1 June 2007

Media Statement: For immediate release

Hell Invites Public To Vote In ‘Who Needs A Good Smack’ Poll

HELL has launched a campaign inviting the public to vote for who they would most like to see get ‘a good smack’ as punishment for their part in the HELLish debate over the repeal of s59 of the Crimes Act.

Colin Mellar, General Manager of HELL said the debate over the bill had at times got extremely virulent and it was good to see that common sense had prevailed in the cross-party agreement to introduce an element of discretion to enforcement a full smacking ban.

“Now that the lunacy is over and parents won’t, apparently, be arrested for light smacking, we thought we’d give New Zealanders a chance to exercise their democratic right to administer a bit of discipline to some of these errant souls,” said Colin Mellar, General Manager, HELL.

Votes can be cast at www.hellpoll.co.nz or by texting the relevant name to 2666. Every vote earns the voter free stuff from HELL and for every prize redeemed during the poll, HELL will donate 50 cents to a charity involved in helping tchildren who are victims of violence.

Colin Mellar said he hoped the personalities selected for the poll would see the humorous side of the poll.

Voters in the poll are asked to cast their votes between pairs of the leading protagonists in the smacking debate:

John Key vs Helen Clark
Keith Quinn vs Paul Holmes
Sue Bradford vs Brian Tamaki
Simon Barnett vs Paul Henry
Tariana Turia vs Jude Dobson

“HELL is, of course, very mindful of the ugly fact that New Zealand has the dubious distinction of having one of one of the highest rates of child abuse and death among OECD countries (third from the bottom – above only the USA and Mexico).

“This HELL Poll, while light-hearted in intent and execution, also has a serious side and that is putting a take in the ground against violence of any sort against our children. We used a previous promotion involving the distribution of condoms to highlight some serious sexual health issues.

“For all that this debate involved, including the expenditure of millions of dollars of taxpayer money in Parliamentary time, officials time and the seemingly endless parade of experts flown into the country, perhaps it is worth noting that there always were adequate tools available to deal with violence against children that results in physical harm,” said Colin Mellar.

“It is completely staggering, for example, that in New Zealand in the 21st century we could have a judge in 2006 accept a defence of reasonable force from a mother who had assaulted her son with a riding crop, regardless of any supposed mitigating factors.”

‘Even more surprising was the lack of public outcry against that judgment.

HELL previously ran a poll in 2005 to find out who most deserved to be labelled with one of the seven original sins. More than 45,000 votes were cast in that poll.

After only a few hours of the smacking poll going live, more than 3000 votes had been cast.

ENDS

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