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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1376 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

So it turned out that perhaps two of the five schools concerned, without evidence of exactly what they do, actually administer corporal punishment.

We then come to the question: What is it we are trying to achieve? Mr Moore's Bill does not deal with biblical rights of parents to discipline their children. It deals with parents' rights to determine whether the school can or cannot hit their children, but biblical rights are not there. I would like to see that argued - take up an argument with God as to whether it is okay or not. Put it in the Bill, but I would like to see that challenged in court: It is a biblical right; God has said so. Maybe God No. 2 here can take Him on, but it is a very interesting case and I would love to see it taken on in court. What is it we are trying to achieve? I do not believe in hitting children, I never have, and I will not uphold the rights of anyone to hit children. All it says is, "I am bigger than you, I am stronger than you, and I can bully you". It is an absolutely ridiculous way to treat young people. It does not achieve anything.

This Bill hits a raw nerve with my colleagues and me because it is completely at odds with how we have moved to remove corporal punishment in schools. It did not come about by legislation; it came about after vigorous debate. There is no question about that. There are very strong opinions about corporal punishment, and there were. A firm decision was made after long discussions based on principle, with people gradually changing their minds. It did not come about by legislation. It is completely at odds, and again it hit a raw nerve, with everything we have ever heard from Mr Moore. This man is a man of principle who says prohibition does not work. This is what we hear from him consistently.

I would have thought that was a life principle that then drove everything, and to apply prohibition to two schools that are at odds with the rest of us is to apply the sort of control he does not like to exercise on anyone else. If prohibition works, then prohibit all drugs, Mr Moore, and stick with your consistency. Why are we prohibiting this when everybody else has moved to it through education, through agreement in society, through cooperation, through coming to an understanding of the basic principle that bullying children does not get us anywhere? We have two schools at odds with this; that is all.

I am not arguing in any forum for this, and I never have; and I have clashed with many people who think I am wrong. I will argue forever that it is wrong to hit children. I will argue forever that it is wrong to take heroin, but I accept Mr Moore's line that prohibition does not work. Why does it suddenly work here? That is where it hit a raw nerve. Mr Moore can explain it however he likes; but he has opened up a major inconsistency in my head, and it raises the question of his credibility about prohibition not working on other things.

This has been tested. We have not had prohibition on corporal punishment by legislation, and the vast majority of educators and, I would suspect, the vast majority of parents have given up their biblical rights to punish children and have decided that other things may work a little better. It did not come about by legislative change; it came about by progressive forces in society debating and coming to an agreement that they would accept it. Eventually, of course, the Schools Authority did put in rules, and the systemic Catholic system has the same rules.

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