Archive for July, 2011
Family Law Expert Dispels Myths about Shared Parenting laws
Preface: With all the media focus on the feigned concerns by certain self-interest groups on the risks to children’s safety of the current family law act (equal shared parental responsibility 2006), along with the absurd claim that fathers rights are being placed ahead of the best interests of the child, it is refreshing to find an honest appraisal of the current law from a family law expert.
I should recap that the the current family law act (equal shared parental responsibility 2006) was put in place to encourage greater contact between separated fathers and children, given the overwhelming evidence that children suffer greatly when their fathers are forcibly removed from their lives.
As such it is a great shame that there has been such a concerted campaign by women’s groups and the Gillard government to repeal this law, under the deceptive guise of protective family violence measures, with a new bill currently in Parliament which will effectively presume that separated fathers are guilty of child abuse, and the standard of proof to dispute this presumption is set so high that even conclusive evidence will not be sufficient to overcome this presumption.
The end result will be that the new bill, which looks to almost certainly become law within a matter of weeks because of the support of the Greens in the Senate, will now re-establish the very thing all credible experts believe is destructive to the welfare of Australian children, that being the epidemic of fatherlessness.
This family law expert explains that the the current family law act (shared parental responsibility 2006) is designed to protect the rights of children, not of parents. This lawyer also explains that the Judge or Judicial Officer is under no obligation to provide any shared care at all, if they believe that such an arrangement is not in the child’s best interests. This explanation clearly contradicts the distortions by many women’s groups, journalists and the Julia Gillard government, who have repeatedly claimed that children have been forced into shared parenting contact with violent and sexually abusive fathers. This is a complete fabrication!
You will also notice the explanation of the comprehensive measures taken in the current family law act (equal shared parental responsibility 2006) to protect the health and safety of children, and the decision is ultimately up to the Judge or Judicial officer who has the final say on whether he or she believe the child should have shared parental contact, limited shared parental contact, or sole custody only.
This raises the question as to why the likes of Attorney General Robert McClelland and Prime Minister Julia Gillard are tinkering with a law designed to protect the rights of children, and replacing it with a proposed law (the deceptively labelled Family Violence bill), which will effectively force children into sole custody arrangements with their mothers, regardless of the quality of care that the father can provide, or the best interests of the child.
When you contrast the facts with the fiction, then we can hang our heads in shame because the Gillard government that we as Australians have voted in (only barely of course and with the support of the pseudo-Independants like Tony Windsor and Rob Oakshott), has again put the interests of minority lobby groups ahead of the best interests of Australians, and in this case, well ahead of the best interests of Australian children.
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Family Law Expert Averil Foster Talks about Equal shared parental responsibility.
The Family Law Act was amended in 2006 to make provision for a concept called “Equal Shared Parental Responsibility”. Many separating parents believe that this amendment to the Act means that children with separated parents should be, by law, spending equal time with each of their parents. This is a common family law myth.
The concept of equal shared parental responsibility is about decision-making in relation to long term issues in a child’s life, such as where they will live, what religion they will practice, what medical treatment they may or may not receive, what name they will be known by and what schools they will go to.
The Court will not make an order for equal shared parental responsibility if it is satisfied that this is not a child’s best interests.
The Family Law Act provides that if the Court is satisfied that parents should have equal shared parental responsibility, the Court must then give consideration to:
a. whether the child spending equal time with each of the parents would be in the child’s best interests; and
b. whether the child spending equal time with each of the parents is reasonably practicable,
if the answer to both of these questions is yes, the Court must consider making an order for the child to spend equal time with the parents.
If the answer to one or both of these questions is no, the Court must consider whether the child spending ’substantial and significant time’ with the non-resident parent is
a) in the child’s best interests; and
b) is reasonably practicable.
Similarly, if the answer to both of these questions is yes, then the Court must consider making an order for the child to spend substantial and significant time with the non-resident parent.
The important thing to remember about the concepts of equal time and substantial and significant time is that even if all of the boxes are ticked, there is no obligation on the Court to make an order for either. The Court is simply required to consider whether it is appropriate to make such Orders. In considering whether it is appropriate to make such Orders, the overriding consideration for the Court is whether proposed parenting arrangements are in a child’s best interests.
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Child Abduction Penalties to be determined by Gender: Labor says
In a further sign that the Julia Gillard led Labor government is fermenting a co-ordinated ideological attack on all matters related to fatherhood in Australia, the federal Attorney General, Robert McClelland, today supported softer measures against parents who abduct children illegally out of Australia, despite the serious nature of such crimes, and the damage that such acts invariably have on the children concerned, because “the majority of abductors are mothers.”
