Dads in Distress Inc

Phone: 1300 853 437
Email: didsadmin@bigpond.com
Internet: www.dadsindistress.asn.au
Postal Address: PO Box 2333, Coffs Harbour NSW 2450, Australia

30 November 2008
The Courier-Mail

Equal parenting for divorced couples may be scrapped
By Matthew Fynes-Clinton

The controversial and "distressing" equal-time parenting laws for divorced couples could be overhauled, the federal Attorney-General says.

Robert McClelland said some shared-parenting orders that followed relationship breakdowns were "clearly not appropriate and (were) causing extreme distress for children and their parents".

Last month, The Courier-Mail highlighted the problems in a series of reports on the family law system.

"I'm very aware of media reports and research about the 2006 reforms," Mr McClelland said. "In particular, I have read reports about the impact on children of some parenting orders favouring significant sharing of parenting time.

"I assure you that I appreciate the seriousness of all I am hearing ... and that we will be mindful of these views when it comes to formulating new policies and making possible amendments to legislation."

Mr McClelland made the remarks during a recent Women's Legal Service family law forum in Brisbane.

He confirmed that the Australian Institute of Family Studies, a government statutory authority, had begun a "comprehensive empirical assessment" of how families were faring under the shared parenting regime.

The Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act was introduced by the Howard government in 2006 to rectify perceived unfairness in custody orders and assuage concerns about the impact of absent fathers.

The changes direct trial judges and magistrates in the federal family law courts to "presume" that "equal shared parental responsibility" is in the best interests of children.

This means separating parents are legally bound to jointly attempt to make major decisions on their children's welfare, such as those about health and education. Fifty-50 parenting time is not automatic.

But when shared responsibility is imposed (child abuse or family violence cancels the presumption), the courts are required to consider a further order that a child spend equal time with each of the parents.

In the Courier-Mail reports, Brisbane former Family Court Judge Tim Carmody, family lawyers, academics and child psychologists said the laws were emotionally damaging children, many of whom lived week-about between the homes of highly conflicted parents.

27 November 2008
The Australian

Labor ambassadors for men's men only

LABOR'S plans to create Australia's first ambassadors for men's health are in chaos after it was forced to quiz two of them over allegedly homophobic and sexist views a day after their appointment.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon now faces calls to dump Lone Fathers Association president Barry Williams and Fatherhood Foundation president Warwick Marsh from the list of six men she named as new advocates for the neglected area of men's health.

On Tuesday, Ms Roxon was forced to defend her appointment of Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard's partner, hairdresser Tim Mathieson, as one of the honorary ambassadors amid Opposition charges of nepotism.

Yesterday, her office issued a "please explain" to Mr Marsh and Mr Williams to ascertain what role they played in a controversial Gender Matters publication, launched last year at Parliament House.

Their names are listed among 34 authors and contributors to a document that labels homosexuality a "pathology" and blames "radical feminist-led attempts to enforce social androgyny" for harm to boys and young men.

"Gender disorientation pathology is a symptom of family dysfunction, personality disorder, father absence, health malfunction or sexual abuse," said the document, published by the Fatherhood Foundation.

Ms Roxon said the comments about homosexuality in the document were "unacceptable and repugnant". "I firmly disagree with the views expressed ... I regard this as a serious matter and will consider closely the responses I receive," she said.

Mr Williams yesterday told The Australian that he did not pen any of the offending comments and denied any bias on his part against gays or women.

"Some of my best friends are gay people," he said.

Mr Williams said he was wild about the accusations levelled against him and would take legal action to prevent damage to his reputation if need be.

"If I'm still an ambassador, I'll work with dark people, foreign people, gay people and everyone, that's my motto," he said.

But Mr Marsh said society would be wise to understand that there was such a thing as a male and a female, and problems arose when the lines between the two were blurred.

"There's a harm caused when you go outside the natural order," he said.

Eva Cox, chair of the Women's Electoral Lobby's national co-ordinating committee, said the Government had "stuffed it" when selecting the pair, and must try again.

Ms Cox said she counted Ms Roxon as a someone with progressive feminist views.

"I think she's probably had bad advice. (Mr Williams and Mr Marsh) were very popular with the last government and I think maybe she doesn't realise how toxic that kind of appointment would be," she said.

