Misinformation, narrow perspectives and needless fears have marked the opposition to Sue Bradford's Bill to repeal s59 of the Crimes Act. Here is a sample:

1. Family Integrity pamphlet statement: "Section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961 is a brilliant piece of law. It recognises the natural responsibility and authority of parents to correct, train and discipline their children."

Response: Section 59 has been used successfully as a defence by parents who have seriously injured their children. The successful use of the defence in extreme cases works against the ability to bring prosecutions, much less achieve convictions.

2. Family Integrity pamphlet statement: "Sue Bradford wants to make it a crime for you to correct your children."

Response: Repeal of s59 will not criminalise good parents. Repeal will make it easier to protect children from assault. The amended Bill cites several contexts where reasonable force by parents is legally permitted.

3. Family Integrity pamphlet statement: "Children do not belong to the state, to parents, or to themselves; they belong to God and He has given parents the authority to raise their children. The Bill is a crude attempt by the government to take this authority away from parents."

Response:Children have rights before the law, including the right to grow up free from violence. The state has exercised power over the family home long before Sue Bradford's Bill saw daylight. Laws on incest, domestic violence, spousal rape and laws that spell out parental obligations regarding the health and education of children are all examples of the state rightly intervening in the family to protect the vulnerable. Sue Bradford's Bill belongs to that proud tradition.

4.Family Integrity pamphlet statement: "If the current section 59 is repealed or replaced, you will lose your legal authority to enforce your standards of behaviour with your children using reasonable force."

Response: Leaving aside the question of whether good behaviour can be taught via violence, parents have never had the absolute right to do whatever they like to their children. What would be lost if s59 is repealed is the power to beat children into submission. The amended Bill also sets out four purposes where the use of reasonable force — for instance, to carry out the normal, everyday tasks of parenting — is permitted.

5.Family Integrity pamphlet statement: "[If Sue Bradford's Bill is passed] you can stop wrong behaviour but you cannot enforce right behaviour…You will be dispossessed of your own children right in your own home."

Response: When the state requires parents to send children to school, when it bans corporal punishment at school or when it requires parents to care for the health of their children parents are hardly being "dispossessed of their children." The s59 repeal situation is no different. It seeks to protect children from abuse.

6.Family First pamphlet statement: "Did you know? Two Queens Counsel have said that removing a child to 'time out', a light smack and even the threat of a light smack would become assault if s59 is repealed. The Select Committee's proposed changes to s59 would have the same effect."

Response: The Law Commission has delivered an opinion that explicitly says the legal opinion by Peter McKenzie QC is wrong. The Law Commission says removing a child for time out would not be regarded as an assault under the amended Bill. Far from the Select Committee's changes having the 'same effect' as total repeal, the changes define several contexts that - as the Law Commission also pointed out - allow the use of reasonable force by parents.

7.Family First pamphlet statement: "If the Bill is passed, good parents will be treated as criminals under the law. The police have confirmed that smacking a child would be assault."

Response: Smacking a child always has been, technically, an assault. Repeal of s59 removes a defence that has been misused to justify child abuse. Under the amended Bill, using reasonable force for the purposes of correction will no longer be allowed. However, the amended Bill sets out several other purposes where the reasonable use of parental force is allowed.

8.Family First pamphlet statement: "The law already says that child abusers have committed a crime. Did you know? Since 1990, there have been only seven successful defences under s59 — that's seven in 16 years!"

Response: Those successful defences have often involved serious beatings of the children involved and are cause for concern, not to be lightly dismissed. The fact such extreme cases have not resulted in a conviction has had a dampening effect on police willingness to mount prosecutions. Furthermore, it's not possible to quantify cases where section 59 is used. District Court cases are not recorded centrally, and a successful defence could result in all details being suppressed.

9.Family First pamphlet statement: "The safest country in the Unicef Report [on the status of children] is the Netherlands. Like the majority of the top 10 safest countries, it hasn't banned smacking."

Response: The Netherlands announced its intention to ban corporal punishment of children in 2004, and passed a law banning it on March 6, 2007. It became the 17th country in Europe to do so. Sue Bradford's bill does not set out to ban smacking, as many overseas countries have done. It removes a defence - the use of reasonable force against children for the purpose of correction. Sweden took a similar step in 1957.

10.Family First pamphlet: "Don't Criminalise Good Parents."

Response: Sue Bradford's Bill will not criminalise good parents. Only bad parents have anything to fear from repeal of s59. As Phil Goff said on behalf of the Police Minister in the House (1 March 2007), police will investigate suspected or reported assaults on children "[as] the Police are required to do right now. So, in that sense, there will not be a great change in practice."

11.Society for the Promotion of Community Standards press release, 20 March 2007: "The police authorities have already confirmed that if Bradford's Bill becomes law, they will have to deal with ALL such complaints as criminal offences. They will be treated as domestic violence and police are bound to lay charges in cases where victims who make dishonest yet convincing claims in order to dob in parents or savage a partner in a custody dispute, for example, will need to have their allegations tested in court."

Response: Police have always had discretion and will retain it over the decision to mount prosecutions. They must observe the Solicitor-General's guidelines for prosecution. As Assistant Police Commissioner Peter Marshall said in a letter to the Justice and Electoral Select Committee on 10 July 2006 "…Police would continue to … take into account whether it is in the best interest of the child/family and the public to prosecute."

12.Stuart Grieve QC in Investigate magazine, 3 March 2007: "I would be opposed to the [repeal of s59] because I think that the provision works entirely adequately as it is. If one puts political correctness to one side, and just deals with these cases on an objective and pragmatic basis, the law has stood the test of time and I would have thought most reasonable people would know full well when the line is crossed between reasonable discipline on the one hand, and crossing that line on the other…"

Response: Many community organisations support Sue Bradford's Bill as an important step to countering New Zealand's rates of child abuse and homicide and consistent with moves to foster methods of non-violent parenting. "Repealing s59 sends out an important message in this country: violence against children and young people in any form is not acceptable," says Dr Gay Keating of the Public Health Association (13 March 2007). "As long as unrestrained physical force remains an option for disciplining children, some parents will harm their children physically and mentally...The issue is not about parental rights. It is about protecting our children from violence that damages them, and in the most extreme cases, kills them."