Family Law Reform
One Rule for Politicians, another rule for Separated Fathers
Extract: Unless you have been living under a rock, you would be well acquainted with the saga of Australian Labor MP Craig Thomson, whom Fair Work Australia has recently found to have misused his Union credit cards to pay for the services of prostitutes, amongst other misuses of union funds.
In the Australian legal system, people are supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, however the evidence against Mr Thomson is by most standards overwhelming. Fair Work Australia has found a striking coincidence between the use of the credit cards in Mr Thomsonâs possession, at least one signature on the brothel credit card dockets, phone calls between Mr Thomson and the brothel, and a number of other highly suspect pieces of evidence that in my opinion would be highly unlikely to lead to any other conclusion, other than that Mr Thomson himself actively sought and paid for these services, with union funds.
According to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, politicians SHOULD HAVE a presumption of innocence, even if the facts of their guilt are overwhelming. As such she has steadfastly defended Mr Thomson, claiming that she thought he was innocent and that she would not expel him from the party. In response to media pressure and the prevailing community belief that the evidence stands on its own, she finally relented and expelled him from the Labor party, while still claiming he was innocent, and still accepting his vote in Parliament. The thinking behind this is obvious, as Gillard is acting in her own self interest, damn the ethics at play. But any way you play it, Mr Thomson has received remarkable leniency in this sorry saga, even having his legal fees in defence of these allegations paid for by the Labor party.
However, as many Australian fathers would be well aware by now, Julia Gillard is quite selective as to how she applies the principle of a presumption of innocence.
As in abundantly clear from Gillardâs recent Family Violence amendments to the Family Law act, she believes that even though Craig Thomson should be presumed innocent, should keep his job and should receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in free legal funds to fight his case in Court , separated fathers however do not get such privileges, and in fact should be considered the âHAVE NOTSâ in application of the principle of a presumption of innocence.
Not only do separated fathers lose their house, the majority of their life insurance and all other assets, but in most cases, as presumably intended by these amendments, they lose meaningful contact with their children, even if they are completely innocent of any wrongdoing. They are also in many cases prevented from accessing Legal Aid, and certainly never get their legal fees paid for by an organisation for apparently no reason.
Read the full article on Ezine4males.com
Tony Abbott, a Conviction Politician with a Blind Spot for Fathers
EXTRACT
Not since the Constitutional crisis of 1975, when an elected Australian Prime Minister was spectacularly sacked by the very same Governor General that Labor itself appointed, has a Labor-led government limped from one self-inflicted crisis to another, in such monotonous repetition, as it does today.
For many reading the papers of the last few days, one would be forgiven for the misconception that Laborâs woes began with Julia Gillardâs broken promise on the Carbon tax, or her lack of political judgment on the asylum seeker situation, or even her political assassination of a first term Labor Prime Minister.
In fact the seeds of Laborâs demise were sown well before Julia Gillard even became Prime Minister……….back to when Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister blinked on the carbon Tax mark I, while Opposition leader Tony Abbott, who many thought was on a hiding to nothing given public opinion at the time, kept his eyes wide open.
……..For a politician openly reviled by the ugly underbelly of many of Australiaâs liberal/feminist organisations, one cannot deny that Tony Abbott has shown tremendous courage in staring down an at-the-time popular policy put forward by an at-the-time popular Prime Minister, and the outcome has left almost everyone surprised, except perhaps for Tony Abbott.
However, as a man and as a father, I must add that my opinion on Tony Abbott as a politician of conviction does not find favour in one select community within Australia, that being the ever growing list of separated fathers who have little or no contact with their children post-divorce.
Jake Roberts  exclusively for Ezine4Males
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Aussie PM in denial as her support amongst Males drops to all time low
Australiaâs Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has responded to news of the collapse of her support amongst Australiaâs voting public with an air of denial that has even stunned her harshest critics.
With news today that Laborâs support has fallen to 28 per cent, just one percent shy of the figure that has decimated the Queensland Labor party only a few days ago, with a loss of over 40 seats, Â fears are now growing that Gillard is simply too detached from reality to meet the herculian challenge that is facing Labor at a federal level.
Many critics have identified two key policies that have wedged hard-core Labor supporters away from Labor and into the fold of the Coalition.
A policy that has received little news media coverage but has caused significant grass roots upheaval has been the recent 2011 Family Law amendments, which have effectively dismantled Australiaâs popular and broadly successful shared parenting laws, and replaced them with what is largely perceived to be anti-male, anti-fatherhood policies, many seeing this as Gillard cowering to feminist ideologues.
Read full article on Ezine4Males.com
Divorcees Beware: Negligent Lawyers Cannot Be Sued in Australia
In what can only be described as a remarkable Supreme Court judgment, a Judge has found that a family law lawyer, a Mr Andrew Goddard from Goddard Elliott lawyers , who negligently advised his mentally incapacitated client resulting in a breathtakingly unjust property settlement,  cannot be sued due to Australia’s archaic advocates’ immunity laws.
This decision was made despite finding that Mr Andrew Goddard was extremely negligent in his representation of his client, resulting in a $900,000 shortfall. In a remarkable twist that defies logic, the client was ordered to pay a further $68,000 in legal costs to Goddard Elliott lawyersï»ż.
