Parental Alienation
Hidden Girls’ Great-Grandmother Ready For Jail
The great-grandmother of four sisters at the centre of a bitter international custody dispute says she would rather end up in jail than reveal their whereabouts.
A Brisbane judge on Wednesday ordered the girls’ grandmother, great-grandmother and aunt to attend court on Friday to answer questions under oath about where the girls are hiding.
The girls disappeared earlier this week to avoid being returned to Italy to live with their father.
Their great-grandmother, who is hiding them, says no-one knows where she and the children are and she would not front court on Friday.
“If the judge throws me in jail, I’ll live with it,” she told the Seven Network.
“I have no respect whatsoever for the justice system.
Abusive Father or Parental Alienation?
Editor: Please treat the below article with a grain of salt. In my opinion this is a clear case of parental alienation, vilifying the father in the children’s eyes just so the mother can secure full custody. I find it extraordinary that the Family Court and the Department of Communities and Child Safety would force children into the custody of a genuinely abusive father. It would have been great for the Courier Mail to have exercised balanced reporting rather than falling for the same old tired stigma of the bad father wanted contact with his children just so he can abuse them. This is another example of the entrenched anti-father bias in the mainstream media in this country. This story below is so unbalanced and in my opinion, deceitful, that it would leave the likes of Caroline Overington and Adele Horin utterly green with envy.
FOUR Sunshine Coast sisters in hiding with their 70-year-old great-grandmother to avoid flying to Italy with an abusive and mentally unstable father have written emotional letters begging their dad to leave them alone.
But the father, his lawyers, the Family Court, and the state Department of Communities and Child Safety show no signs of backing down and are using police to hunt the girls.
Rugby League – Abusing the truth in its fight against Domestic Abuse
The NRL and the NSW government have recently launched an educational DVD to teach young rugby league players and male students across Australia about the negative impact of violence against women.
This campaign, although well-meaning, has been slammed by many domestic violence experts as a mis-representation of the true nature of domestic violence in this country. Many argue that such a simplistic portrayal of domestic violence will only encourage further abuse, especially amongst the young, because the whole campaign is based on the falsehood.
Although it is fairly well documented that domestic violence is a relationship dynamic, with both parties contributing to the violence and abuse over an extended period of the life of the relationship, Australian sporting codes are unfortunately ‘buying in’ to the myth that domestic abuse and violence is a unilateral phenomenon, and can somehow be stopped by simply vilifying men.
Most domestic violence has a backdrop of  abuse tactics from both the male and female in the relationship, dating back many years before the authorities may be involved.
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.
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”.
Mum pleads guilty in boy-behind-wall case
A US woman who authorities say hid her young son, often in a crawl space, for nearly two years as part of a custody dispute has been ordered to spend two years on probation without more jail time.
Shannon Wilfong, 32, pleaded guilty yesterday to five misdemeanours, including obstructing a police officer.
Wilfong was sentenced to $US1500 ($1470) in fines and 30 days in jail – a judge credited her with time served – on that count and fines of $US100 on each of four counts of unlawful interference with child visitation.
Wilfong’s mother, Diane Dobbs, also pleaded guilty to obstruction and escaped additional jail time when the judge credited her with the 12 days she’d already been behind bars. Dobbs, 53, was fined $US1000.
A prosecutor said the case-closing plea deals came with the blessing of the boy’s father, Michael Chekevdia, Wilfong’s one-time boyfriend.
Tony Windsor MP Responds: Hypocrite or Just a Fool, you decide
Tony Windsor Media Release: Child Safety of paramount importance in family law
F4E: This media release from Tony Windsor is in response to the following announcement by Fathers4Equality, in what our opinion has been the total betrayal of the most vulnerable children in Australia by Tony Windsor, a politician who is not only a hypocrite, but based on this media release, either living in denial or just plain dis-honest.
Tony Windsor: The protection of children is of paramount importance to the Independent Member for New England, Tony Windsor when he considers any Family Law legislation amendments.
F4E: The protection of children, their welfare, safety and natural right to a meaningful relationship with both parents and extended families is of genuinely paramount importance to fathers4equality.
Tony Windsor: Mr Windsor was responding to claims by a father’s group that Mr Windsor’s voting with the Government on the Family Violence and Other Measures Bill in late May was contrary to his previous position back in November 2005 when he supported a bill which gave better recognition to shared parenting.
