Passed and failed

As everyone knows by now, Sue Bradford's anti-smacking bill passed its first hurdle, being voted to select committee 65 - 54. I was expecting a straight party-line vote between the progressive faction of Labour, Progressives and Greens vs the regressive faction of everybody else, but in fact there were a couple of surprises. Firstly, the Maori Party supported the bill (contrary to expectation), and secondly, New Zealand First MPs Brian Donnelly and Peter Brown voted for it as well. It's nice to see that they're not all bad (or at least, not all the time).

There will be a real fight in committee over this bill, over whether to better define "reasonable force", to pass it as is, or to dump it completely. If you have a strong opinion, it might pay to start thinking about turning it into a submission.

Meanwhile, the other controversial bill of the day, Ken Shirley's New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control (Nuclear Propulsion Reform) Amendment Bill (which would have allowed nuclear powered ships into our harbours) was voted down, with every party but ACT opposing it. Now that really does bring a smile to my face...