Copeland Gordon: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Copeland Gordon: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:638;Page:8870] 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 I would like to start in talking to the amendment moved by my colleague the Hon Peter Dunne by saying that I will be supporting the amendment. I agree with John Key that it is a useful step forward. However let me say also that I will not be supporting the bill itself and that I remain opposed to it. I say to John Key that if he does become Prime Minister in 2008 I think there will still be overwhelming support from New Zealanders for a change in the law that we are going to enact in this Parliament and I for one will be right behind him in making that change. I say that because I would be the ultimate hypocrite if I were to stand here tonight and heap praise on this compromise as being any kind of real answer to the problems I see in the bill. For me that would be a complete backflip. 
Actually this compromise achieves very little indeed. It adds nothing much to the prosecution guidelines that the police already operate under. I was never worried so much about prosecution; I actually regard that as a bit of a red herring in the debate. What concerns me is what happens practically when the police receive a telephone call from someone who lays a complaint with them to say that a child next door to them for example has just been thrashed. The police will of course have to respond to that complaint. Therefore they will still arrive in the homes of New Zealanders in unprecedented numbers and in a way that would not occur if this bill were not to be passed into law. The police cannot at that stage decide not to investigate the complaint because it could be a complaint involving genuine child abuse. If it were a case of that and the police did not go then we in this Parliament would be howling the next day or as soon as it became public for the head of the Minister of Police and we would be saying that that was just not good enough. So the police will go to the home but they may decide not to prosecute the first time. 
What will happen though if the same neighbour rings back 3 weeks later to say that the bloke next door has again smacked his daughter? The police will again have to respond to the complaint. The police tell me that at about this time they also fill out a form that notifies Child Youth and Family that there is a problem in this family. Child Youth and Family likewise will be bound to go and visit the family. 
So the reality is that because we are here tonight passing a law that makes the light smacking of a child for the purpose of correction a crime—the crime of assault—the on-the-ground actions of the police and Child Youth and Family will change dramatically to involve a whole new array of hundreds of thousands of loving parents who do actually lightly smack their children within the context of hugs and kisses and many other beautiful family times and who quite clearly distinguish that from the abuse that all of us in this Parliament are against. My attitude to abuse is to have zero tolerance; I want to eliminate it from the whole country. But a light smack in that context does not constitute abuse. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: I hope the amendment moved tonight by my colleague Peter Dunne will help the hundreds of thousands of good loving parents to regain their confidence. I hope it will show them—in a small way at least—that they are doing the right thing by their children. I think the petition of my former colleague Larry Baldock will continue to collect signatures. I think there will be a referendum in 2008 because the petition will get there. If that petition is successful then I renew my pledge to work with John Key to put in place something more akin to Chester Borrows’ amendment. 
I take this opportunity to congratulate Chester Borrows and to thank him for the tremendous effort he put into his amendment. It was well constructed and it had my wholehearted support. Who knows time may yet show that the bill will come back to this Parliament at a different time and with a different make-up. We may yet see this central problem which is opposed by so many hundreds of thousands—in fact millions—of New Zealanders sorted out in a way that will be acceptable and that at the same time will reduce child abuse and also renew the confidence of parents that in lightly smacking their children as part of a loving disciplined regime they are doing the right thing by them. Thank you.