In the tearoom

A post from the past - not entirely dated in what it says. This item first appeared on Bloggerwave, probably in early 2007. 

The tearoom – the one where only the men go – is a place where unpolitical correctness reigns. And so do strong opinions. And shared stories, made more alive by kinetic retelling.  

It’s the place where grassroots thinking exists, and where all the liberal left-wing PC stuff seems to have barely made a dint. What it’s like for these men outside is another matter; in the tearoom opinion is at its most forthright. 

The anti-smacking bill, for instance, got a clobbering, and lots of witty remarks about what the men did or didn’t do to their own children, or had done to them. For the most part it wasn’t nearly as bad as Helen Clark and her cohorts would like to think. Most men these days are not given to smacking their kids with any degree of regularity. 

The stadium issue, here in Dunedin, gets aired almost every other day – because something turns up in the paper about it every day, and the newspaper is shared around the room in section (after the one who always reads it first has had a go). Opinions on the need for a new stadium are both pro and con, and strong in both directions. But everything is seasoned with good humour, and no one comes to blows over any of the issues.

But I think the matter that surprised me a little today was when it was announced that the Privy Council had deemed David Bain’s first trial to be a mistrial, and therefore his conviction was overturned. What it will mean for Bain in reality is another matter. It seems unlikely the police will let the matter lie. Someone who was convicted of murdering the other five members of his family early one morning isn’t likely to be let go scot free, whatever the Privy Council states. 

The tearoom, almost to a man, is convinced that he was guilty anyway. Why? There’s no obvious reason.Even those who’ve read Joe Karam’s books on the subject are still not convinced of his innocence.  

I was surprised because I’ve never believed that the case was as cut and dried as the police made out. There have always been flaws in the whole thing, and there’s absolutely no motivation for David Bain, a mild-mannered youth, to suddenly strike every one of his family down in a few short minutes. Only one other man in the room felt less comfortable with the general verdict, and he’d actually known Bain at school. 

There was talk about all the compensation Bain would get – the millions! One wit said, Well he could pay for the new stadium with all the money and then, instead of it being called the House of Pain, it could be called the House of Bain.  

At the time, the Labour Government brought in a bill to stop parents smacking their children. It wasn't as popular as the liberals made out. Helen Clark was the Prime Minister at the time. 

The Dunedin Stadium cost the city a fortune, and is still costing. It's never paid its way, and was the dream-child of people who didn't take responsibility for the cost. 

David Bain was accused of murdering his father, mother and siblings but the evidence was circumstantial and he has since been freed, and, very recently, paid the relatively small sum of $1 million, mainly to cover his legal costs and such that have accrued over various trials and re-trials. NZ is still very divided on his guilt/innocence. 

The House of Pain was the name for Carisbrook, which was replaced by the Stadium. 

The saga continues...

On Sept the 8th, there was a meeting with John Boscawen, Bob McCoskrie, Jim Evans and Larry Baldock on amending s59 of the Crimes Act to decriminalise the use of reasonable force for the purposes of parental correction. (That's the 'anti-smacking' bill for you bods out there wot didn't understand that legal language.0

Madeleine Flanagan wrote on the blog, MandM about the meeting, and gives a short rundown on what each of the speakers said, as well as reminding us of the difficulty Sue Bradford apparently has with everyday, ordinary plainspeaking language. She doesn't do her party any favours, and it would probably be best for them to forcibly retire her as soon as practically possible.

Unless, of course, she can come up with a real solution to the problem of child abuse in this country, something she so far has predictably failed to do.

Incidentally, I hadn't come across the MandM site before - it's run by Matt and Madeleine Flanagan - you can read all about them here. I like their style, and have signed up to the Twitter page to give myself an idea if they're the sort of people I'd like to keep track of (!)

More on the ambiguous law...

More on the ambiguous anti-smacking 'law.'

Jim Evans is emeritus professor of law at Auckland University.
John Roughan is a good political commentator, but he is not right about section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961. The law it lays down is far from clear. Since much confusion exists about the section, let me try to clarify its effect as briefly as possible. ..This is not clear legislation. In creating this law, Parliament abandoned its constitutional responsibility to say with clarity just which conduct is criminal. The section results from a political fudge. Whatever other views one takes about the topic of smacking, that much at least ought to be kept clear.
READ FULL ARTICLE

Grant Illingworth QC, Barrister - Specialises in public law and civil litigation, and has been in practice for over 30 years
There are three reasons for concluding that the amendment was an inappropriate response to the problem. The first is that the amendment is an extremely poor piece of legal drafting in that it is calculated to create confusion rather than clarity. The second is that it criminalizes behaviour which should not be classified as a criminal offence. The third is that it fails to provide adequate protection for those whom it was designed to help.
READ MORE

Thanks for the Family First ezine for the above; just one more example of NZ Parliamentarians making bad law.