Shadowing this inquiry into penalties against International Child Abductions, the Labor/Greens controlled Senate is soon expected to pass what is widely considered to be the strongest ever anti-father family law amendments in this country’s history, and as a result dismantling Australia’s Shared Parenting laws, but going further by creating an effective presumption of guilt (of child abuse) against all separated fathers.
The Gillard government is now taking its entrenched gender ideologies a step further, by arguing that since the vast majority of international child abductions are perpetrated by females, that their gender should be the driving force behind softer penalties. Many critics have labelled this argument a perversion of the principles of the best interests if the child, and quite out of step with the majority of other western nations.
Parental child abduction should not be treated as a general criminal offence despite the demands of a “vocal lobby” for tough new sanctions when children are kidnapped by parents who then flee overseas, says Community Services, the NSW government agency responsible.
While some groups have demanded jail and fines, the department says imposing new criminal sanctions could force abducting parents “to take more extreme actions to remain undetected”, hindering the return of children.
In a submission to a Senate inquiry into child abductions to and from Australia, community services says it is now mostly mothers who abduct the children — a dramatic turnaround from 30 years ago when the Hague Convention for bringing children home was signed and the abductors were fathers.
“Incarcerating the person who has primary care of a child will never be in that child’s best interest and has the potential to destroy the future relationship between the child and the parent who requested their return,” the submission says. “Parental child abduction is a matter for the family law system and should not attract criminal sanctions.”
The agency has also warned that Australia needs to make a bigger commitment to prevent children from being wrongly taken out of the country, including by requiring adults travelling to and from Australia to provide evidence of a court order or consent to allow them to leave the country with their child. “Alerts should be placed in strategic points around the airport,” the submission says.
Compounding the problem, some countries from which Australia accepts migrants — including China, Vietnam, The Philippines and Lebanon — have not signed the Hague Convention.
While Lebanon and Egypt have both signed bi-lateral agreements with Australia, the best these offer are “tools of dialogue” but no legal remedies.
Groups such as the Family Law Reform Commission have called for Australia to impose tougher sanctions against international child abduction.
Under the Family Law Act, international parental child abduction carries a maximum three-year jail sentence.
But these offences apply where residence, contact or specific issues orders in relation to a child are in force or are pending before the family courts.
Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland recently referred Australia’s international child abduction laws to the Family Law Council to see if they were adequate.
That review found one gap in the law. If a child is taken overseas by one parent with the consent of the other parent but fails to return despite a court order, there is no penalty. “That is certainly an issue that we are looking at,” Mr McClelland said.
But he agreed with community services that a general criminal offence for international child abduction was likely to be counter-productive.
“The advice of the Family Law Council also raised the point that introducing a specific crime in the Criminal Code in respect to child abduction could actually make securing returns more difficult,” he said.
“In other words, driving the party who has taken the child or abducted the child further underground and making conciliation and resolution of the matters more difficult.”
Mr McClelland said the Hague Convention — to which Australia is a signatory — provides the best available mechanism to lawfully seek the return of wrongfully removed or retained children.
Raise Your Voice, Lose Your Child
“He raised his voice at me, and I was frightened he was going to hurt me and the kids.”
That’s it. That’s all it takes for a man to lose his children in today’s hyper-sensitive landscape of domestic violence prevention.
This sea change can be traced to the days and months following the tragic death of Nicole Brown Simpson, when the public outcry by the domestic violence lobby moved beyond confronting actual physical altercations and began focusing on the perceived threat of violence. By casting such a wide net, centered almost entirely on male against female domestic violence, there have been unintended consequences that play themselves out in Family Court every day.
With nothing more than a woman stating, “I was frightened he might hurt us,” a court can remove a man from his home and prevent him from seeing his children for a minimum of three weeks. Often the court will also order either an anger management or a batterer’s intervention class and generally grant the demand by his ex-spouse that he have supervised visitation.
The intrusion by the courts into family dynamics has become so extreme that the domestic violence laws are no longer being used to protect potential victims, but rather to victimize potential abusers.
Let me be clear about this: in the eyes of the court, all men are considered to be potential abusers. No matter his history, if there was any provocation, or if he was in fact the abused victim. This last point is made even more interesting when considering that female-on-male domestic violence make up 50-percent of all cases, yet it is the man who is singled out as being potentially dangerous. And while as an attorney, my professional life is predicated on “innocent until proven guilty,” and “all” is a word to be carefully considered before using, I will say that due to O.J. Simpson’s horrific, inexcusable, and deadly behavior, a shadow has been cast on all men in all cases.
The courts no longer believe there is any appropriate expression of anger and, in essence, have outlawed the emotion. We have made it strategically impossible for a person to display anger in any form, whether a mental health professional would label it a “healthy expression” or not, without the line being automatically drawn to an actual act of physical violence.
