Nigel Latta parenting show TV1 tonight.

[Jonno.]

i don't smack adults because they aren't my children, but then who gives adults time outs? What's next timeouts are banned because some people lock their kids in their room all day as a timeout.

[Trudes]

Adult time-out is called prison. If you lock your kid in a room all day then that could well be classed as neglect which is a form of abuse.

[Jonno.]

Exactly, it is akin to banning smacking to stop physical abuse. My understanding is the law removed the defence of reasonable force, effectively leaving it up to police and cyfs to use their discretion aka smacking is not legal. To me the question is obvious. IMO it should not be illegal to smack your kids in nz as part of good parental correction. Whether or how it pertains to the law is irelivant that isn't part of the question. Do you want smacking to be illegal yes or no.

[Trudes]

What exactly do you think they are going to do with the responses? "Thanks very much voting citizens of New Zealand, we love to waste tax payers money and this is another example". There is a reason for this referendum, think about it.

[The Stranger:Me]

the point of it is not to prosecute parents who give their kids a smack to discipline or remove them from harm by force, but to remove people using it as an excuse after they have beaten the snot out if their kid with a hunk of wood for instance.

Really?
Beating the snot out if their kid with a hunk of wood has never been legal.
Has anyone tried using the old S59 as a defense for this? Was it successful?

[Trudes]

Really?
Beating the snot out if their kid with a hunk of wood has never been legal.
Has anyone tried using the old S59 as a defense for this? Was it successful?

A Napier father was found to be using "reasonable force" by a jury after hitting his eight year old son eight times with a piece of wood 30cm by 2cm which left linear bruising visable for days. A jury found it reasonable for a Hamilton father to hit his 12 year old daughter with a piece of hosepipe, leaving a raised 15cm long lump on the girl's back. Sorry, can't tell you the exact dates, but this was using the old wording of S59 that they were using reasonable force on their children. There are probably many more but those were two that I had on my desk.

The problem is that what I may consider a smack is completely different to how someone else may see a smack. The force behind a smack I may give and the force of a 130kg man may give are also different, and remember this is being delivered to a child who we could easily be 4 times the size of. A slap to an adult's head may leave them with a black eye for a week but the same slap to a child could leave them brain damaged.
I was raised in a family were we'd get a hiding if you did something bad enough and not one time do I remember my Mum or Dad not being absolutely furious with us as they hit us. Now were they hitting me to teach me a lesson or because they were pissed off? I may have learnt a lesson, don't piss mum off, but I know that the reason I was getting hit was because mum was angry and this is her way of getting it out. So it has more to do with her feeling better than me learning a lesson.
I'm not allowed to hit the kids I look after, and believe me there have been times when the natural learnt instinct has made me want to, but because I can't I have had to keep my cool and use a different method of discipline. I don't even think about it any more, the kids get sent straight to time out, the situation is diffused and they get to cool off and so do I, and nobody gets hurt or fired.
I think the whole S59 repeal has hopefully made parents think before they just lash out in anger at their kids, and if they still decide to smack their kids then hopefully with a little less force.

[James Deuce]

It's a non-binding referendum based on a question that has no meaning irrespective of a "yes" or "no" answer.

That's my "face value" reading of it.

[Winston001]

A Napier father was found to be using "reasonable force" by a jury after hitting his eight year old son eight times with a piece of wood 30cm by 2cm which left linear bruising visable for days. A jury found it reasonable for a Hamilton father to hit his 12 year old daughter with a piece of hosepipe, leaving a raised 15cm long lump on the girl's back. Sorry, can't tell you the exact dates, but this was using the old wording of S59 that they were using reasonable force on their children. There are probably many more but those were two that I had on my desk.

