Dads in Distress Inc

Phone: 1300 853 437
Email: dids@nor.com.au
Internet: www.dadsindistress.asn.au
Postal Address: PO Box J395, Coffs Harbour Jetty, NSW 2450, Australia

29 June 2006
National Post (Canada)

Disenfranchised dads
By Barbara Kay

A simple way to confirm that a particular ideology has captured mainstream culture is to monitor the political vigour or sluggishness around the causes that it deems "correct" and "incorrect."

Gay marriage, a "correct" feminist cause, affects 2% of the population and enjoys about 50% public support - yet was passed into law at the speed of light, without meaningful consultation or debate. But decades-long appeals for reform to outdated custody laws, affecting 40% of the population (many more tangentially), languish in near-obscurity.

And though eight years have passed since a non-partisan, Canada-wide task force made up of MPs and Senators garnered wide support in recommending shared parenting as a default post-divorce arrangement, feminism still trumps gender equality in family court. That is, women are still awarded sole custody in 90% of disputed cases.

This reflects judicial acquiescence to reigning feminist orthodoxy: Children are essentially the possessions of women, women never lie (or are justified when they do) and men want access to children only to control women.

Objective research points to partner violence and child abuse as bilateral phenomena, with up to 85% of divorce-related abuse allegations manufactured by women (or urged upon them by venal advocates) to gain sole custody. Yet strategically whipped-up media hysteria around bogus data and presumed entitlement in lieu of evidence remains a successful formula for custody-bent women.

Anti-male bias is further entrenched when unsupported grievances on only one side of a divorcing couple are not held up to scrutiny by judges, politicians or journalists. (Voluntary professional delinquency is another symptom of a captured culture.) At the crux of family law's failure is a cynical tolerance for erratic courtroom decisions, with unaccountable judges routinely winking at perjury and child-access obstruction - jail-worthy misdemeanours acknowledged by court players and observers to be systemically rampant. Indeed, one lawyer confided his intention to abandon family law, as he becomes physically ill anticipating the arbitrarily plucked ruling awaiting his male clients.

The remedy is to abandon existing family law. In its place, we should combine gender equity with the best interests of children by legislating default shared parenting - the preferred option for child-focused women, virtually all fathers and most kids.

Numerous studies have concluded that children under shared parenting do significantly better on all adjustment measures than those in sole custody. Contrary to the claims of feminist consultants to family courts, peer-reviewed data shows that over time shared parenting decreases parental conflict, increases co-operation and boosts support compliance.

Most significantly, in all six American states with legislated default shared parenting, divorce rates have fallen markedly - confirming a widely held belief in the field that expectation of sole custody is the main reason a large number of divorce cases are initiated by women. The positive economic and social fallout from fewer divorces is plain to eyes that see.

Recent benchmark studies have, for the first time, also culled the opinions of children - up to now pawns in a "best interests" game that means something different to every stakeholder. University of British Columbia sociology professor Edward Kruk, a specialist in divorce and custody issues, analyzed all new research on the subject from 2000-2005. He found that 70% of college-age children of divorce believe equal time between parents is optimal, and that shared parenting creates better relations with both.

Along with other credible academics, Kruk recommends default shared parenting (rebuttable in proven cases of abuse by either parent) and maximum access to both parents. Thus, current scholarship echoes the report by the 1998 Canadian Joint Parliamentary Committee on Custody and Access report, whose "incorrect" conclusions were politically marginalized by relentless feminist lobbying.

In the course of my research, I have read many chilling testimonials by and about men unjustly "disappeared" from their families. Countless other fathers are exiled daily to the same degrading psychological gulag.

Legislators, throw off your ideological shackles. Disenfranchised fathers must be restored to their children, and their children to them. There is no possible restitution for a lost childhood. And all decent men - which is to say most of them - must be freed from fear of a lost fatherhood.

29 June 2006
Dads in Distress

Press Release - New Legislative Changes

Dads in Distress Inc a dedicated support group of men whose immediate concern is to stem the present trend of male suicide due to the trauma of divorce or separation.

Dads in Distress welcomes the new legislative changes in Family Law about to take place. We look forward to a fairer and more equitable solution to the current Family Law Crisis. Our greatest concern is whether these changes are going to be taken seriously by our Family Law Practitioners who ultimately are the one's who play this out in the courtrooms. To date the feedback from Family Law practitioners in which we have spoken to is; 'same old, same old', just different speak. We have voiced these concerns to the Attorney Generals Department. There needs to be education programs re the legislation to these practitioners put in place.

The other major concern is that the reality hasn't hit home yet with the majority of stakeholders (dads) that the new legislation is not retrospective. Most dads who have been given lousy orders in the past believe that once the new legislation comes in they will be able to take their cases back to court and apply for either 50/50 or a better deal than they now have. This will not be the case and it will come as a big shock to the majority of dads out there. To apply there apparently needs to be a "change of circumstance", just what that change of circumstance is unclear.

Also once again we find Government wielding a big stick to chase those that dodge child support (and rightly so) but do absolutely nothing to those mothers who continually breach orders relating to children having a relationship with their fathers. Our concerns have been and still are on just how the Government is going to enforce orders? ( a child's right to spend time with both parents, not just one).

At any rate our group believes it is a step in the right direction, a small step but a step none the less.........

Tony Miller Founder/ Director Dads in Distress

26 June 2006
Dads Divorce (USA)

Filing First: Be Proactive and Initiate
By Ken McRae

One of the most common questions potential clients ask is should I file for divorce first or should I wait until my wife files? In general, the ultimate outcome of the case is not determined by who files first. A court will try and equitably divide the assets and debts no matter which side brings the case. Likewise, child custody and visitation issues are based on the child's best interest, not who filed the Petition for Divorce. So, if the outcome is not greatly impacted by filing first, why does it matter who files? Of course, each case is unique but there are at least three good reasons to file first in most cases.

One, the party who files first sets the agenda in the case. At trial, the party who files the Petition (the "Petitioner") gets to present his or her evidence first. As a result, they control the order the court considers the issues and they get the first opportunity to convince the court how to rule. The party who did not file the Petition (the "Respondent") gets to present their evidence second. But the Petitioner then gets the opportunity to rebut. As a result, the Petitioner often gets to have the first and last word at trial.

The court first learns about the case from the Petitioner so the issues the Petitioner feels most strongly about become the issues the court is most concerned about. Although this may not drastically alter the result (most divorce cases end in a split of assets that is relatively 50-50 between the parties) it does mean the Petitioner has the opportunity to influence how the assets are distributed. In other words, you may get the same dollar value worth of assets either way but the Petitioner is better able to influence the judge to award him or her their first choice of assets.

For example, if the martial home has $50,000 worth of equity we assume each party will end up with around $25,000 when the case is finalized. The Petitioner has the first chance to convince the judge that he or she should get to keep the home and the Respondent should get his or her share of the proceeds as cash or other property. The big picture result is the same - each party gets $25,000 from the value of the home - but the specific outcome of the house may be drastically affected.

Two, the party who files the Petition has the opportunity to ask the court to grant temporary orders at the start of the case. These orders can be amended or revoked by the court while the case is still pending. But, the Petitioner can get the orders they want at the start. For example, the Petitioner can, and often does, ask for exclusive possession of the home and/or residential custody of the children. The Respondent may be served with the Divorce Petition and an order to immediately move out of the house at the same time. The Respondent can ask the court to amend the orders, and the court will usually hold a hearing within a short period of time, but until the hearing the orders remain in place. In fact, many people are so concerned their spouse will obtain such an order that they go ahead and file a basic Petition first and do not seek orders for themselves. They simply want to win the "race to the courthouse" to ensure they will not be evicted without any advan ce notice.

Three, there can be a psychological benefit to filing and controlling the case. The Respondent often feels like they are always on defense, responding to the moves made by the Petitioner. Even though the outcome may not change if you file first, the perception of the process can be very different depending on whether you are the Petitioner or the Respondent.

Quite often one spouse does not want to file the Petition for Divorce because they are afraid this will make it look like they are giving up on the marriage or their family. A very common concern is that the children will think the divorce is their fault if they file the Petition. If your spouse is going to blame you for filing the Petition they will probably still blame you if you do not file the Petition. It is just as easy to tell people you caused the divorce because you never listened or caused arguments or stayed out too late as it is to say the divorce is your fault because you filed the Petition. Furthermore, your children will usually remember how you handle the process, not who initiated the process. Finally, if you later decide the filing was unnecessary you can always dismiss the case.

Over the course of any marriage there will be difficult spots. Just because there are difficulties does not mean one side needs to file a Petition for Divorce. But, if the relationship has deteriorated significantly and you believe your spouse is about to file, it may be a good idea to consult a domestic relations attorney and consider filing first. Filing first may not change the ultimate outcome but it can reduce your short term stress. In my experience as a domestic relations attorney I have worked with several clients who were upset they did not file first; I have never worked with a client who was upset they did.

Ken McRae is a Cordell & Cordell, P.C. attorney practicing exclusively in family law in the firm's Overland Park, Kansas office.

23 June 2006
The Australian

Dearly beloved

Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are the height of fashion in choosing to get married and having a traditional ceremony, write Elizabeth Gosch and Mariko Fritz-Krockow.

The busy bride-to-be is worried about all the things she has forgotten to do but can't remember. She's also battling last-minute nerves ahead of her big wedding this weekend in Sydney.

But her name's not Nicole. It's Rebecca Cowper, she's 26 and she's marrying 30-year-old Jason Francis tomorrow.

"It's the wedding I dreamed of as a little girl: a big Cinderella dress and a sit-down, three-course meal with a reception and dancing. All that traditional stuff," Cowper says. The pair met five years ago and have been dating since early 2003. They've been living together since they got engaged three years ago.

Oscar-winning actor Nicole Kidman and her country music star fiance Keith Urban, who are also getting hitched this weekend, had a shorter engagement. They met in January last year at a black-tie dinner hosted by Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer. Kidman and Urban have also gone through all the traditional, if slightly out of order, relationship steps: meet the parents, get engaged, move in together, plan the wedding.

As you may expect from two high-profile people at the cutting edge of celebrity, Kidman and Urban's wedding is the height of fashion: not just in deciding to get married in the first place, rather than living together like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but in the style and type of ceremony they have chosen.

Although the institution of marriage fell out of favour in the 1990s and 2000-01, it is firmly back in vogue. While many 20 and 30-somethings are struggling to find the perfect partner, once they do there's little hesitation in taking the next step and formalising the union.

"It's important (to get married) because I see that society is really going down the drain," Cowper says. "I think family values are really important. We want to have children, so it's just the right thing to do and the right way to bring children into the world."

The most recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that the number of registered marriages rose for the third consecutive year in 2004, after falling dramatically in 2000 and 2001. Across Australia in 2004, 111,000 couples got married, up from 106,400 in 2003.

Sixty-seven per cent were first marriages for both partners, 18 per cent involved one partner who had been married before and 15per cent were remarriages for both partners. By comparison, the number of divorces has been falling for the past three years. There were 52,747 divorces granted in 2004, down from a record of 55,330 in 2001. The present divorce rate is 32 per cent.

