Hon BILL ENGLISH (Deputy Leader—National) : As the Committee will be aware, at a joint press conference this morning John Key and Helen Clark announced a further amendment to the bill. It is one that I expect will have the majority support of Parliament. I want to congratulate John Key on his initiative, despite the mean-minded speech given earlier on by Phil Goff, who carried on as if he and his leader had sorted all this out.

Hon Phil Goff: That’s where the initiative came from.

Hon BILL ENGLISH: Actually, I will explain to the Minister where the initiative came from. The initiative came from the leader of the National Party, who could see that this legislation had got into a stalemate. We faced the situation where Parliament could pass a law, backed by Labour and its supporters, that would leave parents without any protection for lightly smacking their children. That fundamentally offended the common sense of New Zealanders, and it amounted to bad law for this Parliament because it relied on not being enforced. John Key decided to initiate talks with Sue Bradford. That did not come to anything but it set the ball rolling on this Parliament finding a solution, because John Key said a solution should be found. I congratulate him on doing that.

I want to reflect, though, on the end result of the long, complex discussion that Parliament has had about this bill. We have gone around in a circle, because we started out with the Green’s bill that repealed section 59 but now we are going to have a section 59. We are going to have a section 59 because, despite the fact that the Greens and whoever else wanted no defence for parents in disciplining their children, the select committee, and now Parliament, have decided there needs to be a defence. So after the 12 or 18 months we have spent, we have ended up with a section 59 and the defence has changed from “reasonableness” to “inconsequential”. That is it.

It is now the case, thanks to the initiative today backed by Helen Clark and John Key, that parents will have protection. They will not be liable to prosecution for the inconsequential use of force for the purposes of correction. That is what this amendment amounts to. That is what parents always had under section 59, and at this last minute it is what they will now have again as a result of the new section 59 that Parliament will pass. I wonder whether it was all worth it.

Well, it was. What has happened is that the community has sent a strong message to this Parliament that it will not allow the Government any further in the door of its households. It has sent a strong message to this Parliament that the ideological push to separate children and their rights from those of their families, in the context of people who care for them, has reached its high tide and is now receding. The general public have said they will not let the Government come between themselves and their children—and that zone is about the right, the established right and care of a parent, to discipline a child. If that is what Parliament takes out of the long, complex debate, then that will mean a step forward for New Zealand families, who have been able to reassert not just the common sense but the genuine depth of the bond between parent and child. It is a bond of love and affection, and at times tension, at times anger, and at times exhaustion, nevertheless a bond much deeper than the legislation this Parliament can circumscribe.

That is why I want to thank John Key. He had an instinctive recognition of that—an instinctive recognition of what the public was telling this Parliament, but unfortunately the Labour Party and the Alliance did not.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Before I call the next speaker, I inform members that I understand Mr Borrows has withdrawn his amendments. Thank you very much. Gordon Copeland and the Hon Peter Dunne still have their amendments on the paper.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) : I want to speak to the amendment that has been moved in my name, which has been the subject of a lot of discussion over recent days and has culminated in the events of the last 24 hours. I want to freely acknowledge the contribution of a number of people in bringing that forward. The previous speaker, Bill English, paid tribute to the role of the leader of the National Party. I concur with that tribute. I equally acknowledge the role of the Prime Minister. I thought today that when the two stood side by side in the Legislative Council Chamber—and my colleague Mr Goff, as someone who has been here for pretty much an equivalent length of time, may agree with me—I cannot ever recall seeing a Prime Minister and a Leader of the Opposition stand side by side to make a policy announcement of that type. I think that was extraordinarily significant, and a good day for Parliament. I also acknowledge the mover of the bill, Sue Bradford. She has been very keen to get a solution to the issues that were causing controversy, and her flexibility over the last few days has been of some value.

When this bill came before the House, I voted against it in its original conception, for pretty much the reasons the previous speaker described. It was a blanket repeal of section 59: no ifs, no buts—all gone. Last year—and Sue Bradford will recall this—we held a public meeting in my electorate, where I challenged her to consider the amendments being promoted by the Victoria University law school, many of which have now been incorporated into clause 4. It was on that basis that I myself decided to support the bill.

But there has always been a concern, which I think has been hyped up unnecessarily by some, and absolutely legitimately and honestly felt by many others, that good parents would be placed at risk, that good parents would have the police banging down the door, and that good parents, who should have nothing to fear, would be criminalised by this bill. The Justice and Electoral Committee’s report makes it clear, the mover of the bill has made it clear, and many of the supporters of the bill have made it clear that that was never the intention. The situation that exists at the moment in terms of legal protections and the police not banging down the door would pretty much continue. But for the avoidance of doubt it became necessary to look at a way through, and that is where the events of the last week have been so extraordinary and have culminated in this decision today.

As a result of this amendment, and the support it is likely to receive from a large sector of this Parliament, parents in New Zealand will know two things from this bill. Firstly, the good parents of this country—the overwhelming majority—will have nothing to fear. They will be able to bring their children up in the way that they see is best. Secondly, the bill’s other provisions relating to the circumstances in which force can be used will actually provide a protection for those parents in terms of their activity. We will not see the sort of situation tolerated where a horse crop or some other implement can be used to assault children, and where children can live in mortal fear of their own lives. But, equally, we will not see a situation where parents who go about the good and normal activity of parenting will be compromised or convicted of any criminal offence. So that is the extraordinary compromise that has been reached.

Some may regret the fact that it has taken us 18 months to get to this point. Some may say that that is part of the democratic process, and I think there is truth in that—New Zealanders have engaged in the debate. Parliament, albeit slowly, has responded. But I am confident that with the measure of support now being expressed, a very clear message can be sent to New Zealand parents about our support as a Parliament for them in that critical role, but our intolerance as a nation of unwarranted, unnecessary violence against children. I believe that that is the balance the member promoting the bill always sought to achieve. The fact that we stand now on the threshold of giving that some credibility and permanence in law, and giving parents some confidence and not some risks, I believe is a very positive step forward.

I simply conclude by expressing my gratitude for the support that this amendment is likely to receive, by acknowledging freely the contribution of those who have made it possible. This has been Parliament working together across party lines to achieve a successful outcome.

RUSSELL FAIRBROTHER (Labour) : I endorse the comments of the Hon Peter Dunne; the amendment that is now before the Committee is a considerable political achievement. For this amendment to achieve so much agreement is remarkable and a credit to every member who supports it—and I do proudly support the amendment.

However, the political achievement that the amendment reflects should not overshadow the reality that existed before the amendment came forward, which is expressed in the wording of clause 4. The wording of clause 4 is reflected on page 5 of the select committee report, which discusses the prosecution guidelines. It clearly indicates what is covered in the explanatory note of the proposed amendment that we are now discussing: that is, there exists a discretion by the police, and it is not wrong for the police to hold that discretion—in fact, it is part of everyday life.

The critics of the bill who have been arguing that the proposed amendment to section 59 will criminalise good parents have chosen to overlook the existing discretion. When that is raised they attack the discretion as meaning that the police should not have so much flexibility and that the law should mean what it says. But, of course, one cannot consider a reading of any section of the Crimes Act in isolation. The Crimes Act prescribes what a criminal offence is, but it can never be read literally, because of the many elements that go towards making a crime, and the defences that arise. One of the elements includes the important first step of deciding when a prosecution should be brought.

This amendment, of course, deals with the police. It does not deal with individual private prosecutions that could be laid, but those private prosecutions are still caught by the existing practice of police discretion. Of course, the Committee should remember that should the police overstep their discretion, or should a private prosecutor overstep his or her discretion, then the court has the ultimate sanction of preventing an abuse of its processes. Any trivial matter brought before the court, any matter that offends public standards, and every matter that wastes the court’s time is within the power of the judge to impose strict sanctions on as to its control and dismissal.

I raise a word of caution on clause 4, and that concerns the danger that this may open up areas of criminal disclosure into access to police records. Previously in our criminal courts, police opinion or speculation was not part of the material that was disclosed to the defence. It would be very, very important for a guideline to be established, perhaps by precedent, that the suggestion here as to the wisdom of bringing forward what may seem to be a trivial complaint does not involve an access into police records, matters of opinion, matters of speculation, and subjective matters. The material to be disclosed to the defence, in any prosecution, always remains around the witnesses and objective evidence. The danger of clause 4 is that it could stray into the area of allowing defence access to the more subjective operational matters that form part of the police file. I trust that that is not the case, and I trust that the courts will be anxious to avoid any creeping access to those important parts of a police prosecution.

So, of course, this amendment is very, very important because it states the existing law. The importance, as the Hon Peter Dunne said, is the political achievement of the major parties, supported by the important minor parties, in moving to realise that the public at large need to be assured that police discretion is an important part of our criminal process, one that is usually—in fact, nearly always—exercised responsibly, and is ultimately overseen by the court. It is good that this is now articulated in this amendment.

I trust the legislation will work, and I trust that it will allay the fears of many people who have bandwagoned on this offence and developed misapprehensions among people who are entitled not to be misled in the way they have. It is not a fact that amending section 59 will criminalise law-abiding parents. It is not a fact that good parents who smack lightly will now face prosecution. That has never been the risk, and this amendment to clause 4, which we are now considering, makes that crystal clear. If the amendment achieves nothing more than to bring some clarity and accuracy to the debate, then it is a considerable achievement indeed.

JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) : This amendment is a victory for good parents. It is a victory for parents who might occasionally smack a child’s hand to stop him or her doing something very naughty or dangerous. It is a victory for good parents that has come about because of the work of a good parent.

I say that to the Committee because a few weeks ago John Key spoke to the Salvation Army conference in Christchurch about the need for this Parliament to move forward and find consensus on this issue, so that good parents would not fear they would be criminalised simply for giving a child a little smack on the hand to stop the child doing a naughty thing or doing something dangerous. John Key said we needed to get together and talk with other parties.

Fortunately, some parties listened. I congratulate them today on having done so. Unfortunately, members of the Labour Government—under David Benson-Pope’s management of this issue—said no. They said they would not talk to John Key about this issue, and that was a real shame. I am so pleased to see that common sense is starting to take a grip. Of course, the reason is that 80 percent of New Zealanders have said they did not want to see the repeal of section 59 of the Crimes Act. New Zealanders have achieved exactly that; they will not be seeing a repeal of section 59.

I say to those parents who feel that section 59 gave them some protection—and it did—that section 59 was not perfect. I have told members before, and I will tell them again, about the case of Mr Solanki of Hamilton. He was charged by the police, prosecuted, and told to plead guilty in court, because he had held his 12-year-old daughter by the shoulders because he wanted to talk to her. If he had known the law and had said to the police that he had held his daughter by the shoulders because he wanted to discipline her by way of correction, then he would not have been prosecuted and found guilty. That case went to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal said that it was ridiculous that Mr Solanki was ever prosecuted. It said that it was ridiculous that that man was told in court that he had no defence, and it said that he should never have been in the situation of pleading guilty. That is just one instance under the existing section 59.

So I tell those parents who feel that section 59 protected them that actually it did not always do that. It did not always protect good parents, and sometimes, unfortunately, it protected parents whose behaviour would make many of us wonder what in the world they are doing being parents—they simply should not have been protected. So section 59 was not perfect.

This amendment will not be perfect, either, but it is a good step forward. It tells those of us who are parents that the police must use their discretion sensibly. That is what it states. It states that we will not have situations where the police decide that their discretion does not have to be used sensibly. I think that is something we can all take heart in.

John Key put out a plea to other parties that members should put children and parents first, and stop standing on their little soapboxes and telling each other what their positions are and not moving. He said that National members were prepared to negotiate, and that other parties should be, too. I am so pleased to find today that other parties have decided to negotiate and come to the middle ground. I know that Sue Bradford has always taken the one line on this issue. She has stated at many stages of this legislation that if she did not get it through as it was, or if Chester Borrows’ amendment came through, she would pull her bill and this legislation would not happen. I am pleased that she has not carried out that threat.

I also pay tribute to my colleague Chester Borrows, who put forward a very sensible amendment that had the support of a majority of people outside this Parliament. I believe that if a free vote were allowed by certain parties, he would have an overwhelming majority for it in this Chamber. So I pay tribute to the great work that my colleague Chester Borrows has done. I know that this amendment is, in fact, a variation of Chester Borrows’ amendment. It seeks to do the same job—and it does. It states that if something is silly, trifling, and inconsequential, the police need to use their discretion. Police need to understand that, effectively, when they arrest a parent, they arrest not only the parent but also the children, because the children will suffer.

HEATHER ROY (Deputy Leader—ACT) : I rise to speak on behalf of the ACT party in this Committee stage of the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill and on this amendment that has just come before members today. ACT members will continue to oppose this bill—we are a pretty solitary voice now, I think, in this Parliament—for a very good reason. I attended a public meeting in Hamilton last night. Parents in this country want the right to be able to choose for themselves how they bring up their children. They feel that they are being denied this right, and I am afraid this amendment makes no difference to that view.

This amendment is not—as my colleague Judith Collins, whom I have a lot of respect for, said—a victory. It is not a victory at all. There is no doubt that there are any number of good intentions involved in this amendment. I think that people have tried to do their best. There is no doubt that everybody wants to do something about the violence and abuse that too many of our children suffer. But our continuing to put good, loving parents, who already do a good job of raising their children, into the firing line yet again does not get us anywhere. As I say, good intentions are not nearly enough.

This amendment is not a victory because, in fact, nothing changes with it—not a thing. It is still illegal to physically chastise a child in any way at all, even if it be just a little restraining touch when a child is about to do something dangerous. Nothing has changed, because those parents who do that will still be criminals in the eyes of the law. What this amendment does is to allow the police the discretion to prosecute complaints. That sets a very dangerous precedent, in my mind.

I frequently miss the legal expertise of my former ACT MP colleague Stephen Franks. No one would be surprised to hear that, typically, he has already had something to say about this amendment. He stated today: “Bradford and Clark must be howling with glee and derision. They’ve out-lawyered (not to mention out-politicked) opponents of their Bill.” How right he is. He stated: “The ‘compromise’ words have no legal effect. They merely ‘affirm that the Police have a discretion not to prosecute’—meaning that no new discretion is added, only the existing rules and duties apply.”

As I say, this amendment brings absolutely no change to anything. What is worse, to escape prosecution, a smack must “be so inconsequential that there is no public interest in proceeding with a prosecution.” “Those words can’t have had competent legal consideration from any opposing lawyer.”, stated the lawyer who had a great deal of respect in this House.

There is also the contempt shown for our constitutional traditions. It is fundamental to our law that it is not for the police to decide what the law is or what it ought to be; it is their job merely to uphold the law. In passing this amendment today, members will actually place the police in an invidious position. Who will be held responsible when the police decide one week not to prosecute a complaint that has been made but the following week the child in question is abused or, worse still, murdered? We have seen any number of these cases. Who will be held accountable if that happens—and it is not actually an “if”, it is a “when”. It is the police, of course. Not one single member of Parliament who is voting in favour of this amendment today will put up his or her hand and say: “I am sorry, New Zealand. I did not see that one coming.”, because members know that will happen. That is a terrible position in which to place our police.

Today the leaders of Parliament are telling the police to ensure that the courts do not get to consider where the law’s boundaries lie. Today this Parliament is cold-bloodedly passing law that it does not want enforced. The law has not changed. Everything that every member on Opposition benches was saying last week, the week before that, and for the past few months was wrong and illegal will be exactly the same now. What we are doing is just passing to the police that decision-making process.

ACT is opposing both this amendment and the bill because we believe that the law, as it stands, already covers the cases that we see all too frequently. Our existing law against child abuse is already strong. Section 194 of the Crimes Act, which covers the offence of assaulting a child under 14, attracts a maximum sentence that is double that of common assault.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Defence) : I think the public will applaud that in this, our adversarial system, on some occasions the leaders of the various parties involved can come together to find common ground on an issue that had become very controversial, perhaps more controversial than it needed to be, because of a lack of clarity on what people on each side of the argument were trying to achieve. I believe that most people in this Chamber were trying to achieve pretty much the same thing. Most people in this Chamber do not believe that smacking a child is the first and best solution. Most people in this Chamber who are parents will understand why sometimes parents resort to that sort of treatment. I confess to having done that myself on occasions, when my children were younger. I am not proud of it—actually, nor am I particularly ashamed of it; I just understand the reality of parenting.

I think it is good that Helen Clark, Sue Bradford, Peter Dunne, John Key, and other people around this Chamber have been able to come together to provide some clarity about what we want, which is to send symbolically the message that as parents we should always try to find more constructive ways of disciplining our children than lashing out in frustration and using violence. But I am also aware that the person whom I think has shown some courage in introducing this bill—though I have not always agreed with her—Sue Bradford, has always said that it was not her intention to criminalise ordinary parents going about the day-to-day task of raising their children. We know how hard that can be, and what we want to do is to support parents. We certainly do not want to criminalise them.

