Press Release
For Immediate Distribution

My wife and I understand discipline. We just celebrated 28 years of monogamous marriage in which we committed ourselves to each other til death do us part. During this time we've had 4 children and adopted 4 others. None of these children have ever been to school: we teach them ourselves at home.

All are committed to lives of sobriety, chastity, hard work, respect and productivity. None have ever been on the dole, in jail, slept around, smoked dope, dropped drugs or gone nightclubbing. The 4 oldest have played Representative sport in NZ and travelled and worked overseas.

Among them is a Legal Executive, a Marketing Director for a multi-million dollar book seller in the USA, an RNZAF Avionics Technician and a Highland Dancing instructor. The 5th one, aged 14, almost has enough flying hours to go solo. And even though our single income (working for a charitable trust) has been static at $22,500 for the past nine years, our house, appliances, furniture and all three vehicles are free-hold and we've all travelled overseas several times. Discipline makes all these things possible.

Discipline, training and correction are core parental responsibilities. That includes smacking disobedient and rebellious children, to bring them back into line. Please note: I said smacking, not hitting. The English language has these different words because they mean different things and carry significantly different baggage.

Why do MPs want to prohibit good parents from effectively correcting their children? Why do they want to criminalise smacking because intellectually or ideologically they cannot tell the difference between smacking and hitting? There are hundreds of parents who will not stop smacking if this ridiculous bill passes, just as a recent TVNZ poll demonstrated. Passing this Bill will alienate, threaten and criminalise the best allies any Government could ever have in the pursuit of a peaceful, orderly society: responsible, hands-on parents.

Craig Smith National Director Family Integrity

ENDS

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