Smacking debate pointless:

Dr Gervase Chaney, the head of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians' Paediatric & Child Health Division, published a letter in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health.

The letter said it was no longer right for parents to argue "that it never did us any harm" and called on colleagues to stand up for children's rights.

Child and adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg said the college would be better off promoting productive parenting techniques that work.

"(Techniques) that have an evidence base like time-out, praising good behaviour rather than focusing on something which is completely unrealistic," Mr Carr-Greg told AAP.

"There's no way that you can police smacking and to equate it with child abuse. I think it is a very, very big mistake, leading people to trivialise the more serious types of child abuse."

He added the debate had been had and maybe the organisation was suffering from "relevance deprivation".

"Many people thought his comments were a case of "here we go again," Mr Carr-Greg said.

"It's been resolved that the community is in favour of reasonable chastisement as a parental right and one wonders what they're trying to gain by reigniting the debate.

"The ABC show The Slap reignited the debate last year, I've lost count of the number of interviews I did on that."

NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell said the state already had laws "that cover this space", but common sense from parents was most important.

"Ultimately, what we need here is the common sense of parents," Mr O'Farrell said.

"And I think by and large most parents do the right thing."

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