By PETER CALDER
If adults can't be hit for being naughty, why should they be able to do it to children? Children's Commissioner Roger McClay explains why he wants smacking outlawed.
"Not a word," commands Roger McClay as his son approaches the tape-recorder, "about how I used to smack you as a kid or it'll be all over the Herald."
"Nah," says 28-year-old Tim, barely breaking step. "He never used to smack us. He used to use a belt."
"The buckle end, I'd imagine," I offer helpfully. Steve nods. The Commissioner for Children emits a soft groan.
But, moments before, Mr McClay has 'fessed up anyway. He's anticipated my reminding him that, in 1992, as Associate Minister of Education in a National cabinet, he'd said decisions on corporal punishment should be left to schools themselves.
Now, he wants the smacking of children to be outlawed by the repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act, which lets parents use "reasonable physical force" to discipline.
"I've changed," he says simply, and the admission is so unvarnished that it sounds strange emerging from the mouth of a former politician.
"I remember I went on television at the time [to debate the matter] with [Labour's education spokeswoman] Margaret Austin and in later years she has often said to me: 'You came round at last; we knew you'd mature'."
What changed his view was becoming a grandfather, says the man whose job is to lobby on behalf of the country's most vulnerable, its children.
"I'm a grandfather of two now, nearly three," he says with obvious pride.
"And we [he and his wife, Dawn] became instantly very close to our first grandchild. I cannot think of any reasons why she would require smacking."
Like most people of his generation, 55-year-old Mr McClay looks back on a childhood where physical discipline was accepted. He would be told to "choose a switch off the tree by the outside toilet," although discipline was more formal than random and neither frequent nor regular.
Likewise, he smacked his own children. But he "wouldn't do it now if I could do it all again."
"That's why I'm not too hard on parents who smack and love. But it's hard to draw a line between those and the next group who go further than they should.
"So I say to those of you who think you have a God-given or cultural or historical right to smack your children: 'What about giving that away in the interests of saving some lives down the track of children whose parents don't know the difference between what's appropriate and not?"'
The statement goes to the heart of a profound public unease about the fatal cases of child abuse - most conspicuously and sickeningly that of Hawkes Bay 4-year-old James Whakaruru - that have blighted the last few months.
Why, ask parents who are not in the habit of bashing their kids, should we be held accountable for the actions of those who do?
Mr McClay has some sympathy for the point of view.
"People are quite outraged when I tell them they should not smack their children," he says.
"They feel affronted that I'm telling them how to be a parent. But I'm very much persuaded by the experience of countries [almost a dozen in Europe] which have taken the step.
"In Norway they changed the law 20 years ago and since then they have had eight deaths of children like James Whakaruru and Delcelia Witika; we've had more than 200.
"The reason people are outraged is that they think I'm placing good parents in the same basket as child-murderers. I just want to have a debate - and ultimately a law - that says we do not have to accept any violence. It's like rape - a little bit of rape is no good.
"In any case if [smacking children] is so effective, how come almost everyone in prison has had thrashings like you wouldn't believe? How come we are not allowed to do it to adults who get cheeky or rude or tell lies or steal or all the other things that kids get hidings for?"
The stories of child abuse that have stained the last few months' front pages make the debate about smacking almost a relief. Smacked bottoms are easier to contemplate than broken bones or internal bleeding.
Mr McClay, whose office compiled a damning report into the lack of care and protection given to James Whakaruru, believes small indignities spawn the hideous acts of violence - and says his job is to tell us what might come out of the mouths of babes.
"I'm really the mouthpiece for children. Every day it gets a little harder because I'm not a child and I don't speak to children as much as I would like. But I've got to express the view I think children would have."
He tries not "go out on a limb because if you do you lose credibility."
Yet establishing credibility was an early challenge.
When he got the job - which he sought, he says; "I wasn't rung up and waited upon"- in February 1998 after his predecessor, Laurie O'Reilly, succumbed to cancer, he stepped into a firestorm of criticism.
Some people - and the most vocal was the first commissioner, Dr Ian Hassall - felt he was appointed to protect a National Government that might have been seen as vulnerable" in the area of child policy.
"It was thought by quite a number of people that it was just jobs for the boys," says Mr McClay.
"They didn't think I had the integrity to do the job because I was a Tory MP. I'm quite sore about that."
The soreness is eased only slightly by the fact that Dr Hassall now concedes Mr McClay has "done well" in the job, as do politicians from both sides of the House.
The commissioner's 16-year political career wasn't long on on electrifying moments. Observers at the time said he was not an ambitious, power-hungry or even very energetic politician.
Mr McClay smiles at the suggestion and says he "wouldn't have been seen as very effective because I very seldom spoke to your colleagues in the press gallery after caucus and gave them secrets."
"I think I was a good local Member of Parliament. I wish I'd done more for children, and if I went again I would be a bit more trouble to the whips and be a little less loyal to the party and a bit more to some of the issues - children, for example."
Certainly his political background has helped him in his present job, he says.
"I enjoy scheming how I can fix things and I know how politicians think."
He recalls, in discreetly vague terms, ringing a National cabinet minister on behalf of "some desperate parents."
"I told them: 'This boy needs to be in this institution. They are not going to take him until they know who's going to pay. I could pay but I'm not going to. It'll be on Holmes tonight if you don't fix it, minister.' And it was fixed within half an hour."
The same willingness to act was behind his decision yesterday to pay about $9000 for the treatment of a suicidal 14-year-old drug addict because no other agency was prepared to pick up the tab.
He cannot legally intervene in specific cases, but he's confident his public stand will embarrass officialdom into action.
"I'll get the money from somebody," he says, "and I'll probably get some policies rewritten along the way. If I don't get the money, I'll just have to make sure I get $9000 worth of policy change."
In conversation, Roger McClay comes across as an intensely pragmatic man who relies on common sense rather than learned journals to make a public impact. It was a feel for the public pulse, rather than criminological research, that inspired his public ridiculing this week of the idea of home detention for child-abusers
"Yes, I am pragmatic, I suppose," he says. "I try and use common sense. Many people think I'm not talking much common sense on the smacking issue, I know. But I keep on about it because every time I raise it another parent stops smacking."
<i>Calder at large:</i> Spare the rod, save the child
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