March 2007 - Deborah Morris-Travers

On 1 March Every Child Counts hosted a huge event on parliament grounds. 1000 children from all over the Wellington region came together with Members of Parliament, parents, teachers, grandparents and community groups in a huge Celebration of Children.

The entertainment included music and dancing, fairies, clowns, stilt walkers, face painting, meeting SPCA animals, a display by the fire service, a bouncy castle, making clocks to remind people to give children time, writing messages for Members of Parliament, playing with bubbles ... and all sorts of other fun.

We had two great MCs for the day: Suzy Cato from children's television, and Meyer Peteli a youth leader from Porirua. We also had some great sponsorship support from The Body Shop, The Families Commission, the Office of the Children's Commissioner, and many others. One of the highlights for the children was receiving crunchy apples from Merven - the mascot for Mission On - the anti-obesity initiative.

A panel of MPs was brave enough to line up to be questioned by children and young people and following their performance they were presented with Every Child Counts clocks to remind them of the need to factor children into everything they do.

The event made television news on both channels that night, and featured in print media around the country too. We received good feedback from MPs too, who welcomed the energy and inspiration the event brought to parliament and the way it brought children's issues to the fore.

Following the event there was a huge amount of paperwork to do - along with the thank you letters there were bills to pay!

As the month went on and political debate about section 59 of the Crimes Act heated up I was called on to assist the campaign to amend section 59. Currently, section 59 provides a defence that has allowed some parents to be acquitted even though they have seriously assaulted their children.

One of the Every Child Counts is to reduce child abuse so I am pleased to be working on a measure with potential to significantly change attitudes about children and how we parent them.

There is a large body of evidence illustrating that the majority of child abuse cases come about in the context of parents punishing the child¹ and that physical punishment has been shown to contribute to a range of negative outcomes. It seems bizarre that so many people would publicly celebrate the fact that they hit their children, and that anybody would want to keep a law that is so obviously in conflict with the evidence.

So, on 28 March I brought together a group of high profile New Zealanders prepared to publicly state their support for law change and call for New Zealand children to be better protected in the law and in every encounter we have with them. They celebrities came together in the Auckland City Council Chambers and put their hand prints and signatures onto a banner called "Hands up for Change." The banner was presented to MPs the same day.

In addition to this work, I have completed the preparation of the Every Child Counts case for funding support and have lodged some more funding applications.

And there's plenty more to be done!

1. Joan Durrant, International Perspectives on Discipline, pp12-17

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