F4E: Notice that Tony Windsor does not deny the allegation. A complete denial would be rather foolish at this stage , although his staff originally intimated that Tony Windsor never supported Shared Parenting. Once they realised that his letter was a matter of public record, they came up with this bizarre media release, which seems like a confusing mish-mash of rhetoric and petty justifications, which still does not explain why he has made a complete about face on such an important personal and community issue, as he himself acknowledged.
Tony Windsor: Mr Windsor said that the two Bills were on two different issues.
F4E: This statement is a falsehood and complete rubbish.
The family violence bill undoes in effect every measure of the 2006 shared parenting amendments, using the deceptive mantra that shared parenting puts children’s safety at risk.
This falsehood was categorically denounced by the AIFS study (the governments own comprehensive study) of 27,000 parents who have been through the system  since the 2006 shared parenting amendments were put in place, where it found no evidence of any increase in risk of abuse to either the children or mothers in shared parenting arrangements.
In fact figures from the Australian Institute of Criminology indicate the exact opposite, that the safest environment for children with regard to child abuse was is in a shared parenting arrangement.
Tony Windsor: “When I consider any family law legislation, I first look at the possible impact on the children.
F4E: Clearly you have not done so in this case Mr Windsor. This bill will effectively guarantee the end of any shared parenting arrangements (statistically the safest environment with regard to protection against child abuse), and it will place almost on an exclusive basis children in contested child custody arrangements in sole mother households (statistically, the most dangerous environment to place children with regard to child abuse, accounting for up to 80% of all child abuse incidents).
Children will have no say and no way to resolve the chasm that this bill will create between their relationship with their mother and father, making the emotional and psychological impact of divorce on children significantly more scarring than it ever needed to be.
Tony Windsor: “It is quite possible to support both the shared parenting legislation and family violence bill and I will always err on the side of caution to help ensure the safety of innocent children.
F4E: The 2006 shared parenting amendments did just that. It supported optimal measures against family violence while also encouraging, where possible and when in the child’s best interests, shared parenting.
The family violence bill does neither. It completely undoes any meaningful encouragement for shared parenting, it encourages the use of children as innocent pawns in parental conflict, while virtually guaranteeing that children will be placed in the highest risk environment for child abuse, without any transparency of care through shared parenting as a protection against child abuse.
Tony Windsor: “This is what the Family Violence Bill does.
F4E: This bill does not protect children. The motivation of this bill is to re-enforce sole-mother custody as the standard in this country. It does this by compromising on the child’s rights, the child’s safety, and the child’s emotional welfare.
Children will have no say in whether they can see their father and their paternal grandparents and cousins,, and there will be nothing to stop a mother poisoning the mind of a child against his or her father, as this bill effectively endorses this kind of behaviour.
This bill is all about the magnification of a mother’s rights, above and beyond what the facts may indicate, at the expense of children and fathers.
The fact that Labor’s Kate Ellis had the gall to effectively state in Parliament that women do not make false allegations in Court (but presumably men do), is a strong indicator that this is a politically gender doctrine, driven by people with entrenched anti-male views, with children having the pay the greatest price for this policy victory.
This bill will not protect one child in genuine need, but it will increase the extent and intensity of abuse experienced by children.
Tony Windsor: “I am satisfied that the Family Violence Bill does not deny fathers or mothers any form of meaningful contact with their children after separation but it does provide for better safety for the children of broken relationships if required,†Mr Windsor said.
F4E: Perhaps Mr Windsor you did not even bother to read the bill to make such a statement, because I find it a remarkable statement to make given the changes to be made.
Let me give you a quick rundown on the changes.
The 2006 shared parenting amendments re-inforced the safety of children to a degree never before seen in the family law act in this country, increasing the scope of the Courts to not only address the risks of  physical and sexual child abuses, but to also address other highly damaging abuses of children;
- including the insurmountable damage to children’s emotional health, welfare and safety through the deliberate alienation of children against the other parent (Parental alienation);
- the epidemic of fatherlessness in this country creating a generation of children being robbed of the unique contributions and nurturing of having a loving father in their lives;
- and the  malicious False Allegations that have historically clogged up the Family Court and other legal jurisdictions.
A child’s right to a meaningful relationship with both parents and extended families was also incorporated into the act, however could not be inforced (despite the abundant mis-information on this topic) Â if the judicial officer did not consider that it would be in the child’s best interests.
