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:22099] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 First of all I would like to thank the Labour members who have spoken for their wonderful support for this bill: Marian Hobbs for her wonderful anecdote about the peas Steve Chadwick for speaking from the heart about her own experiences working with some of the very damaged children and Martin Gallagher for just now pointing out again that it is not the intention of either the Labour Party or the Green Party somehow to use the repeal of section 59 to outlaw smacking. That is not what we are here to do tonight. 
I turn to Judith Collins from the National Party who talked about this bill being simplistic. Yes it is. It is very simple. I make no bones about it. It is not a complex issue. All we are trying to do is to stop parents from getting away in court with using things like this riding crop on their children. That is all we are trying to achieve; it is a very simple goal. 
Stephen Franks said many things that I disagree with—as usual. He talked about the people who are working to repeal section 59 as not being sincere relishing the anguish of the families that are joining in this debate and enjoying telling people what to do. What a load of nonsense! I know many of those people and find his comments absolutely distasteful. I reject them absolutely. Those people are giving their lives to promote the legal and human rights of children and usually provide many many on-the-ground services to families and children as well. 
Judy Turner talked about the United Future bill that Murray Smith has in the ballot. This is an issue that I am sure will be canvassed at length in the select committee and indeed I welcome that debate. I tell Ms Turner that I am not shying away from it. I think it is very important that we have that debate. But very quickly I say that the reason the Green Party does not support amending the bill and somehow calibrating or defining the type of force that we could not or should not use against our children is that that does not afford our children their full human rights it does not protect them and it still sends unhelpful messages to parents. Such an amendment is unlikely to conform with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and above all defining what might be unreasonable is totally problematic. We would start to get into things like at what age can a baby or child be hit or not hit and by what form or what method can a child be hit or not hit—with what how often in what circumstances? It becomes simply impossible. I will actually find it very interesting to hear what is put before us at the select committee but I defy any member of this Parliament to come here and say with certainty that this type of force will not harm a child but that type of force will. It is simply impossible to say. I have looked at some of the bills that have been put up on this issue and I just cannot see it from either a legal or a simple human point of view. 
 Mr Tamihere again rather forcefully totally disrespected the groups that are working on the issue in saying that no one should dictate to his family. Fair enough. I am not trying to dictate to Mr Tamihere’s family. But I certainly reject the way in which he like Mr Franks has shown such disrespect to the people who are working in this area. 
In the debate on this I have heard many things. One is that the reason parents use violence against their children is that one simply cannot reason with children—that one has to hit them to make them see reason. In response—and there was an article about this in one of our newspapers recently—I ask why if this is OK we do not legalise the use of violence against old people people with Alzheimer’s perhaps people with severe psychotic mental illnesses criminals and other politicians. All these types of people often cannot be reasoned with. Does that mean the State should legitimise force against them? I do not think so. So why do we treat our smaller citizens differently? 
Another argument I have often heard is: “I have to use force against my child because my child is rebelling against me as a parent.” What nonsense! I celebrate all the rebels in the gallery tonight and out in our communities who are working so hard to change the culture of violence against our children and who are working in so many practical ways to support families. 
The repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act is only one part of our journey but it is an absolutely critical one. I look forward to the debate ahead of us and to the day when full repeal of section 59 becomes law. 
A party vote was called for on the question that the Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill be now read a first time.