I have made that point in some hundreds of letters that I have sent out to constituents. Let me quote the sentence that I have used: “I don’t believe that parents should be subject to criminal sanctions in these circumstances, unless their behaviour constitutes abuse. I would not support the bill if I thought that was the fact.” What I think Peter Dunne has done—and I warmly welcome the nature of the speech he has given—is come up with an amendment that makes it clear, as the Crown Law guidelines make it clear, that in a day-to-day case, where a child is smacked in a way that has no more than minor or inconsequential results, we do not believe that the police should be pursuing it to prosecution. The Crown Law guidelines are actually very clear, and always have been. The police, in exercising their discretion, must act in the public interest and must act in a way that takes into account how minor or how serious the case may be.

Acting on behalf of my colleague the Minister of Police, I answered a question in the House some weeks ago on this and made reference to a court case. A decision in the Court of Appeal in 1996, in R, said quite explicitly that the court interpretation, the common law, is that smacking should not result in charges being brought, or a conviction. That was not in relation, by the way, to a parent, where there was a section 59 defence. It was in relation to a creche worker who smacked a child, and should not have done it, but did not do it in a way that should have resulted in a criminal conviction.

I welcome the fact that members from all parties, have been able to show the common sense and the reasonableness to come together to produce and support an amendment that makes it very clear, firstly, that it is not a great idea to smack one’s child or use violence against him or her, but if, in the normal course of human events, it is done in a way that does not have serious consequences, then we do not expect to see, and will not see, a parent appearing before the court.

I congratulate the mover of the bill. I congratulate the Prime Minister on the initiative that she took. I congratulate Peter Dunne on taking—[Interruption] Members opposite can try to make this a partisan event. I do not think that is appropriate at this stage.

Hon Bill English: That’s what you did.

Hon PHIL GOFF: No, I did not do that. Bill English needs to go back and read the Hansard. I had the decency in my speech, unlike in his speech, to acknowledge both Helen Clark and John Key in the roles they played. I have done it again in this speech. Petty politicking about the issue at this point does no credit to Bill or to anybody who does that in this debate. I welcome the fact that we did come together as a Parliament, we did find consensus, we did find a way through that is common sense, and that the amendment sends the messages that most people and parents in this country will warmly applaud.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) : This solution that Parliament has come to is a win for families, and it is a win for common sense. I think it is good that in an area as sensitive in law as relationships between parents and children, we have come to a wide base of parliamentary support for the law as it is to be. I think it is important, though, that Parliament reflects on how we have come to this point. When Parliament adjourned 4 weeks ago, the Government had the numbers. The Government had tried to jerry out either putting this bill through as it was, under urgency, or looking at it being adopted as a Government bill. We repeatedly heard the Prime Minister and other Ministers say that the bill without this amendment was just fine.

What has changed? I will tell members what has changed. The leader of the National Party, John Key, gave a very thoughtful speech to the Salvation Army, saying that this was not good enough. All New Zealanders, I think, and this Parliament want law that makes it plain that the abuse of kids is wrong, and that this country has a very real problem in respect of abuse, but we do not wish the light smack by a parent of a child for correctional purposes to be a crime. When John Key gave that speech, he suggested the very specific word that is in this amendment—“inconsequential”. When he proposed that amendment the Prime Minister and the Labour Party bagged it, and the mover of this bill rebuffed those proposals.

What has really changed the minds of Labour members is the continuing polls over the adjournment showing Labour going down the toilet. Let us be honest about what has changed Labour’s mind. Remember, when we went away 4 weeks ago, the law as it was at that stage, out of the select committee, was absolutely right and would not be changed. That is what Steve Chadwick and other members were saying in the debate in this Chamber 4 weeks ago. What has happened? I commend all those New Zealanders who protested. I attended a very energetic protest in Nelson at which a large number of people came out and said: “Look, this law as Sue Bradford and Labour are proposing leaves open ordinary New Zealanders who discipline their children with a light smack with the risk of being prosecuted.” They wanted that stopped. They have achieved that, and rightly so.

It would have been really easy for John Key. We read the same poll results. We know that Labour is taking a hiding out there in middle New Zealand for its ideological view on this issue. This bill did need to be amended and it would have been so easy for John Key to play the politics on that. But, no. I think this debate and this amendment show the leadership that we have from John Key. He is a person who is more interested in getting the law right than playing political games. Indeed, it is a very rare day when the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have a joint press conference and agree on law as sensitive as this. It is probably the most heated political issue this year—one that has been to National’s political advantage—but John Key has said it is important that the law be put right. I think that in this Parliament and on this issue we have indeed seen the leadership skills of John Key, for which the people, and particularly the parents, of New Zealand should be thankful.

I think every New Zealander wants the law to be plain, that where there is abuse parents are rightly prosecuted, but that for the purposes of correction and parenting, parents should be able to issue a light smack, and that is exactly what this amendment will provide for.

I say in conclusion that this is a victory for democracy. Finally the Government has had to listen to all of those protests up and down New Zealand, all those letters to the editor, and all those editorials. I particularly commend the Dominion Post of Tuesday for a superb editorial that said that we did need to get some honesty in this debate, and that we did need to get some amendments. I suspect that when the Prime Minister saw the logic of that argument she took up John Key’s initiative and provided for this amendment. We now have a law on which there can be some settlement, and a law in which New Zealanders can have confidence that a light smack is OK, but abuse is not.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) : I rise with some delight, I must say, to tell the Committee that New Zealand First is once again united and will be supporting this amendment to clause 4 in the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill. That is not to say we will support the bill at the third reading, and it is not to say we will not; it is simply to say that we think the bill will be better with the insertion of this clause.

I have to say I have quite some admiration for the Prime Minister. She was obviously in an entrenched position and she had the fortitude to rethink that position. I also pay compliments to Sue Bradford, because I do not believe, from some of the utterances she made before, that she would have swallowed this sort of amendment. I think this is quite new and that she has taken it well. But I reserve my highest praise indeed—I am speaking personally—for John Key. I have always been an admirer of a person who has stuck to his or her ground and not given in easily. That guy proved it to me over the last few weeks. He has been accused of politicking but he has stuck with it and we have got something that will be very, very largely supported in this Chamber. My personal compliments go to John Key. I also compliment Peter Dunne. I do not quite know the role he played, but because he has this amendment in his name he was obviously some sort of catalyst.

But I point out that the last paragraph of the explanatory note states: “While under the common law there is no doubt that this discretion applies to minor complaints of assault,” and it goes on a little bit further. So we could have the circumstance that was referred to in Close Up last night on TV whereby Sue Bradford saw a young kiddie in the supermarket being smacked. She will not necessarily know the result of that smack, and that smack might be harder than Chester Borrows provided for in his amendment. A kiddie could be hit harder than Chester Borrows provided for, and because the police determine that it is inconsequential and because nobody else kicked up a fuss, the kiddie might go home. The kiddie might be more obedient to its parents but might well be bruised and nobody will know.

Some years ago—well before this bill was introduced and well before I was a politician—when my children were relatively young, 3 or 4 at that stage, I had some friends round to dinner. As I recall they had an 8-year-old. We were talking about bringing up children. I have never smacked my children. I cannot speak 100 percent for their mother. She has passed from this world, so I cannot even ask her, but I suspect that from time to time she did. But the children have a great deal of affection for their mother even now. It is possible she did smack them but it would certainly not have been assault.

This young couple were telling us that they did not believe in smacking. Their young 8-year-old misbehaved so much that because they did not believe in smacking they put the kiddie in the car for half an hour or so. When they obviously wanted to depart and take the child home, they found that she had opened the father’s briefcase, torn up all the papers, and ripped them to shreds. I think I would have been tempted at that stage if it had been my child to give it a smack on the backside. But they did not. They could not do it, because it was not in their philosophy. So they verbally insulted and attacked that kiddie and made that kiddie cry.

I do not know how that kiddie has grown up, but I have seen in my earlier days at sea, when I was a young officer, young deck boys who clearly had been brought up in miserable circumstances. I have seen them with ability but no confidence to know they can go further than the positions of deck boy and able-bodied seaman. What I am really trying to tell the Committee is that reasonable smacking is not the big evil. It brings the situation to a very sharp conclusion. But verbally assaulting a kiddie damages it for life.

I hear my colleague and certain people say that it was great to get rid of corporal punishment. In my days at school there was certainly corporal punishment but I cannot remember kids getting expelled. I cannot remember one—not one single one. I cannot even remember a kiddie getting expelled in my son’s days at school. But right now we are producing kids in this country who are too tough to handle in the schooling system.

I welcome the amendment on behalf on New Zealand First and we will be supporting it.

GORDON COPELAND (United Future) : I need to divert the debate slightly to the context of my own amendment to the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill, which—as I hope members know—is around the issue of time outs and naughty-mats. I want to briefly take the Committee through why I believe that making this amendment to the bill is necessary. As members will know, the proposed new section 59 has three subclauses. Subclause (1) continues with reasonable force. Basically, it maintains the status quo but turns it from correction to prevention and other normal daily tasks incidental to good care and parenting. Subclause (2) states: “Nothing in subsection (1) or in any rule of common law justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction.” As is well known, under the law we are passing now, it will therefore be an assault to lightly smack a child for the purpose of correction. Then subclause (3) comes in and states: “Subsection (2) prevails over subsection (1).”

When I read that, I thought: “What on earth does that mean?”. So I went straight away to the report of the Law Commission back to the select committee, which explains why subclause (3) had been put in. It states: “Subclause (3) has been included (so that) - In the event of a potentially ambiguous situation such as ‘time-out’ where there may be a mixture of motives, subsection (3) seeks to ensure that parents cannot rely on a corrective purpose for their actions.” In other words, the report states that subclause (3) is there to ensure that if a child is sent to time out for corrective purposes, then parents cannot rely on that as exempting them from criminality or a crime. The report makes it very, very clear that if time out is for corrective purposes, then under this bill it will be an assault.

I was rather jolted when I read that, and thought: “Gosh, I wonder whether that’s right.” So I went to the trouble of getting an opinion on the issue from Peter McKenzie QC. His conclusion was categorical and unambiguous in concluding that the forcible carrying of a child to time out or a naughty-mat or similar, if done for corrective purposes—that is the proviso—will come within the meaning of an assault under the Crimes Act 1961. In other words, such activity constitutes a crime.

It was wrongly claimed in this Chamber that Sir Geoffrey Palmer disagreed with Peter McKenzie. That is not the case. In Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s letter to Lynne Pillay on 8 March 2007 he states: “Committee members will recall that in relation to option 1, i.e. the bill now before Parliament, the Law Commission was advised by a majority of the members that the outcome sought was a prohibition on the use of any force against children for corrective purposes. We are consequently delighted to receive Mr McKenzie’s independent confirmation that this objective is achieved by our proposed draft.” That objective is now incorporated into the bill.

The Law Commission in its report to the select committee, Peter McKenzie QC, and then Sir Geoffrey Palmer, have all confirmed that because of subclause (3) the use of time out and naughty-mats will be a crime of assault in New Zealand. We therefore need to address that issue. Some might want to debate whether those legal experts are correct. I accept them because their expertise is far greater than mine, so my amendment simply states: “… for the avoidance of doubt, every parent of a child and every person in the place of a parent of the child is justified in using force … for the purpose of ‘time-out’, taking a child to a ‘naughty-mat’, or similar. Such actions do not, for the purposes of this Act, constitute correction.”

This is extremely important, because parenting educational organisations inform me that if the bill goes through as it stands, making time-out activity for correctional purposes an assault, then they cannot in good conscience teach parents the advantages of time out and naughty-mat activity, because they would then be encouraging those parents to commit an assault against their children. As the bill stands at the moment, those organisations will have to rule out those activities. I think that leaves parents in a most vulnerable position. This is simply bad law and we should take the opportunity to correct it.

LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) : This is a great day. It is a day of pride and a day for our children. Firstly, I congratulate the churches and the ministries on the prayer vigil at St Paul’s today. It was certainly a celebration of our children and it was a very, very moving ceremony.

I thank the hundreds of submitters who appeared before the Justice and Electoral Committee, which I chair. I also thank the organisations that worked relentlessly and ran a fantastic campaign. They were led by Barnardos, EPOCH, Women’s Refuge, Plunket, Save the Children, Unicef, and Every Child Counts, but there were very many more organisations, such as, our Families Commission and our Children’s Commissioner. They have always stood firm and advocated, against quite difficult public misinformation, for the rights of our children. Then there were the emails—the thousands and thousands of emails in support whereas we were being told that public opinion did not support change. Those emails, which clogged up our system, said: “Please bring about change and protect our children.”

I also want to recognise the local organisations in Waitakere that were so supportive and promoted the anti-violence message. In fact, Waitakere City Council was the first council to stand up and say that it wanted to see a change made to section 59.

I thank the select committee, including the staff. No one on that committee was unmoved by what we saw and heard. I thank Chester Borrows. I never agreed with his amendment but I know he was trying to do the right thing, and in a very heartfelt way I thank Chester Borrows for withdrawing his amendment. Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s assistance was invaluable, certainly firstly with the committee, and I thank him.

Along with the Greens, the Māori Party, and the Progressives, my Labour colleagues stood solid and steady and were consistently supportive in very difficult circumstances. I cannot not mention the members of other parties—the Hon Peter Dunne, the Hon Brian Donnelly, and Doug Woolerton—who knew what was right and stood their ground. I also acknowledge Katherine Rich who, in quite difficult circumstances, stood by her principles and never wavered.

Much of this bill has been about reassuring the public about misinformation. The original bill to repeal section 59 got the public of New Zealand in such a concerned state that a decision was made to amend the bill to clarify that ordinary parents would not be criminalised by the normal activities of parenting. This was not enough for the zealots who criticised the bill and wanted to bring it down. I really cannot say how proud I am to stand in this Chamber today and compliment the amendment put forward by the Hon Peter Dunne.

This amendment was worked out—as I think I heard the media acknowledging—in the late hours by Helen Clark and Sue Bradford, and, again, with invaluable assistance from Sir Geoffrey Palmer. The amendment starts with the three simple words “To avoid doubt”, then it goes on, “it is affirmed that the Police have the discretion not to prosecute complaints against parents of a child …”, and so it goes on, taking into account whether it is inconsequential or in the public interest. That was made very clear in the select committee report when we reported back. Sue Bradford and I, and many others, spoke and said that ordinary good parents would not be prosecuted. This law is about removing a defence when children have been severely abused. Unfortunately it was very hard to run that debate because there was a counter-debate that just kept saying the bill is about criminalising parents. It never was.

I am so proud that this amendment affirms exactly what the select committee recommended. I commend Sue Bradford, the Prime Minister, and all who have stood alongside in bringing this bill to the House.

GERRY BROWNLEE (National—Ilam) : That was a very interesting contribution from Lynne Pillay to the debate, but it overlooks the fact that had it not been for the position taken by John Key, that this was an issue that was starting to divide New Zealand unreasonably, then Helen Clark would not have made the overtures she did yesterday and the words in the amendment, which are substantially the words of John Key, would not be the words the Committee is debating right now.

Labour members sitting opposite might like to shake their heads, but the fact is that as the bill stood, New Zealanders who are doing their best by their children, who are exercising their right to ensure their children are brought up with some discipline in their life, could have found themselves before the courts. They could have found the police at the front door and found themselves under some accusation inside the community of not being good parents. That is why John Key made the efforts he did to try to get through the impasse. I think it is disingenuous of Labour members not to recognise that.

I think it is good that they recognise the involvement of the Hon Peter Dunne, because he also recognised that this was causing the sort of wedge in society that this country does not need. I hope that over the next few days we do not see too many Labour members going out there trying to say that they are the great saviours of families in this nation. I am simply saying that this is not the right issue to pick division on.

Hon Clayton Cosgrove: You are better than this, Gerry. This isn’t the right time for that.

GERRY BROWNLEE: Mr Cosgrove from up the back there said that that is an inappropriate thing to accuse him of. But I have not heard one Labour member in this Chamber outline what the facts were in this case. It was Helen Clark who came to John Key yesterday and said: “We need to talk because this is a problem.” It was a problem for the Labour Party because most New Zealanders were saying that they were being put in an untenable position by the Prime Minister and her party. At least she had the courage to recognise that something had to be done—we are prepared to give her that. But then, of course, it was in the later part of yesterday evening that the contribution from Peter Dunne meant that we were able to get some progress.

I think it was also very good that Sue Bradford was prepared to accept that the intention of her bill—to protect children—would be most satisfied by this compromise. I do not think it is good for Labour members not to acknowledge that it is a compromise. We know that had it not been for the need to ensure that the Greens continue to support this Government effectively, by abstaining on confidence and supply votes, this would never have been a whipped vote inside the Labour Party.