Australian Coalition for Equality spokesman Rodney Croome said anyone who supported a document that claimed homosexuality was a mental illness and that homosexuals were more likely to abuse drugs, children and their partners was not fit to hold the post of men's health ambassador.

"If the federal Government is sincere about an inclusive and effective men's health agenda it must remove these hate mongers immediately," he said.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick said gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people continued to face discrimination and high levels of prejudice.

"It is important that any men's health program is therefore carried out in a non-discriminatory manner."

24 November 2008
Southern Highland News

Support for Highlands' fathers

A question from a father seeking support during a separation has prompted the launch of a Southern Highlands branch of Dads in Distress (DID). "A local dad not so long ago asked the question 'Is there a Dads in Distress group locally?'" said facilitator Harry Costa.

"Some research, with a few phone calls later revealed that the answer was no. The nearest group was either in Wollongong or the western parts of Sydney."

DID allows men to discuss and help each other through relationship difficulties, separation and divorce, including separation from their children.

The Southern Highlands group will begin on Tuesday, November 25, starting at 7pm. Through the two-hour fortnightly meetings, the group will provide links to appropriate services as well as helping rebuild social networks. "The groups are about mateship," regional co-ordinator Phil York said.

"It's about blokes helping blokes. The guys are just dads who love their kids."

Mr York said DID helped men to restore social networks which many lose when they separate and divorce.

"It's about moving forward in a positive way. Often men are not aware of the services available to help them to get through difficult times," Mr York said.

The organisation has a poster which features five men lying on a beach like dead whales titled, "Save the males" www.dadsindistress.asn.au/images/save-the-males.jpg.

"We lose five guys a day to suicide," Mr York said.

"We lose more guys to suicide than we do on the roads. It's around 1800 men a year. It's unacceptable.

"If somebody loses a leg or their house burns down the community will rally around. But if a guy is going through relationship issues most of us don't know how to help with that".

Mr York said generally children fared better when both partners focus on the wellbeing of the children after separation and divorce.

"But often that doesn't happen and it's mostly the men that find themselves isolated.

"They've got issues like access to their children, work and paying the mortgage as well as supporting the family.

"Perhaps there are legal issues, which are usually expensive apart from the emotional upheaval of not seeing the kids, sometimes for months at a time."

23 November 2008
The Courier-Mail

Split parents must put children first at Christmas

For most of us, Christmas is a happy time, a time when families and friends get together to generally enjoy each other's company.

But, where parents are separated or divorced, Christmas can be a time of sadness, disappointment and disagreement and, caught in the middle of it, are the children.

So, what can separated and divorced parents do to make Christmas a little easier on themselves and their children?

One of the most important things is to realise that Christmas is a time for your children. From a legal point-of-view, residence and contact time are ordered by the court for your children's benefit, not for your benefit.

Therefore, it is important to remember that contact with your children over Christmas is for their benefit, not yours.

Many disagreements start because of parents' expectations of what will happen.

You expect that children will spend Christmas with you. The other parent may expect the same. Parents need to communicate with each other and plan for these times before they arrive.

If you make your children's happiness your priority when making any plans, you will be well on the way to a happier time.

Understanding some simple facts about children can also help. Here's a few helpful thoughts:

- Children often experience a great deal of tension at Christmas.

- They often feel responsible for making both parents happy.

- The dream for most children is that their family will be together. Security is a real issue for them. It is something they need.

- They often feel it is their fault that their parents broke up.

- They try to come to terms with their parents not being together.

- They are expected to move from one home to another to spend time with each parent. While this may be OK for short periods during the year, at Christmas the time spent with each parent can be longer. This can change the dynamics of the home and cause problems, particularly with blended families.

- They conform to keep others happy and often don't even know how to express their feelings about all that is going on. This can mean that on the surface everything seems to be OK. In reality, children may be experiencing a storm of unexpressed emotion.

- They don't have the understanding in life experiences that adults do. It is more difficult for them to make meaning of the situations they are in. Young children especially are unable to think things through in a rational way. They can only react to situations.

- Adults also have a greater capacity to make choices. Children don't.

Regardless of what has happened between you, it is important not to criticise the other parent when talking to your children.

