Amber+Opinion+Writing

__Parental Correction or Smacking should be Legal __  The debate about Sue Bradford of the Green Party’s anti-smacking bill has been going on for years. The Government of New Zealand have passed the bill, but there is now a referendum about the law. Having the bill being passed in June 2007, it takes away parent’s rights to correct a child with reasonable force. One small smack used to correct a child is not child abuse. The anti-smacking law was in fact a repeat of section 59 of the Crimes Act. Likewise, I don’t agree with there being an anti-smacking law.

Parents are responsible for the care of their children and physical correction should be legitimate in a loving family environment. To keep the anti-smacking law in place would take away a parent’s rights to correct a child when they are in the wrong. As a result, if a child is shown what is wrong in a way where they seem to get away with their naught, they will most likely continue to be naughty; causing more worry and stress for the parents.

Consequently, keeping the law in place would bring many well-intentioned parents into the justice system. One small smack would involve an entire investigation, and cause a lot of unnecessary stress and worry for the family involved. According to research, in 2003 84 per cent of the 170, 000 child abuse reports were found to have no substantive basis, with the majority of the reports being false accusations for other reasons. Our social services department, which is already overburdened with cases, wouldn’t have time to catch real child abuse cases.

Although the law may stop proper child abuse cases forming, it will just cause more problems in society. More parents will be brought to court; full investigations will take away the police department’s chances to catch real criminals; the government will be dealing with parents only trying to correct their child, and more criminals will most likely emerge in towns and cities. This law could create worse problems in society than the ones the government is trying to prevent.

In conclusion, I believe that the anti-smacking law should be abolished in New Zealand. By doing so the government can focus on more serious cases of child abuse in New Zealand. The law should be abolished. Removing the law will let society continue the way it should. The law just brings parents in to the justice system for innocently trying to correct their child and creates more problems for the government to deal with: those cases will take up more time and it will reduce the chances for the government to catch real criminals.