MEDIA RELEASE

5 November 2008

Persecution of Parents To Be Investigated by National

Family First NZ is welcoming comments by senior National MP Judith Collins that if elected, National will check whether the anti-smacking law has resulted in needless prosecutions and persecution of parents.

"We have stacks of evidence and testimony that good families have been targeted by this flawed law and that it has failed to deal with actual child abuse," says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. "Families have been referred to CYF by schools, neighbours, members of the public, their children, and even their children's friends for non-abusive smacking. And some families have also undergone police investigation."

"This has caused huge stress and anxiety to families who are simply trying to raise good law-abiding kids in an appropriate way."

"All the records show that police and CYF notifications have sky-rocketed yet there has been no corresponding increase in actual child abuse being discovered or prevented."

"For people like Sue Bradford and Helen Clark to try and argue that it is not an anti-smacking law is to deny the reality of how it is being treated by the authorities, and what their intention was from day one."

Family First NZ has already sent a large file of cases to National leader John Key highlighting good families being persecuted and prosecuted as a result of the flawed law, and will continue to collate evidence of the harmful effects of this law.

"We want the law changed to what National MP Chester Borrows proposed and which would have been supported by a majority of the Parliament had the MP's not been whipped to vote along party lines," says Mr McCoskrie.

ENDS

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