So Labour members should not try to make a virtue out of what has actually been a severe political problem for them. The fact is that we will now end up with a bill that ensures that parents can comfortably go about their business, can comfortably have a family arrangement without fear that at any time the State might enter their living rooms and start telling them how to run the place.

I think it would be good if one or two Labour members recognised that they have actually got out of jail today to some extent. There are Labour members over there in seats where the polling has shown that this was the issue that would tip them out. From our perspective, this bill is far too important a piece of legislation for Labour to have played games in the way it did. One of the things that was really most irritating was Helen Clark taking a hard position in favour of Sue Bradford’s bill because it was politically expedient to do so, and then finding that the political expedience exercise, to stay in this place, was costing her. Thank goodness she saw good sense.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : I would like to take a call to speak to the two amendments that have come in front of us this afternoon. First of all, I thank the majority of members for their support for Mr Dunne’s amendment that has come through today. I acknowledge the way in which Mr John Key approached us—me and Labour—last week for a meeting to try to seriously consider whether there was a way through with this Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill where we could find an amendment so that the National Party could support the bill.

I thought that meeting was a tremendous initiative, because if we had the majority of the House including both major parties behind the bill, that would send a great message to the parents and children of this country. And that, in fact, is what has happened. Although that initial meeting we had last week did not succeed, I think that its cordial nature and the fact that Mr Key and his colleagues were well meaning in their intentions—I certainly recognise that—have helped lead to where we are today, as have the continued efforts on all our parts to find a way through, recognising that we do have common goals in this. So I would like very much to acknowledge Mr Key and Mr English, and also Helen Clark for the role she played in trying to think of another way through.

I thank Chester Borrows for all the work he did on his amendment. He put a tremendous amount of work into it, and has had the courtesy to withdraw it today, acknowledging that this new amendment—I hope—achieves some of what he was intending to achieve originally, but in a very different way.

The reason that I can accept Mr Dunne’s new amendment rather than Mr Borrows’ is very much around the fact that Mr Dunne’s amendment does not attempt to define the nature and level of force that we are legitimately able to use against our children. I could never accept an amendment like that because it would have put us in a worse position than we are now. This amendment today does not do that. What it does do is to affirm that the police have the discretion not to prosecute when the matter is so inconsequential that there is no public or other interest in pursuing that prosecution.

We tried very hard in the Justice and Electoral Committee—as Lynne Pillay and other select committee members including Mr Borrows can attest—to find an amendment like this and, of course, as can be seen, we failed to do so. It has taken us a long time, but I am very glad we have got there today. I really would like to thank everyone from all the parties involved. I know it has been very tough for certain National Party members and certain New Zealand First Party members. Some parties have been quite split and members have felt, I am sure, very mixed allegiances and have had quite a difficult time. So I am really glad that we are finding this way through today.

The second amendment, Mr Copeland’s, is around his concerns about whether placing a child in time out will be made illegal by this bill. I think there is absolutely no need at all for Mr Copeland’s amendment. We talked about this a lot in the select committee, because all members were very well aware that the use of time out is an accepted and useful parenting practice that many, many parents use as an alternative to violence—as an alternative to hitting their children.

There was no way we would want to inadvertently criminalise parents, or leave the way open for parents to be criminalised, for using time out. This was one of the things that was behind the clause 4 amendment of section 59 of the Crimes Act, particularly in “(1)(c) preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in offensive or disruptive behaviour;”, and in “(d) performing the normal daily tasks that are incidental to good care and parenting.” Both of these provisions were very much aimed at making sure that if a parent should happen to use reasonable force in picking his or her child up, for example, and in carrying the child screaming to his or her room for time out—I am sure, a situation that every parent in this Chamber, including me, is familiar with—that there is no way that that would be deemed a criminal offence, or that there would not be a defence should for any reason it become known to the police that this incident had occurred.

Four lawyers from the Law Commission, including Sir Geoffrey Palmer, worked with the select committee on this amendment. We discussed and considered it at length. It was the result of a lot of consideration, and I believe firmly that it does the job that Mr Copeland is trying to achieve with his amendment today, so I hope that people will not support Mr Copeland’s amendment.

Finally, Mr Nick Smith said earlier that parents should be grateful that most of us in this Parliament have found a way through where we can all support this bill today. He is right about that, but I say that I think the children of this country will be even more grateful that so many of us in this Parliament have had the courage to take leadership on this issue now and have found the courage to say that children in this country have an equal right to adults to be protected from violence. The children of this country will be grateful to every MP who supports this bill.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Minister for Building and Construction) : I rise to speak to two amendments to the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill and to support the bill itself. The first amendment is in the name of my colleague the Hon David Benson-Pope, and the second amendment, which was announced by the Prime Minister today and put forward by the Hon Peter Dunne, puts beyond doubt what has always been the intention of this bill. Both amendments provide added safeguards for parents. Both address the legitimate concerns of good, caring parents throughout the country who deserve reassurance that the bill will achieve its intended purpose.

The first amendment, which I put to Cabinet, means that the effects of the Act will be monitored. Two years from the commencement date of the Act the chief executive of the Ministry of Social Development will review whether the Act is working as intended, and whether there have been any additional impacts, and will report to the Minister for Social Development and Employment. The review report will be tabled in the House for this Parliament’s scrutiny.

I believe that the media have finally realised that this bill does not outlaw smacking children. It technically amends the current section 59 defence in the Crimes Act, which effectively closes a loophole through which some parents—bad parents—have been acquitted in situations of clear use of excessive violence against their children. There has always been a large degree of agreement that using the section 59 defence as an excuse was wrong. Attempts to codify what is acceptable violence have been resisted.

I have to say to the Committee that I took a lot of convincing over this bill. It is no secret to members that I take a more conservative stance than many in this Chamber over many of these sorts of issues. The changes made by the Justice and Electoral Committee, on advice from the Law Commission, did indeed improve this bill, and they were underpinned by prosecution guidelines and the appropriate use of police discretion. On that basis, I support the bill. However, my belief is that the added protection of a review is also needed.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I am sorry to interrupt the member, but it would be better to address those matters when we come to new clause 6. Only two amendments apply to this clause, clause 4, and those are from Mr Copeland and Mr Dunne.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: Sure. Thank you, Mr Chairperson; I appreciate that.

I have spoken face to face with hundreds of my own constituents in Waimakariri and other places around the country about this bill. There are zealots, of course, but most Kiwis are open to reasoned discussion and debate. When they realise that this bill will not do what the mischief-makers and scaremongers say it will do, they tend to take a different and reasoned view. They understand that we are not trying to tell parents how to run their lives or their families. Some have said to me that the bill will not stop another James Whakaruru. They may well be right. But if this bill saves one child from the evil and dastardly punishment meted out to that little boy, then I think that it is worthwhile and that this Parliament will bring honour on itself and on his memory in passing it.

Let us be absolutely clear: the overwhelming majority of parents discipline their children responsibly, but the sad truth is that a small number of parents and caregivers use lumps of wood, riding crops, and vacuum cleaner pipes to beat their children. When many of those people turn up to court, they roll out the lawyers and wave the section 59 defence in front of the judge, and often they get off. That is a fact. This bill simply means that bad parents who beat and bash their children will be held to account in a court of law, and I am confident that the police will act responsibly and not lay frivolous charges against decent, loving parents. The police have always made these judgment calls. They make them every day of the week. They are trained to do so. Parents have never been criminalised, and in my view they were never going to be criminalised under this bill, despite the best efforts of scaremongers to deliberately misinform our communities for their own political ends.

A man whom I admire is a former Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon Paul Keating. He once said that leadership is not simply about being popular; it is also about being right. The amendment announced today by our Prime Minister makes explicit that which was always implicit in this bill as reported back. I firmly believe that this bill, as amended in the Social Services Committee and with these further amendments, is indeed the right thing to do. I am charged as a constituent member not simply to do what is popular but, after listening and discussing issues with my constituents, to make a judgment and do what I believe to be right, even at the risk of facing unpopularity. In voting against the Prostitution Reform Bill, the Civil Union Bill, and the euthanasia legislation, many said I was right and many said I was wrong. My constituents pay me not to posture politically but to listen and to have the guts to make a judgment—a judgment that is in the best interests of all our communities.

Kiwis are indeed fair-minded. They respect those on all sides of the Chamber who have the courage of their convictions, even if there is disagreement about a particular issue. But the truth is that only history will make an enduring judgment of members from all sides in this debate in this Chamber.

I want to conclude with a quote from Bobby Kennedy. When he was Attorney-General of the United States, he said a very interesting thing, which I think is noteworthy in this debate—despite the interjections and the fun generated by some on the other side of the Chamber. He said that violence “whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law … in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence … the whole nation is degraded. …Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. … Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens.” I believe that this bill advances the cause of true justice amongst our fellow citizens—the most vulnerable citizens: our children. It sends a very clear signal that violence against children is unacceptable. In my view, there can be no higher calling for a member of this Parliament. I commend the bill.

Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) : I rise to speak on this very important bill, the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill. Clause 4, which we are debating, actually includes the amended section 59, which, as my colleague Judith Collins pointed out, remains in the bill—it is not removed. It includes within it those four paragraphs, (a) to (d) in subsection (1), which mean that every parent of a child is justified in using force, if the force is used in reasonable circumstances. But it also includes subsection (2), which explicitly states: “Nothing in subsection (1) or in any rule of common law justifies the use of force for the purpose of correction.” Therein lies the impasse that has faced this Parliament for so long, and, until today’s historic consensus, this caused the problem for so many New Zealanders, including my constituents in Port Waikato, who overwhelmingly viewed the previous amendment as inappropriate.

As Audrey Young noted in the New Zealand Herald, it is almost inconceivable that Parliament will pass a law that explicitly bans physical punishment and then expects the police to prosecute only extreme cases. I consider that the breakthrough came when the leader of the National Party, John Key, not only spoke to the Salvation Army but then was prepared to talk to other party leaders to see whether there was a way through, and that has been achieved.

I want to acknowledge an excellent paper, published only a few weeks ago on 19 April by Every Child Counts, which outlines the history of violence against children in New Zealand since 1867 and the evolution of attempts to diminish it. It also outlines the evolution of this bill through the Justice and Electoral Committee that has brought us to the amended section 59. The paper talks about dispelling the myth that has worried so many New Zealanders—the myth that parents will be criminalised if section 59 is repealed. This is what many of them worried about so much. It states that the police and Child, Youth and Family have said they would work together to develop guidelines if the new law is enacted. That has not happened so far.

Also, the paper states that official advice to Cabinet confirms that loving parents are unlikely to be unnecessarily criminalised following the repeal of section 59. It would take only a set of simple words to be placed within the bill to state the above and the bill would find significant support throughout New Zealand. I believe that is exactly what has happened over the last week, and I think it was brought about very much by initiatives from this side of the Chamber.

The huge amount of thought that National has put into this legislation should not be underestimated. Firstly, there was the Chester Borrows’ amendment, which had three very clear objectives. It sent a clear message that child abuse is wrong, that child abusers cannot hide behind the defence of section 59, and that the legislation should not inappropriately criminalise good parents for light or inconsequential smacking. That was clearly not enough for the support of the majority of this Chamber. But John Key was prepared to go one step further in order to achieve that wider consensus. I believe he has made a very historic and significant step on behalf of the children of New Zealand, and on behalf of the common sense that rules this Parliament. It was his amendment that triggered off what is happening today.

At the second reading of this bill I recall Sue Bradford saying that she would fight tooth and nail—perhaps those were slightly unfortunate words—to see that the bill would go through unchanged. I admire her for her determination in terms of reducing violence against children, and I am very glad to see that she has been prepared to move.

STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) : This is a symbolic day in this Chamber. It is the first time I have ever seen consensus politics, and it takes me back to congratulate Plunket, which facilitated the establishment of the Littlies Lobby, where this discussion first began in an attempt to get a consensus, an all-party agreement, on the fact that children matter and that every child counts. Plunket will be very thrilled today. Its president is retiring tonight, so what a great present this is for Kaye Crowther.

There are some women I want to acknowledge. First, I think that the resolute position of Sue Bradford has been fantastic and admired by women across the country. She did not stand down, she did not compromise her values, and she saw as clear as day what had to be done in the law. I think those debating and the public have admired and respected her fighting stance in this position.

I also acknowledge Katherine Rich, who, across the other side of the Chamber, has very quietly and quite sweetly taken a strong position, and we know the pressure she has been under for taking that position in understanding the role of advocacy for children, who have no voice. We congratulate her on her position on behalf of the children of the country, because we are their advocates.

I too can congratulate John Key; I have no problem about that. I met with representatives of the Salvation Army who raised the same concerns as those I am sure Mr Key met at his meeting. That does not undermine what we also did, as women in the Labour caucus, to try to manoeuvre and to get some reasonableness around the need for a definition and the need to get the people of this country to understand what we were trying to achieve.

I congratulate Helen Clark. I admire her leadership—uncompromising leadership—on this issue. I was never whipped; I was always very strong on this position and proud to take it. I think tonight that she has shown a new style of politics in being able to work with the leader of the Opposition. That is a wonderful symbol for the country that we are trying to lead, and for families.

I also acknowledge the Families Commission, the Commissioner for Children, and a small non-governmental organisation in Rotorua called SmackfreeNgongotaha. SmackfreeNgongotaha is a primary health organisation that said ours is an inherently violent society, and that it was going to stand up, long before the section 59 bill was debated, in order to try to stop the level of violence against our children. As a result of that, I have had fewer than 10 letters to me, and fewer than 10 emails, from constituents in Rotorua on my position on the repeal of section 59. [Interruption] But I have had thousands of letters and emails from around the country. I think it is a sign that as a community—and we are proud of it as a city—we have said that violence against our children is not good enough.

Simon Power: Only 10 emails!

STEVE CHADWICK: That is right. So it is very sad, is it not? But we are fighting the battle here and saying that violence against our children has to change.

I also acknowledge the members of the Māori Party. I know that they have been out on the road on a round of consultation around the country and have been told overwhelmingly not to support this bill. They stood resolute too, because they know that a lot of the children who suffer under the defence of reasonable force are, in fact, Māori children. I say kia ora to Te Ururoa Flavell over there, and that it is acknowledged.

We have mentioned Chester Borrows. I could never have supported that amendment, because I do not believe that any level of violence against our children, even smacking as punishment, is acceptable. I think we need to continue the debate on SKIP and positive parenting in this country.

I want to conclude on the time lapse on this bill. It has allowed fantastic community debate. There have been meetings in halls around communities about our children and the valuing of them. It is about time that as a country we no longer condone violence against children. This amendment today was required. It seems peculiar to require something that was in police guidelines anyway, but it removes the doubt and brings people with us—and that is the art of politics; it is about bringing people and their perceptions with us. I congratulate John Key and Helen Clark on this amendment, and I congratulate Peter Dunne on proposing it.

JOHN KEY (Leader of the Opposition) : It is fair to say that for the better part of the last 3 months New Zealand has been engaged in an immense debate about smacking and discipline in our society. It has been a bitter debate at times, and, in fact, it has been a rather bizarre debate, as well. On both sides of the debate there have been some quite extreme positions taken. In the middle of that, there has been deep confusion amongst New Zealanders and they have felt fearful of some legislation that they did not understand, and that they did not welcome into their homes. They deserved some protection, and today, in my view, they got that protection.

It has been a rather fog-filled debate, but from it has emerged something quite important in our society. We have had an opportunity to define the way we see New Zealand society going, what we think is important, the kind of people we are, the way we see our children, and the way we see our future and how we, as a society, can move on from some statistics that would worry even the most hardened person in this debate. As a country we cannot stand back when 66,000 young New Zealanders suffer abuse. Our country needs to change and we can all do that together.

From this debate have come some pretty interesting things. Firstly, I think that collectively we want to see a reduction in that violence. Secondly, I do not think there is a member of Parliament—and I think there would be very few New Zealanders—who would want to see the law used to shield someone who wants to abuse his or her child. But, thirdly, nor do we want to see a society where we criminalise good parents for doing their job.

Parents are doing the hardest job in the world. They have to put up with the extremes that occur, and they have to do it on a day-by-day basis. They have to do it with confidence, and they have to do it with support. They have to know that we as a Parliament will back them up, and that the right response is not to turn them into criminals; the right response is to help them through those times and to give them the confidence that we are behind them.

Ten days ago in a speech to the Salvation Army I reached out in a genuine attempt to see whether we could find a better solution. It was, I thought, a common-sense approach that allowed some definition around minor or inconsequential smacking. It was a compromise that was not perfect, and neither is the compromise that we have reached today. For the record, no compromise is perfect. Never in such a situation will everyone be happy. But when we have a situation where Brian Tāmaki does not think it is too bad, when the Police Association thinks it is a positive and well-received step forward, and when others in the debate—such as Sue Bradford, the promoter of the bill—seem happy, then I think we have a situation where at least we have a chance of the bill going forward.

