There was a time when Australians routinely drove without seat belts, smoked inside restaurants and workplaces, and accepted serious workplace injuries as simply \u201cpart of the job\u201d. Each of these practices was once normal. For each, government intervention was resisted. And in each case, as evidence of harm accumulated, communities\u2019 expectations changed and eventually the law changed with them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There is another practice Australia has been much slower to reconsider: hitting children in the name of discipline.<\/p>\n
In 2022, Australia took an important step. For the first time, the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children<\/a> recognised children and young people as victim-survivors in their own right. Such recognition matters. It acknowledges that children have their own experiences of harm, needs and rights to safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet our laws have not kept pace.<\/p>\n Across Australia, various legislative and common law defences continue to allow parents to physically punish their children for the purposes of discipline. The terminology differs between jurisdictions \u2014 \u201creasonable chastisement\u201d, \u201creasonable force\u201d and \u201cdomestic discipline\u201d \u2014 but the underlying principle is the same. An adult can do something to a child in the name of discipline that, if done to another adult, could constitute an assault.<\/p>\n This is an increasingly difficult contradiction to defend. We teach children that violence is not an acceptable way to resolve conflict, and nobody has the right to hurt them. Our laws tell them, as well as their parents, something different.\u00a0<\/p>\n The scale of physical discipline against children\u00a0<\/p>\n This contradiction is not merely theoretical. The 2023 Australian Child Maltreatment Study<\/a> found that child maltreatment is \u201cendemic\u201d in Australia: nearly two-thirds of Australian children experience at least one form of child maltreatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Its findings on corporal punishment<\/a> are striking. Defined as \u201cthe use of physical force to cause pain, but not injury, for the purposes of behavioural discipline or correction (hitting, slapping, pushing and punching)\u201d, almost 6 in 10 young Australians identified as having been victims. And of parents surveyed, over half reported using corporal punishment.\u00a0<\/p>\n The intergenerational links were clear, too. Adults who had experienced corporal punishment themselves were significantly more likely to use it on their own children and more likely to believe it was necessary. As one Children\u2019s Commissioner told us as part of our recent national consultation project<\/a>, resistance often takes the form of: \u201cIt happened to me, and look how I turned out.\u201d<\/p>\n But personal experience is not the appropriate test for public policy. The consequences of corporal punishment are undoubtedly significant. Decades of research finds that victims are more likely to experience mood disorders, internalise problems, suffer from decreased cognitive ability and be aggressive, including perpetrating violence themselves.<\/p>\n The double standard is becoming impossible to justify<\/p>\n In our recent consultation project, commissioned by 54 Reasons<\/a>, which engaged with more than 200 stakeholders \u2014 Children\u2019s Commissioners, sector leaders, researchers, youth advocates and frontline staff \u2014 we sought to identify support for government actions to better address children\u2019s experiences of violence and abuse.<\/p>\n The message to Australian governments was clear: change laws at the state and territory level so physical punishment of children is no longer allowed, while also giving parents and carers better support. One Children\u2019s Commissioner pointedly stated:<\/p>\n No child should be subject to physical abuse or assault \u2026 I\u2019d like to smack you across the face, Premier, but that would be illegal \u2026 so why isn\u2019t it illegal for me to do it to my own child? \u2026 What\u2019s the double standard at play there?<\/p>\n Another stakeholder shared:<\/p>\n It is patently absurd that we continue to make this lawful in this country \u2026 it\u2019s a fundamental breach of dignity and children\u2019s rights \u2026 it continues that culture that permits violence against children \u2026 it\u2019s long past time.<\/p>\n Laws matter. They influence societal norms and set the tone for expected behaviours. When children can legally be hit, violence is condoned.\u00a0<\/p>\n Australia has also ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child<\/a>, which recognises children\u2019s rights to dignity and protection from violence. We are entirely out of step with our obligations under the Convention.<\/p>\n Want the best of Religion & Ethics delivered to your mailbox?<\/p>\n Sign up for our weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n If Australian governments were to repeal defences for corporal punishment, they would hardly be embarking on an unprecedented social experiment. Other countries have long since done precisely this. According to the Parenting and Family Research Alliance<\/a>, who auspice the Ending Physical Punishment of Australian Children<\/a> campaign, beginning with Sweden in 1979 almost 100 countries have ensured, or are in the process of ensuring, that their laws protect children from being physically abused under the guise of discipline.<\/p>\n New Zealand reformed its law in 2007, and Switzerland just last month. Australia is lagging well behind an international movement towards better protection of children.\u00a0<\/p>\n We know what is needed<\/p>\n It\u2019s not as if the case for reform has not been made. Reform has been recommended by the recent South Australian Royal Commission into Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence<\/a>, the Queensland Law Reform Commission<\/a>, the Australian Human Rights Commission<\/a> and, dating back to 2013, the Australian College of Physicians<\/a>. All have either been rejected by governments or remained quietly unimplemented.<\/p>\n The problem is no longer an absence of evidence or reform options. It is the political willingness to act.<\/p>\n Politicians seemingly refuse to intervene as it relates to harms caused by parents to their children, despite the most representative polling<\/a> of the Australian public finding that over 70 per cent of Australian aged 16 and over view corporal punishment as unnecessary, with substantially lower levels of support among younger Australians.<\/p>\n Reform should support parents, not punish them\u00a0<\/p>\n Repealing the defences for corporal punishment should not be regarded as a campaign to criminalise parents. That is not the objective. Rather, the aim is to decrease child victimisation and support safe parenting practices. Where corporal punishment has been banned elsewhere, there is no evidence of subsequent widespread criminalisation of parents.<\/p>\n Our consultation project found strong support for pairing legislative reform with greater support for parents including through parenting programs and a public education campaign. Stakeholders interviewed shared that law reform alone will not be enough. There is a need to build parent\u2019s ability to discipline safely without the use of violence.<\/p>\n A call for political courage and action\u00a0<\/p>\n Laws alone cannot transform family relationships or eliminate violence against children. But they do establish the standards we expect as a society. As with seatbelts, smoke-free environments and workplace safety, law reform can help redraw the boundaries of what society regards as acceptable. The same opportunity exists here.<\/p>\n Australia has already taken the important conceptual step of recognising children as victim-survivors in their own right. The next step is to give that recognition practical meaning.<\/p>\n We cannot credibly tell children that violence against them is unacceptable while maintaining laws that say some violence against them is reasonable. It is time our laws caught up with the evidence, with our stated commitment to children\u2019s rights and with the simple principle that every child has the right to grow up free from violence.<\/p>\n