Many Australian couples are also following the same route as Kidman and Urban and Cowper and Francis and living together before they marry. Of the 111,000 couples who married in 2004, 76 per cent had lived together before their big day.

Although church services remain popular, many couples are using civil celebrants in their otherwise traditional wedding, with marriages performed by civil celebrants outnumbering those performed by clerics. In 2004, 59 per cent of couples were married by a civil celebrant, up from 51 per cent in 1999.

Cowper says she always planned to get married in the Anglican church she has chosen for her wedding day, although she doesn't attend church every week.

"One of the first Anglican ministers who came over from England is a direct ancestor of mine and that was the church that was in his parish," she says.

Katherine Murray, 22, a University of Sydney musicology honours student, and Ben Edwards, 27, an Anglican priest, are getting married on July 15 in the church where they met. Edwards was the organist and Murray was in the choir.

Edwards is now the resident priest, having been ordained last November. "The Bishop of Bathurst, who ordained me, will be performing the ceremony," Edwards says.

Kidman and Urban are among the majority of Australian couples in choosing a Catholic ceremony. Of all weddings conducted by a cleric, 32 per cent were Catholic. The Hollywood-Nashville couple are reported to be planning on walking down the aisle on Sunday in the Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel, at the former Catholic seminary St Patrick's Estate at Manly, before joining family and friends, including Hugh Jackman and Deborra-lee Furness, Rupert Murdoch and Wendi Deng and Baz Luhrmann, for dinner and drinks in a marquee overlooking Manly Beach.

Although suburban brides claim celebrity weddings "do nothing for me" and say they are unimpressed by the elaborate arrangements, wedding planner Rebecca Middlebrook of Brisbane's Whitebrook Events says couples do mine celebrity marriages to copy everything from their outfits to their vows, then personalise it.

"Everyone wants something different and wants something that represents them," Middlebrook says.

Bride magazine editor Bridget Cull agrees. "Regardless of whether they are having a low-key wedding or something big and traditional, couples are paying a lot of attention to detail and having a lot of input. Most people are writing their own vows these days, even those having religious ceremonies," she says.

Young brides like to play it safe and stick with tradition. "The younger the bride, the more traditional the wedding, the bigger the dress and the longer the guest list," Cull says.

When it comes to the dress, 80 per cent of brides also stick with the traditional long white gown. However, those with more money to spend go for a designer dress, choosing "something that's not long and white" so that it stands out.

The grooms also like to play it safe by wearing a black suit. Wedding planner Deborah Taliani says one celebrity trend that hasn't caught on is white suits for grooms, such as the one radio DJ Merrick Watts sported at his Adelaide wedding earlier this year, while wearing white thongs on his feet.

"Men are wearing black or dark suits or tuxes," Taliani says.

Lifeline WA counsellor Noel Giblett despairs at the amount of money couples are willing to spend on the ceremony rather than their relationship.

"Many couples spend thousands of dollars on a wedding but begrudge spending a cent on marriage preparation, marriage enrichment or counselling," Giblett says. "We seem to think that marriage is merely a contract, to be terminated by either party at short notice. We haven't yet grasped the idea that it's a covenant that is only fulfilled over a very long journey together."

He encourages couples to understand the seasons and cycles of marriage. "There seem to be a lot of marriages that last about seven to 10 years. We haven't yet grasped that the average apprenticeship in marriage seems to be about 15-20 years."

In fact, the median duration of a marriage through to separation in 2004 was 8.7 years, up from 7.6 years in 1994.

Murray and Edwards are preparing for their wedding with courses and counselling.

"It's a kind of psychological profiling to see what your strengths are as an individual and as a couple," says Edwards. "So you can be aware of things that might cause problems in your relationship as it develops. I think you just have to have the attitude that it's a work in progress that begins with the wedding day and doesn't end then."

Murray says she's going into marriage with her eyes open. "You have to realise that some days we will be absolutely and totally frustrated with each other and will want to give up on it, but just reassure yourself that the benefits of working through those times far outweigh the opposite. My mother has taught me marriage is something that you really have to work on."

While Murray will walk down the aisle with four bridesmaids and pageboys in front of more than 170 guests, her groom wants to look beyond the accessories and decorations of the big day.

"It is something that is very solemn, which I think a lot of the hype about weddings and the whole wedding industry these days forgets," Edwards says. "So much focus is on the accoutrements of marriage - the dress, the venue, whatever - that the actual solemnity of what's happening and what follows can often be overshadowed.

"From a professional point of view, that's the dimension of marriage that I would be emphasising: that it's a much deeper thing than just getting dressed up nicely on a particular day and having a party."

Cowper and Francis have also attended a pre-wedding course and, like all altar-bound couples, believe their marriage will last.

"We are both committed to making it work. We know (divorce) is a really steep possibility. We aren't just thinking that it's not going to happen to us. We are both committed to working things out. And if it ever gets to that point, we've already talked about the fact that we will try and work through it. I think most things you can work out if you really want to."

Statistically, however, as one in three marriages fail, Kidman-Urban, Cowper-Francis or Murray-Edwards will end in the divorce court.

Bride-to-be Murray is determined not to follow the celebrity wedding trend set by Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, Kidman and Tom Cruise or Renee Zellweger, whose marriage to country music star Kenny Chesney was annulled after four months.

"They certainly don't put me off getting married but you see a celebrity wedding and there is a strong sense of (knowing) that it will fail," she says.

21 June 2006
National Post (Canada)

Ideology trumps equality
By Barbara Kay

'For Heaven's sake, a man is cheating on you, you do what every wife in this country does: You take him to the cleaners. Get his house, car, kids - make him wish he was dead."

Those were the words of a female assistant district attorney explaining to a Texas jury in 2003 that there was no need for defendant Clara Harris to have resorted to murdering her philandering husband (she drove his new Cadillac back and forth over his body before horrified onlookers - when family law already offered such excellent legal remedies for revenge.

"Make him wish he was dead"? Addressing 12 mainstream men and women it was utterly crucial not to offend, the prosecutor took for granted their complicity in winking at overt anti-male bias in the justice system.

Note also that she ranked "kids" last amongst men's assets, furthering the popular myth that separated fathers disengage easily from their children.

In fact, non-custodial fathers' loss of their children causes them fathomless anguish. Herein lies a paradox: We know that fatherlessness is the single biggest predictor of criminality for boys, and low self-esteem for girls, leading to a variety of social failures. Nevertheless, no significant swell of political will has yet materialized to bring more balance into post-separation childcare.

Family law in the U.S. and Canada today continues to serve up the "make him wish he was dead" option to women, who win sole custody in 90% of disputed cases. Non-custodial fathers are perceived as money machines with occasional babysitting privileges. Mothers can flout court orders and block access with impunity, but fathers are immediately and disproportionately criminalized by failure to provide often-ruinous "child" support (mothers are not accountable for expenditures). Cocaine dealers - half of whom, ironically, are fatherless - serve 20 days out of 30-day jail sentences; a father in support arrears serves the full 30.

Echoing the fate of all political revolutions, reform of the patriarchy began as a campaign for equality -- then the pendulum swung too far, ending in rigid CorrectThink, the suppression of heresies and wholesale blame of the Other (men) for the delayed realization of Utopia.

The family law system is now systemically colonized by radical feminists. Their goal is the complete autonomy of women (except for financial support), via the incremental legal eclipse of men's influence over women's spheres of "identity" interests, which includes children. Thus the custody issue has become a front line in the gender wars.

By no means an exhaustive list, radical feminism is supported by collective rights-dominated law school curricula; feminism-riddled "cultural studies" and the humanities in general; women's studies departments, in reality feminist recruitment and networking centres/ideological boot camps; politically powerful, tax-funded feminist groups who extend strategic mentorship to a wide substratum of women's causes; supine prime ministers and go-with-the-zeitgeist justice ministers; and a critical mass of ideologically aggressive judges, whose juridical archives, bristling with subjective, gender-biased judgments, discredit their vocation and call into question the whole notion of equality under the law.

To illustrate, just a few examples:

• Supreme Court of Canada chief justice Beverley McLachlin: "We have to be pro-active in rearranging the Canadian family"
• Former justice minister Martin Cauchon: "Men have no rights, only responsibilities"
• Feminist psychologist Peter Jaffe, a social-context educator of family court judges: "Joint custody is an attempt of males to continue dominance over females"
• National Association of Women and the Law: "Courts may treat parents unequally and deny them basic civil liberties and rights, as long as their motives are good"

20 June 2006
Alby Schultz MP

ADJOURNMENT: Child Support Agency

Mr SCHULTZ (Hume) (9:25 pm)-When the public announcement was made by the government that there was going to be an implementation of the Parkinson report recommendations on child support there was nobody happier than I-and I know many of my parliamentary colleagues-to hear that announcement. There was nobody happier than I because I am well aware-I am probably the most informed member in this parliament, including the ministers responsible for portfolio-of the issues centred around child support. We had great lead-up comments about how we were going to address the culture deeply embedded in the Child Support Agency, we were going to make it fairer and more equitable to both of the parents in the interests of the child, we were going to ensure that the training that was going to go into the department was going to be first class and was going to be centred around people being able to professionally deal with the very emotive issues on the phones and we were going to ensure that the discussions that occurred between Child Support Agency staff and people ringing were recorded so that we had ample evidence of the professional way, hopefully, that the Child Support Agency would react to the changes.

But in the last three or four days we have heard that the culture that has regularly been referred to as endemic in the Child Support Agency-and that is the anti-father bias-has been reintroduced. The enforcement side of it has taken precedent over all of the good things that should happen within the department to make it fairer and more equitable to children. When I say the enforcement side of it, I refer to a public announcement by the Minister for Human Services, Joe Hockey, that we are going to implement a program in which 120 people are going run around willy-nilly, spying on and recording on video those who are referred to as 'those male payers' who are alleged not to have lived up to their obligations as the fathers of children.

None of us would condone any system which allowed a father not to live up to his moral and proper obligations to look after a child that he has sired, but nothing has been said about what we are going to do about women who are falsely claiming, and have been false reclaiming for many years, child support from a male who was not the father of the child that he was purported to have sired. In those instances it is not always only one child but sometimes two, three and four children. No effort has been made by the Child Support Agency to bring those women who have lied in their sworn statements to the Child Support Agency to justice for what they have done in creating undue financial and mental stress to male payers.

I could go on talking about the issue, but what I am concerned about this evening is the control we are going to have over these 120 people. Are they people who are well trained and aware of the sensitivity of the job they are about to undertake? Who is to make sure that the people they are investigating, in many instances who are having their human rights abused, are in fact guilty of what the minister talks about in his press statements? Are we going to fit these people out with grey uniforms and jackboots, which would be appropriate for the actions that the minister says they are going to take out in the public arena? I have grave reservations and concerns about this initiative by the minister. I would have thought that there were other areas of the Child Support Agency that needed to be cleaned up with a great deal of vigour than putting 120 people out into the community specifically to watch 'suspect parents' and to gather video data on their lifestyles. That is not what this government is all about and what this government purports to be all about. It is an undemocratic process. Quite frankly, I think the minister has bowed to the pressure of people within the CSA. (Time expired)

Interjection
The SPEAKER-Order! It being 9.30 pm, the debate is interrupted.

