KEY POINTS:
Family First, a group that campaigns for the right to smack, has commissioned a survey that finds 48 per cent of parents of children under 12 have given them a smack in the year since the law was changed. Spokesman Bob McCoskrie said he was surprised to find
so many admitting they flouted the law. It indicated "just how far out of step with reality this law is", he said.
It indicates nothing of the kind. It shows that, contrary to the alarmism of Family First, the removal of the parental defence to assault has not deterred reasonable practice. Nearly half the 1018 parents surveyed still resort to a smack on occasions. Had the police enforced the new law with the rigour that Family First feared, parents would not be as relaxed about it as they plainly are.
Why, then, is Mr McCoskrie's group unable to let this unpleasant subject rest? Why is a petition circulating to put the issue to a referendum that could be held with the general election this year? The public must be heartily sick of this non-issue. Smacking children is simply not worth further debate. There are, as every sensible parent knows, better ways to correct bad behaviour, but if parents sometimes use more primitive means the law can be reasonable.
Mr McCoskrie's poll finds opposition to the anti-smacking legislation to be higher now than it was when the bill was passed last June. But that is likely to reflect the electorate's increasing disaffection with the present Government in its ninth year of office. To most objectors the anti-smacking bill is just another legislative intrusion on personal decisions, resented less for any difference it makes to them (very little) than for the fact that politicians are now telling them how to bring up children.
That is a sentiment people are perfectly able to express with a vote for a change of government. They do not need a referendum to make the same statement. The result would be non-binding under our law but it would be difficult for a new government to ignore. If the referendum produced the sort of majority suggested by this poll, it would sentence us to another round of the smacking debate in a year or two.
And the only change to the law might be to define a degree of permissible violence more clearly. Do we really want the law to approve any level? A National Party rider that allowed the bill to pass gives the police an indication of the discretion they should exercise. Better surely, to leave it at that than to have another invidious debate. The removal of the defence of reasonable force was always likely to make so little difference to parental behaviour that it was not worth the anguish of changing the law in the first place. The Government came to that conclusion in its first term and the cause was shelved. It regained life in this term because the Greens had gained added leverage on Labour and Ms Bradford had a private bill in waiting.
Now, having changed the law, there is no more reason to meddle with it than there was the first time. The law has sent the message that violence is not the ideal way to correct children but that police have a discretion they can exercise with common sense.
Ms Bradford notes that a similar survey taken just after her bill was passed last year found 78 per cent of parents saying they would smack their children if they thought it reasonable to do so. If only 48 per cent have done so a year on, quite a number must have changed their minds about what is reasonable or necessary.
Family First's determination to exaggerate the law might be doing some good. Some parents cannot be told too often that heavy-handed discipline is illegal now. But spare us a referendum, it would be flogging a dead horse.