–A JUDGE said today he found it “deeply troubling” that a law firm can avoid paying $675,000 to a mentally incapacitated client that it negligently advised because of an ancient law that protects lawyers from being sued.
Justice Kevin Bell found that Goddard Elliott lawyers were negligent in preparing the case of client Paul Fritsch and as a result he only received less than a third of his share of a marital pool of $4.3 million.
In his Supreme Court judgment, Justice Bell said Mr Fritsch was entitled to substantial compensation from the Glen Waverley law firm but the Common Law “advocates’ immunity” shielded the firm for paying for their negligent handling of his case.
“Goddard Elliott is not liable to pay damages for the loss its negligence caused to Mr Fritsch, a conclusion to which I am driven and find deeply troubling,” Justice Bell said.
Sole Custody and Another Toddler Murder – Mother’s Boyfriend Faces Court
THE grave of toddler Brendan-Junior Nathan Williams is marked with a small white cross, colouring textas, toy cars, a glass butterfly and a picture of a bubbly little boy with an infectious smile.
A love heart and two hand prints are pressed into the fresh soil that marks his final resting place. Brendan, 2, was buried last Tuesday, almost two months after he died on January 15 from injuries.
Today, a 23-year-old man – the de facto husband of Brendan’s mother – who was not the child’s biological father, faces court charged with murdering Brendan at the family’s Melrose Park home.
Police arrested him on Saturday but have released few details about their allegations.
They have sealed off a converted-garage room at the home, where Brendan lived with his mother, her boyfriend and two caged pythons.
Brendan was rushed to Flinders Medical Centre in a car by his mother and her partner about 5am on January 14, three hours after the couple returned home from a southern suburbs hotel.
New Bill to add Non-Discrimination Provision to Child Custody Law
SALT LAKE CITY-USA â Julie Anderson gulped back tears to explain to state lawmakers why they need to amend Utah’s child custody statute.
The Andersons believe had their son, Jared, had been awarded custody of his 3-year-old daughter Aubree Jo, the child would not have died in a car accident with her impaired mother behind the wheel. Toxicology tests found Oxycontin and marijuana in Brandi Stilke’s system when the single-car accident occurred on Feb. 23, 2011, in Harrisville.
“If we had been a bit more diligent, perhaps, it wouldn’t have happened,” Anderson told members of House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Standing Committee Tuesday afternoon.
Anderson testified on behalf of HB88, which would add to Utah’s divorce statute a statement that the court may not discriminate against a parent based on age, race, color, national origin, religious preference or gender.
Parental Alienation Epidemic in Australian Family Law Courts, Expert finds
Editor Note: The premise that the Julia Gillard-lead Labor Government relied upon to substantially alter the 2006 Family Law (Shared Parental Responsibility) act, and in the process remove penalties against Perjury and Knowingly False Allegations, as well as removing the Friendly Parent provision (otherwise known as the Anti-Parental Alienation provision), was the insistence, as claimed by various womens’ rights zealouts like Michael Flood and Jen McIntosh,  that False Allegations and Parental Alienation were effectively a Myth, and did not occur at all (or only seldomly occurred) in any Australian Family Law proceedings.
This naive, incorrect and in many regards disingenuous claim has been slammed by many family law professionals, including Judges and Magistrates, who claim that the bulk of the work of all jurisdictions dealing with family law proceedings today are spent on just that, dealing with False Allegations, relating to Domestic Abuse and Child Sexual Abuse, and attempting to serve the best interests of children who have been significantly alienated from their parent, due to the ulterior motives of the other parent.
Israel Takes Steps To Reduce Discrimination Against Divorced Fathers
Jerusalem — January 20, 2012 …. For many divorced fathers in Israel, the declaration yesterday by Israel Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman that divorced parents must now share custody of children, may have come too late. Neeman has accepted recommendations by the Schnit Committee that joint parental custody be ordered in divorce cases involving young children, which the law defines as those up to age 6. Until now, most divorced fathers became visitors, being limited to seeing their children only a few hours a week.
As the new law comes into affect, thousands of dads in Israel would have lost any opportunity of fatherhood due to the fact that their children have already grown up or that their children suffer from PAS – Parental Alienation Syndrome. With PAS the children become alienated against the father as the mother has pushed him away and brainwashed the children that he is of no worth, or perhaps even bad for whatever reason she creates.
Australia’s Shared Parenting laws finding favour in Britain
FIERCE debate over the success and safety of Australia’s shared parenting laws has been exported to Britain.
Australian-based fathers groups, which are advising British counterparts, yesterday welcomed public comments from Britain’s Minister for Children and Families Tim Loughton that his government was considering “legislative and non-legislative” means to promote shared parenting as part of a broad family law shake-up.
Mr Loughton also distanced himself from the recommendations of a government-commissioned review of family law that cited problems with the Howard government’s 2006 reforms to argue against shared parenting legislation. Lone Fathers Association of Australia president Barry Williams backed the British government stance, which goes against the key recommendation of the Family Justice Review chaired by businessman David Norgrove.
In his final report published late last year, Mr Norgrove said “thorough and detailed evidence from Australia showed the damaging consequences for many children” when courts compelled them to spend equal time with both parents.
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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.