But the fact is that humans have a full range of emotions. We get happy, we get sad, and yes, we get angry. And while it is absurd to think that our judicial system could legislate our happiness or sadness, it appears to gladly accept the notion that expressing anger in any fashion should have legal consequences.
In states across the country, if one parent is determined to be an “abuser”—and in California that means a raised voice—that person is no longer presumed to be a fit parent. The “victim parent” is now presumed to be a better parent and has an advantage when the court makes final determinations of child custody, visitation, and move-away plans to new cities, states, or countries.
This has created the unintended consequence of the strategic domestic violence restraining order. When one parent wants to take unfair advantage in a divorce or paternity case, all that is needed is the granting of domestic violence restraining order and the court will automatically suspend the other parent’s parental rights—usually for a short period. But to the cut-off parent, that brief time can seem like an eternity.
If the court determines that there are grounds for a permanent order, the cut-off parent may be forced to endure a 52-week batterer’s intervention course. The problem with this is that in the flimsy guidelines of what defines domestic violence these days, almost any fact pattern can be twisted to create “violence.”
For fathers who are required to have a monitor to see their children, which is becoming a more common occurrence as a requirement due to the domestic violence allegations, they may be unable to see their children. The costs of a paid monitor can quickly become prohibitive since the man will also be ordered to pay child support, often spousal support, the cost of the batterer’s intervention or anger management classes, and he has to find his own apartment since he’s been evicted from his home.
Domestic Violence Restraining Orders originally were meant to be a protective measure by the courts. But they have become a fast track process by which unscrupulous parties gain sole legal and sole physical custody of the children.
And, as is typical in “win at all cost” child custody cases, it is often the child that suffers the most. The “victim parent” strategy may yield short-term results for the accusing spouse, but the bad lessons learned by the child may last a lifetime.
Fathers who are truly guilty of domestic violence or child abuse should be viewed as criminals and treated as such. But in our rush to avoid these types of tragedies through a “zero tolerance policy,” we have gone against the most important tenet of the law: Innocent Until Proven Guilty. And the result is that we are creating and perpetuating a new type of abuse—the marginalization of fathers.
JULY 20, 2011 BY DAVID PISARRA
Fathers4Equality would like to encourage you to forward this excellent article to the following paternal-Abuse deniers.
Email: Tony.Windsor.MP@aph.gov.au
Email: senator.bob.brown@aph.gov.au
Email: R.McClelland.MP@aph.gov.au
Email: Kate.Ellis.MP@aph.gov.au
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SlutWalks, Slammed for Portraying Women as Sexual Objects
LAST year, more than 9,500 reports of alleged sexual and indecent assaults were made to NSW police by both males and females, but hardly any attention was paid by the media when the figures were released by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
Last month’s SlutWalk in Sydney however had everyone talking about sexual violence against women, says the executive officer of the NSW Rape Crisis Centre, Karen Willis.
”All of a sudden we have sexual assault being discussed,” she said. ”And the more we talk and understand the myths and realities; the more we can develop a better response.”
The SlutWalk phenomenon, held across North America and Europe, is now infamous for the theatricality and hyper-sexualised dress code of the participants. These protests began after a Toronto policeman told students that if they wanted to protect themselves against the likelihood of rape, they should ”avoid dressing like sluts”.
Ms Willis said Reclaim the Night marches held in Australia for 30 years were losing their power to focus attention on sexual assault.
These SlutWalks had reminded people that women should be able to dress any way they like, without concern about how it may affect others.
Many critics however, such as Maiy Azize, a Canberra health and social policy analyst, have decried the walks as another example of women ”defining their sexuality on male terms”.
And Gail Dines, the author of Pornland, said recently during a visit to Australia: ”Men want women to be sluts and now they are buying into it.”
Sonja Hastings, writer and columnist on social policy and gender issues, claimed that these Slutwalks were promoting the idea that women’s rights had become a movement obsessed with Rights, but unwilling to accept the responsibilities that come hand-in-hand with these rights.
Hastings claimed that no one in society had the right to dress as they wanted, without responsible reference to social convention and standards. By way of example, Hastings asked how a mother would feel if Kindergarden teachers exerted their right to dress in sexually provocative clothing while at school?
Hastings refers to this as an example because she laments the recent experience of her 7 year old son who was exposed to a young woman in a shopping center with a skirt so high that her g-string and bottom were fully exposed for all to see, including little children.
Hastings said that although it was a most inappropriate sight for a 7 year old child to witness, who she said was visibly traumatised by the experience, as a mother she felt helpless in this situation because the message from women’s groups has made it clear that women’s rights trumps the rights of other more vulnerable members in our community.
