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Entries Tagged as 'Referendum'

Monday Night: John Boscawen, Bob McCoskrie and Jim Evans on Amending s59

September 4th, 2009 5 Comments

Fresh from Facebook’s “5000 Demanding Anti Smacking Law Change” group is this invitation: ACT MP John Boscawen is holding a series of public debates on the smacking referendum result and how his bill to amend S59 will bring the legislation into line with public opinion. John Boscawen will be holding the first debate in Phil […]

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Dear Mr McCully,

August 26th, 2009 5 Comments

The law criminalises smacking, the best and most faithful reading of the law deems any use of force for the purposes of parental correction criminal; experts in legal interpretation agree on this. The people have objected loudly and all you have done is issue a promise to not enforce the law; a promise that can […]

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Dear Cabinet,

August 24th, 2009 7 Comments

I am a mother of 4; I am currently doing the last few papers of my law degree at Auckland Uni, I voted “no” in the referendum, I voted for you to govern at the last election. I am sure you are getting a lot of emails, however, as you deliberate as to how to […]

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Jim Evans Decisively Smacks John Roughan

August 6th, 2009 11 Comments

On Saturday the NZ Herald’s John Roughan demonstrated why journalists should not engage in legal interpretation in his widely criticised piece on the smacking referendum, “Sinister undertones to referendum instigator.” At the time I struggled to ascertain whether Roughan was being deliberately deceptive or he just didn’t get it. He essentially quoted the non-controversial, much […]

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Just Voted in the Smacking Referendum

July 31st, 2009 9 Comments

Our voting papers for the smacking referendum arrived in this afternoon’s post. Matt managed to make it home just before the post shop closed so our completed ballots are already in the mail on their way back to the Returning Officer. It was easy; no driving, no parking, no queuing, no mucking around with ID. […]

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(dis)Honest to God: How Not to Argue about the Smacking Referendum

July 28th, 2009 73 Comments

Given that yesterday we advertised Dr Glenn Peoples’ upcoming public lectures and because the smacking referendum begins on Saturday, I thought we’d share this article critiquing bad anti-smacking reasoning by Glenn. (dis)Honest to God: How Not to Argue about the Smacking Referendum Ian Harris tells us (“Honest to God,” Dominion Post, [Dominion Post. Saturday July […]

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Fisking Ian Hassall: The Arbitrary Ethical Reasoning on the Smacking Referendum

July 10th, 2009 41 Comments

Recently Dr Ian Hassall gave a presentation, on the upcoming referendum on section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961, entitled: How did we come to have a law that supported hitting children? This presentation defends the thesis that mild physical punishment (smacking) is wrong and should remain illegal in New Zealand. In this post I […]

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