nor will police all at once start arresting parents who put their child in a room for a bit of time out. It is patently ridiculous to think that all of a sudden the removal of the defence of reasonable force will lead to police all over the country arresting people for such actions. Goodness knows they have enough other work to do. The aim of this repeal is not to subject parents to prosecution for trivial assault. In other countries where laws like this have been changed there has not been a marked increase in such arrests. I certainly would not expect it to happen here where the climate of public opinion is so manifestly not ready for a ban on smacking. 
One of the best ways of dealing with the fear so many people have about this may be to get the police in association with bodies like the Children’s Commissioner and the Families Commission to develop and make public guidelines on prosecutions to cover situations where children are assaulted. Full consideration of this option could be a part of the select committee process. 
This bill is not about imposing penalties on parents who currently use light physical discipline. It is about giving children and young people the same legal protection from physical assault that adults have. I do not understand at all why it is illegal in New Zealand to beat my spouse another adult a policeman or even an animal harshly with a horse crop or a piece of wood but it can be legal to do the same thing to my child. It seems to me that section 59 of the Crimes Act is a relic of English 19th century law and thinking which said that children were simply the property of their parents and were subject to their total control and to harsh physical discipline. At that time the same applied to wives servants and horses. Strangely it is only children to whom this quaint but dangerous law still applies. 
I believe that babies and children deserve our careful love and respect from the time they are born. I am a mother of five children myself and brought up my first children—twins—on the domestic purposes benefit for their first few years. I know full well how hard being a parent can be. My kids were no angels and one of them had particular problems as alas so many of our children do. However to the best of my knowledge I have never used hitting or smacking on my children. I am not putting myself forward as some kind of saint; I am certainly not that. It is simply that I never wanted to strike them in any way and I never found it necessary. I just feel that as both an MP and a mother I have a responsibility to do everything I can to stop State legitimisation of the use of serious force against our children. While this is a member’s bill about which I am particularly passionate I would just like to note for the record that it has the full backing of the Green Party. Repealing section 59 is a key plank of our children’s policy and is also part of our commitment to the kaupapa of non-violence which is one of the Green Party’s four core principles. 
 I stand in the House tonight to call on members from all other parties to consider supporting the repeal of section 59 or at least to vote to allow my bill to go to select committee so that all the myriad issues involved can be fully debated through public submission processes and through Parliament’s political consideration. I am delighted that both the Labour and Progressive parties have publicly committed to supporting this bill through its first reading and for it to go to a select committee. I am also aware that other members here would like to support the bill and I hope that some of them will feel able to do so even though their vote may differ from their party’s vote. I call on those members to do the right thing and take this opportunity to cast their conscience vote with all of us who believe that repeal is one step that must be taken if we are serious about lowering the levels of violence against children. 
I have been speaking on and debating this issue in many communities over the last 2 months and I know full well the depth of feeling there is on all sides of it. The issue is highly controversial. It is one that cuts deep into our national psyche and it is a debate that needs to happen. The fact that my bill has been drawn on the eve of a general election makes it even clearer that this is a key issue for many. 
Numerous individuals and organisations support full repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act and I would like to acknowledge their presence here in the House tonight. For some of them this bill is a further step in a life-long commitment to reducing levels of violence against children and I would particularly like to pay my respects to Beth Wood from EPOCH New Zealand who has worked so tirelessly on this issue for so many years. There are many others too. Some of the people and organisations that support repeal of section 59 include to name some of them: Plunket Barnardos Save the Children Parentline Parents Centre New Zealand Unicef New Zealand the Families Commissioner the Children’s Commissioner the Auckland University of Technology Institute of Public Policy the Law Society the New Zealand Paediatric Society the Association of Psychotherapists Wesley Community Action the Sisters of St Joseph of Nazareth the New Zealand Association of Counsellors Pax Christi the Quakers and all the groups that make up the Every Child Counts campaign. 
Our country has an all-pervasive culture of violence against children that leads to us having one of the highest abuse and child mortality rates in the developed world. People coming to this country for the first time even from places like Israel are shocked by the culture of violence we have here in the household and in the family. It is high time we lived up to our commitments as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We are currently in breach of the convention despite paying lip service to it because we allow State-sanctioned force here. I believe that Government has a responsibility to lead the way on this. 
I welcome the national debate that my bill has opened up about how as a society we regard and treat our children and I hope that during the process of submissions on the bill we open the way for the voices of children and young people to be heard as well. Children do not usually make submissions to select committees. On section 59 I think it is critical that we adults do allow our ears to open—and our minds as well—to hear what young people have to say about this issue that affects them so deeply. If ever there was a time that Parliament should begin to seriously include the views of children in our processes it is now with this bill. All the research I have ever seen shows that children who are beaten and assaulted have much poorer outcomes as adults and are much more likely to perpetuate cycles of mental illness criminality violence and deprivation. 
For the sake of all our futures I call on all MPs here tonight to think seriously about allowing this bill to go to a select committee and to consider the possibility that full repeal of section 59 would actually benefit all parents and children in this country rather than create some of the totally absurd scenarios currently being put forward in some quarters.