“The message of these SlutWalks seems to prioritise the rights of women to dress in sexually provocative clothing, without any concern as to how such exposure affects all those around them”, she said.
Dr PG Stuart, a GP who has treated numerous victims of sexual abuse, including teens and children, has stated that “in a society that is fighting against the sexualisation of children at a younger and younger age, these SlutWalk movements are perceived by most on-lookers as the acceptance of the sexualisation of all females, rather than a genuine protest against sexual abuse.”
Dr Stuart claims that women have been fighting for a generation not to be seen as sexual objects, and now it seems that these SlutWalks have taken the movement back 50 years by re-inforcing a woman’s identity through the prism of sexualisation.
“Women are much more than this,” she claims, “and we do not need to resort to cheap media stunts while dressed as prostitutes in order to make a potent and responsible protest for the protection of the vulnerable in our society against sexual abuse.”
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Gillard a turn-off for Men…even before she passes new anti-father family law changes
Julia’s man problems
Julia Gillard has got a serious problem with Australian men. So much so that she is soon about to pass the most malicious anti-male laws this country has ever seen, which will effectively presume that all separated men are Wife Abusers or Child Sexual Predators, that is an effective presumption of Guilt against separated fathers. This bill will rely on the subjective thoughts of the alleged victim to determine guilt or innocence, not on objective or conclusive facts.
So these new laws effectively mean that even if an event did not occur, a separated father will still be judged to be an abuser, because all the alleged victim has to do is say that she is scared…no facts or proof required.
Julia Gillard has even more man problem’s on the horizon, even before this anti-male bill is passed into law. As the popularity of our first female prime minister plummets, government insiders fear men are turning on Ms Gillard for a variety of reasons, some to do with her anti-male feminist background, others to do with her consistent dishonesty in the public arena.
While Opposition leader Tony Abbott fought off a perception that he had a problem with female voters, polling suggests the PM has a much more significant gender battle to wage.
Political analysts say polling shows she is significantly losing the support of male voters compared to women.
Newspoll figures over the course of Ms Gillard’s leadership show the gap between males and females has widened in her satisfaction rating and that of better prime minister.
A Newspoll in August, shortly after Ms Gillard became leader, shows 49 per cent of men thought she would make a better prime minister than Tony Abbott. In the latest Newspoll published last month, the figure dropped to 39 per cent.
Among female voters, 47 per cent of women believe Ms Gillard would make a better prime minister, down from 52 per cent last year.
In contrast, support for Mr Abbott among males and females over the same period remained almost unchanged.
Ms Gillard’s satisfaction rating also had the biggest decline among men – down from 43 per cent last year to 31 per cent among males compared with a fall from 45 per cent to 38 per cent for women.
An analysis of Newspoll results for Kevin Rudd shows support among male and female voters in terms of satisfaction and better prime minister when he was leader dropped almost equally.
Galaxy pollster David Briggs said the figures showed men appeared to be turning off Ms Gillard.
He said the trend was similar to poll results experienced by Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, who was also losing support among men faster than women.
“The results for Gillard paint a similar picture to Anna Bligh, with support for both tending to hold up more strongly among women,” Mr Briggs said.
“Men do appear to be turning off Gillard while women are appearing more willing to give her a go.”
Mr Briggs said the latest Galaxy poll shows support for Ms Bligh had dropped to pre-flood levels, with the biggest loss of support also among men.
A Labor source said it was clear Ms Gillard was being judged more harshly by men.
“Men are definitely tougher on female leaders,” the source said.
“People have said Tony has a problem with women, but the results show Julia does seem to be having a problem with the blokes.
“Unfortunately for Julia, she has been at the centre of a political shit-storm – the whole Rudd stuff – not being able to govern in her own right. It certainly hasn’t been easy for her.”
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Kids to be denied their Fathers, because of ONE Man’s vote – Tony Windsor
Please read the following letter that was sent to Tony Windsor, Federal Member for New England, on the proposed 2011 child custody/family law changes currently before Parliament, designed to prevent most separated fathers from having contact with their children.
The office of Tony Windsor has made it clear to me that they do not care to respond to the serious issues confronting separated fathers and children of separated families, despite being given ample opportunity to do so in response to this letter, and in previous discussions.
Because of their condescending and dismissive attitude, I now publish this letter, unfortunately without any official response from Tony Windsor.
The attitude of his staff has given me the impression that Tony Windsor has sold out his beliefs on shared parenting, since he has jumped into bed with Julia Gillard and the Greens.
I consider Tony Windsor’s actions to be a total betrayal of the natural rights of the children of Australia, and I feel ashamed on his behalf that he didn’t even believe that this issue deserved an explanation, much less a simple response.