The 2006 amendments were considered world’s best practice, by achieving the optimal protection for a child’s overall welfare and safety, while weeding out the malicious False Allegations and destructive behaviour by some parents that used innocent children as pawns in an extension of their parental conflict.
The 2006 shared parenting amendments essentially:
- Encouraged co-parenting co-operation by removing the “winner-takes all’ adversarial approach to family law resolution.
- Encouraged co-parenting co-operation be facilitating a legal requirement for parents to co-operate.
- Enhanced this requirement by implementing free mediation for the parents to resolve their conflict before going to Court
- Implemented a financial penalty for knowingly false allegations, which was essentially the payment of about half the legal fees of the parent who was the innocent victim of malicious and knowingly allegations of child abuse or domestic violence.
What Mr Windsor has done by voting in support of the Family Violence bill is to remove all the safeguards that were implemented after a three year community consultation program, that highlighted the abuses of the existing family laws through false allegations as legal tactics, despite the overwhelming harm done to children.
The Family Violence bill effectively:
- Re-installs the “winner-takes-all” adversarial approach to family law. The name of the game will again be to destroy the character of your children’s other parent, regardless of the truth, because to the victor go the spoils, and that means everything, the majority of the assets and complete control of the children.
- The definition of domestic violence will now include anything and everything from raising your voice, slamming the phone, even such things as pouting or being too upset to talk. This definition does not recognise context, so even if you caught your spouse in bed with another person, anything you did or said in that highly vulnerable situation, even the slamming of the door on your way out, would be considered domestic violence. Even being completely placid is no defense, because the new law will consider what your ex allegedly feels, not what you did or are are likely to do. So no proof will be required apart from one parent saying “I am scared of the other parent”. And if both parents say that, no bonus point for figuring out who ends up “winning the case”.
- Interestingly, the obstruction of contact between child and father, even when Court Orders are in place, is not defined as a form of child abuse or family violence. Perhaps Mr Windsor you can explain to me why this omission is in place, and how it benefits children?
- Tacitly encourages the alienation of children against the father (mostly), as a viable legal tactic with no penalties attached.
- Encourages the making of knowingly false allegations of child abuse and domestic violence, by removing any penalty against anyone caught perjuring themselves in Court. In other words, legally speaking it would be foolish to tell the truth in Court because even if you lie and are convincingly proven to have lied, the Court will be powerless to penalize you.
- The funding for post-separation mediation services has been slashed, effectively meaning that parent’s will once again be pushed into Court, in many cases having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees, which would otherwise have been completely avoided by the previous 2006 laws.
Tony Windsor: Mr Windsor is very much aware that Family Law is a very sensitive area with which to deal.  “The break up of a relationship is very distressing and even more so when children are involved.  “Many people are aggrieved when for one reason or another they must prove to a third party that they are fit and proper people to have access to their own children. “It is frustrating for those who have to go through this process however it is important for these people to remain calm and focussed on the objective of gaining access to their children. “The process is not perfect.
F4E: Yes, this is self-evident, but is this your excuse for being a hypocrite? You stated in writing that you supported shared parenting as being in a child best interests, if there was no realistic evidence of child abuse.
Now, in an unexplained turn-around, you effectively support an effective presumption of sole-maternal custody, even if the mother has knowingly made false allegations, even if the mother has maliciously alienated the child from the father, even if the mother has irrational, cognitively detached and completely untrue fears against the father.
So at one stage you believed that a child’s arrangements should be based on a child’s best interests, determined by the overwhelming research in support of a child’s development needs for meaningful relationships with both parents, if practical and devoid of realistic safety fears.
Now, Â a child’s best interests is secondary to the mother feelings, regardless or whether they are malicious, honest or irrational. Decisions will now focus on the mother’s ‘demands’ and ‘needs’, not on a child’s best interests.
By your hand, cases such as  ”Mother wins custody battle after terrifying children about father“, and tragedies such as Keisha Abrahams, are more likely than ever to become common place and the standard.
Tony Windsor: “This is why the Parliament is continually faced with more amendments to try to address the issues that arise,†Mr Windsor said.
F4E: Amendments to enhance a law is one thing. The family violence bill completely undoes the 2006 shared parenting initiatives, and creates a presumption of guilt against separated fathers.