Ambiguous

Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in NZ?

Without even knowing the context, would you see this question as ambiguous? Unlikely.

Yet according to the NZ Herald, both John Key, the Prime Minister, and Phil Goff, the Opposition Leader, find this straightforward piece of English to be ambiguous. I think rather that it's their behaviour that's ambiguous. Only last year the National Party was supporting the collection of signatures to get the referendum off the ground. And prior to that, "47 of the 48 National MPs opposed to the bill."

And if we want to talk about ambiguous, back in June Sean Plunket interviewed Sue Bradford, the MP who was so keen to see the Bill go through in the first place. After some very confusing answers to questions from Sean Plunket on National Radio on Thursday, Sue Bradford finally admitted that it was true that any smack for the purpose of correction - no matter how light and inconsequential - was in fact a criminal offence. This came as a surprise to Mr Plunket, who, like many other journalists, had been assured since the beginning that no one was being made a criminal if they smacked their child lightly on the bum.

Methinks it's the MPs who are 'ambiguous' - they've shifted ground considerably over this matter. Perhaps it's because they don't want New Zealand to lose face: going back on its 'word', not doing something that that most enlightened of countries, Sweden, does do, or getting themselves in schtuck with the United Nations and its proclamations as to how everyone should run their family.

Cam Calder said he was voting "no" on the literal wording of the referendum, rather than because he thought the current law was not working. Ambiguous?

Nikki Kay: "My worry is that many people I talk to see a 'yes' vote as a vote to reduce family violence and a 'no' vote as a vote to stop the Government interfering and telling them how to bring up their kids. I believe in reducing family violence and Government interference in people's lives." Ambiguous?

Labour's Rajen Prasad - who headed the Families Commission when the law change went through in 2007 - said he could not vote either way with comfort, so he planned to spoil his ballot paper. Ambiguous?

Crikey, what's wrong with these people? No wonder they don't know what they're up to.

The Referendum

So you thought NZ was the only country having trouble with the child-smacking issue. Here's a video - it's actually a commercial, you'll discover at the end - put out by Sweden, the first country to ban smacking.



I found this on the Vote No site hosted not just by Family First, but by For the Sake of our Children Trust, Unity for Liberty, Family Life NZ, NZ Focus on the Family, Crosspower Ministries Trust, Sensible Sentencing Trust, f.a.c.t Family and Child Trust, Pasefika Trust,and FIANZ.

The video was on a page with a bunch of cartoons all viewing the anti-smacking law as something not ideal for the country and its citizens, and these cartoons come from some of the best cartoonists in the country. And the page of quotes are a nightmare: politicians changing their mind as fast as the wind changes. Scary people to have in power.

Renton Maclachlan

Renton Maclachlan isn't someone I'd come across before, but apparently he runs what may be the only dedicated Creation radio station in the world, ‘GenesisFM’, (here in New Zealand) and has also stood for Parliament four times . However it isn't in relation to Creationism or Parliament that I came across him the other day. He's put together a fairly lengthy video about the smacking debate that's going on in New Zealand at the moment, and done it as a satire. Apart from its length it's very clever, and often quite funny. Maclachlan takes both parts in the 'interview' as both the earnest interviewer, and the pompous, know-it-all interviewee.

The anti-smacking brigade

You have to wonder what it will take for Parliamentarians to listen to the people. They’ve almost listened on the anti-smacking bill. That is, the public feeling against the bill has been so considerable that some politicians actually doubted the value of the thing and have let their consciences guide them rather than their party leaders. I was dismayed to see a large crowd of Christian ministers and company praying for the bill, but then I saw a photo of the people who were amongst the crowd, and was no longer surprised. They were the same group of Christians who are strong in support of anything homosexual, and other ‘rights’ issues. People, in other words, who think in the same way as many in the Labour party do, ie, that ‘rights’ are more important than family, just to give one instance.
Ideology comes before anything else with many politicians, and also with many of these Christians. They even put ideology before Scripture and God’s commands, and consequently make people who put God first feel second rate.

Have a look at this site, and do a search for Church against church for a different Christian viewpoint.