I always like a good political debate, especially when it’s bitching about wording, so I’m enjoying the current discussion around New Zealand’s latest referendum.
The short version of the story is that a couple of years ago, lawmakers decided to close a loophole in the Crimes Act that allowed the use of ‘reasonable force’ against children, which had been used a number of times to acquit people accused of abusing children. The public became concerned that a disciplinary smack by caring parents would become a criminal act. So an expensive and non-binding citizen’s initiated referendum is about to get underway.
Here’s the thing. The question for the referendum is “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” I love this. It’s a great example of how wording can skew public opinion to satisfy a particular agenda; namely, the agenda of those who see the government as attempting to interfere in their parenting methods.
Careful crafting ensures that the maximum number of people who bother to vote will do so with a ‘nay’ – but it’s no gauge of public opinion. If NZers were asked, “should parents in New Zealand be allowed to beat their children without recrimination?” you’d still get the same result. It doesn’t mean that people agree with parents smacking children or not, and misses the point of the loophole being closed in the first place.
What this question fails to define is what constitutes a smack and what constitutes good parental correction, not to mention how serious a criminal offence such a smack would be. In other words, the question raises more questions than it answers.
And if you look at the question hard enough, is it the parents doing the correcting, or is the smack part of correcting our parents? That’s a whole new referendum.
