In New Zealand, in a report to the Minister for Social Development and Employment on the effects of legislative reform in 2007, the author said: “In summary, I have not been able to find evidence to show that parents are being subject to unnecessary state intervention for occasionally lightly smacking their children or of any other unintended consequences”. There were eight extra prosecutions in New Zealand over the period, rather than the hundreds of thousands that we have been led to believe might occur.