MEDIA RELEASE
23 August 2009
Cabinet Ministers Urged To Speak Up
Family First NZ is urging senior Cabinet ministers to speak up at tomorrow’s cabinet meeting and demand that the
anti-smacking law be amended in accordance with the clear message of the Referendum.
“Senior Cabinet Minister Nick Smith is quoted in the Nelson Daily Mail yesterday as saying ‘I always thought the
previous wording in the law, allowing parents to use reasonable force to discipline a child, needed reform, but the
message from this referendum is the change went too far.’”
“He is exactly right and we are asking him to battle for families in Cabinet tomorrow,” says Bob McCoskrie, National
Director of Family First NZ.
“Other members of Cabinet, while in Opposition, told us that they wanted the Referendum to succeed and even asked for
petition forms to distribute to collect signatures forcing a Referendum.”
“Tinkering with how a law is to be enforced as may be proposed by John Key is not what voters asked for. The law must be
clear for parents – they deserve certainty in knowing that they are parenting within the law. The clear mandate is to
decriminalise the act of a light smack.”
“That was the intention of National MP Chester Borrow’s amendment which virtually every National MP ferociously lobbied
for until the ill-fated agreement between Helen Clark and John Key.”
“We are calling for Cabinet Ministers to demand a collective response to this important issue in accordance with what
they have always believed on this issue, and to respect the voters who elected them to represent them,” says Mr
McCoskrie.
ENDS