JSPES, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Summer 2011)
pp. 197-217

The State versus Parental Authority

K R Bolton

Paraparaumu Beach, New Zealand

In 2006 one of the most contentious Bills to be introduced into the New Zealand Parliament was the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill that was intended to eliminate Section 59 of the Crimes Act that allowed the use of “reasonable force” by a parent or guardian when correcting a child. Despite a wide outcry against the Bill, critics were condemned as apologists for child abuse, and for regressive disciplinary techniques that had long since been disproved, and the Bill passed into law in 2007. This article examines the Trotskyite ideology behind the destruction of the traditional family, citing a so-called “anti-smacking Bill” in New Zealand as an example of widely pervasive, Trotskyite ideology in action, the effect, if not the aim, of which it is to place the state firmly above the family, and to weaken the family as a basic social institution and potential opponent of over-weaning state control.