Barnardos in a panic

Yesterday Barnardos Chief Excecutive Murray Edridge put out two media releases on the Section 59 smacking debate. This was after he released an earlier one a day prior that the media would not touch because it breached court orders - orders which he claimed he did not know anything about.

Here's one of them. A referendum?, why the panic? He blasts Family First for having nothing on its website on an upcoming review of the smacking legislation.

Have the petitioners told the general public about the review?... Is there any reference to the review on the Family First website? We couldn’t find any!”

Ummm. It's not Family First's petition. And I couldn`t find anything about the review on the Barnardos website either. Perhaps Barnardos could put on on its site and Family First could link to it.

Edridge says there is no need to be alarmed, or to panic about a referendum. But panicking is what Barnardos is doing right now because the Government is not running the review, the public is. Edridge should have another chat to Sue Bradford. Earlier this week at a function I was at, in fact it was the launch of this Save The Children book called Unreasonable Force, Bradford said that she did not believe that any government would pass a law to revert our smacking legislation to what it was before the smacking bill was passed. So that's sorted. No need to panic.

"Why therefore the haste to have a referendum nine months before that law review is due"? Eldridge asks. It's called democracy. But Eldridge shouldnt worry about it because Bradford said that no Government will turn the clock back. And it was her bill.

And I have the book, written by Beth Wood, former Children's Commissioner Ian Hassall and Robert Ludbrook. It revealed that Peter Dunne and Helen Clark were behind the ban on smacking right from the very start. For that reason you won't find this 2005 discussion on Radio Rhema in the book.

Helen Clark:...a lot of people are uncomfortable with the beating, ah, but they don't want to see, ah, you know, stressed and harassed parents, ah, you know, called in by the police because they, they smacked a child, so I think there's a debate to go on...
Bob McCoskrie: "So you do not want to see smacking banned?"
Helen Clark: "Absolutely not, I think you are trying to defy human nature

But you will find that Helen Clark told the Dominion Post that a smacking ban was welcome as it is about trying to stop the appalling child abuse and child deaths. Then Sue Bradford said, after a few horrific child abuse deaths, that her bill was not intended to reduce child abuse after all. That's in the book too.

BTW there's a full moon today. Annette King will be oontacting the police early tomorrow to discuss the damage.