You need to accept that your children love their other parent and the relationship that they have with that parent must be protected.

Despite all your efforts it is possible that difficulties may still arise. You must take responsibility for what you do as a parent, however, you cannot be responsible for how the other parent behaves.

You can do everything in your power, but they may still not co-operate. If you find yourself in this situation, always remember that help is available.

A counsellor can offer helpful advice on how to cope with difficult relationships and situations.

A lawyer can also explain what the law says regarding various situations with relationships and children and give you advice about the options available to you.

Start communicating well ahead of time and keep your children's happiness as your priority and you will have made a good start to a happier Christmas.

Here's some tips for avoiding conflict

- Agree on what you will do so there is no tension.

- Discuss your ideas with your children.

- Ask your children what they want to do. Give them input and some control over the process (this may depend on their age but all children should have the chance to say what they want to do).

- Listen closely to what they say.

- Put their desires ahead of yours.

- Avoid situations where your children are drawn into the conflict.

- If your children's wishes can't be met, sit down with them and explain why.

Michael Lynch is an accredited family law specialist. He is author of A Guide to Family Law and the CD Common Mistakes in Separation. Both are available free by phoning 07 3221 4300.

21 November 2008
The Sydney Morning Herald

The answer's Semple - cull federal magistrates
By Richard Ackland

It's a reflex condition of the human spirit that once a person is elevated to rung No.1 on the greasy ladder of life, immediately rung No.2 is the place they really want to be.

So it is with federal magistrates. They were invented in 2000 by the Howard government's attorney-general Daryl (Rowdy) Williams.

No one was quite certain why he wanted to insert a new layer into the system of federal courts. The official reasons were the desire for a "quicker, cheaper option for litigants" than the one provided by the Family Court of Australia. The other reason was that the then chief justice of the Family Court, Alastair Nicholson, was on the nose with the Howardistas.

All of which seem like perfectly sound reasons to invent a new court, which started with eight and is now stocked with 59 judicial officers, each pulling down in excess of $250,000 a year, plus staff, perks, facilities and so on.

On top of that, there are another 42 "real" judges in the Family Court, each on $333,660, with the exception of the chief justice, who is on $367,150.

Within eight years the Magistrates Court has become the largest federal court in the country.

The total funding for both the Family Court and the Federal Magistrates Court is $180 million a year, about 80 per cent of the grunt work in family law being done by the magistrates.

The federal magistrates have a submission before the Remuneration Tribunal arguing for a pay increase from 75 per cent of a federal judge's income to 85 per cent. They also want to be called judges rather than magistrates, having quietly switched the name of their fiefdom from Federal Magistrates Service to Federal Magistrates Court.

The self-aggrandisement knows no bounds.

An investigation into federal family courts conducted by the former head of the Family Law Council Des Semple, in conjunction with the Attorney-General's Department has recommended that there be an end to this nonsense.

The expense, duplication, squabbling over resources and status is all too much. Williams's great contribution to the federal judicial firmament is about to be skewered. Of course, there is a consultation process and so on but there is no doubt that the days of the stand-alone federal magistrates are numbered.

They will be absorbed into a new "general division" of the Family Court, and the serious stuff and appeals will be handled by a dwindling number of judges in a "superior" division.

The relatively small number of general federal law magistrates, who used to mainly do immigration work, are likely to be absorbed into a freshly created lower rung of the Federal Court of Australia.

Now the tussle will be about whether these former magistrates will be allowed to call themselves judge, and be entitled to judicial pensions, cars and so on.

We've had some landmark squabbles over important pecking-order issues, and sadly they are still unresolved.

In Adelaide a Family Court judge was forced to dress down an employee of the magistrates court for taking tea bags and biscuits from the servery. A magistrate had his computer disconnected for having the temerity to work in offices usually occupied by Family Court staff.

The chief magistrate, John Pascoe, tried to diffuse the tension with a speech at a law conference titled, "Of tea bags, bikkies and constant change - a journey in family law". In north Queensland there has been a struggle over a magistrate's parking space, which momentarily had been invaded by a visiting judge.

