Family Violence Bill
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”.
Where Good Men Don’t Count: The Dire Repercussions of Ignoring Men’s Welfare – Story Bridge Murder/Suicide
In another case reflecting the lack of support experienced by separated fathers in this country, many Australians are now questioning the wisdom of Australia’s family support services which have focussed almost exclusively on the welfare and support of women, while ignoring the needs men, resulting in a culture of vilification that has driven some men over the edge, with dire consequences for the innocent children of separated families.
IT WAS dark outside when Danielle Lees woke and reached for her mobile phone. It had only been hours since she last saw him, but something made her dial her husband to see if everything was OK.
By the time the call connected with Jason Lees’ mobile, both he and their son, Brad, were already dead.
Danielle, a psychologist, had been staying with her parents on the Gold Coast.
Neighbours say the couple appeared to have separated, but Jason, a teacher at Brisbane’s “Churchie” and a former rugby union referee, drove to meet her for lunch on Sunday.
He left again for home in the afternoon, taking Brad with him – the two-year-old attended his school’s kindergarten.
It was about 2am when Jason strapped Brad into the car, loaded his bike and drove from their Seven Hills home in suburban Brisbane to Kangaroo Point.
Rudd v Gillard Divorce as Ugly as Labor’s 2011 Family Law Amendments
In true Labor style, the bitter and ugly dispute between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard is tearing away at the very fabric of the Labor government family in Australia.
In true poetic fashion, this ruckus is playing out exactly as the Family Law (Family Violence) amendment act 2011 has destined for the majority of separating fathers and mothers in this country, with one parent losing everything, while the other enjoying the complete spoils of the gains that were earned together. Although perhaps in this case not for very long.
For the uninitiated, I am referring to Labor’s dead-of-night repealing of Australia’s 2006 Shared Parenting laws in November 2011, a law that was implemented in 2006 to ensure a child’s right of meaningful contact with both parents in the event of divorce, except in circumstances where child abuse was a reasonable fear.
–Poll – have your say, who would you prefer as Australia’s Prime Minister?–Vote Below
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.
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.
Read the rest of this entry »
Shared care dead as mother stands firm on no access
A QUEENSLAND father has been banned from having any contact with his five-year-old daughter until she reaches 18 after the Family Court accepted that the child’s mother would “destroy” the relationship rather than agree to shared care.
In a decision that suggests the “shared care” law introduced by the Howard government was effectively dead, a full bench of the Family Court said “the mother would ignore any order for contact” and, as a result, it was pointless to order her to co-operate.
Shared care of children after divorce was a policy goal of the previous government, but the law is now being rolled back, with key changes to the Family Law Act (1975) passing through the Senate this week.
Under the old law, mothers were sent to prison or lost custody of children when they refused to allow them to have contact with their father. While this is still possible, the full bench of the court has now said that in some cases there is nothing it can do.
The full bench ruled on the matter after a father, known as Mr Summerby, appealed against a 90-page judgment by a Brisbane federal magistrate, Keith Wilson, which effectively ended his relationship with his daughter.
Mr Wilson agreed that the loss of the girl’s relationship with her father “would be distressful in the short term and may also be emotionally damaging to her in the long term”.
Labor’s Male-Hate anti-Family Law amendments become LAW
Knowingly false allegations of child abuse will now become a legitimate reason to deny children any contact with their father in the event of separation, under controversial new laws passed by parliament today.
The government has made changes to family laws compelling family law courts to consider all allegations of family violence, even irrational, malicious and knowingly dishonest allegations.
The law rolls back reforms made under the Howard government that encouraged shared parenting responsibilities.
The legislation also aims to change the definition of family violence and abuse under the act to include a host of alleged behaviours, that are now to be determined by what the alleged victim claims to have feared, rather than what occurred, was witnessed or can be proven.
It will allow the court to deny contact, in most cases with the children’s father, based on nothing more than a claim that the mother “fears” abuse, whether or not there is any history of abuse, or whether any threatening behaviour occurred or is likely to occur.
Family Violence bill (family law amendment) update – time to Speak Up!
Because of the emphasis that the Gillard government had placed on passing the Carbon Tax legislation in the lower house, the final vote of the Family Violence bill has been delayed.
We believe now that it will be voted on in the Senate on the 31st October, and expect it to be passed given the support of the Greens.
However will still need to show our opposition to this malicious bill, so Fathers4Equality have rolled out a tool (the Email Megaphone) we used on previous occasions, which resulted in almost 1 million emails being sent to local members in Parliament in 2005.
The Megaphone provides one email to be written, and then sent as an personalised email to numerous politicians.
It is a super-easy tool to use, and we would encourage you to visit and use it daily, until the final vote on this is finalised.
http://www.fathers4equality-australia.org/mailsend/anti-family-bill.nsf/frmSendMail
Placing Children in harms way: Labor’s Family Law Fiasco
Most people by now would have heard the commonly-peddled Julia Gillard-Labor party claim that Australia’s current Child Custody family laws are in urgent need of amendment in order to protect vulnerable children from child abuse.
“Putting children’s safety first” is one of numerous newspaper headlines blindly towing this line, resulting in a growing perception that the existing 2006 Shared Parental Responsibility laws had openned the floodgates to rampant child abuse, in the guise of Shared Parenting arrangements.
According to one prominent Green, child abuse is “gendered”, and presumably as a result children should be denied contact with men, especially separated fathers, as a matter of policy. The fact that these same Greens support Gay (male) adoption makes one wonder how a political party that wants to be taken seriously can bring itself to support two completely incompatible policies when it comes to the safety of children.
The federal Attorney General, Robert McClelland, has himself been relentless in his portrayal of the 2006 Shared Parenting amendments as being detrimental to women, and he has vowed to change these laws in order to protect “women and children” from fathers.
Strangely, McClelland has vowed to do this by removing the penalties for false allegations and perjury in the Family Court, and by effectively dismantling measures designed to encourage co-operation between divorcing parents.
