Borrows Chester: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Borrows Chester: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:638;Page:8432] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 The point is that we are writing the Crimes Act here. We are not writing a parenting manual or the policy for Child Youth and Family the Plunket Society or Barnardos. We are not rewriting the SKIP programme and we are not rewriting some page out of the  
New Zealand Woman’s Weekly 
. We are actually writing the law here. 
The Crimes Act is full of matters called justification and excuse and section 59 is one of them. It fits in with such matters of justification and excuse like self-defence or the defence of another the law around provocation the law around necessity the protection of property and the right to eject people from one’s property on trespass. It all comes out of the same box. It all has to define an extreme of where the law will allow one to go when using force on another person. As abhorrent as that may seem to be and as accused as I am by those on the other side of this debate of trying to define a justification for parents to smack their kids just so far or assault them or beat them or whatever expletive they want to use that is what the law does when one is writing matters of justification and excuse. 
The reason for section 59 is that the law recognises and has for generations that parenting is a hard job—it is a damned hard job. So the law cuts parents some slack. It says that parents under stress may use force but they can use force only if it is reasonable in the circumstances. We are not saying it is good or bad we are not saying good parents smack and bad parents do not we are just saying that parents do. We will allow them to use reasonable force which is reasonable in the circumstances. The law cuts parents that much slack it makes that accommodation for parents because parenting is a real hard job and parents are under pressure. It is just as the Prime Minister recognised when she was asked by Bob McCroskey on Radio Rhema some time before the election; she said exactly the same thing. The trouble is of course that she said on that occasion that she would not be voting to prohibit smacking and that is exactly what she is doing now. 
The Labour Party the Greens and everybody else who is voting for this bill will remove that accommodation for parents under pressure which has existed for generation upon generation. Helen Clark says that this bill will protect every child against being thrashed bashed thumped and belted. Well it will not. People on both sides of the debate admitted all the way through the select committee process that the bill will not protect those children. But now all of a sudden just because the Prime Minister says it will protect them what do you know everyone else says it will too. Well 83 percent of New Zealanders out there know very well that it will not protect them. When Helen Clark talks about those of us who are suggesting an amendment in this case to allow parents to use reasonable force she says that we want parents who bash thrash beat and thump their children to be able to justify it. I say to her that when it comes to being a parent she would not know what day it is.