Please feel free to distribute this letter to any print, radio or other media outlets in Australia, and in particular in Tony Windsor’s electorate of New England, including the regional centers of Tamworth, Inverell and Armidale.
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From: Ash Patil
Fathers4Equality-Australia
To Tony Windsor
Email: Tony.Windsor.MP@aph.gov.au
Parliament Ph: (02) 6277 4722
Tamworth: Toll Free: 1300 301 839
Inverell: (02) 6721 0144
Federal Member for New England
PO Box 6022, House of Representatives
Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600
CC: Tamworth, Armidale & Inverell & other media
Dear Mr Tony Windsor,
You may recall that we corresponded back in November 2005, whereby I wrote you, as I did for every other Member of Parliament, to ask for your thoughts on Family Law reform.
Specifically, you were asked for your views on a Rebuttable Presumption of Equal Parenting Time, given the enormous community support for Shared Parenting, and in response to the recommendations by the Hull bi-partisan (Coalition/Labor) Child Custody committee, after 3 years of intensive community consultation.
We appreciated your response to our questions back in 2005 Mr Tony Windsor, whereby you not only indicated that you supported Shared Parenting as a concept, but you highlighted your support for even stronger measures that would enforce a Presumption of Equal Parenting Time.
On November 4, 2005, YOU wrote:
“On a personal basis, I would not be opposed to an amendment to the Family Law Act to incorporate a legal presumption of equal parenting time in the event of separation, rebuttable if child abuse can be reasonably substantiated, or if the parent’s mutually agree to an alternate arrangement.
Should the feedback from the residents of the New England Electorate differ from my own view I would have to re-examine my position however to date the comments I have been receiving have generally been in line with my own views on this matter.
Thank you once again for writing to me and I hope the foregoing will clarify my position on this issue.
Tony Windsor MP
Member for New England
Yours sincerely
It was therefore a complete shock that we learned that on the 31st May, 2011, you voted with the Gillard government and the Greens to pass what is widely believed to be a Trojan-Horse bill designed in practice to deny fathers any form of meaningful contact with their children after separation. The bill was passed by one vote ONLY.
This bill, deceptively called the Family Violence Amendment bill, 2011, is not only anti-Shared Parenting, it is in fact anti-Contact, as it legally endorses Perjury, Parental Alienation and Unsubstantiated Allegations as legitimate means to deny a child their natural right to have any contact at all with their father.
The obvious question Mr Windsor is why did you support this bill, a bill that goes against your own personal beliefs, and those quite clearly of your constituents (then and now)? Were you perhaps distracted by all the attention and the extra roles lavished on you by a Gillard government desperate for your support, that you let this most malicious bill pass without due scrutiny?
You must be aware that the bill you have voted for explicitly:
- creates an effective presumption of guilt against innocent fathers
- makes conclusive evidence, especially in defence of abuse claims, subservient to subjective beliefs
- removes penalties against knowingly false allegations of child abuse & domestic abuse
- provides tacit encouragement for Parental Alienation by removing the ‘friendly parent’ provision
- perpetuates the offensive and unfounded stereotype that men are a natural threat to their children
- perpetuates the untruth that Shared Parenting exposes children to child abuse. In fact, shared parenting households are statistically the safest environments for children.
- perpetuates the unfounded presumption that mothers are unable to harm or abuse their children
- perpetuates the unfounded presumption that women never engage in domestic abuse
- has so diluted the concept of domestic abuse, that it can be applied to any form of behaviour, whether it is real, innocent and benign, or completely imagined;
- contravenes the United Nations Convention on the rights of the Child by denying the child their right to participate ‘meaningfully and fully’ with both their mother and their father.
- contravenes the International Bill of Human Rights by denying fathers their right to a fair trial
- violates Sex Discrimination standards, by procuring laws designed to only protect half the population from domestic violence, while ignoring or dismissing the other half.
- has slashed funding for post-separation mediation to force parents back into the Court system
- will in effect divert seriously scarce child protective resources from their primary task of genuine child protection, to that of chasing up legally motivated allegations.
- will promote sole maternal custody, which according to the Australian Institute of Criminology, accounts for almost 80% of all familial child abuse.
Shame on you!
Mr Windsor, you are married man and a father with 3 children. You may very well have an optimal relationship with your wife, but you like every other human would have at times had tensions and disagreements with your wife. You should realise that if you had separated (when your children were young), that even a decent father as yourself would have been completely removed from your children’s lives, if relied upon this bill.
There is simply no reasonable reason why laws designed to reduce the incidence of domestic violence, cannot also respect the human rights and natural justice of men, women and children.
Given that over half your electorate are males and children, you have an obligation to seriously consider the implications of this bill, if passed by the Senate.
