Jones Dail: Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Jones Dail: Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:627;Page:22093] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 On behalf of New Zealand First I want to emphasise New Zealand First’s concern for the family and all the members of the family. As members will recall New Zealand First put forward a bill the Commission for the Family Bill in the name of Craig McNair ultimately and it had I think the best definition of “family” of any of the families bills that came before Parliament this year. We got it right this term and we got it right the first time. Unfortunately that bill was not supported by the House. For myself when I came into the House in July 1976 and made my maiden speech I said I was very pleased that the then National Government newly re-elected had re-established the Cabinet committee for children and the family. I mentioned that especially in my maiden speech. 
I am the father of three children and I have admonished my children both my giving them a slap on the back of the hand and on the extremely rare occasion by using a little black strap. It was something that was in a woollen car seat cover and it sort of fell out one day. It was only this big not big at all and it seemed to be a very appropriate thing to use on the very very rare occasion when someone did something terribly wrong. I agree with Marian Hobbs that the main concern as a parent in those early days especially with our first child—and most experiments I think are conducted on the first child one way or the other—was to get the child to eat. That usually seemed to be an issue at dinner time when my wife had gone to a lot of trouble in preparing a good meal and our son would not eat anything. So we gave him a slap on the back of the hand to encourage him to eat. My daughter never had any admonishment by me. My younger son was a little naughtier and he got the black strap on the hand at least once. I do not think that that was necessarily violent; I believe that what I did in the circumstances was appropriate parenting. Of course if this bill were passed into law I would be committing a criminal offence by doing that. It is a criminal offence to assault someone but a defence is currently available to a parent if any admonition is of a reasonable kind. This bill would render someone who does what I did liable to a criminal charge. 
I think that one of the worst things a parent can do—and it is not covered in this bill—is to shout at his or her children. I think that to shout constantly at a child and to have parents shouting at each other can do more harm in the average family than the occasional slap on the back of the hand does. I think that one of the worst things we can do to a child is to not speak to him or her for about 2 weeks. That is another thing that some parents do and it can be even worse than a one-off slap on the back of the hand to warn children to pull themselves together. One hates to say it but as parents we may feel even more hurt than a child does because we have had to admonish a child in that way. 
Judith Collins mentioned the boiling water situation. When my children were growing up we had a house that had open fireplaces with a surround around them. One cannot stop a 2-year-old from toddling up and heading towards a fireplace. Even with a surround around a fireplace a child can touch it and get burnt. Somehow or other we have to teach children that that is dangerous before they find that out for themselves. 
I find that I am unable to support this bill because if I supported it I would be a hypocrite. It would be absolutely wrong in my own mind that I would be setting up a situation that I did not carry out and I would not want other parents to become criminals for doing something that I did during the course of bringing up my children. Of course people say that the laying of charges will be at the police’s discretion. Well that is not very satisfactory. Police forces can change circumstances can change and Governments can change. 
One thing I say to the people who make submissions on this issue—and I would like to say this to Plunket—is that they should have another look at the answer to question No. 1 in Plunket’s paper  
Questions and Answers on the Repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961 
. It states: “It will simply remove a legal defense that is used when parents seriously assault their children—”. I think that in that case Plunket has it slightly around the wrong way. When I look at the Littlies Lobby survey I see that it really should have asked the question: “Have you smacked your children?”. That would have been very helpful. Instead it has come up with question No. 4. I appreciate the trouble the Littlies Lobby went to but of the answers given 1332 people admitted that they did smack their children. So there is a lot of ambiguity and uncertainty. 
Of course Sweden has come into the act once more—the Plunket paper mentions Sweden. We cannot do anything these days without Sweden being mentioned. My investigations show that things have become worse for children in Sweden since the passing of Sweden’s declaratory law.