Last night’s meeting with John Boscawen, Bob McCoskrie, Jim Evans and Larry Baldock on amending s59 of the Crimes Act to decriminalise the use of reasonable force for the purposes of parental correction was encouraging. The main themes I came away with from each speaker were: John Boscawen – ACT Party MP John Boscawen has [...]
Tags: Bob McCoskrie · Fitzgerald v Muldoon · Jim Evans · John Boscawen · John Key · Larry Baldock · Referenda · s59 · Smacking
Fresh from Facebook’s “5000 Demanding Anti Smacking Law Change” group is this invitation: ACT MP John Boscawen is holding a series of public debates on the smacking referendum result and how his bill to amend S59 will bring the legislation into line with public opinion. John Boscawen will be holding the first debate in Phil [...]
Tags: ACT Party · Bob McCoskrie · Events · Jim Evans · John Boscawen · Parental Freedom · Phil Goff · Referendum · s59 · Smacking
In impeccable timing, this afternoon I heard the announcement that ACT MP John Boscawen’s Bill to amend Section 59 of the Crimes Act, in line with the Borrows amendment that defined reasonable force, had been drawn from the ballot. However, John Key swiftly announced that National would not back it to Select Committee trotting out [...]
Tags: John Boscawen · John Key · Smacking
The law criminalises smacking, the best and most faithful reading of the law deems any use of force for the purposes of parental correction criminal; experts in legal interpretation agree on this. The people have objected loudly and all you have done is issue a promise to not enforce the law; a promise that can [...]
Tags: National Party · NZ Government · Referendum · Smacking
I am a mother of 4; I am currently doing the last few papers of my law degree at Auckland Uni, I voted “no” in the referendum, I voted for you to govern at the last election. I am sure you are getting a lot of emails, however, as you deliberate as to how to [...]
Tags: Referendum · s59 · Smacking
Given that yesterday we advertised Dr Glenn Peoples’ upcoming public lectures and because the smacking referendum begins on Saturday, I thought we’d share this article critiquing bad anti-smacking reasoning by Glenn. (dis)Honest to God: How Not to Argue about the Smacking Referendum Ian Harris tells us (“Honest to God,” Dominion Post, [Dominion Post. Saturday July [...]
Tags: Glenn Peoples · Ian Harris · Referendum · s59 · Smacking
Recently Dr Ian Hassall gave a presentation, on the upcoming referendum on section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961, entitled: How did we come to have a law that supported hitting children? This presentation defends the thesis that mild physical punishment (smacking) is wrong and should remain illegal in New Zealand. In this post I [...]
Tags: David Benatar · Defences · Ethics · Ian Hassall · Moral Discourse · Referendum · s59 · Smacking
In “A Christian Perspective on the Child Discipline Referendum,” Rev Dr Margaret Mayman presents a theological justification for retaining the amended section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961, which has criminalised force used against a child for the purposes of parental correction. Mayman began by offering three standard arguments for repealing the old section 59, [...]
Tags: Crimes Act · David Benatar · Hermeneutics · Margaret Mayman · Referendum · s59 · Smacking · Theology
I have been involved in a discussion over at MacDoctor Moments on various aspects of the abortion debate, though in this post I don’t want to talk about that issue. In the course of this discussion Chuck advocated for a policy of direct democracy to decide moral issues and it is this that I want [...]
Tags: Chuck Bird · MacDoctor · Paul Wolff · Plato · Public Policy · Referenda
Christchurch Event: John Boscawen, David Garrett, Larry Baldock on s59
September 16th, 2009 4 Comments
Recently I attended a public meeting in support of John Boscawen’s Bill to restore the right of parents to use reasonable force for the purposes of correction in the course of parenting removed by the current s59 of the Crimes Act. This Bill will be voted on shortly and for those of us who voted [...]
Tags: David Garrett · John Boscawen · John Key · Larry Baldock · Referenda · s59 · Smacking