This bill will not reduce the heat of divorce. It will not encourage mediation and agreement. It would not share the burden of child raising. It will not promote equality for women. It will only further disenfranchise already maligned fathers, creating the potential for more tragedies.
People will be asking why the government chose again to promote a “winner-takes-all”, litigation-intensive, archaic, punitive set of laws designed for mass punishment, in the hope that it would instil fear, enforce compliance and subdue violence.
This form of mass punishment has not worked in Egypt, it has not worked in Syria, and it will not work in Australia.
We need laws that apply to all Australians and encourage co-operative parenting, reduce litigation and the enormous legal bills that destroy the future of our children, and we need all Australians to be judged by the one standard, the one law, not selective laws depending on one’s gender.
We are all equal after all, right, so why is this bill designed to only protect one gender?
If this bill is passed, the next father or mother who either suicides or commits a tragedy against their children, people across Australia will be wondering what pushed them over the edge.
This bill is an opportunity to make a genuine effort to diffuse separations, not to create more reasons for people to lash out at a system that has completely betrayed half of all Australians.
Please take this opportunity to re-think this poorly thought-out bill. Please tell us what you can do to amend this most malicious bill, before it’s too late. Please do not tell us that since you thoughtlessly voted for it, then you can now wash your hands and do nothing.
We understand that you can influence the final vote in the Senate, if you show an interest. You can otherwise not blame fathers and children for holding you and others like you responsible for taking Australian families back to the dark ages in family law, for you had that final vote that could have amended this bill into something workable, but chose not to.
We would appreciate a written response within 7 days of the posting of this letter.
Ash Patil
Fathers4Equality-Australia
Website: www.fathers4equality-australia.org
Email: president@fathers4Equality-australia.org
–end of letter to Tony Windsor, Federal Member for New England–
Submissions to Family Law Amendment (Family Violence) Bill 2010 Exposure Draft released under FOI
Subject: Submissions by organisations to Family Law Amendment (Family Violence) Bill 2010 Exposure Draft released under FOI
Dear colleagues,
Under a Freedom of Information Act request, the Federal Attorney General’s Department has finally released the following information to the public:
1. Copies of all public submissions lodged by organisations in response to the public consultation process into the Family Law Amendment (Family Violence) Bill 2010 – Exposure Draft . 122 submissions by organisations supported the proposed amendments; 15 submissions did not support the proposed amendments; and 6 submissions did not indicate whether they supported or did not support the proposed amendments.
2. A tally of the number of submissions by personal individuals that supported the proposed amendments (178); the number of submissions that did not support the proposed amendments (52); and the number of submissions that did not indicate whether they supported or did not support the amendments (36); for all submissions lodged in response to the public consultation process into the Family Law Amendment (Family Violence) Bill 2010 – Exposure Draft.
It is sad that in a democracy such as Australia, we have to rely on Freedom of Information legislation to obtain access to public submissions to a public federal government inquiry, especially when the inquiry’s website clearly states, “unless submissions are marked confidential they may be published.” There is no doubt that the Labor Government is pushing through their Family Law reforms with as little transparency as possible.
When the Attorney General’s Department was originally contacted in February 2011 we were told they “didn’t know if or when the submissions would be published.” When pressed further, we were told they “might be published when the legislation goes through parliament.” This clearly hasn’t happened. The FOI request was made on 18th February 2011, and the documents were finally received on 3rd June 2011 (FOI legislation requires that information be provided within one month, or two months when sensitive information is involved). It has taken a further month to scan them and put them online.
You can read the submissions using the links below. They were sent to us by the Attorney General’s Department in the exact format that you see online. They have been scanned and OCR’d “as-is” into one large PDF document that can be easily searched using Acrobat Reader software. For those of you who might have trouble downloading large documents, the large PDF has also been split into 5 smaller sections.
I have also discovered that a submission lodged on 14th January via email from the One in Three Campaign was not provided under the FOI request. This raises some very serious questions indeed:
1. How many other submissions were sent in to this Inquiry but were not received, and therefore were unable to be considered by the government?
2. How many other submissions were indeed received by this inquiry but were not provided under the FOI request?
Either way, there appear to be serious administrative errors taking place in the Attorney General’s Department. If your organisation’s submission is also not included in the PDFs linked below, could you please let me know as a matter of urgency?
Download links: Full document (142MB) or Part 1 (33.8MB) | Part 2 (16.5MB) | Part 3 (22.9MB) | Part 4 (35.2MB) | Part 5 (34MB)
Kind regards,
Greg Andresen
Research & Media Liaison Men’s Health Australia
Website http://www.menshealthaustralia.net
Post P.O. Box 1292, Bondi Junction NSW 1355, Australia
Father time key to children’s well-being: Study
Fathers can shed their ”assistant parent” tag by spending more time with their kids without having mothers around, a new Melbourne study suggests.
