Anti-smacking referendum results

New Zealand recently had a referendum on hitting children, the notorious "Smacking" referendum, which, unfortunately cost nearly $9 M and did absolutely nothing.

The question on the referendum was "Should a smack, as part of good parental correction, be a criminal offence in New Zealand?"
- yes
-no

Well - how can you vote against good parenting? You can't. A normal person would say "No" to this, which was by far the vast result as seen in this "Stuff" article. Nearly 90% said "no" in fact.

That doesn't mean that people are pro-smacking, not at all. It means that the question was loaded and there was no way to answer it sensibly.

Say I answered "yes" - that means that I just said that an aspect of good parenting was illegal.

Who the hell worded this question? What kind of morons are they hiring for the phrasing? I can't believe it got by an editor.

This isn't the only issue with the smacking law, it's meaningless anyway. Child abuse has always been illegal - it hasn't stopped abusive parents in the past!

I'm disappointed that the law was made and that a referendum that cost so much went through (seriously - they could have given the money to me - I would have done something with it - promise), and not only that, it isn't going to change the law anyway, since the referendum doesn't have that power. The prime minister said no to a law change.