Hon Roger McClay
Commissioner for Children

Commissioner for Children, Roger McClay, today challenged Parent Centres New Zealand Inc to join forces with Senior New Zealand Citizens to put parenting courses in place in every community.

"If we could have every prospective parent attend some sessions of knowledge enhancement about parenting, it would do much to enhance our very society", he told the Taupo Parents Centre meeting tonight.

Mr McClay said that "the challenges now in the Year 2001 would seem to be to do with the dismantling of old values of family, less certain economic times, jobs, the media and the pace of life".

He said that research showed that effective parenting has a "massive influence on our children" and that "the cycles of dysfunction, abuse and neglect can best be broken by Mums and Dads".

Ends

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>