We owed it to the parents of New Zealand to try to do it better. Yes of course we could have left what I think was badly drafted legislation, which would have offered no protection to parents, but for 18 months parents of New Zealand would have had to live under conditions that I do not think are fair. We would have asked the men and women of the New Zealand Police, who every day go out there and protect our society against much more difficult issues than this, to make a judgment call, to do it on their own, and to do it without the support of a Parliament that did not have the courage to tell them that it at least backed them with a reasonable degree of tolerance.

If what has been suggested in this Parliament—and what we on the National side of the House will vote for—does not work, then I for one, if I am Prime Minister of New Zealand, will work to change it. But I will give it a go, because I think that it can work. I think we owed it to New Zealand parents to make the legislation better. We owed it to the New Zealand Police to give it a go. The National Party showed some leadership. I think the National Party caucus showed some immense strength to stand up and say that there is a better way of doing this.

The bill could have passed with the 63 votes that it already had. It will now pass with a lot more. That will be important for one very important reason. That reason is simply that our society needs to change. It will change when it sees all of us gathering around and giving it a go. Our society will change when parents feel that they are treated with the respect, fairness, and honesty that they deserve. Our society will change when we all get in behind this legislation and give it a go.

Over the next 18 months there will be interesting times. We will get a chance to see an amendment that, in my mind, will work—an amendment that says that if we smack our children for something of an inconsequential nature, on a basis that we would not expect to be going anywhere near a criminal conviction, we will not be charged. I think it is a situation where police will feel a high degree of confidence that they have the backing of our Parliament and of the legislation. I think that having that amendment clause in the bill does make a difference.

Is the legislation perfect? As I have said—no, it is not. Is it a compromise on some parts? Yes, it is. But is it better than the bill that would have gone through 10 days ago? It most certainly is. Had National not reached out and done what it did, then we would have had some legislation that would have put parents in New Zealand in a very uncomfortable and a very unfair position for 18 months. Sometimes politics is best left parked at the door; this in my opinion was one of those “sometimes”.

SUE MORONEY (Labour) : I rise to speak in support of the Hon Peter Dunne’s amendment in this section of the debate on this bill. I think this is a great day for our children today, and I want people, in the potential posturing that will happen about who was responsible, or not, for this amendment, to remember that this legislation is about our children. I want members to stay very focused on that.

One thing is very, very clear: had we not got past the first and second readings of this bill, we would not be at the position we are at today of even discussing this measure. So I particularly want to acknowledge the people who have brought us to this point. It starts with community organisations like Plunket, Barnardos, and Save the Children; the list is too long to mention them all individually. But those people and those community organisations stood up, in what was actually a climate of fear and misinformation that had been created around this bill, and said that yes, that was what they were on about, that was what they expected of their Parliament, and that was the issue they wanted to campaign very strongly on.

In getting past the first and second readings, of course, there had to be a bill, which had to be pulled out of a ballot. I thank Sue Bradford for proposing and sponsoring this bill, and for having the good fortune to have it pulled out of the ballot, as well. That got us to the position of the first reading. I was very proud of Labour’s position and stance in supporting this bill at its first and second readings. I am very proud to be part of the caucus that supported that course of action. Of course, it took the Green Party and its support, and the Māori Party and its support, to get this bill to the point where we are looking at it today.

I also want to make particular mention of individual members in other parties who voted in favour of the first and second readings—I think, in very difficult circumstances and in taking a very, very principled position, without having the backing of their parties behind them. I feel very encouraged by, and take my hat off to, those particular members—members such as Brian Donnelly and Doug Woolerton from New Zealand First, who stood purely on principle on this issue, and who helped to get this bill through the first and second readings so that we could get to this point today. I want to acknowledge the Hon Peter Dunne’s very principled stand in the face of, I am sure, quite difficult criticism from some of the constituency that he will be communicating with regularly, and to acknowledge the brave stance and courage he showed in helping to get the bill through the first and second readings. Katherine Rich, who has also been acknowledged in previous speeches today, stood firm in the face of dissension from the vast majority of her party, to make sure that this bill had the hearing it deserved, and to get us to this point.

I am one of the members who was heavily lobbied on this bill, because a couple of websites named me as being a family-friendly member of Parliament. I feel very proud of that, because I think that the websites were anticipating that that would be something a Labour MP might not wear as a badge of pride. But I certainly do. I find that the Labour caucus is, in fact, a very family-friendly caucus, and I add my name to those numbers. I would like to say that throughout this debate the phrase “being family-friendly” has been somewhat distorted. There has been quite a bit of fog around what some of these phrases mean. I believe that having this bill passed in this Parliament does mean that we can call ourselves a truly family-friendly society—that we can stand up as a Parliament without the bumper slogan stickers that happen around election campaigns and say yes, we are voting to say that we are family-friendly. We are actually putting our votes where our mouths are; it is not just a slogan any longer. We are family-friendly, we are standing up for children, and we are standing up for parents in support of raising children in a dignified manner. Thank you.

GORDON COPELAND (United Future) : I would like to start, in talking to the amendment moved by my colleague the Hon Peter Dunne, by saying that I will be supporting the amendment. I agree with John Key that it is a useful step forward. However, let me say also that I will not be supporting the bill itself, and that I remain opposed to it. I say to John Key that if he does become Prime Minister in 2008, I think there will still be overwhelming support from New Zealanders for a change in the law that we are going to enact in this Parliament, and I for one will be right behind him in making that change. I say that because I would be the ultimate hypocrite if I were to stand here tonight and heap praise on this compromise as being any kind of real answer to the problems I see in the bill. For me that would be a complete backflip.

Actually, this compromise achieves very little indeed. It adds nothing much to the prosecution guidelines that the police already operate under. I was never worried so much about prosecution; I actually regard that as a bit of a red herring in the debate. What concerns me is what happens practically when the police receive a telephone call from someone who lays a complaint with them to say that a child next door to them, for example, has just been thrashed. The police will of course have to respond to that complaint. Therefore, they will still arrive in the homes of New Zealanders in unprecedented numbers, and in a way that would not occur if this bill were not to be passed into law. The police cannot at that stage decide not to investigate the complaint, because it could be a complaint involving genuine child abuse. If it were a case of that, and the police did not go, then we in this Parliament would be howling the next day, or as soon as it became public, for the head of the Minister of Police, and we would be saying that that was just not good enough. So the police will go to the home, but they may decide not to prosecute the first time.

What will happen, though, if the same neighbour rings back 3 weeks later to say that the bloke next door has again smacked his daughter? The police will again have to respond to the complaint. The police tell me that at about this time they also fill out a form that notifies Child, Youth and Family that there is a problem in this family. Child, Youth and Family, likewise, will be bound to go and visit the family.

So the reality is that because we are here tonight passing a law that makes the light smacking of a child for the purpose of correction a crime—the crime of assault—the on-the-ground actions of the police and Child, Youth and Family will change dramatically to involve a whole new array of hundreds of thousands of loving parents who do actually lightly smack their children within the context of hugs and kisses, and many other beautiful family times, and who quite clearly distinguish that from the abuse that all of us in this Parliament are against. My attitude to abuse is to have zero tolerance; I want to eliminate it from the whole country. But a light smack in that context does not constitute abuse.

• Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

GORDON COPELAND: I hope the amendment moved tonight by my colleague Peter Dunne will help the hundreds of thousands of good, loving parents to regain their confidence. I hope it will show them—in a small way, at least—that they are doing the right thing by their children. I think the petition of my former colleague Larry Baldock will continue to collect signatures. I think there will be a referendum in 2008, because the petition will get there. If that petition is successful, then I renew my pledge to work with John Key to put in place something more akin to Chester Borrows’ amendment.

I take this opportunity to congratulate Chester Borrows and to thank him for the tremendous effort he put into his amendment. It was well constructed and it had my wholehearted support. Who knows, time may yet show that the bill will come back to this Parliament at a different time and with a different make-up. We may yet see this central problem, which is opposed by so many hundreds of thousands—in fact, millions—of New Zealanders sorted out in a way that will be acceptable, and that at the same time will reduce child abuse and also renew the confidence of parents that in lightly smacking their children as part of a loving, disciplined regime they are doing the right thing by them. Thank you.

CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) : I was so pleased this afternoon to see the response from the Police Association, which stated: “Police officers feared that the repeal of section 59 would leave them with no ability to use discretion when a smacking complaint was received.” That comment was from Police Association president Greg O’Connor. It goes to the nub of the real debate that was around the words used in the versions of the amendments and the bill as they came from the select committee. The debate was always about whether parents who smack should be rendered liable for prosecution. If the answer is no, they should not, should the defence be written in the law or should it be in practice? Those of us on the select committee will recall that we had that debate on numerous occasions and we came down on opposing sides.

I think I am the second lawyer to speak in this debate. It is interesting to note that my legal friend Russell Fairbrother saw it exactly on the opposite side from where I am talking now. Maybe that is appropriate. He affirmed quite strongly his view that parents were not criminalised. My view is that this legislation did exactly that, because it was written into the law that reasonable force could not be used for the purpose of correction. Now, force that is used and is reasonable in the circumstances, even if for the purpose of correction, will not be prosecuted, due to the amendment given tonight. That gives some assurance.

I have to restate a point, too, that John Key made earlier on. That point is that whenever there is compromise, nobody is entirely happy. Where we are tonight is that we are living with a fall-back position, as is the Labour Party, as is the Green Party, and as are those on all sides of the debate. National’s preferred position was my amendment, which I withdrew earlier in favour of a compromise. There was a realisation that the Government had the numbers and if we did nothing we would end up in exactly the situation that we did not want to continue—that parents would be criminalised for smacking their children. I know that probably on either side of the Chamber we are all going to see that in different ways. Nevertheless, I believe that that is where it was. We will wait for the next lawyer to jump up and argue against me. At least members can rest assured that that lawyer cannot send a bill.

I must say that although we came down on opposite sides of this debate, members of the select committee never allowed this debate to get personal amongst ourselves. All through the debate we acknowledged that we could understand the arguments, and took pains to understand the arguments that each side was making. I am grateful for the convivial nature of the select committee hearings in spite of the fact that we were diametrically opposed as to where each of us was going. I guess that is the nature of politics. Members learn a hell of a lot in a short time in this job, and in my few months here I guess this is the occasion where I am learning that sometimes one is not always entirely happy with the outcome, although one sees that there are important wins for those proposing the bill and for those who will have to live under it.

Today we have seen two marches on Parliament, with both of them bringing their views to the House. I believe that it is an endorsement of the country we live in that we can actually have the freedom to do that. In fact, people can enter the grounds in their thousands and they can make their views known. They can have access to their representatives, they can argue with them or pat them on the back. In many, many countries around the world people cannot do that.

I am pleased to say we have reached a compromise. It is one that maybe we will be caned for. Let us make no mistake there will be those on both sides of the debate, completely polarised, who will get stuck into National Party members for eventually voting for a bill they said they would not vote for. Yes, we are receiving our emails—more than Ms Chadwick’s 10, I must say. And there are those who will be disenchanted with the Labour Party and the Greens for compromising in the way they have, too. Nevertheless, that is the nature of politics. If one believes in the democratic process, one has to believe that one can make an argument, that one can put up ideas, that people will listen, and that minds can be changed. Even those who are annoyed or feel frustrated at where this debate has gone to and the conclusion that it is reaching, surely will take some heart from the fact that although they may bitch and moan continually that all we do is bitch and moan at each other, on this occasion there has been consensus and there has been compromise. On some occasions where not everybody is entirely happy, that is good for the people of New Zealand. Thank you.

SHANE JONES (Labour) : Kia ora anōtātou. Tēnei take e harurunei te motu, kātahianō au ka tū ki te whakapuakiiōkuwhakaaromōtēnei take weriweri ki ētahi, whakamāmāngākau ki ētahikē atu. Nā reira, kia whaitaringa mai ngāwhānauMāori me ō tātou hoa Pākehā ki ēneikōreroōkunā te meakuataunga au ki tēnei take. He matua ahau, tokowhitunoa atu wāku tamariki māua ko takuwahine.

• [An interpretation in English was given to the Committee.]

[Greetings once again to us all. I am at last able to express my thoughts on this matter that has taken the country by storm—for some a distasteful matter, for others gratifying. Therefore, I urge Māori families and those of our fellow non-Māori families to listen to these thoughts of mine because I am familiar with this matter. I am a parent, and my wife and I have seven children.]

I stand not to engage in either name-calling or point-scoring in terms of whether the Leader of the Opposition seized the initiative, or whether the amendment would not have been crafted without the leadership of the Prime Minister, or whether the promoter of the bill was too obstinate. I stand as a parliamentarian who, along with my wife, has struggled to raise seven kids.

I have chewed this issue over, and have eschewed speaking on it to date. But I support the amendment that has found its way into the House, and is to be included in the legislation. I agree with earlier speakers that it was never the intention to criminalise those people who travail; who, in the ordinary course of raising their families and parenting, might come to the attention of the ill-informed, panic-stricken, or confused police force. So I think the amendment is a step in the right direction.

What pained me in particular recently was to hear, upon my return from Australia, of a sample poll that apparently stated that 80 percent of the Māori families of Aotearoa did not support this bill. I thoroughly reject that poll. I thoroughly reject the manner in which the information was gathered. I have no doubt in my mind that the people who participated in that poll were ill-informed and were served up incorrect information.

I invite any Māori family in Aotearoa who does not believe that we are afflicted—indeed, possibly crippled—by the culture of violence, to come with me to Ngāwhā prison. I invite any well-educated and very well-off middle-class Pākehā people, both in and out of this Chamber, who think this bill incapable of making a positive contribution to the problem of violence that disproportionately affects our people, to come with us to the whare herehere—the jails—and watch the blighted lives of our young men. Those people should go to the refuge centres and look at the bruised, dazed, highly hurt, grieving, and lost women, and the kids, who have lived in unimaginable hell. Not for them the comforts of a two-income, two-parent family; for far too long, they have been lost in this culture of violence. If this bill enables the authorities and us as politicians to drive an agenda to shrink the amount of violence amongst us in Te Ao Māori, then I say “Bring it on.”

Today we heard the bishops of the Church that I was baptised into and confirmed into—known in our language as the Mihingare, or the Anglican Church—and people from the other larger religions, say that the bill, for all its transitional difficulties, was not only a step in the right direction but also forged an agenda that would make us a more thoughtful, caring, and responsible society. Many of our young Māori families today followed Pastor Tāmaki, who stated that this was a very bleak day. I am very proud that Parekura Horomia stood and challenged them to deal with the facts confronting us about Māori family violence. But our agenda will not gather pace if we get into name-calling.

Through this amendment, it can no longer be credibly stated that the legislation—which, after all, is an amendment to the Crimes Act—will cause people to find themselves unnecessarily ensnarled in the court. What it does is enable us to strip away all doubt. I have seen too many young Māori boys in the hīnaki—in jail. I would ask them what made them do it. They are serving 9, 12, 15, 18, or 22 months. If we scratched beneath the surface, we would find that a humiliatingly large number of them—humiliating, in my view, for Te Ao Māori—would tell us that they came from homes of gross abuse.

So not for me the great speeches of kaumātua, chiefs, waka leaders, etc., who are constantly arguing about Treaty settlements and fish; the challenge as a consequence of the passage of this bill is for every Māori parent and Māori leader—both in the community and in the economic sphere—to take responsibility, own the problem, and drive solutions to challenge the violence visited, on a far too regular basis, on our mokopuna, our tamariki, and our wāhine. Every time a family suffers this misfortune, this calamity, it degrades the entirety of tikanga Māori and mana Māori. There is no mana while people such as our women and our kids suffer disproportionately. A thousand economic deals and Treaty settlements, in my view, will amount to minimal good effect for as long as that violence blights us as a people.

I commend this legislation despite the misgivings that my own parents have, my own whānau have—and I have tossed it around. But after having participated vigorously in our own discussions within the confines of our own caucus, I stand today with pride as a father and as a member of Te Aupōuri iwi, and as a proud member of this esteemed institution, to support this bill. Kia ora tātou.

NICKY WAGNER (National) : Managing, training, disciplining, and bringing up kids are intensely personal experiences. Family links are the most important and the most intimate relationships in anyone’s lives, hence the problems that Parliaments have had in writing this legislation.

As a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee that reviewed the 1,700 submissions that were made on the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill and listened to over 300 oral submissions, I was continually reminded of the strength and value of family relationships. Of course, we had many technical and academic submissions, but we also had many from individuals talking about their personal family situations.

Those submitters came from both sides of the debate—some happy families who smacked, some happy families who did not smack, and some very unhappy people who had been abused. We even had the odd submitter who defended behaviour that I and most people in this House would consider indefensible. That is the problem. The methods that successful parents use to bring up children are idiosyncratic. They are varied and they are diverse. They reflect the variety and diversity of our families, and that is the way it should be. We need to respect the individuality and creativity that parents use in bringing up their children.