Some of the appointments to the federal magistrates court have attracted political attention (not that a person's political bent is automatically a problem). Possibly the best known was the appointment of a relatively inexperienced lawyer, John O'Sullivan, straight from the office of the then immigration minister, Kevin Andrews, to the Federal Magistrates Court in Melbourne.

A friend of the Queensland liberal senator George Brandis was appointed in Brisbane, a former staffer of the Liberal attorney-general in Queensland, Denver Beanland, was also anointed, and an adviser to the Catholic Church on its opposition to IVF for lesbians sits in the ACT branch of the court. Even Pascoe is regarded as a bit of a Liberal favourite, having worked closely with the former prime minister's brother at the big law shop Mallesons Stephen Jaques.

There was a small kerfuffle in 2006 when a Brisbane federal court magistrate, Jennifer Rimmer, was caught cut and pasting the reasoning of a another magistrate into her judgments without due acknowledgement. She was ordered to take leave for "training, counselling and mentoring" and then slipped off the bench altogether.

There is nothing wrong with having a court that is fast and informal. Instead of addressing the problems of the Family Court and how it could be made to be more flexible, the former government just inserted a new court, with concurrent jurisdiction, into the hierarchy.

The job of making the Family Court work properly is still awaiting attention. The Semple report is the first step.

21 November 2008
The Age (Melbourne)

Report signals end for court duplication
By Peter Gregory

Tensions over family law cases and the expense of duplicating services for judges might have spelt the end for the Federal Magistrates Court.

Consultant Des Semple and the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department have recommended that the court's services be split between the Federal and Family courts after reviewing its operations.

The FMC was opened in 2000, with the aim of providing a faster, cheaper and less formal option in family law cases.

It has grown into the largest federal court, and now handles 79 per cent of family law applications.

The Semple report praised the court's "service culture'', but said it created friction and resentment between the FMC and Family Court, particularly over resources to support judges and magistrates.

According to the review, judicial support resources for both courts would cost $23.45 million to maintain service levels.

It said a significant level of duplication in administrative structures and corporate services existed across the two courts.

"The existing and proposed duplication is not financially sustain able, and utilises services that could be directed more effectively to assisting litigants,'' it said.

The report also said tension over resources had distracted the FMC and Family Court from their core responsibilities.

Litigants had also been confused about where to file applications, and by the different procedures in the two courts.

The report and details for public submissions about the recommendations are on www.ag.gov.au

21 November 2008
The Australian

Family law in line for revamp by Rudd Government
By Michael Pelly

The Rudd Government is poised to dismantle the Federal Magistrates Court and create a one-stop shop for family law in a move expected to cause tensions within the judiciary.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland yesterday released a report by consultant Des Semple that recommended the court's family law division should become part of the Family Court and its general division should fold into the Federal Court.

Mr McClelland said "no change is not an option" and that the creation of the court in 1999 - the principal judicial reform of the Howard government - was a mistake.

The Attorney-General said he wanted the "faster, cheaper and less formal" practices of the Federal Magistrates Court to become part of family law culture, and described Mr Semple's model as "a reverse takeover".

There are now 34 Family Court judges, but the report says that only 25 will be required to handle complex trial work and legal appeals.

Up to 36 of the 59 magistrates would be transferred to a general division of the Family Court under the plan, with the remainder to serve in a second-tier federal court.

The report was finalised after discussions with Mr McClelland. Despite a discussion paper on the issue also being released yesterday, the Government is expected to adopt his suggested reforms.

Mr McClelland told The Australian he was prepared to back a pay rise for federal magistrates in the current review before the Remuneration Tribunal. He said he would support renaming them judges, rather than justices - the title that goes with appointment to the Federal Court of Family Court.

He did not specify a figure, but federal magistrates have argued they should receive 90per cent of the pay of Family Court judges as part of any restructure. After a pay rise in July, they get $249,490 a year, which is 78 per cent of the pay for federal judges and Supreme Court judges around the country, who receive $319,880.

Ninety per cent would mean a pay rise to $287,892 a year, and would cost taxpayers more than $2million.

Mr McClelland said it was an anomaly that Queensland magistrates were paid more than their federal counterparts.

