Kedgley Sue: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Kedgley Sue: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 The Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill has been a difficult bill—indeed a painful bill—for Parliament and for the whole of New Zealand to debate. No one likes talking about beating our children or about the violence and abuse that children endure every day in this country. So it is no wonder that the whole issue of parental violence against children has been something of a taboo—a subject so sensitive and painful that we would prefer not to talk about it. 
In debating this bill up and down New Zealand on talkback radio and so forth we have lifted a taboo and brought the whole issue into the open and we have confronted our shadow if you will—a dark side of New Zealand society. I believe that it has been an incredibly healthy although difficult and painful process for our society. Dozens of people have talked to me—and I am sure to many MPs—about the violence abuse and thrashings they endured as a child. They are people who had never been able to discuss the trauma and terror they experienced as children who were regularly abused by their parents but they have finally been able to share their secrets and talk about their experiences. I think that has been incredibly healing and healthy. 
The most important aspect of the bill is that we are standing as an almost united Parliament in protecting our children from abuse. Before the previous election all political parties in this House pledged to the lobby group Every Child Counts that we would put children and their needs at the centre of legislation. In passing this bill today we are honouring that pledge and sending a message that we do not condone or tolerate violence against our children and that it is not acceptable or excusable to hit brutalise or abuse them. We are sending a message that as a culture we need to move beyond physical punishment and abuse as a way of disciplining our children—just as we did a few decades ago when we made corporal punishment illegal in schools. We recognise that it will not be easy for many parents to make this change and that they will need help in doing so. We are pleased that the Government has committed to providing that help. 
I note that Gordon Copeland said in a release today that this bill was a “gross perversion of the democratic process”. I disagree. I believe that the bill is actually a triumph of the democratic process. Parliament has recognised and demonstrated that it can work together and reach a consensus on contentious legislation. I think it is sad indeed that Gordon Copeland felt so passionately about the right of parents to hit their children that he resigned from his party. That is a sad consequence of legislation that I am certain will come to be viewed as historic social legislation—right up there along with the Homosexual Law Reform Act and the end of capital punishment. 
Finally I salute Sue Bradford for her courage in bringing this bill to the House. She hoped the bill would be as she said “like motherhood and apple pie”; instead it has been like riding a wild wild tiger. She has never flinched and never shirked from the task in the face of intolerable abuse and violence. I suspect that others may have given up along the way but never Sue Bradford. I give thanks to all the non-governmental organisations to the MPs in this House who have put principle ahead of politics—Jim Anderton Peter Dunne Chester Borrows and members of the Labour Party and the Maori Party—and to Helen Clark and John Key for their leadership.