The research found that the overall family would greatly benefit if fathers and children spent more time together.
“Kids need their fathers for them to be around and doing the organising part of their lives. Our culture is to leave it all to mum,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted one of the study”s authors, Margot Prior of the University of Melbourne, as saying.
The study involved 110 families in Melbourne with children aged between three and 12.
Fathers who spent significant time with their children said they felt the youngsters” well-being was improved, their own sense of worth rose and it promoted them from the role of ”assistant parent”.
Fatherly contact is crucial to child welfare
“Solo care is about the interaction. It is the notion of fathers taking the responsibility in making decisions more of the time,” said Prior.
A survey by the Financial Services Council found 71 per cent of Australian fathers, compared with 43 per cent of mothers, spent less than four hours a day with their children dedicated to ”parenting” duties.
The findings were published in the journal Early Child Development and Care. (ANI)
Other research released recently by the University of Newcastle into the child benefits of rough-and-tumble play with their father, noted that it was crucial for brain development, especially in emotional self-regulation, teaching boys to be safe and know how to manage anger. Fathers who roughhoused with their children were more trusted and their children more relaxed and affectionate towards them.
What these studies often do not explore is the means to increase meaningful interaction between fathers and children. Although many would argue that societal pressures on men to be the primary bread winners will always deny them the time or energy to engage with their children to a greater extent, a recent study has pointed to a more sinister obstacles faced by many fathers.
Recent research from Ohio University found that the more involved a father reported himself to be in childraising tasks, the less supportive and more undermining behaviors were seen by the mother towards that involvement. Sounds pretty depressing, right?
Mothers the biggest obstacles to fathers spending more meaningful time with their children.
The research concluded that mothers, not fathers and not the excessive expectations of society, were the biggest obstacles to fathers spending more meaningful time with their children.
Of course, for separated men, these obstacles sound like a cakewalk to the historical rejection of fathers in meaningful engagement with their children in the event of separation and divorce.
Once separated, a peculiar social dynamic takes hold of the child care principle, where many mothers actively sabotage contact time between father and children, for a whole range of reasons that are yet to be fully understood by society nor the judicial system.
To make matters worse for separated fathers in Australia, the Prime Minister Julia Gillard has recently tabled amendments to the Family law act, effectively creating a new status quo if the bill is passed, where fathers who have any contact at all with their children, even the historical insufficient two days per fortnight, will be in the clear minority. Although these changes are deeply unpopular with the Australian public, the equally unpopular Julia Gillard seems intent on forcing these laws through.
More Father time equated to higher child IQs
So despite the obvious intellectual benefits to children of increased fatherly time, along with the many emotional and general welfare benefits of increased meaningful time with dad, it seems that various political forces are conspiring to deny children of even the most basic contact with dad, and I guess our children will staying paying this heavy price for political expediency in the not too distant future, unless someone in power start taking this powerful sociological research seriously.
Kiesha Abrahams – a Reminder that Sole Custody Kills
Julia Gillard making child protection more difficult
In case it has escaped people’s attention, the murder of Kiesha Abrahams, since renamed Keisha Weippeart as a mark of respect for the father she was deprived of, was another case of a child being abused and murdered within the highest risk environment for child abuse in this country, the single-mother home.
With all the attention set recently on the newly tabled Family Violence bill, a bill that Prime Minister Julia Gillard has claimed will protect children from child abuse by dismantling Shared Parenting and denying most fathers any form of meaningful contact with their children, one has to question what exactly Julia Gillard was thinking when she came up with such a malicious bill?
Obviously, this bill is in part the legacy of the Darcy Freeman – girl over the bridge murder, an incident that has shocked the nation and will remain in the psyche of this country for years to come.
However, an equal number of mothers also engaged in filicide in this country, being the deliberate murder of their children.
This fact however has not been widely reported. These other murders of children, presumably of less important children because they were killed by their mothers, happened in equal measure to that of fathers, and this is a point conveniently ignored by Julia Gillard, and in particular by her Attorney General, Robert McLelland.
In any event and foccusing on child abuse on its own, the majority of child abuse in this country is at the hands of single mothers, far outweighing the efforts of strangers, neighbours, other family members, other children, and biological fathers, as reported by the Australian Institute of Criminology.
In fact, over 75% of all familial child abuse, according to the Department of Child Protection, is accounted for in households where the single mother co-habitates with the new boyfriend, (who has not fathered the children), a scenario which is very common in this country and becoming more so, and is the precise high risk environment that Kiesha Weippeart found herself in before she was murdered.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard, in her haste to create the perception that she was doing more to protect children, is in fact doing less, much much less, by sowing the seeds of a new child abuse epidemic.