Although this has been a very contentious bill, similar themes have underpinned all submissions, regardless of their stance. All submitters spoke of their condemnation of child abuse and the high level of violence in our society. All submitters were concerned about the welfare of children; otherwise, they would not have made the effort to be there. Most submitters recognised the importance of parenting and understood how difficult the job was. The majority of submitters understood that there were many useful techniques used to bring up kids. The SKIP programme was often mentioned as a way to learn new methods of parenting. But when it came to the question of smacking, that is where the opinions diverged. Either smacking was OK or smacking was not OK. But even those who thought that smacking was not OK, mostly did not want to criminalise good parents for giving a light smack.

So that is what we heard in the submission process. Most New Zealanders had very positive and very similar values in child rearing, and they diverged only over specific parenting techniques. But then came the politics, and the use of emotive words: belting, bashing, beating kids—behaviours that the vast majority of New Zealanders consider to be totally unreasonable and, therefore, already illegal under the existing section 59.

Then came the introduction of irrelevant information—the child abuse figures, the highlighting of New Zealand’s tendency towards violence, and the mentioning of “Lillybing”, James Whakaruru, and Coral Burrows. Child abuse and violence, which are intrinsically unreasonable, and the treatment meted out to those children, are already illegal under section 59. There was absolutely no evidence that section 59 had ever been invoked in any of these high-profile cases.

However, my biggest concern with the bill has always been with the interference in the lives of good parents and their families, and the dangers of criminalising families who use an occasional smack. Now that John Key has been able to broker a common-sense amendment that accepts that ordinary New Zealanders who may occasionally smack their children are not criminals, the bill manages to bridge that no man’s land of disagreement with submitters.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : First of all, let me congratulate Sue Bradford and Helen Clark, because they have built a remarkable coalition in support of this Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill. I have to say that the ACT party stands resolutely against it.

I am actually a bit staggered, because I have read the words on Supplementary Order Paper 107 most carefully—and, indeed, have sought legal advice—and the amendment makes no difference to the bill, as I am sure Ms Bradford knows. Therefore, I am somewhat surprised why people would change their votes as a consequence of this Supplementary Order Paper. All it says is that the police have the discretion not to prosecute. Well, Sue Bradford knows that was precisely the situation in her bill—I can see the Labour MPs agreeing. I sat here night after night hearing the National Party members complaining about the police having that discretion. They said Mr Borrows’ amendment was needed to give guidance as to what the law was. I was persuaded by Mr Borrows.

Chester Borrows: You were right to be.

RODNEY HIDE: I was right to be persuaded by Mr Borrows, actually, because I was not keen on his amendment.

I heard Mr Borrows say on the radio this afternoon that this amendment is great because it is what he was proposing. Mr Borrows is a police officer, and he has studied the law—I hear his nervous giggle—and that is not what this amendment says. Mr Borrows has been rolled. The entire National Party caucus has been rolled. Again, I congratulate Helen Clark and Sue Bradford on this legalistic sleight of hand; it is a great piece of politics, to take the heat out of this bill and have it remain unscathed.

This is a very bad way to be making the law. This bill went through the select committee process. Changes were done. It came back here to be voted up or down, but now—no, no—we are changing it. We can see that is a bad way to make the law, because one entire party is clearly confused about what it means.

I ask Mr Borrows whether it is true that the police have the discretion not to prosecute.

Chester Borrows: Yes.

RODNEY HIDE: So this amendment does nothing to Sue Bradford’s bill?

Chester Borrows: No.

RODNEY HIDE: He agrees with me that it does nothing to the bill. Could Mr Borrows explain to me why he is now voting for the bill when he was not voting for it before?

Chester Borrows: You missed my speech.

RODNEY HIDE: Oh yes, I missed his speech—but I heard him on the radio and I did not get any sense from him.

I want to go a bit further. What is this “public interest”? This is a very interesting concept; if there is no public interest, there will not be a prosecution. But get this: at least 20 percent of New Zealanders are opposed to smacking, full stop. So there is huge public interest in any smack that occurs—and we have heard that from Parliament today. Even if one gives a little inconsequential smack, there is public interest in there being a prosecution and there is public interest in there being a test case. So the public interest test means absolutely nothing, does it not? Is it not the role of the police to uphold the law? Is it not the role of Parliament to be making the law? With this amendment, we are not making any law, and we are leaving it up to the police to decide what the law is. It remains an arbitrary piece of law. How will the police decide whether something is inconsequential or in the public interest? Parliament has given no guidance.

That was the point of Mr Borrows’ Supplementary Order Paper 86, which, I have to say, I was persuaded to agree with, after some careful deliberation and listening.

Peter Brown: Put it up in your name.

RODNEY HIDE: Well, I will. I will do that tonight, and I am looking forward to the support of Mr Brown and Mr Borrows.

I go back to the problem with this bill. Sue Bradford has been clear right along, and I commend her for that. Clearly, she is opposed to physical violence on children, and I understand that absolutely perfectly. I think all of us in this Committee oppose it. Where we disagree is whether a smack is physical violence against a child. I think it is fair to say that Sue Bradford says that, yes, a smack is physical violence against a child and should be banned. That is Sue Bradford’s position absolutely, that was what the original bill said, and that was the purpose of it.

Then the Labour Party members came along and said a light smack should be OK. People had a natural fear that if they gave their kid a wee smack on the bottom, they would have the State fall on them. The cops would turn up, they would be dragged through the courts, their kid would have to testify, Child, Youth and Family would be involved, and suddenly the smack would be akin to child abuse.

That is where it got murky, because it seemed to me that both sides of the debate were saying the same thing—not Sue Bradford; she and members from the Labour Party were saying there should be no smacking. But I think the vast majority of members were saying we have to draw a sharper line between smacking and abuse. Chester Borrows’ amendment was to draw a sharper line. Have we done that? Has Parliament done that? Has Parliament achieved anything? Are we not right back to Sue Bradford’s original aim to ban smacking totally? Is that what the people of New Zealand want? I do not think so. Is that what this Committee wants? No, I do not think so. I think this Committee has decided on something political to get everyone off the hook.

Chester Borrows: That never happened.

RODNEY HIDE: Chester Borrows is saying, with a big grin on his face, that it never happened. I am appalled by that. It is not as though we have not had a lot of time to debate this; we have been debating it pretty hard.

We have ended up with this: smacking is banned unless it is inconsequential, or prosecuting it is not in the public interest. The opponents of the bill—that is, 80 percent of New Zealanders—are saying: “To hell with the public interest. It is my child and I will discipline my child as I see fit, within the bounds of reasonableness.” That right will go from the New Zealand statute book if this bill passes in its present form.

I say to Chester that he should hand me his amendment and I will move it. I say to him that he should run upstairs and get it now, please.

Chester Borrows: I sent it to you by email.

RODNEY HIDE: Well, I have not got my email here—I am not as sophisticated as that. If he gets me a copy, I will move it tonight. I can see Gordon Copeland and the New Zealand First members coming in on it—some of them. We will vote for Mr Borrows’ amendment. I would like to see whether Mr Borrows would vote for it.

We are doing the country a grave disservice. Although it is nice to see the Labour Party and the National Party in agreement, in a wonderful display of MMP politics, I would like to see them in agreement about something that made sense, something that would work, and something that was good law, not something that was nonsense and pure politics.

This law leaves families exactly as they were before this amendment. It leaves the police in a very difficult hole, and it hands the police—[Interruption] I thank Mr Copeland; I now have the amendment. I will be moving this amendment, thank you. The bill has the police in a position where they will be exercising arbitrary power. With families that the police do not like, they will decide that is in the public interest to prosecute. They will think that the families they do not like, or they think are trouble, or they want to hassle, are not giving inconsequential smacks. Who will those families be? They will be, disproportionately, disadvantaged families, inarticulate families, and Māori and Polynesian families. They will be, disproportionately, families that actually love their children and do care for them and look after them. This bill opens those families up to abuse—abuse by the law, abuse by the police, and abuse by the courts.

I commend Sue Bradford for the clarity with which she has made the argument. I reject this bill totally, on behalf of the ACT party.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Immigration) : There are some unusual and extraordinary days in politics, and this is surely one of them. It is so extraordinary that as I stand here in the Chamber—and it is the first time I have spoken on this bill—I am expecting to see a horde of pigs fly across the top of the Chamber, from one side to the other, or to see a spaceship come down through the top, land on the floor, and take Mr Hide back to where he came from. Anything could happen on a day like today.

We have seen some extraordinary events. We have seen the Prime Minister craft a ground-breaking deal to get this bill through, and we have seen the Leader of the Opposition roll over and then stand up on a podium and take the credit for it. We have seen the perhaps not unsurprising spectacle of Television One and TV3 not being able to tell the difference, of not actually working out what remarkable events have gone on in the last 72 hours. What has happened here, as Rodney Hide has said, is essentially the National Party has come to its senses. It has realised that playing politics with this bill has gone on for long enough, and that it is time to do the right thing, in the long run, for the children of New Zealand. I commend National for that. It is undoubtedly the right thing to do.

One of the less surprising things was to have Mr Hide come into the House as the people’s hero, and say: “Look, everybody else is playing politics with this bill, except me.” Butter would not melt in his mouth. He is the only MP in this House who is clearly against politics. He is probably one of the very few people in New Zealand who does not like to see MMP working in action, and to see the odd bit of compromise in this Parliament. After months of debate and kōrero and raruraru, people can find where the middle ground of public and political opinion is, and say: “Hey, this isn’t perfect, but this is about as close as we’re going to get.”

I want to recognise three people here. I recognise Sue Bradford for the extraordinary personal courage she has shown, and the personal threat she has endured. She has not flinched. She has not retaliated. She has not become bitter. That is the mark of a person in politics. Sue, you have our admiration. You have done a good thing for the children of New Zealand.

I am sometimes reminded that we have a Prime Minister who is of worldwide calibre. We have a Prime Minister who, in the midst of all of this flak and fury, has seen a way through. She spent a weekend going back to first principles, and crafting a compromise with her own hand, and it has got this bill through with an overwhelming majority. If anybody else buys that that is what John Key spent his weekend doing, then I say to Television One and TV3 that I am sorry but they have got the wrong person. John Key is a marketing-driven politician. He understands the moods of public opinion. He takes public relations advice, and there is not a focus group that he has met that he does not like. The difference between that and Helen Clark is she knew where she wanted to get to from the day this game started, and we have got there. That will always be the difference between those two politicians. I cannot say “those two leaders” because indeed in the truest sense of the word only one of them is a leader.

I want to recognise my westie friend and colleague Lynne Pillay, who chaired the Justice and Electoral Committee. I acknowledge Rodney Hide’s comments that the committee did a lot of hard work. I acknowledge Chester Borrows for the well-meaning and good-hearted spirit that he brought to the discussion. I may not agree with him, but I know that he meant the right thing for our kids, too. I think right around this Chamber we share the objective of crafting what is best for the children of New Zealand, even though we see it in different ways, and we have thrashed out a compromise.

Another extraordinary thing about today has been to see Christianity’s many, many tents unfurled on the forecourt of Parliament—the many rooms of the mansion, if you like, on display. We had a large number of people from the fundamentalist branch of that great world religion on the front lawn, chomping at the bit for the right to not spare the rod. I respect that that is their viewpoint. But the contrast between that and the other lot, which I confess I was part of—and it was quiet, it was prayerful, it was peaceful, and it was thoughtful—was very, very stark. It is not that one was right and the other was wrong. We are all entitled to our opinions. But culturally, politically, and theologically they could not have been more different.

Out of that let us celebrate the fact that we live in a country where religious differences as well as political differences can be aired in peace, and where we can come together as a people around what we think the balance points are, and we can move forward as a nation. If we ever lose that ability, then we truly are fried, like so many other parts of the world appear to be at the moment. I celebrate the fact that those various strands of faith stood up and were counted. I am particularly pleased that the so-called mainstream Churches, in particular the Catholics, Anglicans, and Presbyterians, came off the fence. They said: “Look, we may not have a monopoly on truth but here’s what we take it to mean. Here’s where we think the Bible is leading us.” I say kia ora to that, for the honesty and the courage of that process, and I say thank you to the organisers.

This is the only time I have spoken in this debate, and I conclude by doing something very rare. I do not like ever to bring politicians’ personal lives into debate, and I certainly have never done it to anybody else, but I want to say something personal, on my own behalf, as my colleague Shane Jones has done. I am a relatively new dad. I have a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old. I have used corporal punishment in the past. I grew up in a family where, within moderation, that was the norm. I want to acknowledge my wife, who has staunchly held the view that that is not an appropriate form of parenting. I have learnt not to use corporal punishment. I have learnt that if I have to smack one of my two darling sons, that says a lot more about me and my lack of parenting skills than it says about them. Any kid can drive us up the wall. Anyone who has kids knows that, right? We get tired, and they get tired, and they have the odd bit of chocolate after tea and they can work themselves up into a bit of a lather. But smacking does not help. That is what I have learnt out of all of this debate.

Throughout this debate, as a country we have come on a journey, and I have come on a bit of a journey as a dad, too. If anybody says that I am voting the way I am on this bill because my whips told me to, then I say that, as much as I respect my whips, I am voting with my conscience. I am also voting with my life experience here. [Interruption] Yes—I am also voting with my wife’s instructions. I would not want to go home if I changed my vote. Some members know my wife, and they know that would be a very bad idea. I am surrounded by strong women; it is fantastic. I know that this is the right thing to do. I know that my children will learn better if I sit down and explain to them what is right and wrong—not if I belt them to try to get the point across. My kids have the same spunk and spine as my wife has. I do not bow down to that kind of pressure. But they also have brains, and they know how to listen to an argument, even at 5—actually, even at 2. I am proud of my little family, and I am proud of the way that they are growing up.

I think that if this bill is adopted as a baseline for all the families of New Zealand, then this country will be a better and a brighter place. Kia ora tātou to the whole whānau, to the whole Whare, to the whole Parliament, for coming to this point today. Kia ora to Sue, and kia ora to the people of New Zealand who have come on a journey together over these last few months. I think today they are starting to come together again as a people, and that gives us all hope.

Hon BRIAN DONNELLY (NZ First) : I just want to make the point that I think the previous speaker, David Cunliffe, has very accurately outlined the events of the past few days and what really occurred. I also have to make the point, and agree with him, that I believe that the media have got this one wrong. Nevertheless, I believe the outcome has been a victory to the astuteness of Helen Clark. That is not to underestimate the role that John Key has played. He played a very important role, but I think we need to get the order of importance correct.

I want to point out a reality of our current law that the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill rectifies in clause 4. If a parent picks up a child who is causing trouble in a supermarket and puts that child unwillingly into a shopping trolley—which most of us have done in our time—under the current law, believe it or not, that parent could be had up for assault. The parent would have no defence under section 59 of the principal Act, because he or she would not be applying the force by way of correction but would be doing so in order to prevent the child from engaging or continuing to engage in conduct that amounts to a criminal offence.

Clause 4 of this bill spells out clearly that parents will be able to use reasonable force in order to prevent or minimise harm to the child or another person, to prevent children from engaging in criminal behaviour, to prevent or minimise engagement in offensive or disruptive behaviour, or to perform normal daily tasks such as pulling a jumper over a child’s head or putting a cranky child into a car seat. Under the present law, all these actions could be regarded as criminal behaviour. To coin a phrase, good parents could be criminalised under the existing law. But they have not been, and the reason for hordes of parents not ending up in court is that those behaviours, which probably present a breach of the law as it stands, is the very same reason why under this legislation, as it came back from the Justice and Electoral Committee, parents would not have been charged with assault for light smacking.

There are some important judicial principles that, I believe, have been largely forgotten in this argument: constabulary discretion, the de minimis principle—in other words, the law does not deal with trivialities—and the need for the police to consider the public interest when making a decision whether to prosecute. Those principles are fundamental to our judicial system and have been with us for a long, long time. Those who up to this point have opposed this bill have conveniently ignored those judicial principles, even though they were clearly applied to the current law.

I would like to read to the Committee from the police’s Manual of Best Practice, which sets out 17 factors that must be taken into consideration when deciding whether to prosecute—that is, the police’s use of their discretion. I would like to draw the Committee’s attention to three of those factors. One factor that they have to take into consideration is the public interest. One of the other factors is the seriousness or triviality of the offence. Finally, another factor is the effect on public opinion of a decision not to prosecute.

I want to compare those rules with the wording of Peter Dunne’s amendment on Supplementary Order Paper 107. It starts: “To avoid doubt,”. That spells out that the need for the amendment is to avoid the considerable doubt that has been erroneously built up in the minds of many New Zealanders. It goes on: “it is affirmed”—one can only affirm something that already exists—“that the Police have the discretion not to prosecute complaints against a parent of a child …”. The Manual of Best Practice already affirms such a discretion; indeed, it requires police to use that discretion. The amendment goes on: “… where the offence is considered to be so inconsequential that there is no public interest in proceeding with a prosecution.” In other words, it is the public-interest principle and the de minimis principle put together. I want members to note the parallels of the amendment with the police manual and with the rules that currently apply but that were conveniently ignored.