20 June 2006
The Australian

Fathers hit plan to spy on deadbeats
By Patricia Karvelas

MEN'S groups have condemned a government plan to spy on as many as 70,000 fathers suspected of avoiding child support payments, saying it would be an assault on their human rights. Lone Fathers Association president Barry Williams said the Government's focus on fathers revealed that it was biased against men.

"I think it's an infringement on human rights. If parents get behind in their payments, they don't deserve to have spies on them," he said.

"The Child Support Agency and the Government should not be gender specific; 8 per cent of child-support payers are women, and a big percentage of them are not paying their child support payments.

"The Government is going to turn more men against them doing this."

But Human Services Minister Joe Hockey said the crackdown would apply to any parent who did not meet their child support obligations, including women.

He said there were between 40,000 and 70,000 fathers reporting no income but not claiming any welfare payments and that the spies were needed to ensure "deadbeat dads" did not "rip off their own children, their own flesh and blood".

"So it only begs the (question) how they claim they live when they have no income and therefore they claim they are unable to help with the costs of raising their own children," he said.

About 120 new staff will be recruited specifically to watch suspect parents and gather video data on their lifestyles.

"If people are claiming to have no money or are not paying what they are required to pay, yet are living lavish lifestyles, then certain questions need to be answered and we'll make sure those questions are answered," Mr Hockey said.

The Government will use the evidence to prosecute the negligent parents.

"It can be used to take the individual to court and to lift the veil from which they seek to hide," Mr Hockey said.

The minister admitted there was a possibility that the privacy of some fathers might be inadvertently impinged.

"You can't always get it right," he said.

"There are 1.2 million cases out there and there are around 700,000 fathers. Every single case we deal with is different." But he said privacy was no excuse for fathers rigging the system.

"No stone will be left unturned in our attempt to recover some of the assets and some of the income that should rightfully go to pay for the raising of the child."

Labor's human services spokesman, Kelvin Thomson, said that while a crackdown was necessary, the Government had to ensure it got it right.

"We are concerned about Minister Hockey's admission that he won't always get it right," Mr Thomson said.

"He must make every effort to get it right, especially when using highly intrusive detection methods such as covert video surveillance."

The Child Support Agency said there had been many cases of non-residential parents hiding their income.

20 June 2006
ABC / The Law Report

Family Law: Kids and the New Shared Responsibility Ethos

On July 1 - there is going to be a big shake-up in Australia's Family Law system.

A new Act promotes the idea of shared parenting responsibility and the hope that (if possible) kids should spend equal time with mum and dad.

It also encourages separating couples to draw up a parenting plan at one of 65 Family Relationship Centers which are being set up around the country

Well what does all this mean for kids?

Guests

Sue Creak, Lawyer with Hertzberg Haydon, Byron Bay
Steven Ralph, A Director of Mediation, Family Court of Australia
Linda Dessau, Family Court Judge, Melbourne
Professor Patrick Parkinson, Chair of the Family Law Council
Karen Morris, Deputy CEO, Interrelate
Nicky Davis, Senior Lawyer, Legal Aid Queensland

Download mp3 (13.5MB)
www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/feeds/lrt_20060620.mp3

20 June 2006
Sunshine Coast Daily

Gerry has seen the sad results
By Damian Bathersby

The Child Support Agency (CSA) crackdown on fathers who don't pay child support comes just days after its general manager expressed fears that too many men going through a separation were ignoring their health.

CSA boss Matt Miller said family separation was widely recognised as a risk factor for depression "but all too often men put off seeing their doctor until a problem has gotten out of hand".

It's not news to Gerry Gallop, from the Sunshine Coast branch of Dads In Distress, who has seen the horrifying results first-hand.

I've seen the extremes - from men who have handled separation well and stayed healthy and focused and kept on track and kept working and maintained an amicable situation with their former partner, to the opposite where the children disappear, the mother moves hundreds of kilometres and the father ends up paying child support and doesn't know where the children are," Mr Gallop said.

"Depression is very common and it can affect people's ability to work, especially if they are not seeing their children at all.

"It can be devastating for a father who is used to seeing his children every day and suddenly he is not seeing them at all.

"I have seen men who just can't work any more? they get so down they find it difficult to function and it can take them years to get back on track."

18 June 2006
Herald & Review

Joint custody helps Doug Spensley stay active in son's life
By Sheila Smith - H&R Staff Writer

Decatur - The blondish-brown haired Dylan Spensley opened the door into the play area at McDonald's at 1909 S. Mount Zion Road.

His father, Doug Spensley, 39, followed, carrying a tray filled with hamburgers and fries.

"Outstanding, young man," Spensley said and thanked his 7-year-old son for holding the door open.

Spensley loves the idea that every day is Father's Day. He is no part-time dad and relishes the time he spends with his son after getting joint custody during a divorce in 2003.

Of all custodial parents during a divorce, about 85 percent were mothers - only 15 percent fathers - based on the 2000 U.S. Census. Nearly 25 million children do not live at home with their fathers.

However, studies show involved fathers who raise their children serve as models in their development, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Spensley works full time as a radio service technician for Barbeck Communications Inc. He has Dylan every other week and picks him up from day care.

Dylan said that among the things he enjoys doing the most are playing video games and having wrestling matches with his dad.

"Sometimes, I beat my dad (at the games). But one time, I really wanted to win, and he accidentally won anyway," Dylan said with a big smile.

Most fathers have anxieties similar to mothers' while watching their children grow up.

"It's more evident of having to let go, especially from that stage of feeding him and the diaper changing," Spensley said. "Now, it's hard to remember not to hug and kiss him so much in front of other kids and allow him to be more responsible."

Spensley remembers growing up in Naperville, a Chicago suburb, and going on business trips with his father.

"My father taught me patience. I just wish that I could have done a lot more things with my dad, but he was always working," Spensley said.

Last summer, Spensley drove to Houston, Texas, and said Dylan helped him navigate and read the road maps during their 16-hour drive.

He is already planning a camping outing for the two of them soon.

"I try to teach him different things, and he's very intelligent," Spensley said with pride.

"Every day, I'm instilling core values in him to have manners, be truthful and have integrity."

Wendy Baker of Macon, who has been a family friend for the past few years, said it's obvious how much Dylan idolizes his father.

"It's cool to see them together," she said.

Baker also said she didn't hesitate to offer some parental tips to Spensley.

"Dylan was about 5 years old at the time. He and his father were up playing video games past 8:30 p.m. I had to tell Doug, 'Now you need to put Dylan to bed.' I think sometimes he is a little too lenient," Baker said.

Yet, there is never a dull moment for the father-and-son duo.

Dylan found it fascinating to chase after a peacock during a recent trip to Scovill Zoo.

"Hey dude, dude, dude," Spensley yelled out, trying to get his son to slow down.

"I am just waiting, nine years from now, when he turns 16 - that will be another hurdle to get through," he said. "You have to have a lot of humor being a parent."

18 June 2006
BSI International Inc (USA)

IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD(R) IS A BLOG!

Since its launch on 15 October 1999, IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD(R) has provided Men -- especially Fathers -- from all Walks of Life throughout our global village with an uncut and uncensored forum that explores a myriad of issues related to parenting from a male point of view. IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD(R), a quarterly international male parenting journal which has facilitated and continues to facilitate a Global Dialogue on Fatherhood is a blog! The Global Dialogue on Fatherhood is interactive!

Is there an issue you want to discuss that relates to Fatherhood?
The IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD(R) Blog at
http://Insearchoffatherhood.blogspot.com
is the place to discuss the issues that are tugging at your heartstrings.
The IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD(R) Blog is your safe haven!

18 June 2006
BBC News (UK)

Survey finds male abuse approval

More than half of women questioned at a Glasgow university said they approved of wives hitting their husbands.

The Glasgow Caledonian students were among 6,500 women surveyed from 36 universities for an international study into attitudes on domestic violence.

Of the 200 women, 60% said it was acceptable for women to hit their husbands while 35% admitted assaulting their partner.

A total of 8% admitted injuring them - the highest rate in the study.

The injured men suffered bruises, cuts or broken bones.

Among European students, only English women were more likely to have carried out assaults, with 41% admitting that they had punched or kicked their partners.

However those inflicting injury was less than in Scotland, at 5%.

Just under a quarter of those in Scotland admitted there were occasions when it would be acceptable for a husband to slap his wife.

Worldwide, more than 4,800 female students approved of assaulting their partner and 2,000 admitted to pushing, shoving, slapping, throwing objects and twisting their partner's arms or hair.

The findings, printed in the Sunday Times, will be published next month in the European Journal of Criminology.

'Bottom line'

Professor Murray Straus, co-author of the study, told the paper there was a need for better rehabilitation programmes for women with violent tendencies.

"This study raises questions about why there's so much violence between partners whether they're married, cohabiting or dating," he said.

"The bottom line is that we need make the same 'big deal' about violence by women as we do about men who behave violently."

In recent years, the Scottish Executive has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on raising awareness of domestic abuse, including a helpline for victims which received more than 20,000 calls in 2005 - an increase of 38% on the previous year.

David Smith, honorary professor of criminology at Edinburgh university and editor of the European Journal of Criminology, said he found the results "surprising".

"The number of women who admit to assaulting men is interesting as it's well known that men are more violent than woman."

12-18 June 2006
International Men's Health Week

International Men's Health Week (IMHW) has been celebrated in Australia since 2003.

Why International Men's Health Week?

Men and boys face different health concerns that women and girls, and IMHW is an opportunity to both acknowledge these differences and look for ways to improve the health and wellbeing of men and boys.

The week is also an opportunity to acknowledge the diversity of men and boys in NSW and to celebrate the positive contributions of men and boys to their communities.

IMHW is coordinated in NSW by the Men's Health Information and Resource Centre (MHIRC) at the University of Western Sydney.

MHIRC has a free e-newsletter which keeps people up-to-date with IMHW news and other developments in men and boys' health.

For the latest information on IMHW visit
www.menshealthweekaustralia.org

16 June 2006
BSI International Inc

INTERNATIONAL MEN'S HEALTH WEEK 12-18 JUNE 2006

This year INTERNATIONAL MEN'S HEALTH WEEK is being celebrated from 12 June 2006 through 18 June 2006 throughout our global village ... in the United States, Canada, Wales, England, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark and New Zealand, etc.

So what is International Men's Health Week all about? It's about recognizing and calling attention to the unique health and medical needs of men and our young males throughout our global village. It's about helping the men in our lives -- our sons, fathers, uncles, nephews, brothers, husbands, lovers and friends -- live healthier and happier lives. It's about making sure that Men and young males have greater and equal access to critical health and medical information, resources and support services. It's about moving those who have the wherewithall to generate increased research funding and perform aggressive and effective research for heart disease, colon cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes and hypertension -- critical health isses that debilitate and kill Men throughout our global village at an increasingly alarming rate. It's about calling attention to the fact that the suicide rate among Men and young males worldwide is rising at an alarming rate and the need to create "safety nets" in the form of viable options for Men and young males who are living lives of quiet desperation.

