I recently picked up my 15-year-old daughter from her friend’s house. She told me that the younger sister of one of the girls had been caught drinking by her parents.

The girls had asked about the punishment – ‘Was she grounded?’, ‘Did she lose her phone?’

‘No’ was the reply.

Another girl gasped, ‘Was she hit?’ And then, my daughter explained, there was silence.

As she began to express her outrage, I interrupted her with the truth. In every state and territory in Australia, parents can hit their children and it’s lawful. More silence.

Worse still, rather than advocating for the abolition of physical punishment, we have political candidates like Margie Ryder from  Katter’s Australian Party validating the practice; she said last month, ‘Some kids need a smack, a kick up the arse, a ruler or even a hug’.

Poor company

Such sentiments place us in the company of Trumpmaniacs.

The conservative US commentator Tucker Carlson was speaking at a Trump rally in October about an angry father who ‘comes home and he’s p-ssed’.

He’s annoyed at his 15-year-old daughter who has flipped off her parents and stormed to her room. Carlson threatens, ‘You’ve been a bad girl. And you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now.’

As adults, we claim that we care about our children. In Australia there are constant summits and campaigns about the need to end family violence.

Generational plan

We have a National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children.

But in a document over 140 pages long, corporal punishment and/or the physical discipline of children is not mentioned once (the best I could find was a reference to boys experiencing ‘disproportionately harsh discipline’ – in itself a problematic statement, as it suggests harsh discipline is OK).

Apparently, the underlying vision of the national plan is to end violence within a generation.  Spoiler alert – this will not happen if the law in every state and territory says that a parent can still hit their children.

Sure, there are restraints on how hard and where you can hit a child. It must be ‘reasonable chastisement’ and you can’t hit a child in the head or use an implement – so the wooden spoon will have to stay in the pantry, and my belt will have to remain around my expanding middle-aged waist.

But try to justify this to a child – ‘I can hit you but only in certain places and not too hard.’ And try to enforce these constraints within the confines of a home where there is no oversight or regulation.

As a parent of four children, I readily admit that there have been times when I have felt the urge to hit my children. But this feeling only came when I was pushed to a point of such exhaustion and despair, that anger rather than care or rationality dominated my decision making.

It is precisely in these circumstances that you don’t want the law giving me the power to hit my children.

Time to behave like adults

So here is the challenge. As we approach World Children’s Day on November 20, are the adults of Australia prepared to start behaving like adults and commit to the abolition of corporal punishment? Are we serious about ending all forms of violence against children?

Or, is every leader in this country too scared to stand up for the human rights of children for fear of a political backlash by a small group of ill-informed parents?

Our leaders might also consider that.as a nation we are on the wrong side of history when it comes to the global movement to end corporal punishment.

Since Sweden abolished all forms of corporal punishment in 1979 (yes, 45 years ago) another 66 states have joined them – Ireland, Denmark, Germany, Spain, New Zealand and most recently Tajikistan, to name just a few.

And you know what? The sky has not fallen in and children have not run amok.

Read the research

More than 300 studies over 50 years show that hitting children is not an effective discipline strategy. It actually causes harm to children – physical harm, mental harm, increased aggression, damage to the parent-child relationship and increased risk of violence as an adult.

Those invoking the religious adage, ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’, might like to read the research (and while they are at it, they can check their citation to the Bible because it doesn’t support what they claim).

All forms of corporal punishment, however light, have been condemned by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child – the body of independent experts tasked with overseeing implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Joining them are a chorus of health professionals and bodies like the WHO, UNICEF and Council of Europe.

But Australia, as with so many issues concerning the human rights of children (refugees, youth justice etc), is increasingly becoming an island when it comes to hitting children.

Violence against children is endemic globally and in Australia.

No excuses

As adults, we make too many excuses – ‘It’s just a smack; my parents used to hit me and I turned out OK.”

It’s not OK – it wasn’t then and it isn’t now.

As a young student, I went to a school where we were ruled by the strap. I lived in fear that I would be hit for doing the wrong thing. One day I did – the offence was ‘scragging’ – rolling down a hill with my mate during lunchtime.  I will never forget that pain and fear.

As adults, we need to say no to violence against children in all its forms. My 15-year-old daughter can drive me crazy at times. But there is no way in hell I’m ever going to strike her.  She deserves my respect, not my anger or violence.

If I need help with my parenting (as we all do, sometimes), there are plenty of resources I can turn to.

A legal system that gives me the option to use violence, as Australia does, can never claim to be a nation that truly cares for its children.

Professor John Tobin holds the Francine V McNiff Chair in International Human Rights Law in the Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne