All over effectively

Parliament voted down the Borrows amendment 63-58 last night. This is a real shame as I think it was a imminently sensible compromise which achieved everything Sue Bradford claimed she wanted her bill to achieve, without having the uncertainty over smacking.

Those in favour were:

Labour 49
Greens 6
Maori 4
Progressive 1
Peter Dunne, Brian Donnelly, Doug Woolerton 3

Against:

National 48
NZ First 5 (of 7)
United Future 2 (of 3)
ACT 2
Field 1

The bill will pass its third reading comfortably, by at least the same margin but probably more. They did not complete Committee stage though so it seems likely the Government will officially adopt the bill on Monday and pass it next week. They have also added in a clause to have David Benson Pope’s Ministry review the law in two years. This means nothing – his Ministry has been reported as threatening to sack any staff member who didn’t support the bill, so the chance of their review being anything other than a glowing endorsement is zero.