The effective spectrum of behaviour is enormous and neither UNICEF, nor Golding, nor family integrity capture it in their singular viewpoints. I disregard them all as equally inaccurate.
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If smacking is going to be banned, you’d think proponents would be able to come up with some sort of evidence that it is harmful.

If they are going to take such a drastic step as criminalising most parents, you’d think there should be at least some requirement to prove it is a bad thing - apparently not - blind ideology is enough.
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Well said!, what’s wrong with the Green party?????????
Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!
jh

here’s a thought…

why don’t once bitten..southern dave..big brother..and b.j..

just go off and start their own blog..?
…………………
How about starting a wiki?
What is Section59 of the Crimes Act?

Why do some people want it repealed?
_ They claim guilty people are escaping conviction
- Is it an attempt to ban smacKing?
Is smacking harnfull?

Why do some people want it amended?
What amendments have been suggested

jh

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

A newly-released report on youth sexual health, prepared by the cross-party New Zealand Parliamentarian’s Group on Population and Development (NZPPD) has highlighted New Zealand’s high teenage fertility rate as a major concern and recommended increasing benefit levels and extending assistance to a younger age.

Welfare commentator Lindsay Mitchell was astonished by the recommendation.”The link between teenage birth and the availability of benefits is obvious to those people who live and work in the communities where rates of teenage birth are highest. Increasing benefit levels would have the opposite effect to what the Parliamentarians are trying to achieve.”

“Teen parents frequently are, or become, single parents. European research released late last year, based on a sample of 6,580 single mothers, showed that the level and availability of benefits corresponds to the number of lone parents. Where benefits were increased the number of recipients went up.”

“The Parliamentarian’s report also claims that, ‘poverty is a major issue for teenage parents as little or no benefits are available until they reach 18.’ ”

“This is simply untrue. Sixteen and 17 year-old teenage parents are eligible for the Emergency Maintenance Allowance which pays the same rate as the DPB. At June 2006, 612 single teenage parents received this benefit. A further 2,947 single teenage parents received the DPB.”

“So the recommendation is not only flawed but based on misinformation. Increasing benefits to teen parents is not the way to reduce the teenage birthrate.”

ENDS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjBKFKc2igU

jh

Good speech, Sue!:

Section 59 debate – psychological

1.It is clear that they see our attempt to repeal section 59 as an attack not only on their rights as parents, but also on their abilities to look after their own kids properly. I think they also often feel guilty, or are afraid of being made to feel guilty, by this attempt to change the law.

Guilt is a huge motivator, making people very resistant to change,

2. Before I leave the psychological aspect of this debate, there is one other matter that I think underpins some of what is going on here. It has been hard to talk about in Select Committee, and in public, because of its very nature, although a few submitters have raised it.

This is the question of the connection between sexual perversion and the beating of children and young people. Very few of us want to acknowledge it up front, but in fact the more I’ve been immersed in this issue, and the more I’ve heard groups predominantly made up of men proclaiming and lauding the right of adults to beat children, and in some cases talking or writing about the right methods of administering the rod and so on, the closer the unspoken connection gets.

Personally, I have no problem with sadomasochism carried out between consenting adults using safe sex practices – what I do have a problem with is a legacy of hidden sexual violence practised on children and young people under a mantle of so-called discipline.

Section 59 of the Crimes Act, has been protecting the perpetrators of a vicious mix of sexual and physical abuse for generations, and I don’t want this forgotten. I just want it stopped.

….but Frog has never censored any - ever.

Try again.

Now you are being a little bit naughty, I provided a link that proved Bradford was telling lies and somebody deleted the post.
It seems that somebody in the Green world is afraid of the truth getting out.

frogmaster says - Absolute rubbish BB, we do not censor opposing viewpoints on frogblog, as is made crystal clear by reading some of the recent debates. Post your link again.

Except this is the thread everyone is stuck on and darned little more is showing up.

Barbara, thanks. That was a lucid and reasonable addition…

Toad.. I am an atheist and I know how arguable the interpretations are, but I also have no doubt whatsoever that the scripture is encapsulating some fairly important truths so that people can swallow them… and swallow them whole without questioning. Darwin hadn’t been born when that stuff was written but IMHO religions survive much in the same way individual organisms and species do. They provide for better or worse systematic behaviours of the society and the societies that survive are the ones that have the better behaviours. Christianity emphasized forgiveness in place of retaliation, and managed to put community ahead of individual “rights” in some respects. It placed a deity ahead of royalty, controlling the excesses of the latter but enabling excesses on the part of the high priests. It provides confidence in answers that may not be correct but are in many cases decent approximations.

As to making a statement of what children are, I am inclined to say “They are all different”… and reflect on “Lord of the Flies” as well as on the latest pronouncement of UNICEF that tries to equate them with adult humans.

The effective spectrum of behaviour is enormous and neither UNICEF, nor Golding, nor family integrity capture it in their singular viewpoints. I disregard them all as equally inaccurate.

respectfully
BJ

However the reliance on blindly following a doctrine of ideology of no smacking rather than common sense is also worrying.

If smacking is going to be benned, you’d think proponents would be able to come up with some sort of evidence that it is harmful.

If they are going to take such a drastic step as criminalising most parents, you’d think there should be at least some requirement to prove it is a bad thing - apparently not - blind ideology is enough.