Judith Collins MP
National Party Welfare Spokeswoman

15 March 2007

Children's Commissioner should stay out of politics and stick to her day job

The Children's Commissioner, Cindy Kiro, should stop promoting Labour Party propaganda and get on with her main job of dealing with complaints relating to children, and the monitoring of Child Youth and Family, says National's Welfare spokeswoman, Judith Collins.

Ms Collins is commenting after Dr Kiro today issued a press release calling on MPs to 'show resolve and support' Green MP Sue Bradford's anti-smacking bill.

"The Children's Commissioner has the delegated statutory authority to deal with CYF complaints under the Children's Commissioner Act of 2003," says Ms Collins.

"Unfortunately, since Dr Kiro's admission on 21 February that she 'needs to lift (her) game' in this area, she has continued to define her role as the promotion of legislation that will criminalise good parents who give their child a light smack with their hand as a means of correction.

"Dr Kiro has frankly lost the plot.

"She needs to concentrate on the 13,000 children that CYF say are cases of substantiated child abuse and let good parents get on with the job of parenting.

"A light smack on the bottom for correction does not harm a child as Dr Kiro should recall from when she was a parent of young children."

ENDS

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