Archive for December, 2011
Jen McIntosh: Child Abuse by stealth – flawed research and ideology contaminating family law
Mis-represented, poorly structured, open to observer bias, inaccurate, agenda driven, pseudo-science. These are some of the apt descriptions of the recently released guidelines on shared parenting recommendations for toddlers, which attempt to contradict volumes of research, dating back decades,  from hundreds of independent researchers, all who have found quite the opposite.
I would encourage all to treat these guidelines as policy statements from an ultra-left leaning political party, rather than well-researched recommendations, given that it has all the hallmarks of a well-meaning, but recklessly determined, and ultimately unsubstantiated piece of political folly.
Jen McIntosh, a self-confessed anti-shared care Zealot
The main protagonist behind these guidelines, Dr. Jennifer McIntosh, is adourned with an esteemed salutation, but don’t be fooled into concluding that this woman is an impartial researcher, or a researcher who is promoting the welfare of children, for she is doing none of the above.
Jen McIntosh is  a lobbyist first, and a social researcher last, given the pseudo-science she frequently promotes as the foundation of her anti-shared parenting campaigning.
Shared custody a mistake for the under-2s, says Lobbyist Researcher
Controversial: 'sleeping is stressful, but not daycare'.
SEPARATED PARENTS should not share custody of babies or toddlers under two, according to controversial guidelines released this week by a national infant welfare group, which seem to contradict decades of research and conclude the exact opposite.
”Prior to the age of two years, overnight time away from the primary care-giver should be avoided, unless necessary” according to the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health’s ”guidelines for protecting the very young child’s sense of comfort and security”.
The guidelines recommend that non-custodial parents, nine out of 10 of whom are fathers, should instead see children under two during the day, up to three times a week, gradually phasing in overnight visits after the second birthday. Families fighting custody battles in the Family Court should not share custody until the child is three, according to the guidelines.
Mum loses custody after slapping her child
A pregnant mother-of three from Townsville has lost custody of her children after she slapped her six-year-old son for lying.
The 28-year-old, who cannot be named, has lost her children from two months, and will not be able to see them at Christmas because they are being cared for by their father, who recently left her and moved to Brisbane.
The unemployed mother — who is seven months pregnant and also has a one-year-old son and three-year-old daughter — pleaded guilty in Townsville Magistrates court yesterday to unlawful assault and occasioning bodily harm against her six-year-old.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Ian Harms told the court officer were called to the mother’s house in Kelso on October 9, where they found the six-year-old bleeding at the mouth with a swollen red mark above his left eye.
Robert McClelland – threatened to quit Parliament if not retained as AG, according to new source
According to an un-named source within the Gillard government, former Attorney General Robert McClelland argued forcefully to be retained as Attorney General, when advised that he was being dumped from Cabinet.
The dumping of Robert McClelland, as predicted by Fathers4Equality in May of this year, was on the cards because, according to this same source, “McClelland had made a mess of the family law reform package.”
This source claims that the 2011 family violence legislation had been perceived by the majority in the Labor government, especially in response to the thousands of phone calls and tens of thousands of emails from disaffected constituents, mostly fathers and grandparents, as “going too far and lending credence to the criticisms that the changes were anti-father and anti-shared-care.”
‘We don’t care about Family Violence against Men’ – Service providers betray their Charter
Editors Note: A F4E member recently received an email from Relationships Australia, presumably because  he was a client of their service at some point during his separation.
This email highlighted a new program made available at Relationships Australia – Westmead NSW, called “Family safety – Women’s Choice and Change”.
Given this member’s history, it comes as no surprise that he was infuriated by this email, and has written back to Relationships Australia challenging them on why such services are evidently not available for male victims of abuse.
This member was in fact a victim of abuse and violence from his ex-wife, and has complained bitterly in the past at the lack of services available for male victims of abuse, and the completely dismissive disinterest in ‘male pain’ as he calls it, by organisations established to protect victims of abuse.
This man eventually won full custody of his young child, but only after the child was seriously injured by the mother. Up until that point, this man claims to have been criminalised by a system that only supported and believed women.
Below is his email to Relationships Australia.
Family Court lets wealthy wife keep the lot
IT is taken as given that when a man gets divorced after 21 years he’s going to lose a chunk of whatever fortune he has made to his ex-wife.
What, though, if it’s the wife who has made all the money? Does she lose half too?
Not in every case, according to a recent judgment of the Family Court, which has allowed a wife to keep the bulk of the $4 million in assets she holds in her name, while leaving the husband with pretty much nothing.
The judgment, known as Stiller and Power, was made in September but has only now come to light. It concerns a Brisbane couple, described as “intelligent and creative” who got married in 1991, when both were 53. Each had “a reasonable level of unencumbered assets” including properties held in their own names before they tied the knot.
