What am I missing....

I am not any kind of authority on the whole 'anti-smacking' laws. But I know that 'yes' was the right answer and that the vast majority of voters did not say 'yes' (hard to know how many people abstained because it was a ridiculously worded question that over-simplified the matter and was emotively loaded to lead people towards 'no').

So I am very surprised to hear that John Key says he won't change the law, but will just make changes to instructions on how to carry it out, or something to that effect.

To me, a very left-wing voter, that seems the sensible thing to do. He is even going against what a lot of his National cabinet want to do. Brave man. He is making a mockery of a $9million campaign - he does not like to waste money on anything but MP perks, I thought.

So.... what's the catch?

I have been conditioned to expect him to do the opposite of what I think is sound and moral..... I can't see what he's getting out of this move.

I feel cheap and dirty actually agreeing with him on something. I know there is some evil capitalist motive behind it somewhere! Can anyone point it out to me?

Update: maybe Key is just recognising the big economic cost of child abuse (see Stuff article). That makes sense. Child abuse = cost. Cost = bad.

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As an aside, I heard a sound-bite from him on the radio and I cringed through the whole thing. He is in serious need of elocution lessons! Helen had a 'distinctive' voice, but at least she pronounced her consonants correctly.

* * *

Schools are becoming so dangerous some teachers are doing lunch duty in pairs or
taking walkie-talkies with them - and their union is now calling for social
workers, truancy officers or even police to step in instead.

So says Stuff.

While I have no doubt there are schools out there like that, mine certainly isn't one of them.

The worst I've had to do on duty is ask kids to not play with their volleyball in the quad (and yes I did run around ridiculously trying to get it off them, because they refused to give it to me...). Or ask them to pick up rubbish, or not stand on desks.

The other day I intercepted what may or may not have come to a fight between girls in my class. There were no punches exchanged, but some nasty words and intimidation. I marched them to the DP's office and it was dealt with fairly swiftly and with consequences and parent meetings.

In short, my school is pretty sweet to teach at.

I am every so slightly jealous of people who get to take walkie-talkies with them on duty. You'd have to wear big aviator glasses as well, so you felt like you were on some cheesy cop show.

Maybe the real answer is to widen the introduction of supervised bull-rush at lunch-time.