Labor Red-Faced as Parents rush to Shared Parenting
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Tanya Plibersek - well earned reputation for her anti-male beliefs
Research published by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) has shown that more children from separated families are now spending time with both parents than in the past.
The finding has been claimed as evidence that changes to shared care arrangements under the family law system were working.
Attorney-General, Robert McClelland said among new cases registered with the Child Support Agency each year, the proportion with a shared or near shared care-time arrangement increased from 9 per cent to 17 over five years.
Mr McClelland said that in addition, a survey of 10,000 parents who had been separated after the reforms for an average of 15 months found 16 per cent had a shared care arrangement.
However in a extra-ordinary statement that conflicts with the relentless efforts by Labor over the past two years, the Attorney General stated that: “The Government strongly supports shared care arrangements when it’s in the best interests of children”.
This is despite McClelland being at the fore of the complete roll-back of the 2006 Shared Parenting reforms, to the point where separated fathers will be prevented from having any meaningful contact with their children at all.
Supporters of shared parenting reforms have long complained that the Labor government was intent on forcing all children of separated families back into single-mother households, and their worst fears were realised when Gillard released the Family Law Legislation Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill 2011, a bill which creates a presumption of guilt against all separated fathers, and removes penalties for false allegations of abuse.
Fathers groups have predicted that this bill, if passed into law, will not only completely destroy any possibility of shared parenting outcomes in Court, but it will by and large prevent almost all separated fathers from seeing their children, given that “allegations” no longer needed to be proven.
The bill, commonly referred to as the anti-father amendment, is currently before Parliament and has caused many MPs to wince at the archaic measures that Labor is implementing, that rely almost solely on gender stereotypes, rather than the rule of law.
In his defence, Robert McClelland stated that the Bill has tried to focus on the safety of children as a priority, but he failed to explain how that would be achieved by forcing children into sole-custody households, even when their fathers’ had never and were never likely to engage in abusive behaviour.
The Attorney General was also asked to explain how children would be better off with these amendments that undo Shared Parenting and force children into sole custody households, when up to 80% of all familial child abuse occurs in sole mother households.
We have still to get an answer from him on that one.
Minister for Human Services, Tanya Plibersek said the research also showed that since the 2006 reforms, courts were making more orders for shared care, although missing from her grandiose statement was her very open and relentless attacks on Shared Parenting since before the 2006 amendments were enacted.
In fact Ms Plibersek is one politician with a well-earned reputation for extremist views on domestic violence, believing that domestic violence is gendered, and as such all children in Shared Parenting arrangements would be at ongoing risk of being abused by their father.
No such comments from her today as she claimed credit for John Howard’s 2006 Shared Parenting reforms, but missed the detail about she being one of the driving forces behind the dismantling of these laws, and the fact that she has pushed for extra measures that would deny many if not most innocent fathers even the standard two days a fortnight.
Ms Plibersek said the AIFS report also found the prevalence of shared care time had been increasing progressively over the past decade with 7 per cent of children in an equal care-time arrangement, mainly for those between 5 and 11 and 12 and 14.
Most commentators however expect that the current amendments, if passed by Parliament, will result in zero shared care outcomes in Court, and fewer in mediation given that the Gillard government has slashed funding for post-separation mediation.
Even more worrying, it is widely predicted that the rate of disengaged fathers will drastically increase, given that fathers will be offered no legal options to remain in contact with their children, should their ex-wife decide against it.
Given the timely report from Professor Parkinson on the connection between child mental illness and fatherlessness, the dangers of these poorly thought out amendments cannot be over-stated.
Perhaps like the litany of other policy disasters that have come from this Labor government, the prevailing views of the majority of Australian’s will again be ignored as Gillard and her ilk in the Labor party try desperately to reverse their flagging popularity, by trying to appease the interest of vocal and influential interests groups, at the expense of the people that count.
The report Shared care time – An increasingly common arrangement? can be accessed at the AIFS website at this PS News link.
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The World is watching…
An article by Robert Franklin, Esq in “Fathers & Families”
http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/?p=19558
“In Australia, it’s a race against the clock. Can the Labor government of Julia Gillard squelch shared parenting in time, or will Australians stop the effort with their preference for greater equality for both parents?”