Rodney Hide got this part right. Peter Dunne’s amendment is not required legally, but it is hugely important politically. Although I have to point out to John Key that there is a world of difference between an amendment that bans light smacking and one that affirms constabulary discretion, that is not to underrate the importance of the role he has played in recent events. That role is certainly not inconsequential, because the real purpose of this bill is to reduce violence against children in New Zealand. Such a purpose will be achieved much, much more readily when the public see that Parliament is largely united in its support of this legislation. So I take my hat off to John Key over what could have been seen as a U-turn but is in fact an extremely responsible step that will have huge benefits for the future of our nation. I do not believe he was the driving force behind, but I believe he was a really critical player in, the events that have occurred in the last couple of days.

Finally, I point to a delicious irony. Many of those who have opposed the bill have disagreed with discretion being left to the police. Yet the amendment, which broke a partial deadlock, affirms such discretion and requires police to utilise it. As I said, I congratulate Helen Clark and John Key—Helen Clark for her astuteness in bringing together the amendment to cut the Gordian knot—but I want to particularly make a point of commendation to one Katherine Rich. I believe that in all of this she has probably shown the greatest degree of courage in standing by the principle she believed in, regardless of the consequences and the pressure that was brought to bear upon her. Naturally enough, I have to say congratulations to Sue Bradford. I was the first person who ever brought a repeal of section 59 bill here. It never came out of the ballot. In some respects I am actually quite glad about that, having seen what Sue has had to go through over the last 6 to 9 months, so I congratulate her on her bill.

I guess in the long run I am very, very pleased that what has occurred over the last couple of days will mean the bill will pass with a substantial majority, which will signal to New Zealanders that Parliament is endeavouring to reduce violence towards young kids. That violence is a national scandal. I congratulate all those who continue to provide support for this legislation.

TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) :Tēnā koe, Madam Chair, tēnātātou katoa e hui neiitēneipō. Kātahianōmāua ko taringa ka rongomō te matenga o Hēnare Te Ua. He karere o Te Ao Māori, ko ia tērāikaweneiingākōrero katoa o Te Ao Māorii te wāi a ia. Ko ia tētahi o ngākarereikaweneiingākōrero o Te Ao Māori ki wīwī ki wāwāingātaukuahipa, moe mai e koro.

Ko te TōrangapūMāori ka hoki ki ngākōrero ō nehe, arā, ki ngākōreroikohia e ia i te wāi a ia. Ko tāmātou hoki ki tērākōrero ō nehe, hei tāhuhukōreromōtēnei kaupapa. I roto ingākōrero o Te Ao Māori, i a mātou e kimianaitētahi huarahi hei whāinga, kāoremātoui kite itētahi paku kōreromō te patu i te tamaiti. He taonga te tamaiti. Arāanō te kōrero, kotahi tonu te hā ko te kaumātua me te mokopuna. He pērāanō hoki ko te āhuatanga ki te wahine. Ko te wahine te whare tangata.

• [An interpretation in English was given to the Committee.]

[Greetings to you, Madam Chair, and to all of us at this sitting tonight. The death of Hēnare Te Ua, a broadcaster of Māoridom, conveyor of all news in his time from a Māori perspective, has just come to my attention. In years gone by, he was one of a number of broadcasters who would broadcast stories from the Māori World to all points of the land; so rest there, koro.

The Māori Party is one that delves into historical accounts, especially ones that he amassed in his time. We went back to his accounts as a platform for this debate. In the Māori historical accounts that were researched, we did not find any evidence about smacking children. The child is treasured. There is also the saying that the elder and grandchild is one essence. It is the same also for the female gender. The female is the house of humankind.]

I wanted to say that this is the first call that I, like others, have taken on this issue. In terms of trying to find a way forward, I explained that the Māori Party has tried to go back to stories from days gone by in respect of setting a platform for our discussion. I explained that in all of the stories that people like Hēnare Te Ua broadcast over many, many years we were able to find few stories, if any, about the ill-treatment of children in any way, shape, or form, or, similarly, about the ill-treatment of our womenfolk. That provided the Māori Party with a starting point in respect of our discussion. In all songs and tribal verse there is nothing that refers in any way, shape, or form to abuse of children in Te Ao Māori. I pay respects to Hēnare Te Ua and provide that observation as an opening point for my discussion.

I also pay tribute to Sue Bradford for bringing forward this particular amendment. I know that she has faced, as other speakers have talked about—we say kupu hahani, kupu whakahāwea—the put-downs, the denigration, but she has stood strong. Ka nui te mihi, ka nui te aroha ki a koe, Sue. [Much regard and compassion to you, Sue.]

We think of Sue and congratulate her on bringing the bill as far as this.

Where did this bill come from? To cut to the chase, as I understand it, it came from the fact that a parent could hit a child with a horse crop and get away with it. This amendment was all about plugging that gap in the current law. Right from the start the Māori Party has always said that at the end of the day a hit is a hit, and we remain committed to that particular line. We have tried to explain, as other speakers have done, what we have done as the Māori Party. In fact, we felt so strongly about this bill that we took it on the road for 3 weeks. We have been amongst our constituencies in the South Island, across on the East Coast, and in the Tainui region.

Shane Jones mentioned a poll with an 80 percent response rate that said people did not support the bill. In the time taken by us in all of those discussions we had as we went around the nation, I have to say that although there were concerns—and people came into the many hui we had with a large number of concerns—I can put my hand on my chest and say with confidence that after discussion of the issues with each of those audiences, the people in those hui either changed their minds or at least understood the stand the Māori Party had taken on this issue. That is not to say that there is not still a lot more discussion to take place. One of the things we can say is that there is, as other speakers have said, perhaps a lack of knowledge in respect of the rationale for the bill and where it comes from. I suppose that a number of parties could take the blame for that. However, we hope the issue will be given a lot more air. The good thing is, as other speakers have also said, that at least the debate has happened and the discussion has taken place.

In the hui we had, some said: “Here we go again. The Government is coming into our homes throughout the land.”, as if to say that this is the first time the State is entering homes. In fact, we know that currently there are already laws about health and safety within homes to do with incest, spousal rape, and such issues. Those sorts of issues within our homes are already taken care of. So for those who for some reason think that this is the first time the State is entering our homes, I say that I am sorry but that is not the case.

There are also those who said that people would be taken to court for lightly hitting their children. As other speakers have explained, that is the law as it sits at the moment. In one sense there is a lot of scaremongering and the record needs to be set straight. The biggest problem we found on our journey was a real lack of understanding. I suspect that a large number of people had not read the bill at all and were forming a view based on what they had heard in churches, in the media, on television, and so on. We hope that will be taken care of.

I support the discussion that Shane Jones talked about earlier in respect of the figure of 80 percent of people. Our records say that that is not the name of the game in terms of Te Ao Māori. The discussion needs to take place and to be far more balanced than that. The Māori Party has attempted, along with Sue Bradford, to take a leadership role on this issue, and it has stood strong in respect of how it interprets this bill. If the motivation is about protecting our children, then we need to be there. Therefore, any mechanism that does that is where we want to be.

Some have said in the discussion that Māori parents and Pasifika parents will perhaps be targeted by the police. Rodney Hide mentioned a little earlier that those who are most vulnerable may feel the brunt of the law in respect of this issue. If that is the case, I really hope somebody takes a close look at how our policemen and policewomen operate. One would certainly hope they are fair under all circumstances.

In wrapping up, I say that one of the things I want to put on the agenda is that from the very start our kōrero has been this: ko te patu anō te patu, ko te mekeanō te patu, kaua e patu i te tamaiti. A hit is a hit. A slap is a hit. Do not hit children. Koinā te kaupapa o tēneikōrero. [That is the basis of this statement.]

In turning to Supplementary Order Paper 107, we ask what the motivation is for this particular amendment. I think that Brian Donnelly has wrapped it up in terms of the political environment in which we live. The Māori Party takes the stand that this particular Supplementary Order Paper adds nothing too much to where we want to head. In fact, the word “affirmed” implies there is already something in law that takes care of this. Therefore, we do not give the Supplementary Order Paper too much weight. But we also understand the political environment in which we live. One good thing, as Brian Donnelly also mentioned, is the fact that at least in the MMP environment we can at long last come together for the betterment of the nation in moving us forward.

There was discussion by Rodney Hide and others about the definition of “level of force”, as promoted in Mr Chester Borrows’ amendment. At the end of the day, that did not wash with us. We would have voted against that amendment, but we will see what happens tonight. As I said, at the end of the day a hit is a hit, and we will be staying with that position. Along with Mr Hide we checked on the issue of discretion and found that the police already have discretion in regard to moving on any issue of abuse. Therefore this amendment does not really wash.

We support the very good speech made by Mr Rodney Hide this evening in regard to setting out that issue. However, in the interests of moving things forward, I say that if it is about moving forward, then we want to be there. Similarly, in relation to the issue of reviewing things in the future, we will be looking at that shortly in the debate on new clause 6. We would certainly be interested in a review period in the future. Under those circumstances, kia kaha tātou. [let us be strong.]

Tērā te wā ka hui anōrātātou ki te kōreromōēneimomo take. Ko te tūmanako ia, ka mahi tahi. No doubt there will be occasions in the future when we have to come together in these circumstances. The hope is that MMP provides us all with an opportunity to work together in the best interests of the nation. Kia ora tātou.

Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Minister for Transport Safety) : I thank members of the Committee tonight for the quality of the debate we are hearing. Some of it has been of very high quality, and that is often the case with bills of a nature such as this. We have seen a remarkable day in Parliament today. In the 16 years I have been here it has been very rare to see an occasion like this whereby a bill that is seen as divisive, the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill, has the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition jointly promoting an amendment.

We have seen that the amendment on the Table in Peter Dunne’s name has put forward a way of trying to move this issue forward that I think allays the concerns of those of us who were concerned about this bill—and there are some members of Parliament who have been very concerned about this bill—and about what its unintended consequences might be.

What is said in caucus should stay in caucus, but those who know me best know that I do not do subtle very well. My unhappiness with this bill as introduced was clear. The bill as it was introduced intended to completely remove the ability for a parent to smack his or her child with any legal protection. The effect of the legislation as introduced was unclear. Politicians, legal experts, and commentators all argued publicly over the exact effect of the provisions of the bill.

In my book, leadership is about moving the country forward, about moving issues forward, but it is possible to lead only if one is not so far over the horizon that the people one is trying to lead have lost sight of one.

I thank Sue Bradford, not only for driving this issue forward, because we need to make progress as a country, but for being prepared to go against her initial stance of saying that if there were any modification to the bill—I say sorry to Sue if I am misquoting her, but this is how it came across in the media—she would withdraw it. I am very pleased that in the interests of moving the issue forward for New Zealand Sue has been prepared to allow an amendment to go forward and to support the bill in that way. I congratulate Sue, too, on enduring the heat and on making New Zealand have this debate.

I have been through this debate, or one like it, before. The abolition of corporal punishment in schools was a major issue for me, because at that time I was one of the very few people teaching in a major boys’ school who did not use corporal punishment, in a school where it was endemic. I worked very hard, together with a small band of other staff who were, I think, reasonably enlightened at the time, to try to remove corporal punishment. We were successful.

Much has been made in this House of my Dutch heritage; people forget that the other half is, of course, New Zealand - Irish. The Netherlands is the safest place in the world for a child to be born. The Dutch have an equivalent of our section 59 in their legislation today, but they have a few factors that are very different from New Zealand. Their culture is different. The expectation on parents is different. First, they have a culture of respect for children. They do not have a culture of respect for—if you like—violence. They have a very different approach. In New Zealand we treat as a hero the guy who in the rugby scrum gets the best hit in. He is a hero; he is a folklore hero in New Zealand. So we have quite a divided view on how we deal with these issues in New Zealand.

The expectation on parents in Europe, especially in the Netherlands, is quite strong. In September 2006 the Dutch Parliament made a decision that basically read that parents must care for and look after their children without any form of mental or physical violence. That was the resolution of Parliament. It has not yet actually been enacted in law, but it reflects a culture that is a little different. Most parents in Europe, and especially in the Netherlands, would not think of hitting a child. Certainly, if someone in the Netherlands regularly hits his or her child, a neighbour will be over the fence, saying: “Do you need a hand? Can we get you some assistance from the social authorities? You clearly have a problem.” But in New Zealand we put our hands over our ears, or our hands over our eyes, and pretend we do not hear or see. That is a significant difference. Maybe one could say that the Dutch are fairly stubborn, or nosey, or even determined, but the actual difference is that children are their most treasured possession; children should be the same for us.

We need to examine the reasons why we have such a problem of violence against children in New Zealand. The bill as it was introduced crossed a line. The public perception was that it intruded the State into every home with children. It sort of had the feeling of presuming against the wisdom of ordinary people. The arguments of the pro and anti groups, the MPs, and the legal experts as to whether the bill criminalised good parents who occasionally might smack a wayward child—and I will plead guilty to that now—are of little relevance or interest to most people; most people simply want to get on with the business of being the best parent they can be. I think what we are doing today in clarifying with this amendment will help this bill.

On this issue I have been more torn than on any other issue we have debated in this Parliament. I have seriously considered whether I still fitted, whether my views and the basis of my value system were appropriate for the party I am in. I am pleased to say that our party has listened. It has moved with the issue—perhaps not as far as I might have liked, but it has moved—to establish an amendment together with Peter Dunne, who introduced the amendment, and with John Key, who supported it, to at least clarify the position to ensure that we have it written in law so that the police responsibility is quite clear in this issue.

We had a real perception problem, and I think we still do. We need to take this message to the public. But, hopefully, what has been done today will help reinforce the message that good parents doing their best for their children will not be prosecuted for minor lapses. All of us want the parents who are brutal to be dealt to. That parents can get off because the law provides them a loophole when they have been brutal is what I—and every thinking member of this Chamber—want to fix. So I congratulate Sue on that.

I congratulate Chester Borrows, also, on a very strong effort with his practical background as a policeman, as an investigating detective, and as a lawyer, in trying to resolve this issue and in pointing a way ahead for us. I also congratulate one or two members of the National Party who I know privately, because we have talked on these issues, have stood their ground very firmly in their caucus, as well. Even though they might be on the other end of the debate from me, it is vitally important to congratulate them. I congratulate my colleagues on the way in which I have been treated throughout this issue when I have felt sometimes a little bit exposed.

We are now finally dealing with a bill that will be successful, and a bill that will lead the country forward without being so far ahead that people will have lost sight of us. The amendment of the Minister David Benson-Pope himself to review the entire legislative effect in 2 years’ time will ensure that Parliament will return to this issue if there are unintended consequences.

We now have a bill that I feel, if it is passed in the way in which it is intended, I can live with, a bill that will lead New Zealand forward, and, above all, a bill that has at least fostered public debate on an issue that has been dealt with below the windowsill level, if you like, for a long time—an issue we as a country have pretended has not existed, and an issue that desperately needs to be moved forward into a more modern era. That is not to say that the vast majority of parents who have been concerned about this bill are in any way inadequate. They are simply doing the best they can in a circumstance where we all get frazzled.

I, as I child, was occasionally smacked, usually with very good reason, and on the odd times when it was not with good reason at least I learnt that there are sometimes injustices in the world and learnt to cope with that. Madam Chair, thank you.

NATHAN GUY (National) : I am probably one of the younger parents in this Parliament. I have two young children, and I want to reflect for a moment on how difficult parenting actually is. It is extremely stressful. It is extremely hard work. At times, as a parent, one is sleep deprived. At times young children will push parents to the limits, and they need to learn the boundaries. So, for me, a light smack on the hand is a tool that needs to be in the tool box at some stage, because parents may need to change a bad behaviour.

I am sure that we all in Parliament agree that there is far too much abuse of young children. I take that as a given. I also want to reflect on the true politics of this bill, the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill, because in the last couple of months I think we have had time to reflect on how this Green Party bill is supported by Labour because of the confidence and supply arrangements. When the polls started going against the bill and against the Government, the Government realised it needed to panic. It tried to move the bill into urgency, but it could not get the support to do that. Then, before Easter, it tried to take over the bill as a Government bill. Again, there was no support. So I think we need to be aware that Labour and the Greens have been extremely poorly supported by the majority of the public on this bill.

It is interesting to sit here tonight and see some Labour Party caucus members who I believe have actually been against the bill all the way along. It has divided the Labour Party caucus. It was interesting to hear Mr Jones and Mr Cunliffe speak this evening, and also Mr Duynhoven, who stood by his convictions. He told the Committee this evening what he believes in and he has not succumbed to some of the pressure in his caucus. The other member I look forward to possibly hearing from this evening is Mr O’Connor, if he chooses to take a call.

