I will be voting No

Unlike John Key and Phil Goff, I will not be abstaining. I will be voting No. There are several reasons I will be doing so.

1. First of all, I have consistently supported the Borrows amendment as a highly sensible compromise. I do not support a return to the old law, and if it was a choice between the old law and the current law, I would stick with the current law. But the Borrows amendment explicitly excludes force as being reasonable if “it causes or contributes materially to harm that is more than transitory or trifling; or any weapon, tool or other implement is used”.
2. I also support the Borrows amendment as it actually gives more protection to children in non-correctional situations. For example parents under Bradford’s law can use an undefined level of reasonable force in situations to prevent disruptive behaviour. Yes we have a law that says you can not smack for correctional purposes but can use an undefined level of reasonable force to prevent a child from continuing in disruptive behaviour. Do you want to argue the difference with the Police?
3. I don’t agree that the law is working well. It depends how you define well. If you look at criminal convictions only, I agree there have not been any convictions that are unreasonable. But I don’t think that is the only measure. I never expected scores of parents would be sent to jail for smacking their kids, just as I never expected scores of people jailed for breaching the Electoral Finance Act. That doesn’t mean it is good law though. The current law is confusing, parents do not understand it, and many absolutely fine parents have had to go through unnecessary Police or CYFS investigations.
4. I have a belief that the state should not intervene in how parents raise their children, unless there is clear harm to the children. Parenting is an exceptionally challenging and complex duty, and most parents excel at it without the state telling them how to correct their children’s behaviour. The tragedy is the the state often fails miserably at intervening with horrendous cases of child abuse, yet does intervene when a parent lightly smacks their child. A light smack is not child abuse. It is not assault. Good God it was only 20 years ago that most schools had corporal punishment.
5. Supporting the Borrows amendment is not the same as supporting smacking as a preferred correctional device. It is about not having the law declare parents criminals if they do a light smack for correctional purposes.
6. The wording of the referendum, while not perfect, is more than clear enough. the current law makes any form of correctional smacking a criminal offence – whether part of good, bad or neutral parenting. If you think smacking is automatically bad parenting then vote yes as Sue Bradford will do. If you think that there are situations where a parent should be able to lightly smack for correctional purposes without breaking the law then vote no.

Finally if you are unhappy with the $9 million cost of the referendum, remember that the former Labour Government refused to schedule it at the time of the general election, which would have saved millions.

If the No Vote clearly wins, and there is a significant turnout (say over 50%), then John Key and Phil Goff should support the Borrows amendment (now a private members bill by John Boscawen) as a sensible compromise.