The creation of the Federal Magistrates Court removed a significant amount of federal law work from the state and territory courts and freed up superior courts, such as the Federal Court and the Family Court, to concentrate on more complex cases. More than half of all migration matters and 79 per cent of family law applications are now completed by what is regarded as the workhorse of the federal judiciary.

The architect of the court, former attorney-general Daryl Williams, declined to comment yesterday but has previously warned creating two levels of judges would lead to a reprise of an earlier struggle in the Family Court.

When that court was established in 1976, it had "senior judges" and "judges", but pressure soon came for the judges to be made senior judges and be paid the same salary.

His successor, Philip Ruddock, said he feared that the Family Court culture would adversely affect the way the magistrates undertook their functions, leading to increased costs and delays. "I think the culture of the magistrates has been to produce very timely outcomes for litigants," Mr Ruddock said.

Mr Semple said the present model was financially unsustainable and that "tension over resources has distracted the Family Court and the Federal Magistrates Court from their core responsibilities".

In Adelaide, a Family Court judge ordered Federal Magistrates Court staff out of tearooms for stealing "Family Court teabags".

There was also an attempt to have the entire magistrates court staff banned from the Family Court floor because they were a "security risk".

The transfer of non-family law judges to the Federal Court is expected to cause friction, given the vast difference in qualifications and experience. There has already been disquiet expressed at the prospect of a magistrate such as John O'Sullivan - a staffer for former workplace relations minister Kevin Andrews appointed by Mr Ruddock - being part of the same court.

Mr McClelland said "getting our family law system right is a significant access-to-justice issue".

"If we do it well then kids can be substantially shielded from the trauma of divorce," he said. "Family law is still horrifically expensive. It still takes too long and it is unfortunately more fragmented than it needs to be.

"I think the former government experienced frustration in reforming the Family Court and rather than focusing on reforming the court effectively, gave up and created an entirely separate court."

Mr Semple said he believed the reduction of Family Court judges from 35 to 24 could be achieved swiftly through natural attrition.

18 November 2008
The Age (Melbourne)

Revealed: the faces behind international search
By Carol Nader

The Family Court has taken the rare step of allowing the identities of two missing Melbourne boys and their Swedish mother to be revealed in a bid to help find them.

Frank Oliver Valette, 11, and Andre Nicholas Valette, 9, have been missing since they visited their mother, Ann-Louise Valette, in Sweden more than a month ago.

The Age reported last week that a Melbourne man had flown to Sweden to search for his sons after Ms Valette defied a court order to return the children to Australia on October 11.

Overnight, Ms Valette also failed to turn up to a Swedish court hearing that she had been ordered to attend.

The Age can publish the details under a strict publication order by the Family Court granted to the father.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has neither seen nor heard from the children in over a month despite orders made in the Family Court in June that the children live with him, and granting Ms Valette one month with them.

Ms Valette was permitted to take the children to Sweden because she had promised she would return them by that date.

When she failed to return the children, the Family Court last month issued a recovery order that the Australian Federal Police, state police and the marshal of the Family Court recover the children.

Swedish police have been trying to find Ms Valette and the children and Interpol has been informed.

Inspector Peter Sehlin of the Swedish police told The Age last night that Ms Valette faced a possible jail term.

"If we find her she will go to jail for a maximum of four days, and then within four days the prosecutor has to go to the (Swedish) court to charge her for the crime and then she can be in custody for many weeks," he said. "Then there is a main court session and after that the court will send her to jail or release her."

He said it is believed that Ms Valette and the children were last seen together at the end of September while she was visiting friends in her home town of Vasteras, about 100 kilometres from Stockholm.

"I think it's very hard to hide yourself with two children in Sweden because you have to go to hospital, you have to go shopping, you have to buy things," he said.

Ms Valette had been granted access by the Family Court under the Hague Convention that deals with international child abduction. One of its objectives is to ensure that children who are abducted are returned to their country of residence.

It also aims to ensure that custody and access rights are respected in other countries that are party to the convention.

Any information about the whereabouts of Ms Valette and the children should be given to the Australian Federal Police on (02) 6126 7777.

14 November 2008
The Australian

Furious dads not only ones wanting tests
By Leigh Dayton and John Stapleton

Angry fathers wanting to shirk financial responsibility are not the only group of people going to court over paternity issues.