Long before the real effects of the amendments were known, anti-father advocates pronounced it flawed because it allowed abusive fathers to get custody of children. As a practical matter, what that meant was that any father who was claimed by his ex to have been abusive, was considered by the anti-dad crowd to be charged tried and convicted of same.
In vain did many people point out that it’s mothers far more than fathers who abuse children. No, for those opposed to any improvement in a child’s ability to maintain a relationship with his/her father, facts are superfluous. They had their story and they stick to it.
And Labor listened. Soon enough it put forward yet another amendment to the Family Law Act that, if enacted, would not only knock the props out from under the 2006 amendment, but would gut fathers’ rights entirely. Not surprisingly, it would do that by (a) expanding the definition of domestic abuse to include virtually any subjectively negative state of mind offered in evidence by a mother against a father, and (b) removing all penalties for false allegations.
If that’s not an open invitation for denying children access to their fathers, I don’t know what is
…In his defence, Robert McClelland stated that the Bill has tried to focus on the safety of children as a priority, but he failed to explain how that would be achieved by forcing children into sole-custody households, even when their fathers’ had never and were never likely to engage in abusive behaviour.
The Attorney General was also asked to explain how children would be better off with these amendments that undo Shared Parenting and force children into sole custody households, when up to 80% of all familial child abuse occurs in sole mother households.”
[Reply]
zac Reply:
September 29th, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Why don’t we just have a ‘civil’ war, mothers vs fathers?
The government has just given the green light for women to enter most frontline combat posts in the ADF.
For years the government has allowed women, typically, to sling mud at their ‘custody battle’ opponent with little retribution for ‘low blows’ ie..false claims of physical and child sexual abuse.
Enough! you battle mad, lying freaks that are in charge of our nation.
[Reply]
Although some laws have reverse onus of proof, the main philosophy of law is “Innocent until proven guilty”. This severely goes against that principle.
There are circumstances where the father is a more responsible parent than the mother and where, in such cases and the child(ren) experience 50/50, would be completely removed.
The child would then suffer as the stable parent is removed which goes against the ideology of what the Labor Government claim they are trying to achieve.
A fair process for all is that it should refer to a parent, regardless of gender, and adequate evidence should be provided to ensure that false accusations are not used against another parent. It is ignorant to believe or ignore that false accusations do not occur: they do and are made by either gender.
A parent and child have equal right in being with each other, and the Government should be the leaders in encouraging parents to have close to 50/50 care as possible (of course work and some other situations may prevent this). Parents who do should be rewarded and not discriminated against based on gender.
If the government force the father in to having reduced contact/care and then on the other hand expect the father to pay more child support as a result where is the fairness in that? How can you force someone to pay more when you are not allowing them to have the contact?
As it currently stands, the system for paying child support is based on income and percentage of care, but is essentially discriminatory towards the parent who has worked hard to achieve a descent paying occupation and more in favor of the non-working, lower income parent. This in theory sounds good but when the parent who earns more, pays more and on top of that takes better care due to the other parent investing their interests elsewhere, where does the sensibility of the system kick in. It doesn’t and it can’t under the current system.
The parent who does pay, can not improve their own lifestyle or the lifestyle they provide for their child as any any increase in overtime or loading associated with their wage increases support payments the following period where such overtime or loading may not be forth coming. A fair system to the paying parent would be to take 5% of that extra pay towards support payments. Thus allowing the paying parent to improve the life style they provide for themselves and their child while the other parent still receives extra to assist.
The Government has lost touch with what families have been experiencing for a long time.
[Reply]
It has always been a bone of contention when males in this society are demonised by the media as being the only gender who is capable of Domestic Violence with the emphasis on physical harn that is done. Little if any thing is reported by the media is relation to a females capability of doing harm to both children and spouse. On occassion you might read in the daily blurb that a women was arrested for murder but the next days article about the same issue is buried on page 32 in a 10cm x 10 cm square box only for those that read the daily blurb from page to page.Is it not time to stop the demonising of males as violent people and consider that both genders are capable of the same acts and face the same penalties
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Hands down this Labor government is the worst government this country has ever had.
And Julia Gillard is the worst Prime Minister ever.
This is what happens when you get voted in by Independents rather than the Australian public.
[Reply]