Dear Editor

 

As a Pacific Island New Zealander, I urged your readers to consider signing the Petition against Sue Bradford’s ‘Anti-smacking Bill’.  I know our folks will be greatly disadvantaged by this law, and the consequences on our families promises to dishearten our communities. 

The anti-smacking bill is confirmed to ban smacking, which will then make parents criminals and children untouchables.

Sue Bradford argues: the Bill removes the use of reasonable force as an excuse to justify beatings, is a theoretical explanation. In reality, the removal of reasonable force means you cannot smack your child, which then classifies smacking the same as beatings. All parents who don't beat their children but only smack them lightly will become criminals, while children become untouchables.

Parents argue: children do not have the same rights as parents (Ethics), and parents are morally responsible and a duty to ensure the upbringing of their children as future responsible members of society. Their freedom to choose to smack or not to smack is violated by the bill, which is also invading their privacy at the homes. No child has ever lost a life from smacking, while children with too much freedom without responsibilities from lack of discipline have become a social problem at a cost to society involved with such issues as violent crimes, gangster killings, alcohol and drugs activities, threatening parents and older folks, international representation in pregnancies among young women, high rate of abortion and sexual transmitted disease, truancy and leaving schools without qualifications.

Parents are the first to be blamed by politicians when children get into trouble.  If parents are not permitted by law to discipline their children and teach them some responsibilities, then politicians are validly responsible for the children’s problems and not parents. In spite of that, politicians continue to blame parents who have no more authority and helpless against children.

Having parents rights removed, the state then can move in and remove children also from their families to be brought up in institutions where consumer behaviour is indoctrinated among other things.  It is an economic policy of a socialist agenda, in a stealthy destruction of the family. 

Yours sincerely,

Peter Wilson