In an analysis of legal cases in which people intentionally seek a genetic test, US researcher Gregory Kaebnick found that women seeking testing to impose paternal responsibilities were also highly represented.

Dr Kaebnick - from the Hastings Center in Garrison, New York - also found two other categories: women attempting to deny paternity rights, and men seeking to obtain them.

Lyn Turney, a sociologist at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne who has studied the experiences of people involved in paternity tests, said that Dr Kaebnick's categories also applied in Australia, although people had many motivations for wanting DNA paternity tests.

"I think most fathers (who seek testing) have a genuine desire to be the father of the child," Dr Turney said.

James Fitzclarence would certainly agree. His relationship with his child's mother broke up shortly after she became pregnant. From previous experience, Mr Fitzclarence had come to believe he could not have children and this was the child he had always wanted.

Despite his wishes to be involved, the child was born without him even knowing. He hired a solicitor and with the co-operation of the mother, who had previously declared she was not certain he was the father, he paid for genetic tests.

They proved he was the father of his daughter Katya, now four years old. Eventually, he was able to establish a close relationship with her.

"For me, DNA testing has been a very positive thing," Mr Fitzclarence said. "I have another little girl now from another relationship and she has a sister. They all love each other dearly and get on very well."

"Joan James" - who chose not to use her real name, to protect her now six-year-old son - had a very different experience. After a short relationship she became pregnant and the father disappeared.

"He refused to acknowledge he was the father," said Ms James, who has since married. "He would not pay for or take a (paternity) test."

She claimed it took nine months of stressful legal action to obtain a court order demanding the man take the test. Despite a positive test he has continued to deny any association with the child, even refusing to sign documents needed for Ms James to acquire a passport for her son.

According to Dr Turney, emotions surrounding disputed paternity are often intensified by the marketing of paternity tests by private firms and the vocal concerns of fathers' rights groups.

"These situations often arise in very volatile relationships that have already broken up," she said. "There is already unhappiness and no longer a relationship between the partners."

The external push for "peace of mind" tests can bring about a less traumatic end to an already damaged relationship.

This week's release of a discussion paper for public consultation about new laws covering DNA theft has fuelled the emotions of people involved in paternity disputes. The proposed laws would make it unlawful to obtain a sample of someone's DNA for testing without permission.

Not everyone in a dispute disagrees with the premise of consent. Mr Fitzclarence sought permission from his child's mother and even Ms James backs the proposed law.

"It's really, really important that there is regulation to ensure genetic testing is used responsibly," she said.

13 November 2008
The Australian
Editorial

Dad wants to know
The truth may hurt but DNA paternity testing is a right

Proposals to protect more tightly our genetic information from misuse by individuals on grounds of privacy appear mostly unremarkable except for the issue of proof of paternity. This aspect of the law-reform discussion paper on non-consensual genetic testing, released this month by Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus, is indeed being discussed. Its recommendation that so-called theft of body samples for DNA testing be criminalised, with a jail penalty possible, is worrying fathers who suspect that children they have acknowledged as theirs are not theirs, and lobbies that act for them.

In the process, modern morals have been re-exposed. In a nobler age, it might have been the done thing for a well-off man to acknowledge all his wife's children, whatever his suspicions, for the sake of his wife's honour and the good name of his children. But we live in a freer, easier and scrappier age, where words such as adultery and fornication are rarely used, and children are no longer branded with illegitimacy. It is hardly surprising figures have been produced claiming that one in five fathers who feel they have reason to want a DNA paternity test, and obtain one, find a child is not theirs. Some of us will be relieved the other four learn they can remain proud fathers. Many men treat unfathered children as their own anyway, out of affection and as a role.

But with so many relationship break-ups, child support courtesy of the Family Court is a big financial issue for many men, who should have the right to know that a child said by the mother to be theirs really is. If it is obviously painful for some men to be supporting a child living with the mother in the home of another man, then imagine what it feels like if they later discover they weren't the father, after all. If men are using devious methods to obtain DNA samples, such as snipping the hair of a child or sampling saliva, without the mother's knowledge, it is often only because they are restricted by cost or procedure from establishing their responsibility through the Family Court and the Family Support Agency. No former partner should be forced to pay maintenance for a child who isn't his. When there is arguable dispute over paternity, as opposed to spite, it is unfair to put obstacles in the way of testing. No-fault divorce has been with us for more than three decades, yet men forced to pay child support sometimes feel that shallow judgments are made - that men are deemed irresponsible and women innocent.

