Now Helen Clark and co want to force the banning of smacking through under urgency. What an inspiring parliament we have. Forcing through legislation which is supposedly sending a message that use of force is always unjustified. And we are told that parents will not be prosecuted for breaking the law. Except that a man was fined $500 for hitting his son (DomPost today). Obviously, some-one somewhere decided the force used was unreasonable, and he didn't get off using s59. Because the reality is very few people do, and those few that do (7 people in 15 years?) experience long court cases where the issue is weighed very carefully.
So, here's a government ramming through legislation to ban smacking that assures us we don't have to follow it (how that will change once it is passed) if it is only a light smack, because breaking the law is OK and the police wouldn't bother enforcing their laws anyway, but by the way, they don't mind passing retrospective legislation when they are caught out acting improperly (pledge card issue), they don't fire their ministers for being caught out lying (Benson-Pope refuting taping Phil Weaver's hands to the desk and sticking a tennis ball in his mouth), and police investigations get dropped because they are "not in the public interest" (Benson-Pope, Doonegate, Election Expenditure), or if they cannot, lightweight inquiries that achieve nothing (Taito Phillip-Field), whilst they oversea over one and a half billion dollars go up in smoke (Te Wananga, Prison Buildings) and manage to spend an extra 20 billion with no improvement in outcomes, whilst mandating that waiting lists be trimmed to six months to make their health figures look good.
Well, I didn't vote for them. This is all your doing. Idiots.
So, here's a government ramming through legislation to ban smacking that assures us we don't have to follow it (how that will change once it is passed) if it is only a light smack, because breaking the law is OK and the police wouldn't bother enforcing their laws anyway, but by the way, they don't mind passing retrospective legislation when they are caught out acting improperly (pledge card issue), they don't fire their ministers for being caught out lying (Benson-Pope refuting taping Phil Weaver's hands to the desk and sticking a tennis ball in his mouth), and police investigations get dropped because they are "not in the public interest" (Benson-Pope, Doonegate, Election Expenditure), or if they cannot, lightweight inquiries that achieve nothing (Taito Phillip-Field), whilst they oversea over one and a half billion dollars go up in smoke (Te Wananga, Prison Buildings) and manage to spend an extra 20 billion with no improvement in outcomes, whilst mandating that waiting lists be trimmed to six months to make their health figures look good.
Well, I didn't vote for them. This is all your doing. Idiots.
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