Smacky smacky
I arrived home today to find a flyer in my letterbox. It was soaking wet on account of the rain, so I put it on the heater to dry, and when it was dry I was disgusted to read the question on the front of it: “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence?”.
Reading on, I found that this question was the basis of a Citizens Initiated Referendum: “A Citizens Initiated Referendum gives everyone who is enrolled to vote the opportunity to vote on a specific question. A referendum is held when at least 10% of the people enrolled to vote sign a petition calling for one.”
So how many people is that? 2,356,536* people voted in the election last year, so ten percent would be roughly 235,653* people. Now, I don’t know too much about how these things work, and don’t get me wrong, I’m a great fan of democracy, but can someone tell me how 235,653* New Zealanders agreed that spending tax-payers money on a referendum with such an obviously biased question came about?
In response, I thought I’d come up with a few alternative questions for the referendum. Perhaps someone will start a petition on one of them and we’ll get to do another vote in a few months time. Fun!!
More here: http://yesvote.org.nz/
Alternative questions for the Citizens Initiated Referendum
1: “Is a smack good parental correction?”
2: “Should what goes on behind closed doors stay behind closed doors?”
3: “Should child abuse be stopped at all measures?”
4: “Should a smack as part of bad parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”
5: “Have you, or anyone you know, had any trouble with the anti-smacking law?”
6: “Who decides whether something is good parental correction or not?”
Send further question suggestions here.
UPDATE, 18 June 09: A reader has kindly pointed out that I picked up the wrong statistics somewhere along the line. The actual election turnout in 2008 was 2,356,536 people (rather than the 234,456 I originally had…).