The Child Discipline Referendum
AUTHOR: Peter Dunne
The farce surrounding the child discipline law citizens initiated referendum threatens to bring the whole referendum process into disrepute.
I think citizens initiated referenda are a good idea as either a safety valve for community feeling on a particular issue, or as a way of testing public feeling on a matter that falls outside the normal pattern of political debate.
But to be credible, the questions posed have to be impartial, not loaded. And our record to date in this regard has been woeful. The very first CIR (which about 88% of those bothering to vote supported) asked that the numbers of professional fire fighters not be reduced. What it really meant was that the then government’s fire service restructuring programme be stopped. At the end of the process, not only did the restructuring proceed as planned, but the number of professional fire fighters actually increased by about three, thus meeting the referendum’s request, but clearly not the intent of those behind it. I know, because I was the Minister responsible at the time.
Similarly, the famous law and order CIR that accompanied the 1999 election and received about 94% support was equally vague in its wording. It was almost impossible to oppose tougher sentences for violent offenders, although the referendum did not spell what these should be, thus again leaving the government of the day able to argue that a very modest lift in sentences meant the referendum’s message was being honoured, while the organisers were left saying the government had not gone far enough, and thereby breached the referendum decision.
The current child discipline CIR falls into precisely the same traps. Not only is its wording as vague and meaningless as the wording of the earlier CIRs, but the motives of its promoters are at variance with the stated intent of the referendum. This is not about protecting “good” parents from being criminalised, but all about promoting a very narrow, fundamentalist agenda based on the Old Testament injunction that to spare the rod is to spoil the child, and that “loving” physical discipline is therefore something to be encouraged, not abolished. That view is thankfully a million miles away from the views of the majority of sensible New Zealanders, regardless of whether they support the current child discipline law, so the outcome is likely once again to be confusing and unsatisfactory.
What needs to happen to tidy up this shambles is that the process for approving the wording of referenda needs to be tightened to ensure the question put before voters is intelligible, unambiguous, and capable of providing a clear message to Parliament. In this case, the question should simply have been “Do you support the current law on child discipline?” Anything less specific than that is a meaningless waste of time, and $9 million that could be better spent on parenting programmes.