The problem is that what I may consider a smack is completely different to how someone else may see a smack. The force behind a smack I may give and the force of a 130kg man may give are also different, and remember this is being delivered to a child who we could easily be 4 times the size of. A slap to an adult's head may leave them with a black eye for a week but the same slap to a child could leave them brain damaged.
I was raised in a family were we'd get a hiding if you did something bad enough and not one time do I remember my Mum or Dad not being absolutely furious with us as they hit us. Now were they hitting me to teach me a lesson or because they were pissed off? I may have learnt a lesson, don't piss mum off, but I know that the reason I was getting hit was because mum was angry and this is her way of getting it out. So it has more to do with her feeling better than me learning a lesson.
I'm not allowed to hit the kids I look after, and believe me there have been times when the natural learnt instinct has made me want to, but because I can't I have had to keep my cool and use a different method of discipline. I don't even think about it any more, the kids get sent straight to time out, the situation is diffused and they get to cool off and so do I, and nobody gets hurt or fired.
I think the whole S59 repeal has hopefully made parents think before they just lash out in anger at their kids, and if they still decide to smack their kids then hopefully with a little less force.

Must spread reputation around etc.....

[Winston001]

Excuse me if I go on-topic for a moment.

One of the issues Nigel Latta criticises is the educational model that all young children are winners. Participation is everything, individual achievements are unimportant.

We've discussed this on here before and its something I have a problem with too. Life does produce winners and losers and children have to learn that. Apparently Kiwifern netball games have no score. To my mind that is ludicrous.

[The Stranger:Me]

A Napier father was found to be using "reasonable force" by a jury after hitting his eight year old son eight times with a piece of wood 30cm by 2cm which left linear bruising visable for days. A jury found it reasonable for a Hamilton father to hit his 12 year old daughter with a piece of hosepipe, leaving a raised 15cm long lump on the girl's back. Sorry, can't tell you the exact dates, but this was using the old wording of S59 that they were using reasonable force on their children. There are probably many more but those were two that I had on my desk.

The problem is that what I may consider a smack is completely different to how someone else may see a smack. The force behind a smack I may give and the force of a 130kg man may give are also different, and remember this is being delivered to a child who we could easily be 4 times the size of. A slap to an adult's head may leave them with a black eye for a week but the same slap to a child could leave them brain damaged.
I was raised in a family were we'd get a hiding if you did something bad enough and not one time do I remember my Mum or Dad not being absolutely furious with us as they hit us. Now were they hitting me to teach me a lesson or because they were pissed off? I may have learnt a lesson, don't piss mum off, but I know that the reason I was getting hit was because mum was angry and this is her way of getting it out. So it has more to do with her feeling better than me learning a lesson.
I'm not allowed to hit the kids I look after, and believe me there have been times when the natural learnt instinct has made me want to, but because I can't I have had to keep my cool and use a different method of discipline. I don't even think about it any more, the kids get sent straight to time out, the situation is diffused and they get to cool off and so do I, and nobody gets hurt or fired.
I think the whole S59 repeal has hopefully made parents think before they just lash out in anger at their kids, and if they still decide to smack their kids then hopefully with a little less force.

How interesting this thread is.
Thank you for a considered and reasoned response.

I must admit, a touch silly of me to ask for examples of abuse of the old laws. Any law may be abused or misused and usually will given sufficient time. They (the laws) have been around for some time and as such some bad examples must exist. Interesting to note that juries found that the response was reasonable in these cases. Almost beggar’s belief, still I wasn’t there.

People say you can’t discipline adult with force, you can and I have (albeit teenagers) I have on a few occasions ejected gatecrashers from my property. The law allows for the use of “reasonable force” in certain circumstances but doesn’t define what is reasonable. Clearly it can’t as the situations are so wide and varied that they can’t possibly define reasonable force.
I am NOT in favour of loosely worded laws that are open to interpretation and have commented here several times to that effect. However as with reasonable force, some things can only be decided having regard to the circumstances and despite some apparent cases to the contrary, a jury is the most appropriate place for this.
Though there is conceivably scope to tighten the definition when it comes to a smack. It could be limited to open hand only, soft areas only, leaving no bruise – or whatever

