Cole's+Oral

My Class Final Speech. toc
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My Speech
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**__Copy Of Speech__**
Nia Glassie a name I’m sure you have all heard of. August the 3rd 2007 she died tragically. She had been abused in ways that make you sick. She was tormented, put in a clothes dryer while it was on, hung on a clothes line, had things thrown at her and she was beaten. Nia was only three years old and all these things were done to her by people who were supposed to love her, care for her and protect her. In June 2007 the anti-smacking law was passed in parliament and came into effect in New Zealand making it a criminal offence to smack children. This was two months before Nia died. Did this anti-smacking law help Nia? No!! Was this because she was bashed not smacked? The sad thing is we only know Nia’s name because she died and it made the news. There is heaps of children everyday in New Zealand that are physically abused that we never hear about. The sort of people that beat their children have no respect for the thoughts of the children so why would they care about a law that says they can’t smack their children. Since June 2007 the number of minor child assaults have increased from 32 to 45 a month. This means 13 more a month or 156 more a year would be parents charged with smacking their children of has there just been a huge increase in children being assaulted? Statistics show that out of 200 child abuse investigated only 12 were prosecuted so that’s 188 sets of parents investigated for what was seen as reasonable force. Wasn’t that just a huge big waste of police time and resources? This police time could have been used to help investigate and protect children like Nia and the Kahui twins from real child abuse not looking into a little one off smack on the leg. So now 2 years on since Sue Bradford and the green party amended the law as we knew it have we achieved anything? I don’t think so and obviously lots of others don’t think so either because our government has just spent another $9million on a referendum. The referendum question: Should smacking as part of good parental control be a criminal offence in NZ? What sort of question is that? What is a smack? And what is good parental correction? And should it include a smack? I think this is going to be another huge waste of government money. John Key has already said that it’s unlikely anything is going to change regardless of the referendum results. We are getting no where we are causing lots of stress and pain to lots of people that have to prove they are good parents and the reasonable force they used to discipline their loved children was justified. While all the debates go on and referendums are being run we still have children being really abused not just Not just getting a little lesson learning smack. So should smacking as part of good parental control be a criminal offence in NZ? NO in my opinion NO it shouldn’t be. By Cole