Barnardos New Zealand

17 June 2009

Media release
Let’s get some honesty into the debate

Barnardos New Zealand is calling on Family First to publicise case details of the people they claim have been so negatively affected by the law change on the physical discipline of children.

“In the posturing and innuendo that is leading up to the referendum in July, Bob McCoskrie of Family First, and Larry Baldock of the Kiwi Party, are claiming that parents have been inappropriately criminalised by the new law”, says Murray Edridge, Chief Executive of Barnardos New Zealand.

“Family First have taken full page advertisements in national newspapers, purportedly reporting ‘case studies’ of families that have been treated unfairly, and have been damaged by the actions of Police and Child Youth and Family in response to complaints under the amended law”.

“If the claims of Family First were true, Barnardos would share some of Mr McCoskrie’s concerns about the impact of the law change.  However, in the extensive work Barnardos is doing with children and families throughout the country, we are seeing no evidence of this sort of response and Police statistics are not supporting these claims”, adds Mr Edridge.

So Barnardos is calling on Family First to publish the case details of some of these situations so they can be independently assessed for genuineness and the public can make their own decision as to whether these cases are legitimate – or whether the child discipline law passed two years ago is working exactly as it was intended to.

ENDS

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