The issue of Men's Health has become so critical in the United States that an Office of Men's Health Resource Center has been created which is promoting the establishment of an Office of Men's Health within the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The Office of Men's Health would operate in the same manner as the Office of Women's Health. Additionally, legislation was introduced in the United States Congress in 2005 -- House Bill HR 457 and Senate Bill S 228 -- which, if passed, will create an Office of Men's Health in the United States.

For further information about this legislation, visit the Men's Health Network's website at:
www.menshealthoffice.info/read.htm#senate.

Or contact the Men's Health Network in the United States at:

Men's Health Network
Post Office Box 75972
Washington, DC 20013
Telephone: 202-543-6461 Extension 101
Fax: 202-543-2727

For information about International Men's Health Week, contact:

Men's Health Informatoin and Resource Centre
University of Western Sydney
P11, Hawkesbury Campus
Locked Bag 1797
PENRITH SOUTH DC NSW 1979
AUSTRALIA
E-MAIL: menshealth@usw.edu.au

15 June 2006
ABC South West WA

Blokes can talk too
Presenter: Genine Unsworth

The Bunbury Men's Group is non-political, non-religious and doesn't feature half naked men running wild.

Instead, they meet once a fortnight to talk confidentially about whatever they like, says Damien Hills. Damien joined in a roundabout way. Last year, he went along to the WA Men's Gathering in support of his brother-in-law who was having marriage problems. Both were a little nervous.

"I had the image of wild men running around half naked in the bush beating drums," laughs Damien. The men made a bargain that, at the first sound of tom toms, they'd split. What the gathering turned out to be "was two days of men just being honest and sharing their issues, their stories and their values."

"Blown away" by the experience, when Damien heard last year about the group who met at Milligan House, he went along.

Tim Gamage has been a member for about a year. He enjoys hearing the male perspective and also simply listening to the men's stories. "It's not competitive and not judgmental," he says. Damien agrees that men benefit by being able talk about issues in an environment where they're not trying to score points off each other.

There's nothing the group doesn't talk about, say the men but Damien stresses, "We are not a therapy group." Despite that, when Damien separated from his wife, he found that the group helped him.

"Anger, loneliness, denial, self-doubt," Damien lists the range of emotions experienced at such a time, contrary to the way men are expected to behave. "In a normal environment, there's a formula that men are seen to be within, being strong and toughing it out," he says.

"There are few forums where men can say, 'I'm feeling really bad today - drained or angry or upset or I cried all morning.' So for me, it was important to have that circle to come back to each fortnight."

Damien believes that the strength of the group is the experiences of other men. There's a range of ages in the group at the moment, he says. "Here's a bunch of men that have been through it all." The help can be practical. "You gain insight that you can take away with you."

Tim also found that the group helped him resolve long standing issues, in his case stemming from his childhood. "I've been able to discuss those with the fellows and actually been able to resolve those with my Dad, so that's been really good."

The group is small, non-profit, informal and confidential, says Damien. "Purely just a group of blokes that get together."

You can contact the Bunbury Men's Group through Milligan House community centre.

15 June 2006
ABC South West WA

Dads in Distress group helps Bunbury men
Presenter: Genine Unsworth

Relationship breakdown is a major cause of men taking their lives says a Bunbury father who faced losing his own children.

Ed Dabrowski came home from work one day to find that his wife and children had gone to Perth. Divorce followed the separation. Now Ed has shared custody of his children and has started in Bunbury a suicide prevention group for men, Dads in Distress.

The journey between now and then was difficult. "It's a terrible thing to be without children," says Ed. "My children were gone." It's also terrible for young children who have a different time frame, he says and his children were missing their father, he discovered.

The biggest hurdle to overcome to maintain his relationship with the children was the Family Court and its adversarial processes, says Ed. "The chances are that (fathers) will get only weekend contact. Basically becoming a stranger in their children's lives."

A new bill which will come into effect in July will back a big difference, agrees Ed. Briefly, he explains that the courts will consider "equal time parenting" as a first option. If that's not practicable, they'll look at substantial time. "It will come to be known as a substantial time order," Ed's believes. The usual once a fortnight visits will still happen on the weekend in addition to evenings during the week. It's about looking innovatively at what times dad can get to the kids, he adds.

As head of the Shared Parenting Council of Australia, Ed's been lobbying for changes in family law for a number of years. He feels that children and families, not just dads, have had a win with the new legislation. "The system was so lopsided. We didn't have a culture of shared parenting in Australia." Even the language to talk about the concept didn't really exist till recently, he says. The best outcome for children is have to two loving and involved parents.

Ed started Dads in Distress locally because, when he looked for support group in Bunbury, he couldn't find one. The movement started in Coffs Harbour, he says and now there are groups in Mandurah and Kalgoorlie as well, with a new chapter about to start in Perth.

Though the group works in suicide prevention, Ed didn't think about taking his own life. He had the support of his very close polish family, he explains and he knew that his children needed him. But five men kill themselves everyday in Australia, he says and the statistics show that 80 per cent of those men are going through the trauma of a relationship breakdown.

"The big part of that is not getting access to their children. There's a lot of hopelessness that creeps into men's daily lives because they don't have the warmth of children around them," says Ed. "Certainly, I felt like the world was on top of me; the weight of what I had to go through was enormous."

Now, Ed has a shared parenting arrangement with ex-wife. "We are able to cooperate," he says and he's optimistic for his children and himself.

14 June 2006
National Post (Canada)

Welcome to the matriarchy
By Barbara Kay

If you live in Toronto, you may have noticed the Bathurst Street billboards sponsored by Jewish Women International Canada (JWIC). They all display the same emotive ad, featuring a shame-suffused, Jewish-looking woman, submissively tilting her face to offer a brutalized eye to the public gaze. The caption reads: "There is a Jewish woman you know being abused."

Community response has so far been equivocal, but muted. Now imagine public reaction to an alternative billboard message: an anguished man staring down from a 12-story ledge, captioned "There is a desperate Jewish man you know contemplating suicide because a woman falsely accused him of abuse, alienated his children and ruined his life ..."

Such a hypothetical men's ad would reflect a verifiable truth: Vengeful women of all provenance routinely (and usually with impunity) falsely allege abuse or otherwise block fathers' access to children; and while women's suicide rates remain constant after separation, the suicide rates amongst their ex-partners skyrocket.

The JWIC billboard is partly true: It dispels a popular myth that domestic violence isn't a Jewish community problem. At the same time, the ad's unnamed Everywoman indirectly reinforces two feminist myths: that Everyman, rather than individual males with personality disorders or other pathologies, is a potential abuser; and that women are always victims, never perpetrators.

But as University of British Columbia psychology professor Don Dutton points out in his new book, Rethinking Domestic Violence, partner abuse is almost always a predictable, bilateral problem springing from intimacy issues, with psychological roots in both sexes' early family dynamics. And despite what you read in the media, it's not always the man who strikes the first blow -- not by a long shot.

As Prof. Dutton further notes, myths around domestic violence extend into the shaping of all social policy, meeting little public resistance because indifference to men's needs is constantly endorsed through reinforcing public gestures.

For example, the offices of Jewish Family and Child Services (JF&CS) in Toronto have prominently displayed a poster of the battered woman ad where no arriving male client can avoid seeing it. There are also several pictures of "families" in the waiting room, in which no fathers -- only mothers and children -- appear. Of the 30 or so pamphlets on the rack, not one addresses the interests of fathers and children, only women. Men who visit this centre -- not in reality a "family" but a women's agency -- are made to feel pre-judged, reflexively guilty and superfluous to family life. On the evidence, it is difficult to imagine this effect as anything but the result of a calculated strategy.

I single out JF&CS because it is a good example of a general anti-male syndrome in social services (and because a group of Toronto Jewish men are in the process of organizing a class action civil suit on their own and their children's behalf against JF&CS). But all social service agencies are women-centric in pretty much the same degree.

For we now live in a matriarchy, at whose highest official levels men are unloved at best, with fatherhood itself perceived as a largely vestigial social function. As former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dube once cavalierly opined, even loving non-custodial fathers only belong "in the background" of their children's lives.

In August, 2003, Supreme Court Justice Beverley McLachlin followed suit with: "We have to be pro-active in re-arranging the Canadian family" (my italics). Equating people with furniture or chess pieces is a totalitarian use of language, but consistent - substituting gender for class - with radical feminism's Marxist worldview.

All revolutions require an enemy to justify their depredations. For radical feminists, the dogma of inherently aggressive men and helpless victim women (nevertheless equipped to bring up children single-handedly!) is key to achieving the revolution's end: the transfer of moral authority from the traditional family to women and the state.

Feminist groups such as Jewish Women International Canada and JF&CS seem to be willing pawns in this mother-friendly, father-hostile, and ultimately child-abusive scheme. Canadian Jewish women, with every reason to take pride in their civilized and sexually wholesome cultural heritage, should be offended at being linked to it by association. So should all Canadian women. I certainly am.

I'll continue writing on anti-male bias in Canada next week, focusing on feminist fellow travellers in the criminal and family-law system, who exile disenfranchised fathers to a Kafkaesque non-custodial limbo.

14 June 2006
National Post (Canada)

Domestic violence isn't one-sided
By Prof. Don Dutton, Univ. of British Columbia

A few years ago, a woman arrived home from work in Saskatoon to find her husband, who had obviously spent the day drinking, complaining of irritation with their fractious child. She insisted she needed to rest before making dinner. She awoke to find him in a rage straddling her and brandishing a kitchen knife, which he used to cut her abdomen. Bleeding, terrified, she managed to call 911. The police arrived within minutes. They observed her plight, spoke to her husband and then, responding to the unspoken but powerful institutional guidelines routinely applied in such cases, arrested ... her. In spite of her wound, she spent the night in a jail cell, and was released the next morning.

As it stands, this story makes no sense - and indeed would have aroused national indignation if it were completely true. But I deliberately misled the reader on one particular. In the real story, by no means a unique one in police archives , the genders were reversed: The man arrived home after a 12-hour shift; the child's mother was drunk; the man lay down; the woman stabbed him in a rage; the police didn't take his injuries seriously; they accepted the woman's explanation - probably self-defence - and arrested the man.

Unfortunately, such gender bias in the law-enforcement system and beyond is typical, not exceptional. A double standard for men and women, applied in cases of intimate partner violence (IPV) - as well as in family law, including spousal support and child custody cases - has become commonplace in most Western societies over the last 25 years. And in spite of a widening stream of incontrovertible statistical evidence to the contrary, the myth persists that it is women, and only women, who are the victims of IPV.

The stereotype that unprovoked men purposefully assault women, and never the reverse, is so ingrained in our public discourse that participants in research on IPV - not just lay people but health professionals as well - presented with a scenario in which one partner abuses another, perceive it as abuse only if the assaulter is identified as male.

