Petition organiser seeks personal time with Key

Larry Baldock. Photo / Alan Gibson

I know John Key is popular but so much so, according to a Radio New Zealand news report that certain people are now seeking ''an audience' with him over his response to the citizens initiated smacking referendum.

Larry Baldock, the Kiwi Party leader and an organizer of the petition that prompted the referendum, issued an open letter to Key last week actually asking for ''personal dialogue' on the matter.

The letter is so extensive you would wonder what more could be said but nonetheless the request has been made and it will be interesting to see if Key agrees.

Maybe his eminence will exercise the Keisha Castle-Hughes option and make a phone call instead of a meeting.

Certainly the letter is critical enough of Key personally for him to be justified in avoiding any personal meeting.

Key has ordered a couple of reviews and is insisting and insisting he will change the law if it is not working.

But he is starting to sound a little nervous on the smacking matter, reinforced by some of Baldock's bald stats maybe: '' The final results show that 87.4 percent voted 'No!' This means more New Zealanders voted 'No' in this referendum than voted for the National party in the 2008 elections and that the turnout at 56 percent was higher than for the referendum on MMP in 1992,' the letter says.

And most of those who voted No probably voted National, the letter doesn't say.

Baldock's letter aslo doesn't mention the Boscawen bill - legalising smacking for correction - which was drawn from the MPs' private members' bill ballot last Wednesday, the day the letter was penned. (Had he known that Key had decided to kill the bill at first reading, the letter might have been written in capital letters ).

Key's nervousness is aided no doubt by continued critical commentary on the right including from David Farrar's Kiwiblog most recently on the Boscawen bill, and praise by the left, from Sue Bradford, for example, and journalist Gordon Campbell.

Gordon has a really good piece on why a similar Canadian model to Boscawen's bill - which seeks to define lawful levels of physical punishment - could actually create greater confusion.

The Boscawen bill would define what kind of smacking is illegal - essentially anything that leaves a bruise or redness for more than a few minutes.

The present law allows smacking to prevent a child doing harm, being disruptive or breaking the law. It is technically unlawful for a parent to smack a child for punishment or correction though the police have been instructed not to prosecute for inconsequential smacks where it would not be in the public interest to do so.

Key made a fast decision to kill the Boscawen bill. Usually such matters are decided by the caucus. Last Wednesday it was within four hours of being drawn from the ballot. Key announced it at a stand-up press conference after a meeting on the Ninth Floor with Key, cabinet colleagues Bill English, Simon Power and Paula Bennett, back bencher Chester Borrows (who originally drafted the Boscawen bill in opposition), chief of staff Wayne Eagleson,and chief press secretary Kevin Taylor.

Key likes making fast decisions especially when there is no Treasury advice to weigh up. There was no comparison with last week's decision-making to the slow pace through which the famous compromise was crafted.

I dug out a story at the weekend I wrote in 2007 detailing how that compromise came about - I was prompted because I had heard from a couple of people that Helen Clark was getting fed up at people calling it Key's compromise. When it was Sir Geoffrey Palmer's. As my piece shows, it was penned by Sir Geoffrey Palmer's, who was asked by PM Clark to come up with a solution.

His final wording was based on a compromise Key had unsuccessfully put to Bradford on Anzac Day 2007 and the amendment was moved in the House by Peter Dunne.

So it could be called anyone's technically but Key's name has always been attached to the compromise law because the announcement of the deal was the first time he had ever stood equal to Clark on a public platform - one created by her.

Audrey Young

Pictured above: Larry Bladock. Photo / Alan Gibson