What the official record says
This Act is the Crimes (Reasonable Parental Control and Correction) Amendment Act . This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent. This Act amends the Crimes Act 1961. The purpose of this Act is to ensure that— it is no longer a criminal offence for parents, and those in the place of parents, to use reasonable force for the purpose of correcting their children’s behaviour; and there are clear statutory limits on what constitutes reasonable force; and parents, and those in the place of parents, have certainty about what the law does and does not permit when they are controlling or correcting their children; and an explicit reliance on Police discretion is no longer used in an attempt to protect parents from the consequences of prohibiting the use