What this has come down to is the very good leadership, I believe, of John Key. He has been around the country listening to people and to parents who are concerned about this bill. He tried to broker a deal with the sponsor of the bill, Mrs Bradford. Unfortunately, they could not reach agreement. Then there was the chance to reach agreement across the Chamber, which I believe is what we have now. I believe that this amendment is the result of the good work done by John Key. Brian Donnelly this evening acknowledged that good work—he might have been putting out a bid for the next coalition talks, I am not sure.

What people were really upset about with the bill, as it was proposed by Mrs Bradford, was the nanny State approach. They felt that the Government was coming into their homes and telling them what they as parents should be doing. I know that being a parent is a difficult job and that people are sick to death of having the way they believe they should bring up their children interfered with.

Now we have a practical, common-sense amendment that will go through the Committee this evening. It is interesting to see that the Commissioner of Police has come out pretty much in support of it, and he is probably breathing a sigh of relief on behalf of the New Zealand Police force. So although I am not necessarily 100 percent happy, I think the amendment is the right way forward.

I want briefly to acknowledge Chester Borrows, who worked hard in the Justice and Electoral Committee for months and months, trying to reach some sort of consensus on the bill. When we analyse it overall, I think we see we are all the better for this debate. The whole country is the better for having the situation around child abuse raised. National, when it gets into Government in 2008 and 2009, looks forward to being able to review the legislation and seeing whether the amendment before us is actually working.

DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) : I seek leave to table an extract from the Daily Chronicle, where Mr Guy says that this legislation goes too far, takes away a last resort from parents, and says that education, not legislation, is needed; also, a further article criticising Labour for allegedly whipping its members of Parliament into voting for a piece of legislation they do not support.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Leave is sought to table that. Is there any objection? There is.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : I actually enjoyed Mr Guy’s speech, and I thank him very much for that. But he missed out a key point. Yes, it was a Sue Bradford bill—and good on her and the Green Party—which the Labour Party, under Helen Clark, decided to get wholeheartedly behind. Then the public became alarmed when the numbers were there to pass it. Something like 80 percent of New Zealanders were opposed to the bill, so Helen Clark had a huge problem. The National Party then came to Helen Clark’s rescue, telling her not to worry, because it would vote for it, making it no longer a political debate. That is what actually removed the political debate. As I said at the start: Sue Bradford has done a remarkable job as a non-Government MP on the backbenches getting the support of the Government and of the National Party for her bill.

But do not worry, I say to you, Madam Chairperson, and to the Committee, because the ACT party is here. We are here to help, and this is what we have learnt in the last remarkable 24 hours. We have learnt that the Labour Party is prepared to vote for Sue Bradford’s bill. We have heard that the National Party is prepared now to vote for Sue Bradford’s bill. Well, the question before the Committee is this: in this great spirit of MMP, when we all come together, and of actually getting some resolution to this matter, and just to test where the parties lie on the issue, is the Labour Party prepared now to vote for Chester Borrows’ amendment? That would be the true MMP thing, actually—not for National to concede and to vote for Labour and Sue Bradford’s bill, but for Labour to see the sense of what Mr Chester Borrows proposed and to vote for his amendment.

In fact, we can lay to rest a very important issue here, which is where the National Party is on the bill. Is National prepared to vote for Chester Borrows’ amendment and make its vote for the bill conditional upon that amendment succeeding? I want to remind the Committee what Chester Borrows’ amendment does. It is a very good amendment. It defines what unreasonable force is—which is the problem with our current law. It says it is unreasonable if it is against the law, for sure. Then it goes on to state that it is unreasonable if “it causes or contributes materially to harm that is more than transitory and trifling.” How clear is that? So a person can smack a child as long as it does not cause harm that is more than transitory or trifling.

The trouble with the amendment that Peter Dunne has tabled and what National is voting for is that it is not that. It is not that, at all. It is whether it is inconsequential, or is in the public interest. So Chester Borrows had it in a word when he said that, yes, smacking is OK but harm is not. That captures it in his amendment, now happily in my name, for the Labour Party to vote for, for the Greens to vote for, and for the National Party to vote for. Chester Borrows’ amendment goes on to state that the use of force is unreasonable if “any weapon, tool, or other implement is used;”. Of course the Committee is against that. I hope the National Party is against that and I hope the Labour Party is against that, but not against a light smack on the hand, which is what Nathan Guy talked about in his speech.

So here is the test, I say to Mr Guy: vote for this amendment; if this amendment does not go through, then do not vote for the bill, because it is not achieving what he just argued should be the law. The amendment goes on to state that the use of force is unreasonable if “it is inflicted by any means that is cruel, degrading, or terrifying.” This is a test for what the law will be and who is actually voting for the bill. It is not Helen Clark and the Labour Party voting for a National Party change; it is actually the National Party voting for Sue Bradford’s original bill.

I propose my amendment and look forward to the support of the entire Committee in the spirit of MMP for common sense, for families, and for good lawmaking. Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): The question was that clause 4 stand part. We have a number of amendments before we put the question.

• The question was put that the following amendments in the name of Rodney Hide be agreed to:

to add “and correction” to the heading to new section 59;

to insert “, subject to subsection (4),” after “Every parent of a child and” in new section 59(1);

to add “; or” to new section 59(1)(d);

to add to new section 59(1) the following paragraph:

(e)correction.; and

to omit new sections 59(2) and (3), and substitute the following new sections:

(2)The use of force for a purpose specified in any of paragraphs (a) to (e) of subsection (1) is unreasonable if—

(a)it involves conduct prohibited by an enactment creating a criminal offence, other than an offence under—

(i)section 194 (assault on a child, or by a male on a female); or

(ii)section 196 (common assault); or

(iii)section 9 of the Summary Offences Act 1981 (common assault); or

(b)it causes or contributes materially to harm that is more than transitory and trifling; or

(c)any weapon, tool, or other implement is used; or

(d)it is inflicted by any means that is cruel, degrading, or terrifying.

(3)Subsection (2) does not limit the circumstances in which force used for a purpose specified in any of paragraphs (a) to (e) of subsection (1) might be found to be unreasonable.

(4)Nothing in this section justifies the use of force towards a child in contravention of section 139A of the Education Act 1989.”

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) : I seek some clarification on clause 5, possibly from the member in the chair, Sue Bradford. It is New Zealand First’s understanding that it is just a technical clause that is necessary to make the bill function, and that if it is not approved the bill will not function. It is quite important for New Zealand First to have that confirmed. As the member and the Committee will know, by and large New Zealand First is giving split votes on this bill all the way through, but what we as a party are trying to do is to get the best piece of legislation possible. At the end of the day, come the third reading, we will allow our members a conscience vote and each of us as individuals will make up our minds which way to go, but we want to know whether it is essential that this clause is in the bill, and what it does. We are not fully au fait with what it does. We did not have a member on the Justice and Electoral Committee, and we would appreciate the member giving us just a brief overview, so that we can vote appropriately.

We are pleased to have supported the last amendment to the bill, the one in the name of the Hon Peter Dunne. We would have much preferred Chester Borrows’ amendment; we thought it was far superior.

Rodney Hide: So did I.

PETER BROWN: So did Rodney Hide.

Hon Member: Strange bedfellows!

PETER BROWN: It is a bit unusual, is it not? Some unusual things happen in this place from time to time. But we believe that that amendment to clause 4 has made a significant difference. We do not totally share the view that Rodney expressed. We think it is essential to clarify where the police stand and what is expected of them—not only for the police but for the average, caring parents out there who might, for one reason or another, smack their child for the purpose of correction, and think all hell is going to descend on them. We voted for the amendment to clarify that clause, in the interests of New Zealand having workable legislation.

We now seek some advice from the member in the chair as to exactly what clause 5 does, so we can assess whether we should vote for it or against it. I hope that clarifies our position. I look forward to Sue Bradford explaining briefly what it is all about.

SUE BRADFORD (Green) : I would like to thank Mr Brown from New Zealand First for his inquiry. I think it is great that he really wants to understand what he is voting on here tonight. Of course, some members did not have the advantage of sitting on the Justice and Electoral Committee, which looked in detail at the bill.

The purpose of this clause is to correct an anomaly that would be left if we did not pass it, in that when the law changed in 1989 and removed the ability for teachers to administer corporal punishment in schools, because of the current section 59 of the Crimes Act it was left in there that the parent or guardian of a child could still come into a school and punish the child in the school. This anomaly has meant, for example, that although some of the Christian schools, such as Tyndale Park Christian School, Carey Baptist College, Wainuiōmata Christian College, and some others, I think at times have had a practice—and still do—of having teachers administer corporal punishment inside the school, which is totally outside the law, in some cases they still have a practice of calling parents in to administer physical punishment within the school for infractions of the school rules.

I am certainly committed to seeing that anomaly rectified. We would like all children at schools in this country to receive the same protection in the law and to have the same right to be free of violence when they are at school. It is absolutely essential to this legislation that we get rid of this anomaly, which we see as a totally repugnant practice, by putting forward this clause here. Otherwise, we would be left with a very strange little situation whereby parents could come into a school, use physical punishment, and have the defence of reasonable force. I hope this explanation is enough to satisfy members’ understanding of this provision.

The CHAIRPERSON: There were two amendments to clause 5, but only one is left as the amendment put forward by Mr Borrows has been withdrawn. The amendment from Rodney Hide to omit the clause is ruled out of order.

ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) : I rise to take a very quick call and speak to this amendment from Minister Benson-Pope. National will be supporting the amendment. Earlier today we had speeches about our leader, John Key, and the Prime Minister, and Sue Bradford brokering an agreement that parked politics to one side and negotiated a deal that although some of us might think is less than perfect, is at least a better option for New Zealand parents.

It is clear that prior to today many New Zealand parents were unsure of how what was proposed by Sue Bradford would work. Many debates in this House made it clear that MPs were unsure how the bill as proposed, and as proposed to be amended, would work, and I am clear in my own mind that come tomorrow many New Zealand parents will still be unclear how this bill will work. I have no doubt there are MPs in the Chamber tonight who share those feelings. So it is appropriate that we build in to what we pass tonight and in 2 weeks’ time an opportunity to have a review of how the bill is actually working.

We have reached an agreement that provides some protection in the law itself for New Zealand parents from being prosecuted by the police, but this bill does not contain anything that will provide protection from investigations that may follow from Child, Youth and Family. I guess that the fear of many good parents is that if they are reported to the police and are not prosecuted, the police will advise Child, Youth and Family and that agency will bring an investigation down upon the parents’ heads. That is something we will have to watch and see. I know from the work I have done in the past with Sue Bradford that it is not something she wishes upon good New Zealand parents, either. This amendment that the Minister has put in will allow us to give the bill, when it becomes an Act, a reasonable amount of time to be put into practice. We will actually see how it works in practice, do a full review, and report back to this Parliament, so that we can judge whether in fact we need to do any fine-tuning to give protection to good parents, who are doing a very difficult job.

I speak on behalf of National members, who will be supporting this amendment.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister of Energy) : One of the issues that might be reviewed is the concern expressed by Mr Copeland, who is a gentleman in this Parliament whose opinion I respect, that the effect of this legislation will be to prevent parents from uplifting their children and putting them in another room to have time out. I disagree with the member as to his interpretation of the legislation, and I think when the legislation falls to be reviewed in future years his interpretation will be shown to be incorrect.

In my opinion it is clear that the nature of many different relationships implies a level of physical contact that does not amount to an assault. I will give just two examples of that that I think prove the point. Firstly, when people go out on to a sporting field, they have far higher levels of physical contact tackling each other in rugby or hitting each other with cricket balls than the level of physical contact applied when a parent removes a child from a room. Yet no one suggests that the act of tackling in rugby is a technical assault. It is not; it is actually a level of physical contact for which consent is implied from the conduct. That is the sort of thing the chief executive will look at when reviewing this legislation, because if it were to be wrong it would be reviewed.

I suggest to Mr Copeland another illustration, which is slapping a friend on the back. Again, that is not an assault; that level of physical conduct is permitted in a relationship. I think the courts would find it very easy—even apart from the discretion the police have not to prosecute—to find that the level of physical contact a parent might have removing a child is actually an acceptable level of physical contact, and would not amount to a technical assault. So I am quite confident that if that did become an issue—and I do not think it will—section 6 would prove a means to resolve it. Thank you.

PETER BROWN (Deputy Leader—NZ First) : Well, I hate to put the member who has just resumed his seat ill at ease, but I can tell the honourable member that it has been just the case in premier league soccer that there was a tackle, and there has been a court case. Indeed, there have been some serious accidents on the soccer pitch, where it has been contemplated on more than one occasion that there has been an assault. I do not want to give the member any ideas, because the Government might move down that direction, but it is not true to say, by any means, that a tackle on a football pitch—a soccer pitch in particular—does not from time to time end up with an assault charge made against the tackler.

New Zealand First will again record a split vote on this clause, but to my mind this is an exceedingly important clause—exceedingly important. Personally, I have to say I do not think we have got this bill right. I do not think we have got the issues the way the general public want them. I think we have made a huge step forward tonight; we have clarified the police role in the issue and I think that will be a help. But I, for one, have not made up my mind whether I will support the third reading. I am going to see how the public react and what the polls say about this, because I think we could have done a better job. This clause gives Parliament the opportunity and, dare I say it, we do not have to wait for Mr John Key to be Prime Minister as he alluded to tonight—

Mark Blumsky: Won’t be that long.

PETER BROWN: Well, he might well be there, but with this clause we are not depending on his being the Prime Minister before we have a constructive look at what this bill will do when it is an Act. So, to my mind, it is important. Some of my colleagues in New Zealand First do not share that view; they do not believe in reviewing an Act. But I think in Parliament we should do more of it. I think it is particularly important with this bill, because it is a controversial bill. To my mind this is the sort of bill that should go to public referendum. This is not a bill on which the 121 of us in this Parliament should totally decide the outcome. I believe that this is the sort of bill that the public could easily be allowed to have a say on by way of binding referendum. But we have chosen not to do that and we are now faced with passing legislation that may or may not work. ]

As I have said, I have reservations about it working the way people say it is going to work. I have some real reservations. I noticed that on Close Up tonight the member Sue Bradford was challenged by Simon Barnett. I have to say that Simon Barnett made a lot of sense to me—a good deal more sense than the MPs there. The member was challenged as to whether she would resign if a parent was singled out by police and prosecuted. She did not answer that. Maybe she would like to answer that now, because I was glued to the TV; I thought I was going to hear the answer to that question. If, under this legislation that is about to be passed, or to be passed in the next 2 weeks, there is a parent—a caring parent, not one who abuses his or her children—who inadvertently or for some reason smacks for the purpose of correction, if that parent is prosecuted and ends up facing some sort of judicial or embarrassing court action, will the member resign? That is what we are saying tonight is not going to happen. I have my doubts as to whether we have done enough to protect caring parents.

Rodney Hide: Well, this member’s voting for it.

PETER BROWN: No, this member is not voting for it. [Interruption] No, I have made that quite clear, Mr Hide, that New Zealand First members are reserving our decision. Two of our members will certainly be voting for it, but the other five are waiting a fortnight.

Rodney Hide: If you vote for it, will you resign?

PETER BROWN: I say to Rodney that he never ceases to amaze me with his daft questions. I want to get back to being a little bit more serious, because this is a darn good clause. It is an essential clause, in my view. It gives Parliament the opportunity to take a really good look at the way this legislation, after it is passed, operates, and I hope this clause gets through. As I say, New Zealand First members are split on it but we will vote with, I think, a majority for it. But I believe this serves a very good purpose and I would personally like to see many more bills of this nature having review-type clauses inserted in them. I congratulate the Hon David Benson-Pope on putting this forward. I think it is a positive move. As I say, I for one will be supporting it.

GORDON COPELAND (United Future) : The United Future members will be voting in support of Minister David Benson-Pope’s amendment. We think it is vitally important that we review the application of the law in the not too distant future, because there is a real possibility that the practice of what happens over the next few years will actually be—if you like—the proof of the pudding, which is in the eating, so to speak. With the wisdom of that actual lived-out experience, I think it is very, very important that we commit ourselves to come back and review the matter.

I want to comment briefly on the comments of the Hon David Parker in relation to questions around assault. I respect his views, and he is a lawyer. But I want to respond, not in my words but in the words of two justices in New Zealand. The first one is the Hon Justice Wylie who, in 1989, said: “It is well known that assault does not require such a powerful action. A mere touching can amount to an assault. A pat on the bottom or a kiss can be an assault. The mere brushing of some part of a person’s body can be an assault.” So that really refutes David Parker’s comments. Then Justice Fisher in 1991 had this to say: “It is trite law that the amount of force used is immaterial. To kiss or touch a person against her will is an assault.” I am sure every female in the country would agree that such inappropriate touching—particularly from a male—would, in her view, constitute an assault and I am very, very conscious of that.