The reality, borne out by independent peer-reviewed studies as well as StatsCan, is that women commit more severe IPV, and more IPV in general, than men. For all kinds of relationship types, females are unilaterally more violent than males to non-violent partners. More females strike first in IPV (men are conditioned not to strike first in our society) and, contradicting received wisdom, fear of their male partner is rarely a factor amongst violent women. Actually, both male and female victims of IPV report equal fear levels of "intimate terrorism".

Of course, some battering males abuse passive women - about 3% annually, far fewer than implied in skewed studies by women's groups. But in spite of sensationalized cases, spousal homicide perpetrated by either sex is extremely rare. As many mothers as fathers practice child abuse alone or in tandem, and far more women than men murder their children.

Interestingly, IPV occurs more frequently in lesbian than in heterosexual relationships, supporting the view that relationship dynamics, not gender, fuel domestic violence. Honest research points to a norm of "assortative mating": The violence-prone tend to seek each other out for anti-social behavior.

And yet our government, our social services and our judiciary prescribe remedies based on a false and simplistic view that denies not just the unprovoked violence committed by women in relationships, but the number and severity of the assaults engaged in by both partners in mutually violent couples.

Indeed, it is fair to say that no other area of established social welfare, criminal justice or public health depends on such weak and biased evidence in support of mandated practice as does IPV. The model of "treatment" for IPV that flows from this false understanding is not the kind of therapy that could benefit both male and female perpetrators. Instead, our system prefers "intervention" - against men, never women -and a "psychoeducational" model of behavior modification that essentially amounts to inculcating the radical feminist political viewpoint.

Where does the gender bias come from? Ideology. Radical feminism insists that men - all men - by their nature pursue power and control for its own sake. As a result, we become complicit in the myths of gender politics. So when a crazed individual male with a bizarre personal back story shoots women, we hold candlelight vigils. But when a vengeful woman cuts off a man's penis, he becomes fodder for standup comedians, while she is hailed as a symbol of female empowerment.

IPV is a serious issue in our society. Responding to it through the default demonization of one sex and victimization of the other is an insult to scientific integrity, a stumbling block to rehabilitation, a strong contributing factor in many arbitrarily ruined lives, and a shameful blot on our human rights record.

14 June 2006
Men's Health Forum

Conference in London: 'Mind Your Head: Improving the Mental Wellbeing of Men and Boys'

The conference will raise awareness of all the mental health issues that impact on men. It will look at these issues, however, from a positive standpoint, exploring how problems can be tackled through gender-sensitive practice in a wide range of settings and life stages. The aim is to ensure that each delegate goes away with at least one working model for their own practice, inspired by all they have seen and heard. A constant theme throughout the day is the needs of black and minority ethnic men, who are often marginalised and unable to access appropriate services.

Last year's NMHW conference attracted 320 delegates and this year we aim to have 500, so a bigger venue has been hired - Wembley Conference Centre.

The conference flyer can be viewed by clicking on this link:
www.menshealthforum.org.uk/uploaded_files/MHW06mindyourheadflyer.pdf (PDF document 200kb)

The cost is less than £150 for an action packed day, with a healthy option lunch, lots of coffee breaks, 3 parallel symposia, 12 workshops, over 60 speakers, and a sizeable exhibition.

Just print off the form on the back of the flyer and either ask to be invoiced or send in the form with a cheque.

Much look forward to hearing from you.

Maggie Pettifer
Conference Manager
Telephone: 01608 674410
Email: margaret.pettifer@btopenworld.com

Organised by Men's Health Forum during National Men's Health Week 2006

13 June 2006
Speech by Senator Steve Fielding
Family First Senator for Victoria

Child Support Legislation Amendment (Reform of the Child Support Scheme - Initial Measures) Bill 2006

Family First supports a fairer system for child support and believes the Child Support Legislation Amendment (Reform of the Child Support Scheme-Initial Measures) Bill 2006 is a step in that direction.

The Bill implements a number of the recommendations of the report of the Parkinson Ministerial Taskforce set up in 2004 to examine the child support scheme and how it can be improved.

The Bill will:

• Increase the minimum rate of child support from $5 to $6 per week;
• Increase the proportion of child support that can be directed by the payer to cover the costs of medical care, school fees and childcare, and;
• Change the test under which parents can be deemed to be reducing their earnings to pay less child support.

Child support is a complex and sensitive issue. Too often it descends into conflict between Mums and Dads. It can be hard to separate the issue of child support from the broader difficulties and sadness of the relationship break up. It can also be hard to determine how changes affect children.

Professor Patrick Parkinson and his ministerial taskforce had the difficult task of wading through all these issues and proposing a better and fairer system. I have no doubt they did not get it 100 per cent right, but they have closely examined a very difficult policy area and come up with detailed recommendations to improve the system.

There are always going to be winners and losers when changes are made to areas like child support that involve carving up a person's income, so it is vital to get the fundamental principles right.

Family First believes the taskforce's approach of focussing on the cost of raising children and ensuring the income of both parents is taken into account when determining child support payments will result in a fairer system.

Currently, the custodial parent has to earn more than $40,000 each year for their income to be included. The Parkinson Report also acknowledges that some non-custodial parents have been paying more than they can cope with.

It is important we have a fairer system because parents are more likely to respect it and co-operate. Many non-custodial parents who recognise and accept their responsibility for contributing to the financial cost of raising their kids are still reluctant to pay under the current system because they believe it is unfair, or because it places an unfair burden on them.

Family First, and no doubt other Senators, have been contacted by many fathers with stories of their despair after losing contact with their children after a marriage breakdown.

That affects their employment and ability to pay child support. I have also been told stories of fathers who have taken their own lives, partly because of the difficulty of trying to make ends meet and start a new life after they pay the required child support.

Obviously many fathers have been able to start new lives, and have perhaps married and had a new family, but find it very difficult to survive under the current formula of paying child support for their children as well as supporting their new family. Clearly they have responsibilities for both families, but what is the fairest way of assessing their financial responsibility and ensuring they honour their obligations?

One father described himself to me as an "EFT Dad" - an electronic funds transfer Dad. That is the only contact he had with his children.

Family First can understand the frustration of contributing financially to raising your children - yet not being able to be part of their lives.

One of the aims of the Parkinson report is to remove disincentives for greater contact between children and both parents, and that can only be a good thing.

Family First believes we should be doing all we can to ensure children have as much contact as possible with both parents, except in exceptional circumstances such as abuse.

It is certainly disturbing that 40 per cent - or about 300,000 non-custodial fathers - do not pay more than the minimum payment of $5 per week or $260 per year.

That is a huge number and Family First believes that should not be tolerated. About half of these fathers receive welfare.

It may be that many other Dads are trying to reduce their taxable income, such as taking cash payments for work, so they pay as little child support as possible.

The people who really suffer here are the kids. That is the real tragedy here.

Family First strongly believes that both parents should pay their fair share of the costs of raising their kids. I support the Child Support Agency in its efforts to track down child support cheats and ensure they meet their responsibilities.

I believe most Australians would also think this is fair and reasonable.

Finally, Family First is concerned at how long it is taking the Government to implement the recommendations of the Parkinson Report. While it was published a year ago, this is the first piece of legislation we have seen which implements some of its recommendations.

Why has it taken so long?

Further, I understand that other changes will not be fully implemented for years to come. Clearly these changes are long overdue and I call on the Government to implement them a lot more quickly.

Family First supports a fairer system for child support and supports this Bill.

12 June 2006
Northern Daily Leader

Dads' group in Tamworth

Dads in Distress will open a new branch of the support service this month after a suitable venue was located in Tamworth.

The organisation (DIDs), which provides a safe forum for men going through the trauma of divorce, separation or relationship breakdown, will hold its first meeting at the Tamworth Family Support Centre on Wednesday, June 21.

"This will be an information evening for men who are having problems ranging from the death of a spouse, separation from their partner and children, contact and residence of children and understanding family law documents," DIDS Armidale facilitator Bevan Howarth said.

"Our main objective at DIDS is to open doors for men in teaching and guiding them to cope when they think that there is no hope.

"The meeting will be an open invitation to all sectors of the community from blue collar workers to professionals."

Mr Howarth said five men committed suicide every day in Australia and it was alarming statistics like these that fuelled the organisation's drive to make a difference.

"As a group we can no longer stand idle and wonder if we could have done something to prevent these tragedies," he said. "United we owe it to the community to be pro-active and make a stand against these sad and unnecessary losses."

He said the group was also seeking support from legal and medical professionals who would like to support the men by providing guidance and advice.

The group's first meeting will be held on Wednesday, 21 June 2006, from 7pm at the Tamworth Family Support Centre, Kable Ave.

Further meeting dates and times will feature in the Leader's 'For Your Diary' section.

For any further enquiries please call Bevan on 04 0173 3204 or 1300 853 437.

11 June 2006
The New Zealand Herald (NZ)

Family Court is 'no man's land'
By Chris Barton

Jim Bagnall says the end justifies the means. "They are starting to listen now because we're making it personal. I abhor that, but they wouldn't listen to us before, not a word."

A few moments later he clarifies what he's said - part of him abhors what he's doing but part of him doesn't. Watching him in full flight with a megaphone, he appears to relish stirring or, as he puts it, "championing fathers everywhere".

The Auckland West Union of Fathers organiser is telling the Weekend Herald why men's groups have upped the ante in their protests about perceived injustices in the Family Court.

Bagnall's group and others around the country, a loose "coalition of fathers" have begun rolling demonstrations - the next protests will be tomorrow - outside the homes of Family Court judges, lawyers and court-appointed psychologists.

But though their actions have given the groups publicity and widespread media coverage for their cause, there have also been negative responses.

"Your members came across as thugs and bullyboys intimidating the women who dared to stand up to them," says a posting to Hands On Equal Parent, one of the group's websites. And a letter to the Herald on Sunday asks: "Why are these men estranged from their families? Could it be their public actions reflect their private behaviour?"

There is discontent within the father's groups, too, with some questioning whether harassing people in their homes is going too far. And whether bad press is in fact better than no press.

Bagnall has experienced the animosity firsthand. He's been assaulted three times in the course of his demonstrations - once with an egg, "once with a hand from a woman who screamed, 'This is my home'," and on another occasion with a paint-gun which splattered his bus.

"These people, when their buttons are pressed, are just as violent and stupid as us," he proclaims. That's probably not quite what he meant to say. But the idea of men behaving badly in order to provoke others to do the same seems to sum up the strategy.

Bagnall who frequently assists men as a McKenzie friend of the court, says he gives hope to men who have nowhere else to turn. "What I've done in the past seven years is hold people in check from doing very stupid things, and I can guarantee that's true."

He says that when men see themselves as victims they tend to revert to instinct. "A victim of the system is the worst kind of victim. You get a lot of choices taken away so you become more fundamental. And you can see I'm fundamental and I have biases ... "

Judith Surgenor is one of the lawyers targeted by Bagnall and his cohorts, apparently on the say-so of one the group's members who has a protection order against him preventing contact with his ex and his children.

Surgenor, who had already been subject to abuse on the Masculinist Evolution New Zealand (Menz) website, was expecting a visit. So when protesters turned up in her street last month with megaphones and a van playing very loud music she wasn't overly surprised. "They put pamphlets into letterboxes and were yelling things like I'm a liar and I've misled the court, that I have taken people's children off them and ruined families, and to go and get another job - that sort of stuff.

