Clark backs law change, but not ban on smacking

Prime Minister Helen Clark said the law should not ban smacking outright. File picture / Hawke's Bay Today

Prime Minister Helen Clark says Section 59 of the Crimes Act should go, although it would be wrong to have a law banning smacking.

The controversial Section 59 gives parents the right to use "reasonable force" against children, and there is growing pressure for it to be scrapped.

Green MP Sue Bradford has drafted legislation which would do that, and yesterday Plunket threw its weight behind the bill.

Helen Clark said today on TV One's Breakfast programme: "My view is that it has to go, the question is when.

"It would be quite wrong to have a law which banned smacking. That wouldn't be tolerable because no one wants to see parents dragged before the courts for lightly touching a child.

"But where the law lends itself to mounting a defence on the basis of reasonable force, and then we see people get off in court for what are clearly assaults against a child -- I don't think that's right."

She said the Government set up a programme to support parents in finding other ways to discipline children, and it was still running.

Removing the defence of reasonable force would allow the police to make decisions on when it was worth mounting a prosecution, the Prime Minister said.

"We have seen people get off who really have dealt pretty viciously with kids," she said.

Justice Minister Phil Goff said last week he believed the Labour caucus would support the bill going to a select committee for consideration, without a commitment to back it further than that.

Social Development Minister Steve Maharey said today the Government would revisit the issue after it had reviewed the outcome of the parenting programme at the end of this year.

"We're not talking about (ruling out) smacking, we're talking about hitting a child with a cane or a belt. It just comes down to common sense," he said.

Plunket president Kaye Crowther said yesterday 560 delegates at the organisations's annual conference voted strongly in favour of Ms Bradford's bill.

She said delegates had been swayed by several cases of parents who had effectively abused their children and then used Section 59 to defend themselves.

"If we want to address abuse and violence in our society then we have to address the legislation that is allowing that to happen," she said.

The bill is expected to be debated in Parliament for the first time on July 27.

Ms Bradford welcomed Helen Clark's support for repealing section 59.

"I am pleased that Miss Clark sees the need to repeal this bad law which allows parents the defence of reasonable force if they are charged with assaulting their children," Ms Bradford said.

She was not proposing a new law to criminalise smacking nor did she see a day when police would charge into people's homes to arrest a parent for lightly smacking a child.

"What I am seeking to do is remove a legal defence for those parents who beat their children with instruments such as sticks, canes and pieces of whip," she said.

- NZPA