Now that the Home Affairs paper has placed this bone of contention before society again, the Rudd Government must accept that fixing one problem usually requires fixing all linked problems - and not creating new ones. If it chooses to ban informal DNA sampling not agreed by all concerned, the Government needs to protect in legislation a father's right as purported parent to authorise sampling, and to obtain without fuss or expense a sample and testing through the court. It has been reported that several thousand DNA kits may be being obtained privately each year by fathers in Australia. If some in the Government and society regard this as a bit unsavoury, then all means should be provided publicly for paternity tests to occur. It is only fair and just, especially given that all means tend to be provided for men to be slugged with child support. This is a vexed area touching on the nerve ends of society, and cases where a mother is ordered to repay support after a child is found not to be that of the former relationship or casual sex partner can be distressing. Then, either the man may mostly miss out because the mother has little money, or the child may in effect be financially deprived. But that is another discussion for another paper.

13 November 2008
The Mercury (Tasmania)

Devastation for dad who finds girl not his after DNA test
By Michelle Paine

A man who believed for nine years that a little girl was his says he is devastated after a blunt text message saying he was not her biological father.

The Hobart man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had sought a DNA test in the hope of maintaining contact with the nine-year-old girl, who lives in the UK with her mother, the Mercury reports.

But last week he received a blunt text message on his mobile phone.

It read: "Got the results. Im sorry. I will sort out the birth cert + there will b no more contact. Sorry."

"I just didn't believe it at first," the man told the paper.

The official papers came soon afterwards.

He came forward after it was revealed this week that mothers are being forced to pay money back to men they wrongly claimed fathered their children.

But this dad said that while he was going to get his money back, "I'd rather have my daughter".

He and the mother of the girl were university students in England when she became pregnant.

"We moved in together and decided to try to make it work," the man said.

"I was there when she was born. She was my responsibility."

Now he feels devastated - and has no chance of seeing her unless he launches a legal battle.

"We're still taking it in. She's still my daughter," said the man, who has since married.

"It never occurred to me I wasn't the biological father."

13 November 2008
The Australian

One in five doubting dads proved right by DNA tests
By John Stapleton

At least one in five DNA tests sought by fathers doubting their paternity return a negative result, representing more than 1200 Australian men.

This is consistent with results overseas.

While there are no hard figures, industry sources estimate there are at least 6000 paternity tests conducted every year, two-thirds of these with the mother's involvement.

Genetic Technologies conducts more than half of all the paternity tests undertaken in Australia. Its business development manager, Ian Smith, said its negative rate was about 20 per cent.

Mr Smith said if Australia were to jail fathers who did DNA tests off their own bat, it would be only the second country in the world to do so, after France.

"I am sure that many of the people we have tested have had a positive outcome, have had great peace of mind as a result, and it has allowed them to stay in a relationship or bond with a child," he said.

Under legislation being considered by the Rudd Government, these fathers could be jailed if they conducted this test or took a DNA sample from their child without the permission of the mother or a court.

Martin Hunt, 27, a machinist from Adelaide, would have faced jail under such legislation. He was 17 when his then girlfriend became pregnant. Four months into her pregnancy they broke up.

Mr Hunt saw the boy every weekend and paid out $10,000 in child support, which he has never recovered.

When his "son" was three years old, Mr Hunt decided to obtain a DNA test through an online laboratory in Canada. When the result came back negative, he had the test repeated in Australia, with the same result.

"I was shocked, upset. The fact that I spent three years of my life being lied to," he said. "I read that first letter over and over again.

It was just unbelievable to me. It is hard to put into words.

"I took the mother to court for a year to get my name off the birth certificate.

"I believe DNA tests should be mandatory at birth for all parties. It would stop the lying."

DNA BioServices director Gary Miller said about one in four of their tests was negative.

"I think everyone has a right to know if they are bringing up their own child," Mr Miller said.