What will be the next amendment you will support Mr Windsor? The immediate imprisonment of all separated fathers?
Tony Windsor: Mr Windsor also supported his staff’s handling of the group’s “demand†for a response.
Tony Windsor: “Since the ‘hung parliament’ my office has been bombarded with correspondence on every issue imaginable and my staff generally turn things around within a working week.
Tony Windsor: “Many are vexatious and sorting through all of them does take time.
Tony Windsor: “It will be attended to but accusing my staff of being condescending or dismissive is a misrepresentation of their commitment to helping constituents with their concerns and I sincerely thank them for their efforts,†Mr Windsor said.
F4E: I stand by my comments, and in my opinion this is more a reflection of your priorities Mr Windsor, not of your staff.
In any case, what does it matter to a child who is being denied contact with a loving father that you are a busy and important politician. Are you suggesting that this excuses you from what has been described by some as reckless, hypocritical and questionable behaviour on your part, since your deal with Labor?
This media release is simply a pathetic response to a serious issue on child safety.
I do not accept it as a response to the questions as to how you fundamentally changed your personally held views on shared parenting, apparently overnight, while ignoring the views of your electorate and that of the Australian public.
This change in view ‘co-incidentally’ occurred during a  period when you were being offered perks from the Labor party for your support of their policies.
I do not believe that your response does anything to convince the Australian public that your vote for the family violence bill was genuinely a vote in support of a fundamental policy shift in family law.
You have simply not provided an explanation to dispel the views of many Australians that your change in support for the family violence bill had more to do with political expediency with your arrangement with Labor, than any genuine interest in protecting vulnerable children from the risks of child abuse.
Download Tony Windsor Media release
Family Court to consider Emotional Abuse
Editor Note: The below article appeared recently in the Daily Telegraph, but is oddly naive to the new family violence bill, which is probably only days away from being passed by the federal Senate. This bill, when it becomes law, will re-define family violence to include anything that can be subjectively alleged to have caused harm, without the need of objective proof.
This categorically includes emotional violence, but given that the standard of proof has been significantly lowered, it will also include raising of voices, slamming of phones, using profanity and swearing, delusional allegations, confused feelings, dreams, unreasonable anxiety and apprehension, the misunderstanding of language (and body language), and malicious and knowingly false allegations.
All of the above will be considered a form of family abuse, as per the family violence bill, and the family court, will no doubt, as per its robust tradition and as instructed by the federal Attorney General, Robert McClelland, ensure that the decision of who did what will follow strict gender lines, in other words, when in doubt, always blame the Male.
Ironically, the unjustified witholding of a child from the father (as in most cases), or the alienation of the child against the father, will no longer be considered a form of abuse, as per the instructions of the Gillard government who have removed penalties against Parental Alienation from the family law act, as well as removing penalties against the making of knowingly false allegations.
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The Family Court probably has no choice but to include a greater appreciation and understanding of emotional violence in its rulings, but that plainly doesn’t mean such a course will be easy.
For obvious reasons, Family Court disputes are among the most complicated dealt with by the Australian judicial system.
These cases are invariably rife with emotional complexities even before they arrive in the court, which adds yet more difficulties.
The tasks of judges in these instances are not to be envied.
And matters may be set for yet more difficulties, with moves to consider at greater length the roles of emotional abuse, intimidation and using earnings as a weapon in settling child custody disputes.
Nobody disputes that emotional abuse is an important issue and can be extraordinarily destructive in a relationship.
It is indeed possible to agree that in many cases emotional abuse may even be more harmful than physical abuse. The problem comes when such matters are brought before a court and subject to claims of proof. While physical evidence of abuse is relatively obvious and may be easily traced to a cause, emotional abuse is, by its very nature, concealed.
This makes it at once extremely damaging but also far more difficult to prove.
There are also issues of precedent that could well emerge. If it is established in one case that a certain pattern of behaviour amounted to abuse, then it is likely that subsequent trials will follow that precedent – even if a claimant’s level of trauma in response to similar behaviour is completely different.
The Family Court probably has no choice but to include a greater appreciation and understanding of emotional violence in its rulings, but that plainly doesn’t mean such a course will be easy. The court and its judges will be working even harder under these new structures than ever before.
