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Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Proof You Don't Have To Be Smart To Be a Judge (Or an "Expert")

From today's Herald Hat Tip Lindsay Mitchell

Parents should sit licence test, say experts

A high-powered expert group has proposed a kind of "parents' licence test" which all parents would have to sit to keep care of their children and to receive child-related welfare benefits.

The proposed assessment, similar to a driver's licence, would be administered when a baby was born and repeated when the child turned 1, 3, 5, 8, 11 and 14.

Parents found to have "risk factors" for child abuse, such as domestic violence, drug and alcohol problems or mental illness, would be offered help.

Judge Graeme MacCormick, a former Family Court judge who initiated the proposal, told a seminar in Auckland yesterday that parents who refused to accept help, or to be assessed, should have their child-related benefits suspended and possibly lose their children.

"There need to be sanctions for failure to provide the assessments or for failure to engage adequately with the support organisation," he said.

"I would suggest suspension of any child-related benefit and immediate referral to Child, Youth and Family Services with a view to possible alternative placement"

New Zeal This piece of cretinism should send shivers up the spine of every decent parent in the land.

Because a tiny minority of mainly welfare beneficiaries and criminals, abuse their kids, Judge MacCormick, thinks the answer is to give the state the right to dictate how decent people bring up their kids.

Raising children is so damn important that the dead hand of the state should be allowed no role whatsoever. Immunisation, discipline, education, sex education, religious or philosophical instruction are all areas where opinion diverges tremendously.

That diversity is healthy. Progress and general improvement come about through allowing people the freedom to be creative, to try new ways of doing things. The state in its wisdom, will try to make all families fit the "right" model. A recipe for real child abuse if ever their was one.

Some parents do a great job, some do less well, but as long as they are acting in good faith and are not physically harming or neglecting their kids, the state should butt right out.

People are scared to lightly smack an errant child in public now, lest CYF turn up on their doorstep to confiscate their kids.

Imagine the state of fear parents would live in if they had to answer to the government and conform to the state's views at every stage of their child's development?

Clearly Judge MacCormick is a socialist/fascist or senile. I will be charitable and assume the latter.

What's the other "experts" excuse?

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Trev,
Think the title to this post is bit harsh. I think it would be more accurate if it read:

"Proof You Don't Have To Be Smart To Be a Family Court Judge (Or an 'Expert')"

Agree with the post though. keep it up.

6:15 PM  

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