Family Law
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 Thomson’s 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 Gillard’s 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 ‘HAVE NOTS’ 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 Labor’s woes began with Julia Gillard’s 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 Labor’s 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 Australia’s 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
Read Full Article at: Ezine4Males
Woman Sacked for Dirty Divorce Tactics
A WOMAN who used Australian Federal Police databases to dig up dirt on her former husband during a bitter divorce has lost a claim for unfair dismissal.
Fair Work Australia heard the woman, who worked as a financial analyst for the AFP, also tried to rope colleagues into her battle against her former husband but was sacked in April last year after he hired a private investigator and complained to police.
She was found to have breached the AFP code of conduct after getting a co-worker to send her records on her former husband’s businesses, which she described as ”gold” and forwarded on to her mother.
Police also found two sexually inappropriate photos on her work computer, including an image of ”two men’s buttocks” which she described as ”jovial”.
Why women marry the wrong men
“Did you know you were making a mistake as you were walking down the aisle?” This was the question Jennifer Gauvain and Anne Milford asked 1000 women as research for their book How Not to Marry the Wrong Man.
A staggering 30 per cent of respondents said ‘yes’ they did know. But, they did it anyway.
Gauvain, a licensed clinical social worker, wrote about it in this blog for the Huffington Post. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given divorce rates in the US are around 40 per cent – versus about one third in Australia – it caused an uproar.
Of the thousand-odd comments on the article, some that captured the general mood included this:
“Marriage is for idots and poor people. Divorce is too easy for women. It’s not hard for a woman to navigate a divorce. The only thing she’s navigating is how much of this man’s hard earned money she’s going to take from him for the rest of his life.”
And this:
Aussie PM in denial as her support amongst Males drops to all time low
Australia’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has responded to news of the collapse of her support amongst Australia’s voting public with an air of denial that has even stunned her harshest critics.
With news today that Labor’s 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, 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 Australia’s 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
DIVORCE LAWS: Family Court loathed for the vast harm it does
The Americans have a well-known saying for politicians, “It’s the economy, stupid!” — meaning that what matters most for people are economic issues. It’s false.
What matters most to people, and most affects their well-being, are close relationships, and above all family relationships. These are areas where politicians and bureaucrats can do only limited good but almost limitless harm, and huge harm is being done.
Here are some facts regarding Australia today. If there’s a marriage or relationship break-up involving children, and custody or access is in dispute, the parties must submit to an inquisition by Family Court social-workers or the latters’ pet psychologists regarding their past behaviour towards and in the presence of the children.
A major purpose of the exercise is to identify “family violence” by the male, with this being defined as any behaviour “actual or threatened” which causes any member of the family “to fear for, or reasonably to be apprehensive about, his or her personal well-being or safety”.
The term “well-being” is infinitely elastic, and meant to be, as are the other catch-all Family Court categories of “family violence”, such as “psychological violence/abuse”, “emotional violence/abuse”, and “controlling behaviours”.
Couple lose court battle to contact grandchildren
GRANDPARENTS who resorted to litigation to see their beloved grandchildren after their son and his wife cut off all relations have lost a court fight to regain contact.
In what a federal magistrate said was an ”unusual” and ”tragic” case, the grandparents sought court orders to re-establish contact with the two boys, aged 10 and six.
Failing agreement with the parents about seeing the children, the grandparents wanted court orders that included the grandchildren being able to contact them, as well as times set for meeting at Christmas and birthdays.
The relationship between the adults began to slide when the grandmother made a catty comment at the hairdresser’s about her daughter-in-law.
The comment got back, sparking tensions that drew in other members of the extended family.
You can have a friendly divorce
DIVORCE does not have to be nasty and perceptions that amicable separations are impossible are off the mark, experts say.
While disputes are almost always inevitable when a marriage comes to an end, Queensland University of Technology family law expert Donna Cooper says an abundance of research showing the negative effect family conflict can have on children is finally sinking in with separating parents.
“There’s always been a lot of research saying that arguing, conflict, isn’t good for the children – in the last few years it has exploded,” Ms Cooper said.
“The main thing we’ve noticed in family law is that people are listening.”
Adolescent psychologist Dr Darryl Cross said reassuring children that they did not cause a break-up might seem a straightforward recommendation, but was often forgotten.
“You’d be surprised at the number of kids who don’t actually ask if they caused the split, but in their head they’re upset and put a lot of pressure on themselves because they think they’re behind the break-up,” he said.
Toddlers should not be allowed to sleep in Prams, Dr Jennifer McIntosh finds
This claim is based on research by clinical psychologist Dr Jennifer McIntosh, who has released guidelines via the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health based on the premise that children under-2 years of age are stressed (and presumably permanently harmed) if allowed to sleep in an unfamiliar environment.
This research has been used to promote the seemingly entrenched ideology of Dr Jenn McIntosh, the very unscientific obsession against fatherhood parenting, especially separated fathers, and she has again cleverly created a legally plausible argument (and as a result a status quo arrangement) for separating mothers to deny meaningful contact of a child with their father.
However, in my humble opinion her research findings are so compelling that we are obliged to consider all of the circumstances that could create such harm to an under-2 year old child, and not just the highly selective case of a separating father being denied any meaningful contact.
We as a society and as a system of laws should equally prohibit the following activities, lest it leave a under-2 year old stressed and permanently scarred:
Divorce lawyer busted breaking into home of client’s estranged husband
A divorce lawyer has been caught on surveillance video kicking down the door at the home of his client’s estranged husband and ransacking the place.
Raymond Van Arnam, 60, was filmed breaking into the house in Alamogordo, in the US state of New Mexico, before he and his client Melissa Stonecipher go about collecting her belongings.
They are joined by several of Van Arnam’s law office employees.
They carry out furniture, legal papers, a truck full of furniture and the family dog.
Van Arnam is even seen ripping down ‘no trespass’ signs.
This week a judge sentenced the lawyer to 30 days in jail and issued him a $7500 fine, according to a local news station.