Non-Custodial Parents Party response to the Family Violence bill 2011
NON-CUSTODIAL PARENTS PARTY (EQUAL PARENTING)
John Flanagan,
Deputy Registered Officer,
Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting),
Email: noncustod@yahoo.com.au
http://www.equalparenting.org.au
28 March 2011.
Committee Secretary,
Senate Legal and Constitutional Committees,
PO Box 6100,
Parliament House,
CANBERRA. ACT. 2600.
Dear Sir/Madam
Re. Family Law Legislation Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill 2011
We thank the Senate Legal and Constitutional Committees for providing us with the opportunity to make a submission with regard to the Family Law Legislation Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill 2011
Our submission is identical to the combined media release issued by the Family Law Reform Association and other similar organizations such as our political party.
The Family Law Legislation Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill 2011 was introduced by the Attorney-General Robert McClelland into the House of Representatives on 24 March 2011. If passed by Parliament, the resulting legislation will significantly adversely amend the Family Law Act 1975.
The proposed amendments to the Family Law Act are a source of deep concern and dismay to our members and to the many thousands who have sought greater equity and justice in parenting orders made by The Family Court.
Since the introduction of the 2006 reforms giving greater emphasis on shared parental responsibility, doctrinaire feminists, academic ideologues and others with entrenched positions associated with the Family Law system, have been working to overturn them. Now, under the guise of dealing with family violence, the current government’s proposed amendments will effectively sabotage the success of shared parenting responsibility under Family Law.
The proposed amendments will make it much easier to postpone, minimise or terminate parental contact by an allegation of some form of “family violenceâ€.
It is worth noting that a major architect of the proposed reforms preferred a legal presumption that family violence existed in all cases before The Court. Whilst this extremist view has rightly been rejected, the combination of proposed provisions outlined below will come close to achieving the same effect.
In essence, the proposed amendments contain the following provisions:-
Schedule 1. Item 9, subsection 12E(3) and item 32 “Before paragraph 69ZQ(1)(a)”.
The Court, in every case before it, will be required to “proactively inquire†i.e. invite the parties to make allegations of family violence against each other. This is additional to similar obligations on the party’s legal representatives .
Schedule 1. Item 3, subsection 4(1)).
The definition of “family violence†will not be restricted to physical or mental abuse but will be completely open ended. It will include any behaviour a party claims makes them feel threatened “irrespective of whether that behaviour causes harmâ€, or to feel unsafe. Such fears need not be reasonable but instead are to be totally subjective, based only on the complainants claimed state of mind. The normal legal standard of the reasonable person test will not apply. Thus, it will be almost impossible for an accused to refute such claims.
Schedule 1. Item 43, Section 117AB).
The Family Court does not have criminal penalties for perjury despite false testimony having the potential to create enormous wrongs, injustice and damage. Partly because of this, the Family Court is notorious as “The Liar’s Castleâ€. The Court’s reputation will be further damaged by the proposed provision to dispense with the existing meager sanctions for those knowingly making false allegations or statements in proceedings. This can only give encouragement to make such allegations or statements. When added to the other proposed provisions it creates a toxic legal cocktail.
Schedule 1 Items 18,19 and 20 “Section 60CC†and Items 26 and 27 (Note 1)).
The dangers outlined above are further exacerbated by the removal of the “friendly parent provisions”. This will prohibit the Court from giving consideration to the extent the parents have fulfilled their obligation to encourage a healthy relationship between the children and the other parent. The Court should not be placed in this legislative “straightjacket”. It is vital that The Court is able to examine all the issues central to the welfare of the child rather than having to operate wearing legislative “blinkers”. Given that the parties before The Court are in dispute, standard legal principles require the Court be able to investigate all issues directly relevant to the merit or otherwise of the parties. Any attempt to fetter a Court of Law in its relevant enquiries is generally condemned by the legal fraternity. Again, this provision reveals a diminished view of the importance of maintaining a healthy relationship between both parents and the child and exposes the true intent of the amendments.
Effects of the amendments
Inevitably and predictably, the amendments will encourage a sharp increase in totally false or grossly exaggerated allegations by one parent against the other in cases before The Family Court. Far from diminishing actual family violence, the following likely outcomes will only increase the risk.
• Greatly increase the workload of The Court and other organisations as a plethora of claims are investigated and assessed.
• Greatly increase the time and cost in settling cases creating a lawyers bonanza whilst increasing stress and frustration to the parties.