"They were using my name and saying over the megaphone, 'Judith Surgenor is a dishonest person', and so on. I thought, 'Oh that's just charming'."

Surgenor, who has been practising as a Family Court lawyer for 16 years, points out that a relatively small number of cases actually progress to a defended hearing in the court.

There are always two sides to the story and a judge hears both sides, and often independent evidence, before making a decision.

Surgenor says of the protesters targeting her: "They see everything from a very subjective viewpoint. It's totally and utterly based on their own perception of the world. They completely lack insight into what they have done and how it has affected other people.

"They are the sort of people that are so rigid and bitter and wound up in their own perspective on things that they've got to blame somebody when things go wrong for them. So it's the judges and lawyers and ex-partner who cop it."

Surgenor has also been personally threatened.

At one hearing a father's group member was ejected from the Family Court for his threatening behaviour towards her. Surgenor says she is not the sort of person to back down, but is concerned about what effect continued intimidation could have on the working of the court and whether it might make some lawyers more wary of taking a stance.

Bruce Tichbon, who heads Families Apart Require Equality (Fare) and was active in recent protests outside homes in Palmerston North, says lawyers are being targeted because they provide "a very poor quality service".

He describes the Family Court system as "the slack butt-end of the legal profession" and quickly works himself into a lather: "Everybody knows the agenda is preferential maternal sole custody, which means mum will almost invariably get ownership and control of the family and dad will be beggared paying huge amounts of money to support the system, even if dad never sees his kids."

Tichbon, a veteran of 15 years of protesting, is convinced that the court is riddled with gender bias, that there is a deliberate "information vacuum" on gender-based statistics by the court, and that in New Zealand 15,000 children a year are losing their fathers.

In his view, the Family Court is a cog in a much larger system designed to stick it to men.

That system includes Work and Income New Zealand for handing out the domestic purposes benefit, Inland Revenue for collecting child support, and the police - "highly implicated in carting men out of their homes".

He is furious, too, at the amount of "gender equity training" happening in the court - "judges sent on courses where they are lectured by feminists".

(The Weekend Herald checked with the Ministry of Justice and with the Law Society, both of which said there was no such thing.)

By now Tichbon has a full head of steam: "We grow up in a country where men are told from the outset that they are violent, socially inferior delinquents and the mother always gets the children and the vast majority of men are programmed that way ... It's pretty well understood that any woman can have any man thrown out if his home simply by ringing the police.

"We live in a country that's profoundly committed to pro-women affirmative action. The existence of the Ministry of Women's Affairs is proof of that."

Tichbon has some justification to be frustrated.

The Weekend Herald asked the Family Court on May 30 for gender-based statistics about court outcomes - such as the number of fathers compared with mothers who had been granted day-to-day care of children.

We also wanted statistics about the length of contact time granted in parenting orders, how many parents had entered shared parenting arrangements, and gender information about the outcomes of protection orders.

Nothing was provided, with Ministry of Justice spokeswoman Vicki Lindsay saying some of the information would take two months to extract from its case management computer system.

The court's handling of such requests demonstrates an unhelpful attitude. At a time when emotions are running high, justice, more than ever, must be seen to be done.

The protest outside lawyer Stuart Cummings' home began with an element of farce. One of the demonstrators yelled through a megaphone that Cummings was a coward and should come out of his house. He stopped yelling when another demonstrator pointed out that Cummings was actually standing beside him.

"I'm a staunch advocate of the right of protest," Cummings says. "I thought, 'It's a democratic society and these people have at least the basis of a gripe and they're exercising their right to bring attention to that.'

"But when I personally endured it, I started off being frustrated. I was then hurt by the complete callousness with which they would upset my family, and then annoyed by their absolute blatant dishonesty."

Cummings was annoyed, too, because he's relatively sympathetic to some of their concerns and has spoken about Family Court issues at a men's group conference.

He volunteered to meet the protesters and table their concerns, but no one took up his offer. Cummings, like Surgenor, has been targeted on the say-so of a disgruntled father, and defamed on the Menz website - accused of lying to the court.

Cummings points out that if he lied in court he would be struck off. And that such an accusation is not just outrageous, it doesn't make any sense.

As lawyer for a child he has nothing to gain from the outcome.

He says some in the men's groups seem unable to understand that a lawyer's oath is to act without fear or favour in their clients' best interests subject to their obligations as an officer of the court.

"Any person who practises in the court knows the most import thing is for your client to have credibility. That's why the men's groups are doing themselves a disservice. Large amounts of what they say are completely untrue."

Cummings also rejects that there is any gender bias in the court, pointing out that women earn about one third less than men in New Zealand and that many families make the sensible choice to have the father out working and the mother at home.

"I say to men, 'Why are you surprised that the Family Court replicates a similar sort of division of parenting responsibilities after separation, given that the determinant is what is best for children?' What is going to be best for children in the initial stages is a replication of what they're used to."

Cummings says the men's groups do have some legitimate gripes, in particular the inability to get protection orders that are made without notice back before the court quickly.

"A protection order stymies the relationship of the children and their father.

"While it is harmful for children to be exposed to domestic violence and inter-parental conflict, so it is harmful for children to be denied contact with their father."

The problem, he says, is more to do with resources of the court than any flaw in the legal process.

Cummings also points out that it is much harder than it used to be to get a protection order applied without the other party being present to defend it.

He is critical also of the Child Support Act which has no mechanism to recognise direct payments by a parent for a child's welfare.

Child support payments are based on a percentage of the income of the liable parent, rather than need.

Payments don't take into account the income of the recipient parent or shared parenting contributions that are below the 40 per cent of the nights threshold.

"The Child Support Act is like a taxation. It's a disincentive for people to earn money and an incentive to hide income, so it's vulnerable to feeding suspicion and mistrust of the other parent because the money is paid directly to them and there is no control as to where it goes."

But Cummings is concerned that the men's groups protests and their unwillingness to engage in dialogue is making the situation worse.

"Isn't this exactly the sort of behaviour that the women who have got a protection order complain about? It's abusive, harassing, denigrating, dishonest and causing you to fear for your safety."

He's worried, too, what effect protests may have on the court.

"How would you feel as a woman going into a Care of Children Act defended hearing knowing that your lawyer or the lawyer representing your children has been subject to that sort of harassment?"

Stuart Birks hasn't taken part in any protests but he's sympathetic. "I can understand them feeling somewhat upset at the fact that their relationship with their children is just terminated at the wishes of another parent who at that stage doesn't like them and the courts are quite happy to support that."

Birks is the academic of the fathers' movement - an economist and a director of the Centre for Public Policy Evaluation at Massey University and vice-president of the Father and Child Society.

His arguments and research are more considered, but like many in the father's rights movement he has had personal experience of the court - and seethes with contained anger. "My relationship with my children eroded and the court turned a complete blind eye to that."

He says one reason fathers are taking to the street is that much of what happens in the court is so invisible. "You walk out of the court having basically lost a child and the whole world outside is carrying on just as before.

"No one even knows this is going on."

He argues that the court is not supportive of both parents' involvement with their children if the custodial parent is hostile to the other parent.

"We have a situation when someone can unilaterally decide a family relationship is at an end and that effectively terminates one of the parent's parenting relationships also."

Birks argues that it's too easy for mothers to be vindictive when separation occurs and the court system, in facilitating the end of adult relationship, frequently makes it impossible for a relationship between fathers and their children. He describes that as an "extreme action when we really don't have the tools to make right decisions in those situations".

Not everyone agrees.

A posting last year on the Menz website - "The system working as it should" - describes a scenario of a vindictive mother, with the court admonishing the mother for her behaviour and awarding day-to-day care to the father.

Birks, like many in the fathers' groups, blames the court for the outcomes of a relationship breakdown without acknowledging the root cause of, and responsibility for, the disintegration of the relationship. Legislating to control human nature in such circumstances is always going to be difficult.

And while the Family Court may not always get it right, many will be pleased it is there - as a last resort - to help pick up the pieces.

11 June 2006
The Age (Melbourne)

Relationship help off to rocky start
By Jason Koutsoukis, Canberra

Most of the Howard Government's much vaunted $450 million Family Relationship Centres are not ready, three weeks before the planned July 3 opening.

Of the 65 centres announced, 15 are scheduled to open on July 3 but senior bureaucrats have revealed that contracts for most of those centres have not been signed, with some facing the prospect of setting up in temporary premises.

The centres are part of the Government's plan to help families stay together, and to ease the effects of divorce on children.

Shadow attorney-general Nicola Roxon has raised the concerns amid revelations that the Government's $19 million multi-media advertising campaign is set to begin despite the centres not being ready.

Ms Roxon accused Attorney-General Philip Ruddock of gross mismanagement of the program.

"There is a very serious risk that what should be a good program has been compromised from the beginning because not enough planning has gone into the program, and not enough support assigned," Ms Roxon said. "The Government wants all the kudos but not the responsibility and doing the hard work associated with setting these places up."

Ms Roxon said she had grave concerns that basic facilities such as separate entrances for feuding partners or separate waiting areas for children involved in custody disputes might not be available.

Last week the Attorney-General's Department assistant secretary, who has responsibility for managing the program within the department's Family Pathways branch, told a Senate committee that although 15 service providers had been selected, only two of 15 contracts had been signed. "The last I heard last week was that two had been signed but I am not sure how many have been signed since that advice," Sue Pidgeon said.

Ms Pidgeon also said that while she was aware many were busily hiring staff and setting up premises, "in some cases they may have interim premises while they get long-term premises fitted out, but all 15 will be operational on 3 July". Of those first 15 centres, four will be established in Victoria, at Frankston, Ringwood, Sunshine and Mildura.

Jo Cavanagh, chief executive of the Southern Family Life Services Association, which will operate the Frankston centre, said although it had been a rush, her centre would be able to open on July 3.

"It has been a challenge as there hasn't been much time to get organised, but there is no doubt we will be opening our doors for business on the planned start date and I am very confident about the services we will be offering," Ms Cavanagh said.

A spokeswoman for Mr Ruddock said the Government could give a "100 per cent guarantee that the first 15 of the 65 centres would be opening as planned on 3 July".

She said: "We have 150 staff already who will be coming to Canberra for a week-long training exercise commencing June 19, and the doors will all be open on the right day."

The spokeswoman said the only woman who wouldn't be happy was "Nicola Roxon, whose only contribution to this debate has been a negative one".

The spokeswoman said the Family Relationship Centre program was part of the most significant reforms to the Family Law Act in 30 years, and one of the biggest ever cultural changes in the way any country dealt with family breakdown.

The family way

December 2003: Bipartisan report into child custody arrangements tabled in Parliament.

June 2005: The Government response proposes a network of 65 Family Relationship Centres.

December 2005: Philip Ruddock introduces legislation to establish the centres.

April 2006: Mr Ruddock announces the organisations invited to run the first 15 centres.

July 3: Centres due to open.

