The Presbyterian Church of Victoria made an extensive submission to the Victorian Government about its proposed adoption of a human rights charter.
The Melbourne tabloid Herald Sun picked up the report’s support for parental corporal punishment and ran with it.
Here’s their editorial comment ‘A question of punishment’.
TO punish or not to punish – it is the question that arises again with the news a major church is standing up for the right of parents to smack their children.
As reported in the Herald Sun today, the Presbyterian Church fears that parents could be stopped from using corporal punishment on their children under Victoria’s Human Rights Charter.
But stopped by whom? And at what point has the State the right to step in and meddle in a family’s affairs?
The controversial charter, introduced by the Labor government in 2006, has been described as a lawyers’ picnic, already costing taxpayers millions of dollars in legal costs as bureaucracy tries to define its vague and open-ended powers.
The section dealing with children says: “Every child has the right, without discrimination,to such protection as is his or her best interests and is needed by him or her by reason of being a child.”
The new Attorney-General, Robert Clark, has ordered a parliamentary inquiry into the charter to try to sort out the muddle.
In its submission, the Presbyterians say that the International Committee on the Rights of the Child is pushing for Australia to outlaw corporal punishment at home.
Yet many Australians would agree with the church that families – not government – should be allowed to use their own good sense when raising children and that reasonable physical discipline, such as a small smack, can be administered from time to time.
However, wise parents know that kisses, cuddles and kindness can go so much further in a child’s successful upbringing.
This is the paper’s general report on the issue.Church opposes ban on smacking
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