• Greatly increase the cost to the taxpayer of operating the Family Court and its associated agencies and the cost to the community as a whole of increased friction and more protracted Family Court cases.
• Increase the demand on limited government funded legal aid.
• Greatly increase the demand for supervised contact centres, already overburdened, costly and unavailable to most parents desperately needing such a service.
• Greatly increase the number of children whose relationship and contact with their non resident parent is terminated, postponed, reduced or otherwise curtailed due to false or grossly exaggerated claims of “family violenceâ€.
• Greatly increase the amount of friction between the parties as one or both take advantage of system’s multiple invitations to make allegations of “family violence†against the other.
• Hamper the Courts ability to identify real and acutely dangerous situations as it is diverted with vexatious, false or grossly exaggerated allegations.
• Greatly increase the potential for actual violence between parties where previously there would have been little or none. This will occur as non resident parents find the system has stacked all the cards against them, dramatically affecting their contact and relationship with the children and all the associated consequences.
• Greatly increase the level of suicide and deterioration of mental health for non resident parents (typically the male). Respected studies have shown that separated males are six (6) times more likely to suicide than attached males. Further, this rate was even higher amongst younger males (thus more likely to have younger children ). Moreover, the highest rates occurred during the divorce phase.
• Without the normal legal protections, the chances of success for the vexatious, manipulative, inflexible, vindictive, dishonest, or mentally unbalanced parent will be greatly increased. Parents with these and similar attributes will readily take advantage of the “free kick†being offered by the proposed amendments. This parent will then become the primary or sole parental role model for the children.
• Faced with the prohibitive cost of pursuing a right of contact, and the associated psychological stress, many non resident parents will simply withdraw, leading to a great increase in the numbers of the
“family law stolen generation†children wrongfully alienated from a non resident parent (typically the father). This will amplify the well documented higher rates of negative outcomes for children brought up in fatherless environments
Impact on legal principles
The proposed amendments have provisions which are unmatched in any other area of law. We believe they offend several basic legal principles:
a) The ambiguity and lack of certainty in the new, unlimited and subjective definition of “family violenceâ€.
b) The presumption of guilt unless an allegation of “family violence†can be disproved which will be frustrated by the subjective test for “family violenceâ€.
c)Â The proposed amendments will force the judge to ignore the standard legal test of the reasonable person.
d) The restrictions on the court’s ability to investigate the merit of the parties.
e)Â The lack of any real sanction from knowingly making false allegations and statements in the proceedings.
f) The court making “proactive inquiry†into the single issue of “family violence†tantamount to inviting the parties to make an allegation and additional to similar obligations on the parties legal representatives.
Lack of objective research
Although the amendments are claimed to be supported and underpinned by various academic studies etc, such studies are only valid if they are objectively conducted with an open mind and from a non ideological platform. We have seen no reliable statistics or studies which show:
a)Â Â Any significant upsurge in actual family violence, supported by police and medical records since the introduction of the 2006 Family Law reforms and which can be reasonably attributed to the 2006 reforms.
b)Â Â Any explanation of how an inevitable increase in tensions, legal costs, case time and demands on limited resources will reduce family violence.
c)  Any explanation of how an inevitable increase in the number of cases where parent – child contact is unjustly affected, will reduce family violence.
d)Â Â Any studies on the affect on children of curtailing contact with a parent who has had a caring, loving relationship with the child but has been subjected to allegations by the other parent.
e)Â Â Any studies on the impact on suicide rates and other mental issues in non contact parents, unjustly denied contact with their children.
Summary
Based on our research and experience, we maintain that the 2006 reforms have worked well and sensibly in encouraging shared parental responsibility while at the same time providing appropriate protective measures for adults and children against family violence. The evil in the amendments is to encourage a presumption that family violence and abuse of children customarily exist in contested matters before the Court.
We also believe the amendments are an underhand means of sabotaging the 2006 reforms under the guise of preventing family violence. We vigorously oppose the amendments.
Thanking you.
Yours faithfully
John Flanagan,
Deputy Registered Officer,
Non-Custodial Parents Party (Equal Parenting),
http://www.equalparenting.org.au
APPENDIX
– A better solution
Family Law Amendment (Joint Residency) Bill 2002.
(This Bill was proposed by the then Senator Len Harris in 2002, but not adopted)