By removing young children from having any contact with their biological fathers, and exposing them in greater and greater numbers to the ever-present in-home stranger-danger of men with no biological connection to the child, and especially with no other parent to answer to, the ever present risk of child abuse becomes an even greater possibility, given human nature, and as strongly indicated by child abuse statistics.
By ending shared parenting and ensuring that separated children will have little contact with their biological fathers, even less than was the case before the Howard era Shared Parenting laws were enacted, this government is ensuring that child abuse will go behind locked doors, where it can continue unabated and without the knowledge of the other parent, until the imminent end, which all too often is the death of the child.
Whether we like it or not, most biological parents share a common interest in protecting their child against harm. In Shared Parenting arrangements, any lingering mis-trust or tension between the parents works in favour of the best welfare of the children, by creating greater transparency of care between the parents.
Any unaccounted for bruising or scratch, any slight change in behaviour by the child, any suggestive utterance by the child, no matter how subtle, will alert the other parent that something is not right, and will allow greater scrutiny of circumstances. This may in some cases lead to false positives, leading to frustration between the parents, but this questioning is the best form of child protection that can be offered to a child, especially when that child is forced to live with other adults that are not biologically connected to the child.
The primary benefit of shared parenting is Transparency of Care, by way of the inbuilt checks and balances that are part and parcel of a shared parenting arrangement, and it is precidely these safety measures that Julia Gillard is dismantling.
In a country where extended families are on the demise, where separations are on the increase, where re-partnering is a natural extension of separation, and where child protection authorities are over-stretched and losing the battle against child abuse, this transparency is quite possibly the most powerful safeguard a parent can have for their child, but it now looks like it is a further victim of a bungling Julia Gillard who is more obsessed with the perception of doing the right thing, rather than the genuine artifact.
And when it comes to child protection, the difference between the perception and the real is life itself, as was the result for Kiesha Weippeart, and so many other children who will now be forced to live in the highest risk environment for child abuse, by Julia Gillard, a Prime Minister who Australians overwhelmingly believe is out of touch, and out of ideas.
‘Suicide’ takes another Separated Father
A SUDDEN fall from stardom and a messy break-up have been blamed for the suicide death of former Australian Idol judge Jay Dee Springbett.
The Sony starmaker – who helped shape the careers of pop stars from Human Nature to Jessica Mauboy – was found in his Sydney apartment.
Police say there were no suspicious circumstances and looked to be a suicide.
Two years after hitting the big time on Australian Idol, Springbett was dealing with the flipside to fame: a career switch and the breakdown of his once happy family.
Police were called to his Woolloomooloo flat after he was reported missing by workmates. He was found slumped on a sofa, with stubbies of beer and prescription drugs nearby, the obvious hallmarks of a suicide attempt.
As tributes poured in yesterday, a Jekyll-and-Hyde picture of Springbett emerged. A doting father to daughters Jasmin and Marley, he was pained by the split from their mother, publicist Louisa McCole.
Renowned for his party-boy ways and linked to many of the female performers he signed for Sony, Springbett had fought to shut down the rumours blamed for ending his relationship.
Despite his marital woes, he thrived in the role of dad, telling friends: “My babies are the best thing I’ve ever done.”
When his union with McCole finally broke down earlier this year, he maintained contact with his daughters but “missed them desperately”.
McCole used her Facebook page to acknowledge condolences yesterday. “Thank you to everyone for their love and support. Simply heartbroken,” she wrote.
It is believed she was alarmed at Springbett’s moods and behaviour in recent weeks.
When he joined a recreational gun club, friends also became worried.
His Sony “family” also had its challenges, with Springbett in the process of moving from full-time employment to an external label and artist management deal.
Boss Denis Handlin said Springbett was “in great form” at an executive meeting on Monday.
Celebrating his birthday, Springbett was excited about a new single he had secured from acclaimed songwriter Diane Warren for Mauboy to record.
“He also found a great song for Nat Bass to do during the X Factor season coming up,” Mr Handlin said. “He was in really great form.”
Kyle Sandilands, who was replaced by Springbett on Idol, said he saw his industry mate at a restaurant on Wednesday.
Mr Handlin hopes to organise a benefit to raise funds for Springbett’s two young daughters.
“He adored them,” he said.
Related: The Gillard government will soon make it much more difficult for separated fathers to see their children, implementing a presumption of guilt in child abuse against all separated fathers, regardless of whether child abuse ever occurred or not. Read more on Gillard’s attack on children from separated families here.
Anyone with personal problems or considering suicide can call Lifeline on 131 114 on Dads in Distress on 1300 853 437.