But I want to go back to my real point about why I wanted, for the avoidance of doubt, to see Parliament clearly state that taking a child to time out and so forth is not a criminal offence. Before I do that, I just point out again to David Parker that one of the arguments that the proponents of this bill use is that the law in New Zealand should be the same for children as it is for adults. That has been one of the central planks that has been repeated over and over again. If I were to lift up Sue Bradford tonight and take her to a naughty mat, that would be an assault—OK? Are we agreed on that? That would constitute an assault, and I would expect the police to be here very quickly. I would expect to be in the court, to be convicted, and to end up in the can. That just goes to illustrate that when we are dealing with adults rather than children, the realities are different. We do not actually wipe the bottoms of adults. We do not actually feed adults grated vegetables. There are many, many differences between the relationship of a parent to a child and that between adults. I think any person in New Zealand with any modicum of common sense knows that to be true. So that argument is just overly simplistic.

But my real worry, as I said—and we need to test this out in the next 2 years—is that in this legislation time out and the use of a naughty mat constitute criminal acts. That is what the law says. If I could quote the Hon Phil Goff in the context of the prostitution legislation, he stated as follows: “If this Parliament passes a law and at the same time decides we are not going to enforce the law, we are guilty of severe hypocrisy.” Those were Phil Goff’s words. That is exactly what we are doing in respect of time out and naughty mat activity. Therefore, because those activities are technically an assault under this bill, parenting organisations say to me that they cannot morally encourage parents to use time out and naughty mat activity, because in doing that, whether technically or not, they are breaking the law.

The fact is that most New Zealanders want to live their lives and discipline their children within the law. From that point of view, the whole question of prosecution is irrelevant. If I go into a supermarket, take a packet of chocolate peanuts off the shelf, and walk out without paying for them, I may not be prosecuted but I have broken the law. For me, morally, that is important. I live my life endeavouring not to break the law of New Zealand—as do most New Zealanders.

I think this review is important, and I think all of us in Parliament should support it.

RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) : The ACT Party rises to support the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 107, too, because we should be reviewing legislation. I accept Mr Peter Brown’s point that we pass laws in this Parliament, then forget about them, and those laws lie there for years and years. It would seem to me to be a matter of good sense that we should review what we do, particularly when we have a bill like this, which has been controversial as to its effect and its operation.

So here we are, passing this legislation, and setting down a timetable for its review. Of course, social mores would have changed by the time of the review—for the better, I am sure—so the bill could be assessed probably more dispassionately than it can be at this stage. In fact, I would like to go further. Is it not odd that we do not always do this? What else do we do in life that we do not go back and review? Parliament makes laws and can change laws. It can amend laws and render them redundant. Everything we do in life that we have the opportunity to change and review, obviously we do so, because not to do so is to be foolish. Circumstances change, understandings change, and the facts of the matter can change. It has always perplexed me that we do not review laws. We are constantly reviewing anything we do in a business, or in running our own house, or in running our own life. That is what it is to be human; we get feedback all the time, and say: “Oh, I didn’t know that’s how that worked. I didn’t understand that. In that case I’ll make this slight adjustment and I’ll do this differently.”

It is also very important when we are setting ourselves goals to review our progress and to see whether what we are doing is achieving the goal. If we are looking at legislation such as this, we see that it very clearly has a social goal that people want to achieve. I have to say, in listening to the debate, there is some dispute about what that goal actually is, and I am sure that when there is a review, maybe it too can be better clarified. But, again, is that not what we do in life? For example, I may be trying to do X, and I am doing Y to get to X. After a while I will look at Y and ask whether I am heading in the right direction. By the way, if the Labour Government did a bit more of that, there would be a bit more humility and a bit better policy-making, because it seems to me that Labour passes things because they sound good, and to hang with the consequences, and to hang with the result.

I think that what we have here is a model for how we should be treating all legislation. Legislation should be subject to review against the original goals that we are striving to achieve. It should be subject to review against the circumstances within which we find ourselves. It should be subject to some feedback in terms of what is happening operationally. Let us be honest in Parliament: whenever we have an inquiry or an investigation into something, we are always a bit astonished at what we learn. I make the point that members should not worry: help is on the way. With my Regulatory Responsibility Bill, a mechanism would be established for review of all legislation, which would make it more rational and more subject to feedback and common sense.

So the ACT Party will be voting for this Supplementary Order Paper but not for this bill. Thank you.

RON MARK (NZ First) : I am not too sure. I have sat and listened to much of this debate, and I have wondered about the direction we are going in. I have to say that probably the most common-sense speech I have heard in this Chamber tonight came from Heather Roy in the ACT party. I wonder on occasion about how it must have felt to be that little boy who was watching the parade go by and who was brave enough to stand up to say that the emperor had no clothes on. I know that that story was recounted last night, but it is a very appropriate story to use right now, because that is what I see.

I hear a lot of fine words about leadership and demonstrating leadership, but it occurred to me that only one person was on the top of Mount Everest—there were not 121; there was one. Leadership is not often demonstrated by the masses. [Interruption] Well, there were two on the top of Mount Everest. There was Tenzing, as well—in fact, he was the first one up there. But there certainly were not 50 billion up there. There were not 2 million, or 4 million, or 121, were there? I say to Nandor that it was a very small minority.

Rodney Hide: That’s just like the ACT party.

RON MARK: Just like the ACT party right now.

Sometimes, every now and then, one gets the feeling that the lemmings are following each other over the cliff and into the abyss, because they are all hailing the leading lemming and saying: “That lemming knows where we’re going and that lemming knows what we should be doing, and we are the lemmings who all aspire to be Ministers in future, so we will follow that lead lemming because we want to be Ministers, and we certainly don’t want to be out of touch with our leader.” This amendment, which I will vote for and which will provide for a review, is as much about having a review of the Key amendment and the entire legislation as it is about anything else.

I supported Chester Borrows’ amendment.

Rodney Hide: It was a good amendment.

RON MARK: I thought it was a great amendment. I thought it at least gave the policemen and policewomen out there, who were charged with the responsibility of maintaining security and peace on our streets, some guidelines they could work within.

This Key amendment was designed around popularity and proving oneself as prime ministerial material, which Labour will regret. I have already had reports come in to me that Labour has just lost the next election. I spoke to a couple of Labour members over the dinner break, and I spoke to a couple of National members. Let me assure the Committee and let it be on the record that there are Labour MPs who are gutted. There are Labour MPs who believe that this has just cost them the election, because they have just handed John Key the lead seat. They have just allowed John Key to demonstrate to the entire population that he is a statesman and that he is able to knit together the grand coalition, which demonstrates quite clearly—

Russell Fairbrother: You don’t believe that.

RON MARK: Mr Fairbrother is the man who said that a murderer was a subject of colonisation after he had rammed down a lady who was jogging in the streets.

Russell Fairbrother: You don’t believe that.

RON MARK: I do believe that. Sadly, I believe that John Key has just trumped Labour beautifully, and Labour has allowed it to happen. The beauty and the sadness is that Labour MPs inside their own caucus fought for an amendment some time ago, and other Labour members like Steve Chadwick said that, no, the bill would not be touched or amended in any way, shape, or form. Well, guess what? I say to Steve that the bill has just been amended. That makes the bill no different from the existing legislation, which pleases me.

So I will vote for this amendment, but I will not vote for the bill itself, because it is a nonsense to pass a law that contains within it a clause that says that the law should not be enforced. I have just watched Mr Howard Broad on TV. The red blushes on his neck, his cheek, and his forehead said it all. When he said that this amendment had just lowered the threshold, and that it would be up to the courts to determine what is inconsequential, that proved to me what I feared to be the case: it will now require some New Zealanders to be charged by the police, for their cases to be tested in court, and for the judiciary now to decide what is consequential and what is inconsequential. That proved to me, right there and then on TV3, that this amendment is a nonsense.

I will vote for this amendment so as to have a review. I will not vote for the bill. I look forward to the review, and if that means that I am the only one standing out there on my own alongside Rodney Hide, Heather Roy, and Gordon Copeland, then let that be put on the record—because we are not lemmings.

• The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 102 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope to add new clause 6 be agreed to.

MARK BLUMSKY (National) : Does it not show the colour and magic of the mix of Parliament when, in relation to the bill we have just been listening to, this member has received in the order of 7,860 emails and the debate has taken many, many days, yet, in relation to the bill we are about to debate, the member has had two emails and this will go to regulation. The interesting part about that comment is that this bill is just as important to a significant group of people as the bill we have just been debating. The tragedy of that fact is that it would have been nice had this bill gone through the House in time for the Easter that is now long gone. But that was not to be. I hope that the House in its wisdom can make sure that we do not have to have this debate ever again, and will allow those who want to, to open on Easter Sunday and, if allowed, on Good Friday.

I am delighted to stand and speak in support of Jacqui Dean’s member’s bill on Easter Sunday trading. One of the reasons I am very pleased to have the opportunity for this call is that I am probably one of the few true retailers in Parliament. I have been in retailing now since I was 13—just over 30 years. I am sure it is just a bit over 30 years because I started in retail at the age of 13 and am still in it. So I have been in the position of having to leave my door shut when there were people outside that door wanting to come in on Easter Sunday and Good Friday to spend money.

As a small-business owner I can assure members that retailers do work 24/7—or it certainly jolly well feels as if they work 24/7—because when it is their own businesses they work hard. There are many, many people out there who on Easter Sunday and Good Friday actually have money in their wallets and would like to spend it. I must admit that when we keep our doors shut it does guarantee a cleaner shop and it does guarantee tidier shelves. I mean, customers can be a blasted nuisance because they actually do mess up the shop, so keeping our doors shut, in effect, makes a difference in that way, but I can assure members that it makes a horrible difference to the level of turnover. That is the reason for this bill. If people are out there wanting to shop, and if people are out there wanting to spend their money, then owners who want to take that money, and want to open, should be allowed that opportunity, because that is a true win-win.

Speaking to this bill on this particular subject—opening on days currently prohibited—takes me right back to my mayoralty. I stood for the mayoralty of Wellington in 1995 on a platform of four things, and one of those four was, in fact, opening in Wellington on Sundays. In 1995 Wellington City was shut on Sunday. Everyone drove to Queensgate Mall in their thousands. I can assure members now that owning three shoe shops in the City of Wellington and being shut on a Sunday, and having no shoe shops in Queensgate, really did get up my wick. So I stood for the mayoralty on the platform of free parking and opening our stores on Sunday. I was paying rent for 7 days a week. I was paying rent for 52 weeks of the year. I got no respite on my rental. I had no rebate coming my way if my doors were shut or were made to be shut. I should have had that right to open and accept customers.

I go back to the first Sunday I opened. I asked my staff: “Who wants to work?”. Those who said: “Me, me, me!”, got to work on the Sunday, and those who said “No, thanks.”, did not.

Hon Lianne Dalziel: What was the pay rate?

MARK BLUMSKY: Actually, it was double time in those days. They loved it, too. I can tell members that if we want to keep good staff, we have to pay them good money. If someone did not want to work on the Sunday, that person did not have to. If we needed staff, we advertised for staff to work on Sunday, and those who wanted to work on Sunday applied for the positions. All I had to do was train them, and that was a pleasure. The reason for training staff is that there is no point in employing staff in a shop if they do not want to be there. Guess what? If they do not want to be there, they do not serve particularly well. When we have a retail business, we need staff to serve well because that is what it is all about. The shops need to have good service, and they need their staff to be serving very well. There is no point employing staff who do not deliver. Overseas they can employ staff who do not want to be working there, because at the end of the day so many thousands of millions of people are walking past on the street that it does not make a bit of difference. But in New Zealand we do not have enough people. We need people to come back into our stores, so we must have staff working there. If they do not want to work there, we do not want them.

Jacqui Dean’s bill does not force shops to open if they do not want to. Jacqui Dean’s bill does not force staff to work if they do not want to. But the bill does give owners the opportunity to open if they want to, and it does give staff the opportunity to work if they want to. Retailers and many of those who work in tourist hubs are owner-operators, and the stores are their life. I can assure members now that if a person walking past wants to stop and partake of the store’s selection, and leave behind some of the contents of his or her wallet, then why should the owner of that store not be in a position to take some of that money? There is a very significant understanding in retail, learnt from the school of life: if a store is closed on one day, the turnover is not doubled on the next day.

This Parliament must sort out this Easter Sunday trading issue, once and for all, in the next couple of days, otherwise the issue will keep hounding this establishment as it has hounded previous Parliaments. Why should this Parliament sort it out, once and for all? Because the present trading rules around Easter are just not fair, and we do know that. To allow Queenstown to open but not Wānaka, and to allow Taupō to open but not the surrounding areas, is just not fair. It is bad legislation, and it needs to change. If Jacqui Dean’s bill unfortunately fails, then we must make sure that Steve Chadwick’s Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill, the next member’s bill before the House, passes. We must give retailers the opportunity they need and deserve.

In my last 2 minutes I will take the opportunity to acknowledge those who work in retail stores. Many, many owners value their staff. Many, many owners need their staff, and have a wonderful working relationship with them. When we have good staff, we sure as heck want to keep them. The last thing we will do is take advantage of them. There are hundreds of thousands of people, of all ages and colours, working in retail every single day, and thank God they do. Many of them do an outstanding job, because I can tell members that customers can be hard work. Customers can be tough, and they can be rude. Luckily, most of them are not too bad. I take this chance to thank those who work in retail; it is a profession to be proud of. It provides a wonderful opportunity to meet people and to learn a lot about business. Those who work in retail should be proud to be part of an exciting profession.

Finally, I want to take this opportunity to thank both Jacqui Dean and Steve Chadwick for bringing their bills to the House, so that this issue can be settled, and so that some peace of mind can be given to those retailers who want to open during Easter.

STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) : I move, That the Shop Trading Hours Act Repeal (Easter Trading) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. The retailers in Rotorua who were prosecuted when they supported a Jambalaya Festival in 2005 may have to wait until next Easter for the choice to trade. The passing of this bill this year will require a herculean effort of goodwill across the House and may take yet another year to get right. If we had passed this bill prior to Easter, 1 month ago today, some districts would still not have been able to trade under the provisions of this bill, due to the need to consult their communities.

Although this is annoying for us in Rotorua as we feel so frustratingly close to achieving an even playing field, what does one more year mean to us when we have been technically locked out as a community for 17 years? The current muddled legislation has resulted in both unjust and unnecessary constraints on all but 15 geographical locations that have been granted an exemption since 1990 to trade in a mix and muddle of days, locations, and the sorts of products that can be sold. This created an uneven playing field for areas omitted from the schedule of exemptions and froze the ability for locations such as ourselves wishing to trade to apply, because the Shop Trading Hours Commission was disbanded on the passing of the 1990 Act.

As legislators it is our responsibility to ensure that laws are just and necessary. The irregularities created by the geographic exemptions simply mean that some areas can make the most of Easter Sunday trading while others must close their doors. Exclusion of Rotorua continues to irk us. Figures show that guest nights during the Easter period peak in the Rotorua region and, almost without exception, accommodation providers in Rotorua will say that it is their busiest weekend throughout the year. Some will not even accept a booking of less than 3 nights, and in some instances they put a premium price on rooms because demand is so high. Many will be booked 100 percent 3 weeks out from Easter, and 100 percent are completely booked out by the Thursday afternoon before Easter weekend. The visitor numbers increase by 10,000 in commercial accommodation alone and the population of our community swells from 70,000 to 90,000. It is common for there to be no accommodation in Rotorua and many are turned away as far as Hamilton.

Easter in Rotorua is particularly popular for domestic visitors on short breaks visiting friends and family. Event organisers like to hold events in Rotorua on Easter weekend because there are so many people around. No doubt these events draw even more people to the city than there are otherwise. We did not bother to hold an event this year after the 2005 experience. Lincoln University research shows that tourism contributes more than $830 million annually to the Rotorua economy and that one in six of our locals are employed in tourism.

This bill has been endorsed by Local Government New Zealand, the New Zealand Chamber of Commerce, and the Retailers Association. The bill was drafted by the district council after much consideration. I am slightly frustrated to sponsor yet another attempt to fix up the current messy law, which even judges have said is difficult to interpret. The current Act is odd. There are no restrictions on gambling or selling alcohol in cafes or restaurants on Easter Sunday. It is outdated. Petrol stations can open, and now they can sell a far wider range of products than in the 1990s—books, CDs, food, fishing tackle—but other retailers cannot open. It is also patently unfair.

There have been many attempts to amend the anomalies in Easter trading since Katherine O’Regan introduced a bill to fix Easter Sunday trading in 1996. Here we are, 11 years later. I attempted to address Easter Sunday trading in 2003. That bill fixed up trading for Rotorua only, so it was rather parochial, and it was lost by 10 votes.

• Debate interrupted.