Friday Feb 29th,2008

Largest petition collecting exercise in 20 years!

At 11am this morning, Sheryl Savill and Larry Baldock, will deliver two petitions to the Clerk of the House of Parliament. With a combined total of more than 600,000 signatures this will have been the biggest petition collecting exercise in 20 years. The Petition that asks the question, 'Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in NZ?' has obtained 337,893 signatures and will now certainly achieve the goal of securing a referendum.

"It has been a long year", said Larry Baldock Kiwi Party Leader and organiser of two CIR petitions. "It has taken the combined efforts of several thousand Kiwis to achieve today's result and it is hugely satisfying that our combined efforts will not be wasted. Not one but two petitions has been a huge challenge," he said.
"I am humbled and very grateful to everyone who have spent their time collecting and helping us achieve this result.
As far as I am aware this is only the fourth time a CIR petition has been able to gather sufficient signatures since the Act was passed in 1993 and it could not be achieved by one individual or one organisation on their own. This is a sign that ordinary Kiwis all over this country are not as apathetic as claimed, and are now becoming more and more prepared to stand up and make a difference,'" said Mr Baldock

"The threshold which requires the signatures of 10% of those registered on the electoral role (approx 285,000) is clearly too high. I will be announcing the Kiwi Party's policies on Referenda at our Sth Island conference tomorrow in Christchurch. We believe there must be changes to how Parliament passes its laws if we are to avoid the undermining of our democracy any further in the future," he said.

ENDS

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