It's about more than just smacking

I've been sent a very good letter which was sent to the Herald yesterday, which they unfortunately declined to publish:

Could somebody please tell me what banning smacking has to do with environmentalism?

Green Party MP Sue Bradford is about as 'green' as a red pepper. The reality is that the Green Party has been systematically hijacked in order to promote Marxist ideology in a softer, more marketable light.

SR

Amidst a measured piece on the anti smacking Bill (voted through to its first reading last night by 70 to 51), Liberty Scott reminds us that Sue Bradford and her fellow travellers do have a wider agenda here,

and you see it in Childrens’ Commissioner Cindy Kiro – it is the state having a greater and greater role as parent – in funding children, regulating children, regulating and funding their health and education, media, housing.

As I said yesterday, she is intent on removing parents' hands from their own children; and equally intent on the state getting their hands on them. Let me remind you of Kiro's enthusiastic plans for "our chooldren," which is lessening the influence of parents as parents, and increasing the role of the state as parent -- yes, that's literally the Nanny State. Scott describes as "Orwellian" her

proposal that the state monitor every child from birth religiously to make sure that parents are being good. She has given it a long vapid name (Te Ara Tukutuku Nga Whanaungatanga o Nga Tamariki: Weaving Pathways to Wellbeing) to make it sound so nice and inclusive, instead of "State monitoring of parents and children" which is what it bloody well is. What is even more disturbing is that Sue Bradford is reverting to her communist past in supporting it. Greens liberal? Hardly.

*

Cindy Kiro brought this up before and now she is excited about what is an absolutely terrifying proposal:

"Individual plans, owned by the child and held by the family, will be developed in partnership with children and families and each child would have a named primary professional responsible...

Bob McCoskrie National Director of Family First makes the quite correct point:

Who gets to decide what is best for children? This report is clear; it’s Dr Kiro and the morass of bureaucracy that is going to surround this initiative. It is a licence for ‘professionals’ to interfere in families’ lives when there is no crime and no abuse,” “This would fundamentally alter the relationship between the family and the state

It's a simple message leave good parents alone and stop subsidising bad ones.

And on that last point, Scott has very good policy advice for those honestly opposed to assaults on children: remove future victims and welfare privileges for all those so convicted.

[R]emove those who brutalise and destroy childrens’ lives from being able to receive money [and other benefits] from the state, and from having access to children in the future... Once you have brutally violated another person, you have no right to expect any of the privileges of state, except to be left alone with those who choose to be with you – children don’t count in that.

More details on that line of argument here.

LINKS: Smacking ban - Liberty Scott
Big Sister Cindy 'Stalin' Kiro supported by Stalinist Sue - Liberty Scott (Oct, 2006)

RELATED POSTS ON: NZ Politics, Greens, Law, Smacking