08 June 2006
Bloomberg.com (Italy)

Italian Fathers' 'Tsunami' of Custody Cases Harms Legal System
By Chiara Remondini

Divorced Italian fathers, emboldened by a new law that grants them more rights in children's custody, are filing court cases at a rate that threatens to shut down the country's judicial system, already the slowest in Europe.

"There will be more than 40,000 appeals in the next two years, a tsunami for Italian courts," said Alberto Bucci, a judge and president of Rome's civil-court division that rules on divorce cases. "We're worried. The situation may soon become unsustainable," he said in a telephone interview.

The legislation favors joint custody rather than granting care of children to the mother. Prior to the law, joint custody was only given in 12 percent of cases, while mothers received the children in 84 percent, according to the Italian Statistics Institute. The law also allows for appeals of previous decisions.

Separations and divorces rose 59 percent between 1994 and 2003, according to the Rome-based Statistics Institute, and children were involved in more than two thirds of cases. The European Court of Human Rights received 906 complaints between 1999 and 2005 about the slowness of Italian courts. That's more than four times the 220 complaints received for France, the country with the second-highest number of protests.

"For us the law is a step forward, but clearly it will increase litigation," said Antonio Matricardi, a spokesman for the Italian Association of Separated Fathers, which counts about 2,000 members. "We're expecting a flood of appeals."

Alimony, Visitation

Matricardi, 46, a Telecom Italia SpA employee in Rome, is appealing his own case. In the original ruling, he was ordered to pay 1,300 euros ($1,660) a month to provide for his wife and their 9-year-old child. Matricardi earns 2,000 euros a month. He's now seeking more visitation rights and involvement in decisions about his son's education.

The change in the law, which took effect in March, brings Italy in line with other European countries, including France and the U.K., by defending both parents' right to a close relationship with their children and calling on them to jointly make decisions about issues such health care and education.

"Italy's courts are closer and closer to collapsing," Gloria Servetti, an adviser at Milan's Court of Appeals, said at an April 4 conference in Milan. "They may not be able to stand up to this new law."

While most family activists and lawyers support the change, some question the way it was implemented in Italy. Unlike in other countries, differences between divorced parents on rearing their children must be resolved by a judge, rather than a social worker or family specialist.

Reopening Cases

The "incentive to resort to judges" is further clogging the courts, said Milena Pini, a lawyer at the Italian association of family-law attorneys.

"This is causing enormous organizational problems for courts," Pini said in an interview. Pini, who runs a practice in Milan, said she's receiving about three queries each day from fathers seeking to reopen their child-custody cases.

Some lawmakers want to modify the legislation. Marcella Lucidi, a family lawyer and member of the Democrats of the Left party, a partner in the ruling coalition, said her party will seek to change the law and reduce its impact on courts.

Lucidi is an Interior Ministry undersecretary in the new government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi, who defeated Silvio Berlusconi in elections in April.

The average length of a civil lawsuit in Italy rose in 2005 by 56 days to 32 months, according to the country's highest appeals court. In Rome, there are 10 judges working in the family-law division and they handle about 13,000 cases each year.

'Greatest Regret'

In his final days as president of Italy, 85-year-old Carlo Azeglio Ciampi lamented not doing more to repair the legal process in the country. His term ended on May 18.

"At the end of my term, my greatest regret is that a solution hasn't been found for the main problem of our justice system: the excessive length of trials," Ciampi said in a speech on April 26. "Such a problem negatively affects the State's credibility."

06 June 2006
Leeds Today / Evening Post (UK)

Till lawyers us do part
By Anne Pickles

When love unravels and separation is inevitable, the pain is the same whether married or not. So, why are the Law Commission's divorce reforms so significant? Anne Pickles reports.

When Frank and Anita Milford - Britain's longest married couple - were asked the secret of their 78-year union, Frank, 97, didn't even have to think about it.

"We rarely see eye to eye and we have an argument every day," he said.

That celebration of lively exchange and healthy independence within a lifelong commitment to each other is so old fashioned now it can make younger couples cringe. But younger couples are more used to cutting and running, if not at the first lively argument, then probably at the third. In 1928, when Frank took Anita as his bride, lovers knew only death could part them.

"These days, marriages don't last so long," Anita, 98, said. "A lot of people get married with the idea that if it doesn't work out, there's no worry, but we can't understand that."

None would expect Frank, Anita nor any other partaker or survivor of long years of committed marriage to understand that institution's weaker, thinner, more fragile descendant. It bears no resemblance to what was originally intended by vows before God and public witness and - like almost everything else 80 years on from Frank and Anita's wedding - marriage is disposable by design.

Expensive

It has been diluted yet further by cohabitation, chosen most often to avoid the expensive complications and hassle of what is increasingly presumed to be the inevitability of divorce. Modern marriage is taking on the same prospect of modern career... nothing is for ever, expect at least three during your lifetime. That makes living together good sense.

And in recognition of the pitfalls of looser, more fragile relationships - built not on commitment but on whatever today's most convenient arrangement may be - Government law reform advisers have seen fit to introduce legal protection for partners who move on and for the ones they leave behind.

If Frank and Anita Milford can't understand divorce on demand they'll never get to grips with cohabitation penalties which include unmarried couples being ordered to sell their home, pay lump sums and share pensions in the event of break-up.

The Law Commission said the two million Britons who "live in sin" should be able to make financial claims against each other in some circumstances.

A partner should generally be able to make a claim against the other if they made "economic sacrifices" during the relationship - such as giving up a career to raise children - and if they believed the benefits to which they had contributed were likely to be unfairly shared at a split.

The Commission said the new set-up would apply to heterosexual and gay couples who had been together for a minimum period, but it did not set out what the minimum should be.

It also recommended allowing couples to opt out of being liable to the new rules providing they signed a written agreement - which, since pre-nuptial agreements have no legal standing in this country, is more than divorcing married couples are allowed.

The Commissioners insist their measures would be "more limited in scope" than divorce laws, but the courts would be able to order sale of property, lump sums, monthly payments, pension sharing and interim payments.

They also said they favoured the 'clean break' principle used in divorce laws, which sees claims settled quickly by transferring the family home or a lump sum to a partner rather than carrying on a long-term legal row.

The proposals have already stirred controversy for many and obvious reasons. Couples planning to make promises to each other in wedding ceremonies or home-sharing arrangements this summer are unlikely to be looking ahead coldly to their parting. They, along with the Franks and Anitas of this world are likely to ask: "What's love got to do with it?"

The legal answer would be simple and to the point: "Nothing at all." The law is a pragmatic tool reserved for the necessary cleaning up of the mess left by love's shattering. But in anticipating the breakdown of relationships as the norm and allowing for love as a movable feast, does law encourage expectation of the temporary and diminish the value of marriage's original intentions of togetherness until death?

There are many who fear it does and their fears include a conviction that law and Government have meddled with love, marriage and the stability of family until they have been manoeuvred almost out of existence.

Marriage

The Commission, headed by High Court judge Sir Roger Toulson, insists otherwise. It says the new measures governing cohabitation would not damage the institution of marriage by encouraging couples to live together rather than take vows and would not compromise lasting commitment.

They could actually encourage more people to marry because partners would no longer avoid financial responsibilities to lovers by living together instead of getting hitched, it suggested - which is really rather a long-shot justification for yet more new law governing the most intimate areas of personal life.

According to Office for National Statistics projections, there were 1.56 million cohabiting couples in 1996 and the number will rise to 2.93 million in 2021, an increase of almost 90 per cent.

The 2001 Census showed the number of households which are home to married couples fell by 10 per cent in just 10 years, from 55 per cent of all homes in 1991 to 45 per cent in 2001. The Government's predictions forecast that by 2031 there will be 3.8million cohabiting couples and fewer than 10 million married couples.

What is worrying is that a large proportion of those couples who move in together to share love, life, finances and domestic responsibility without a marriage certificate, do so under the mistaken belief that they are protected by common law. Widely-held assertions about the rights of "common law" spouses are, in fact, totally unfounded...which is why marriage is there.

Marriage exists as a legal, contractual arrangement to protect and entitle both parties bound by it and to serve the best interests of the children resulting from it.

It is a classically perfect institution... or rather it used to be. It still would be close to perfect had not we insisted on its dilution and weakened it so radically - almost to point of irrelevance - to make marriage more closely suit our fickle and temporary lives.

The Law Commissioners' report came just days after the Law Lords held that divorced women were entitled to a larger share of their former husbands' wealth - casting yet another shaded complexion on the age old ideal of marriage for life.

Martin Loxley, head of family law at law firm Irwin Mitchell, said: "The issue of divorce and who deserves what in settlements has been put firmly back in the spotlight by the recent Miller v Miller and McFarlane v McFarlane cases, as well as the impending £800m divorce battle between Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills.

"However, the fact that two million Britons so-called 'live in sin' means that what the Law Commission has outlined in its consultation paper will affect an increasing number of people.

"The proposed changes it suggests are most welcome. Splitting up is always incredibly painful for any couple, and if lengthy wranglings over estates and financial settlements can be avoided then this should be welcomed."

Changes

He continued: "The law is currently a mess in so far as cohabitants are concerned. To achieve fairness on the ending of long-term relationships, can be difficult and at worst can be impossible. But if such changes to the law were to be made they would be far-reaching given the increasing number of couples who chose to cohabit outside of marriage.

"The Church will no doubt have much to say about the changes under discussion."

The proposed changes in law mark a significant shift in the way society now regards partnerships, family life and duty or responsibility to committed relationships. It reflects the fading to invisibility of that already blurred picture of the nuclear family, together whatever. Individual ambitions, changing minds, wish-lists and whims have well and truly overtaken vows made before God and public witness.

It may not have arrived yet but the day when "Till death us do part" is no longer an option is now clearly visible on the horizon... which further baffles Frank and Anita Milford.

"If Anita doesn't face me when she's talking to me, I find it hard to hear her. If she's got the television on, I can't hear her at all! But that comes and goes, and we're always there for each other..." which is just as it should be.

05 June 2006
The Star-Ledger (USA)

Teen's pamphlet on divorce gets judicial notice
By Peggy O'Crowley, Star-Ledger Staff

Jacob M. Solomon's parents divorced when he was 3, and as he went through grade school and middle school, he learned a valuable lesson: find an adult to talk to and confide in, someone who will think about what's best for you.

So Jacob sought out Sheila Brown, his guidance counselor at a public elementary school in New York City, and then Denise Worthington, a middle school guidance counselor in Millburn, where Jacob moved when his mother remarried.

That advice is now Point Four in Jacob's pamphlet for children of divorce, "Empower Yourself: A Teenager's Guide to Coping with Your Parents' Divorce (Or the ten most important things to know when your parents separate)."

It's a tool that a family court judge thinks is so helpful, he's invited Jacob to serve on a panel at a conference for all the family judges in the state.

"Somebody sent me the pamphlet, and I was very impressed with it," said Judge Michael K. Diamond, presiding judge of the family part in Passaic County Superior Court and an organizer of the two-day conference that starts tomorrow.

"Just to hear from a 16-year-old youngster and how it (divorce) affected him is important," Diamond said. "A lot of judges may not necessarily see that. We may be able to develop it into our own methods of dealing with cases."

