On Wednesday 28 March, after a mere 2 weeks of planning, a diverse group of people gathered in Wellington’s Civic Square to protest the repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Act, otherwise known as the anti-smacking bill. The left-wing spin is that Bradford’s Bill is about preventing child abuse and perhaps secondarily about ’sending a message’ to stop using excessive physical force against children because it is poor parenting. However, the minor changes needed to clarify ‘reasonable force’ are apparently beyond politicians in New Zealand’s current Parliament, and so we have ended up with a muddled bill which, according to both the police and Bradford herself, makes parents who choose to smack into criminals. It seems the politicos just couldn’t resist the opportunity to extend the long arm of the state into ordinary homes in an attempt to nationalise New Zealand’s children.
And so it was that we gathered to exercise our democratic right of protest against the bill. The Wellington march was a great success, with around 500+ protesters turning up carrying placards, including many children from two Wellington Christian schools. The Wellington Libertarianz crew turned up in force, as well as members and supporters of Act, Family First, Destiny Church etc, all united (this time) against Nanny State. And I really mean against nanny state, with the chant as above and Phil’s not-so-subtle sign “Down With Nanny State” getting reported in the international media.
At first I was a little unnerved by some of my fellow protesters. There were teenagers and families quoting the Bible (’if you spare the rod you hate your children’) and emphasising the religious parts of the national anthem when we sang it, which made me remember just how religious our heritage actually is. 
Then there was the old guy carrying an Israeli flag - the link between Israeli sovereignty and New Zealand parenting escapes me. I worried a bit that some of these people simply wanted to follow the Bible, not minimise governmental interference in their lives.
I soon realised, though, that the truly odd people were those on the opposing side. There were about 30 of these anti-smacking people out and about in favour of the Bill, including a very tall, rotund, confrontational chap who aggressively questioned us about our attitudes to smacking. This was a common theme in pro-repeal people - they were often aggressive in presenting their anti-aggressive opinions!
Overall, though, the pro-repeal group possessed little imagination and the limit of their counter-protest was blowing a whistle loudly and trying to chant, unsuccessfully, over the main protest. Interestingly, their signs referred repeatedly to smacking itself as wrong and abusive - despite (some of) the spin from Helen and Co. that smacking is fine and that parents who smack won’t be arrested.
Once the march had arrived at Parliament, Lindsay Perigo gave a rousing speech, followed by ACT’s Heather Roy, United Future’s Larry Baldock, National’s Chester Borrows, Christine Rankin and Family First’s Bob McCoskrie. The pro-repeal protestors blew a whistle and started a fairly pathetic chant, which was all singularly unsuccessful in disrupting the main protest.
During the speeches I relaxed and became a lot more comfortable with the religious component of our protest - they were wholeheartedly accepting of Lindsay’s anti-state message and very friendly after the march. Some people from our parents church had travelled all the way from Taranaki and recognised Phil and I.
A great photo of Phil (right) and myself illustratd Scoop’s front-page story.
One interesting point to note is the media response to the march: although the numbers were clearly hugely in favour of the pro-smacking side (500 vs 30), the news reported ‘clashes’ between us, essentially trying to portray the two sides as approximately equal. There is a difference between being unbiased, and portraying a minority viewpoint as larger or more successful than it really was. Mitch notes, ” Half an hour later, while we Libz were across the road at the backbencher solving the world’s problems, Duncan Garner from TV3 was still enthusiastically interviewing the pro-Bradford crowd. That speaks volumes doesn’t it?”
In the Scoop article, the editor has selected pictures of the oddest-looking older men in the crowd to make the protest look like it consisted largely of a bunch of dodgy old Christian men. It also has approximately equal numbers of pictures of pro- and anti-smacking protestors, as if there were equal numbers of us. My friend Dominic commented, “That article is pretty poor journalism … it doesn’t even try to keep a level tone. It’s legitimate satire, sure, but it’s not exactly news.”
Media bias aside, Libertarians Lindsay Perigo, Mitch Lees (right) and Sandra deserve a lot of credit for these democratic displays against this absurdly garbled nanny-state bill. The simple act of Mitch stepping up to organise a single march led to the inspiration to organise several marches in other towns and cities, including Rangiora, Fielding and Christchurch. More marches are currently in the planning stages in the lead-up to the final stages of the bill.
I think not only is the bill unnecessary this bill and other’s focussed around the labour governments time in office are now starting to encroach on civil liberties.
This bill WILL NOT do anything to stop child abuse as it is targeting innocent New Zealanders who discipline their children with a smack as a last resort.
It is already illegal to beat children or anyone in New Zealand so this amendment to the crimes act is not necessary at all.
I would go further to say that laws should be passed to accomodate the majority of New Zealanders and NOT the minority.
In saying this the type of people who abuse partners and indeed their children are not going to give a toss that it is now against the law to smack children!
Furthermore if you talk to anyone who works for CYFS MOST are opposed to this bill, I think that kind of says something, so in saying that how are our already overloaded organs of state supposed to police this?
Maybe we should take some of the many Highway patrol units off their revenue gathering duties to help out with General duties ?!
To Helen Clark and Sue Bradford Pull your head’s in you are commiting Political suicide!!!!
Where do you sign the petition on this gross political and social injustice?
Come on NZ lets fight this!
Left by Sean Lennon on April 10th, 2007