My old man hit me in anger many a time. He was not a monster, but had all the usual pressures of life and 4 sons. He’d be mowing the lawns for example and run over his socket set and tools concealed in the long grass. Now to put this in perspective, good tools are not unlike motorcycles in their intrinsic value and here were half his tool box seized and rusty – except where the lawnmower hit them (which now of course had a fooked blade too). Yep the old man hit the roof – and me. Sure he hit me in anger. No denying that and I wasn’t about to suggest he needed anger management and time out. He’d told me a dozen times (figuratively) to put the tools away after I use them, the last times he didn’t flip out, doesn’t mean he didn’t have a right to this time AND after that, I was pretty damn careful to put the tools away. So yeah, he hit in anger, but I knew why he got angry and the whack told me it was serious and I better bloody well learn – and I did.
If you only got 1 or 2 kids, it’s simpler, you have more time to spend on molly coddling and feel good shit, If you have more, you need to start going for efficiency. A smack is short sharp and effective.

Abuse and discipline are 2 separate things.
The referendum question is about discipline, not abuse. Either you believe a parent may discipline their child with a smack or not.
I believe you really SHOULD vote accordingly.

Should the govt propose to act on it and should that action give rise to concern over creating a loophole for abuse then that is the time to raise that issue.

[Winston001]

Any law may be abused or misused and usually will given sufficient time. They (the laws) have been around for some time and as such some bad examples must exist.

Which is why Section 59 Crimes Act 1961 was amended. It provided too open a defence to physical abuse of children. So the law was tightened.

I've just searched the Family First website. A couple of months ago we were promised we'd be told of 9 incidents where good parents were convicted of assaulting their children when they only gave a smack.

We are still waiting.

I found 3 possible cases for argument on the FF website. One was an agreed over-reaction by CYFS. If that is the price we pay as a community to protect vulnerable children, its very small indeed. Certainly not the hundreds and thousands of cases of good families being terrorised by the state.

[Jonno.]

Life does produce winners and losers and children have to learn that. Apparently Kiwifern netball games have no score. To my mind that is ludicrous.

Kind of like the weetbix triathalon where everyone was a winner. what a message to give kids.

[Ms Piggy]

Well I must say, the last paragraph was certainly the most pertinent - and it shows the whole way through. To infer "good" in the context of the question is akin to a "good hiding" and therefore inappropriate shows some pretty desperate bias.

His proposed "clear and neutral" question of
"Should children be entitled to the same protection from physical assaults as everyone else enjoys?"
Absolutely reeks of bias. It doesn't allow for a "yes, but" position.

People should stop reading into it what is not there. There is NO rationale for NOT taking it at face value. Just answer the simple question before you - or not, your choice, but stop looking for reds under the beds.

Yes I do agree with what you're saying about 1 of his examples of a non-bias question being very biased.

But I do also agree that it's a terribly worded question and I also believe because of that a lot of people won't vote and therefore making the referendum a waste of time, money and energy when it could have been a very informative and helpful way of finding out what the public really believe about the repeal of section 59.

[Ms Piggy]

Any law may be abused or misused and usually will given sufficient time. They (the laws) have been around for some time and as such some bad examples must exist. Interesting to note that juries found that the response was reasonable in these cases. Almost beggar’s belief, still I wasn’t there.

Winston001 has already answered this but to add to what he said - I recently heard a presentation by a lawyer about the Repeal of Section 59. What he explained was that under the old law it was very difficult to prosecute - which is the reason why people did actually get off without conviction for some of the terrible "punishments" inflicted on kids that Trudes gave as examples. The law wasn't working and parents could use "reasonable force" (whatever the f*ck that is!) as an argument because there was no clear guidelines.

[Slyer]

I'm going to be the best parent, I've got the little pricks all worked out.
Unconventional, but the best.

One day.