Jacob, now a sophomore at West Essex High School in Norrth Caldwell, said he started writing down his advice as a way to help other children going through their parents' divorce.

"I've been doing this for a while, just talking to some of the kids," said Jacob, who attended a support group. "And some of my friends' parents are just getting divorced now. I'm really excited the judges will get a kid's perspective."

While his parents, Cliff Solomon of Maryland and Barbara Aueron of Millburn, have an amicable divorce for the most part, Jacob said he did have to deal with issues that continually come up, including visitation schedules, planning his bar mitzvah, and how to get along with step- and half-siblings when parents remarry.

His 10 points include how to tackle some of the problems that affect the estimated 1 million children whose parents split up each year. He starts with assuring kids the breakup is not their fault, a common perception, and advises them on how to advocate for themselves when parents are bent on carrying their own wishes.

Jacob also lets them know they are not alone, a comfort he found in the Changing Families group led by Worthington at Millburn Middle School.

"Adolescence is difficult enough, and these kids hate being exceptional," Worthington, adding that being able to discuss problems stemming from divorce helped students relate to each other and provide advice. At each meeting, kids are encouraged to "rate your week" and look at ways to improve situations, she said.

"The divorce situation waxes and wanes, and Jacob was a great participant," said Worthington, who will be on the panel with Jacob at the conference. "Jacob came to me this year, when he was in 10th grade, and told me he had written this pamphlet. I was very impressed with how he's figured it out."

Worthington, who said she did not edit the content of the pamphlet, has been sending it to other guidance counselors. His mother helped him send it to lawyers and judges to find out if there was an interest, Jacob said.

One issue Jacob addresses in the pamphlet, written for middle and high school students, is how teens can cope when weekend visitation starts to interfere with social activities, sports and school.

"You've got to do what is best for you," he advises, including letting parents know what the child's wishes are. "It is all right for you to want to do other things," he wrote.

Jacob himself is busy writing for the school newspaper and serving as a peer counselor and on the school's steering committee. He also works out in a gym, plays drums in the school band and mentors a special needs student.

"He has a passion for jumping in and helping," said Aueron, his mother. "I don't know anybody who has been through a divorce where the parents get along 100 percent and there aren't any problems. But I'm proud of how he's turned out. He's mature and together, and he's helping other people."

Jacob has worked out his own visitation schedule with his parents. He visits his father and his new family, including two young half-sisters, in Maryland once a month.

He doesn't address the challenges of blended families in the pamphlet, but he thinks he'll tackle that in an updated version he'll write over the summer.

While there are drawbacks, there are also pluses in new relationships, he said. "I have two stepsisters, and as an only child, I liked having them around."

Jacob said he also decided to focus on the positives that can come out of emotional pain. "You will be a stronger and more mature person," he wrote. And in a playful point, he talks about turning to the other parent to get something if the first one says no.

Jacob said he has not made a habit of that, but his mother mentioned the time when she refused to buy him a laptop computer.

After his next visit to his dad, "he did come back with a laptop," she said as Jacob laughed.

Peggy O'Crowley covers family issues. She may be reached at:
pocrowley@starledger.com

04 June 2006
AG & Brough Joint Release

Public Campaign to Promote New Family Law System

A public information campaign begins today to help explain to Australian families a raft of new services and changes to the family law which take effect from 1 July 2006.

The $25.6 million community education campaign will run until June 2010 highlighting the new family law system and its focus on changing the culture of family separation.

Initially, it will feature national print and localised advertising as the first 15 new Family Relationship Centres (FRCs) begin offering families a range of services from next month, as well as promote the new telephone Advice Line and website. Other stages of the campaign will promote the role of the FRCs as the entire network of 65 Centres is established.

The Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act 2006 marks a major cultural shift in the family law system that will help families to deal co-operatively and practically with relationship difficulties and separations.

The reforms promote the right of children to know both their parents and to be protected from harm. They also recognise parenting is a responsibility that should be shared equally.

A massive expansion of other services to support families will also be rolled out across Australia in the coming months to help parents put aside their own differences to reach agreement on issues involving their children.

Another 33 new early intervention services will help improve parenting and relationship skills and provide a range of services to meet the needs of all family members - women, children and men. They will work collaboratively with the new Family Relationship Centres in delivering high quality services to support families at all stages of their relationships.

More information about the changes to the family law system can be found at:
www.australia.gov.au/familyrelationships.

Media Contacts:
Charlie McKillop (Mr Ruddock's office) 0419 278 715
Craig Clarke (Mr Brough's office) 0417 889 423

03 June 2006
The Mercury

Boost for contact without conflict

IT has become easier for children to maintain contact with separated parents who are in conflict with each other.

A purpose-built premises at New Town was opened yesterday for the Children's Contact Service, a provision of Relationships Australia.

The service promotes safe and positive contact arrangements for children whose parents are separated, particularly where there is conflict between the parents, a lack of an established relationship between a child and a parent or concerns about safety.

Relationships Australia state CEO Susan Holmes said: "We are giving the child a safe interlude in between the changeover (of parents)."

Senior family law practitioner Fabian Dixon, SC, said: "This type of service takes away a lot of the fear which may have been there on one side or the other.

"Anything which reduces conflict between parents when they are dealing with children has got to be good."

02 June 2006
The Australian

Child Support's security blunders
Michael McKinnon, FOI editor

BUREAUCRATS have given estranged spouses the private contact details of their former partners in a series of security blunders an internal report warned could have led to people being murdered. In at least two cases, terrified mothers and their children were relocated at taxpayers' expense for their own safety as a result of the unauthorised release of information by Child Support Agency staff.

An internal audit commissioned by the CSA found 405 privacy breaches within the last nine months - 69 of those involving sensitive information being given to ex-spouses, according to the report obtained by The Australian under Freedom of Information laws.

CSA general manager Matt Miller yesterday described the privacy breaches as "unacceptable" for a government body with the most "sensitive private information".

The report commissioned by Mr Miller warned "an analysis of breach and incident statistics shows that the system is not locked down in privacy terms".

Consultants Aulich and Co found such failures left the CSA open to "potential identity theft, people gaining contact details (to) find and harm former partners and inappropriate accessing of details of prominent identities".

"CSA staff deliberately or accidentally releasing information to inappropriate persons such as former partners (is) an action which leads to clients suffering mental, social or even physical harm, including murder."

"An analysis of the privacy breaches show that there are still discernible examples of privacy breaches and this may indicate that there are other breaches not yet brought to light."

A spokeswoman for a major national domestic violence body, Women's Services Network, said the CSA's privacy breaches were a "distressing failure".

WSN chair Pauline Woodbridge said the safety of women and children could have been compromised by the breaches.

"Too many women die as a result of domestic violence and agencies like the CSA have to protect their lives," Ms Woodbridge said.

Mr Miller said the CSA had already implemented the key recommendations in the December 2005 report to implement a national privacy training plan, implement privacy impact statements and conduct more audits.

A spokeswoman for Human Services Minister Joe Hockey said he was satisfied the CSA was taking action. "The CSA was provided with additional funding in the recent budget which will assist with addressing these issues," she said.

The report said the "major risks and threats" to privacy were mistakes made by officers handling labour-intensive and repetitious paper work and the incorrect matching of addresses and names.

"The second major risk appears to be mistakes made under pressure by staff on phones services and the third (risk) is some staff inappropriately accessing personal information," it said.

Mr Miller said the CSA had conducted a number of audits but found no evidence at all of criminal behaviour in relation to breaches.

He said any staff member deliberately releasing information was immediately sacked.

"The agency is committed to doing the right thing and that is why I commissioned this report, but human error is still a factor," he said.

"There is very little evidence of deliberate breaches and no evidence of staff selling information." The consultants found "CSA personnel seem very aware that privacy protection is a key measure of their success".

The consultants also noted a "strong sense" of privacy awareness but warned about the "ad hoc nature of the follow-up or refresher training".

The report said CSA's privacy environment could be categorised at the highest level of sensitivity.

01 June 2006
The Times (UK)

Child Support Agency to be scrapped
By Rosemary Bennett

A new slimline operation will enforce maintenance payments on absent parents only as a last resort.

The Child Support Agency will be scrapped this summer and replaced with a pared-down operation to collect cash from the most hardened absent fathers who refuse to pay maintenance.

The Times has learnt that, in future, separating parents will be told to sort out their own financial arrangements with the help of national guidelines on appropriate levels of child maintenance. Cash incentives may even be offered to couples for staying away from the new, slimmed-down agency.

The decision to abolish the CSA, which has been plagued with problems since it was set up in 1993, is an admission by the Government that it is unable to deal with the scale of the problem of maintenance payments after family break-up.

Ministers will be accused of letting down some of the most vulnerable families in the country. However, they will argue that, when parents separate, the Government should get involved only as a last resort, not as soon as the break-up happens.

The new agency will be told to "track and enforce" payments in the most complex cases. These include absent fathers who are willing to change job and move house to avoid paying for their children.

It will have extra powers to use credit details to track down absent parents and discover how much money they have.

Greater use will also be made of "deduction of earnings orders" to collect payments. These orders are now issued only in exceptional cases but will become routine, government sources say.

Private debt collectors will also be invited to bid for contracts to enforce payments.

John Hutton, the Work and Pensions Secretary, finally will admit defeat and kill off the failing CSA next month in a Commons statement. He will announce plans for a Bill giving the new agency its powers to enforce debt collection.

Mr Hutton has told colleagues that the CSA was involved too early on when a couple separated, often becoming an excuse to avoid difficult conversations about money.

Hundreds of thousands of mothers on benefits are automatically registered with the CSA when their relationship breaks up, even if they have reached an agreement on maintenance with the former partner. They account for about 67 per cent of the agency's casework.

Although maintenance payments will still be deducted from benefits under the new child support system, ministers will try to keep these cases away from the new agency unless there is a default.

Officials at the Department for Work and Pensions are examining work at the Department for Constitution Affairs, which is broadening the role of the Court Advisory Service to provide more mediation and conciliation services so that separating parents can agree access arrangements outside court. Similar services are being planned for parents to discuss finance.

The plans are the result of a review conducted by Sir David Henshaw, a former chief executive of Liverpool City Council, who has been paid £900 a day to come up with a replacement.

The Child Support Agency has struggled since its creation 13 years ago and is chasing £2 billion of outstanding debts owed to single parents, although much of it has been written off.

Half of all mothers who apply to the CSA have no contact with the father of their children. In one in five cases, the mother and father have never lived together, and in 15 per cent of cases, the father is also being chased by other mothers through the agency.

However, Mr Hutton has said that too many absent fathers still think that their financial responsibilities end when the relationship with the children's mother breaks up. Frank Field, a former welfare reform minister, said that he would welcome any move to keep warring parents away from the agency.

"I'm 100 per cent behind that. Most people are grown up and accept their responsibilities, and the CSA wastes its time chasing them," he said.

"The power of the State should only be used against people who fail to meet minimum requirements of good parenting."

Dads In Distress is funded by the Australian Federal Government.