English Bill: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
English Bill: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:637;Page:8032] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 Clause 2A highlights how the proponents of this Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill have wildly over-claimed what it is they are doing legally but have clearly underestimated the impact they are having on parental attitudes. Clause 2A states: “This Act amends the Crimes Act 1961.” If this bill is passed there will still be a section 59. I do not know whether the lobby groups that have spent millions of dollars on this realise that there will still be a section 59 and that it will still have a set of conditions for defence against prosecution. It will not be a particularly sensible set of defences—Chester Borrows’ ones are much better—but that will still be the case. 
The legal difference between this bill and what Chester Borrows is proposing is actually not very large but the key to this debate is what my colleague Gerry Brownlee said when he quoted the Labour member who said that this is about attitudinal change. Well I want to tell the Labour Government why so many people are worked up about this bill. They do not believe that the way to solve abuse and violence against children is to force a change in the attitude of all those parents who do a great job. That is what is being proposed here. I resent that. I resent being told by people over on that side of the Chamber that for the 20 years I have spent raising six children I have had the wrong attitude; I was wrong my attitude was wrong and as a result of that wrong attitude “Lillybing” was killed and it is my fault. 
 This Government has spent the last 3 months avoiding responsibility for the death of Liam Ashley and more recently for the death of Mr Kuchenbecker. Government members do not know who is responsible for those deaths but they do know who is responsible for the awful violence against young vulnerable children in New Zealand: it is me and it is the other members who do not support the bill and it is the hundreds of people who sent me emails and letters—they are responsible. Nobody in the Government is responsible for the death of prisoners who were in the Government’s care but it is the attitudes of all normal parents who have done a good job over 20 years that are responsible for extreme violence against children. 
That is why clause 2A is so telling—because it makes it clear there will still be a section 59. All those people who have emailed me because they were told by Sue Bradford and the child lobby that section 59 will be repealed have been misled again. The amendment to the Crimes Act is simply to replace section 59. I say to Sue Bradford that she should tell people the truth. 
It is really grinding on New Zealand parents that they are being told that their good intentions towards their kids are not of the same moral value as the good intentions of the child lobby that somehow the child lobby’s good intentions have to be legislated over and above theirs and that the answer to fixing parents who do a bad job is to attack all those parents who do a good job. I want the next Labour speaker to explain to me just what it is about the attitude of the thousands of parents who do a good job every day that has to be changed in order to save some other child who may be killed in the next wee while. I want him or her to argue that. 
I will tell members about symbolism. I resent my relationship with my children being legally and fundamentally altered to prove a symbolic point. Our relationships might be regarded by Labour and the child lobby as being grist to the mill of symbolism strategies and politics. But for us they are human heartfelt and real; they pump blood tension love and warmth every day. I never again want to hear people say they are performing some political trick of symbolism on that fundamental human relationship.