Henare Tau: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Henare Tau: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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Hon TAU HENARE (National) 
: 
 Kia ora. I want to take just a brief call and also reiterate what my colleague Mr Chester Borrows said. I have been a parent for some years. We have five children and on the odd occasion yes we have smacked our children. I take deep offence at what the Prime Minister said this morning in  
the New Zealand Herald 
. I am neither a basher nor an abuser of my children and I regard what she said as a slight on all good parents of this nation. 
This bill has nothing to do with protecting kids from abuse. There are ample laws in our statutes now that protect children from abuse as my colleague Chester Borrows has just said. We are not writing a Child Youth and Family policy a child policy or a child welfare policy; we are actually involved in rewriting the Crimes Act. If we are doing that then let us stick to the issues. 
What does this bill do? Does it make people with a guilty conscience feel better? Most probably it does. What does it really do? Will it stop the sort of abuse that we see around this nation? It absolutely will not. What it will do is to marginalise between 80 and 85 percent of the nation’s good parents—good parents who only want to get on with raising their children and making sure they have a shelter over their head have clothes for their body and are loved. What more could anyone ask for? 
R Doug Woolerton 
: Smack it into them mate! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: That is Doug Woolerton. Poor old Doug. He is on his way out so he has to have some sort of valedictory speech— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member has been here long enough to know that he cannot refer to members by one name. It must be by the member’s full name. I refer to Speakers’ rulings 26/6 and 26/7. 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Thank you Mr Chairman; I am just back from a 6-year sabbatical. Mr Doug Woolerton is on his last legs. But I digress. This is a serious matter but Doug Woolerton does not see it like that. He wants to criminalise most of the parents in this good nation of ours. He wants to line them up. I will tell members this: the day this bill passes—if it passes—I make a vow to go down to the police station and confess that I have smacked my children. I have smacked my children—well whoop-de-do! They are not in jail; they are actually good responsible kids. 
All that people who support this bill want to do is to criminalise parents. That is all they will do even if— 
Hon George Hawkins 
: Rubbish! 
Hon TAU HENARE 
: Oh yeah—well it is a long time since old George Hawkins had some children to look after. But that is OK. This bill is all about a criminal act. It is about using force as a defence. If those who support it are saying that they want to be the parents of our children then they should come out and say that. But then they can look after my kids clothe them send them to whichever school they decide on and have all the responsibility of doing that. If they are not going to take on that responsibility they should not tell me or the many other good parents in this nation how we should run our lives at home and how we should bring up our kids. 
In the  
New Zealand Herald 
 this morning the Prime Minister had the audacity to actually accuse the majority of parents in this nation of being abusers and bashers. That is beyond belief. That will be the Government’s Waterloo. Every Government has a Waterloo and that will be this Government’s Waterloo.