"We live in the 21st century. If you have parental responsibility, you should be able to check the paternity of a child." Director of Queensland DNA Andrea Hayward also said about 20 per cent of their tests proved non-paternity.

"The stronger message is that 80 per cent of those people who have doubts get good news, and have their doubts wiped away," she said.

Ms Hayward said considering the many thousands of dollars involved, a great deal of heat would be taken out of the situation if the Child Support Agency demanded a paternity test before payments began.

"It's better if everyone knows early. Then people don't bond with children and later find they're not theirs."

John Flanagan from the Fairness in Child Support group said legislation to jail fathers if they obtained a DNA test was outrageous. "The Family Court often deliberately obstructs fathers seeking natural justice through a DNA test," he said.

"There is no reason why someone who wants a DNA test on their child shouldn't be allowed to do so. "Why should fathers have their lives ruined by having to pay tens of thousands of dollars for someone else's children?"

12 November 2008
Edith Cowan University
Corporate Communications
Media Release

ECU Researchers uncover intimate partner abuse

Researchers from Edith Cowan University (ECU) are working on a new study to investigate domestic abuse committed against men.

Intimate partner abuse takes on many forms, including economic, psychological and emotional abuse, through to physical and sexual violence.

In the past, most of the focus has been on female victims and male perpetrators of intimate partner abuse, but according to ECU's Professor Alfred Allan, there is anecdotal evidence that some males are also the victims of intimate partner abuse.

"Little is known about the prevalence of intimate partner abuse against males as men who experience this type of abuse are reluctant to seek assistance," he said.

"There is a concern that men who experience intimate partner abuse aren't receiving the assistance they need and as a result their loved ones and family members are also missing out."

The project aims to explore the perceptions of intimate partner abuse taking into account the experience of both victims and perpetrators.

Researchers will also work with family members and service providers to gain a thorough understanding of intimate partner abuse.

The study will be carried out in partnership with the Men's Advisory Network and the Family and Domestic Violence Unit with support from Lotterywest.

ECU's Dr Greg Dear and Professor Alfred Allan will lead the project, which involves one-on-one interviews with around 120 individuals.

ECU Vice-Chancellor Professor Kerry Cox said he was pleased ECU researchers are working towards increasing the level of understanding about a relatively unknown and misunderstood subject.

"This work is just another example of some of the work ECU is undertaking to help shed light on significant issues, for the benefit of the wider community," he said.

The project follows a report released by the Department for Community Development's Family and Domestic Violence Unit in 2006 which highlighted the need for research into this area.

Anyone interested in participating in the study can contact Emily Tilbrook on 0414 807 911.

Media contact: Theresa Hingston, ECU Corporate Communications, on 6304 2288 or 0417 950 245.

ECU strives to develop valued citizens for the benefit of Western Australia and beyond, through teaching and research inspired by engagement and partnerships. ECU serves over 20,000 students across two metropolitan campuses, a regional campus in Bunbury, and centres in Margaret River and Geraldton.

11 November 2008
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)

Paternity tests prove hundreds of men duped
By Kelvin Bissett

Mothers are being forced to pay back as much as $60,000 to men they wrongly claimed fathered their children following a contentious reform of child support laws.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal 18 men, cleared by DNA testing, have made use of changes permitting them to claw back funds paid through the Child Support Agency.

More than 300 men have been cleared by DNA of being fathers. Documents obtained under Freedom of Information show orders for $171,567 to be returned have so far been made against the mothers.

Angry women's groups said last night that it would be the children at the centre of the disputes who would suffer most if money were paid back.

The money is being garnisheed from mothers' incomes by the Child Support Agency in the same way that payments are taken from the wages of non-custodial fathers.

In each case the duped men were able to prove beyond doubt in the courts they were not the fathers based on DNA paternity testing.

The new law, section 143 of the Child Support (Assessment) Act, requires the Family Court to consider issuing orders for repayment where paternity is successfully challenged and child support has been paid. The law allowing such repayment debts to be collected by the Child Support Agency became effective on January 1 last year.

In the biggest case, Queensland man Ken Rodgers obtained orders for the repayment of $60,000 after making child support contributions over a decade to a woman who refused to even send him a photograph of his alleged child.

But not every man who is disproving paternity using DNA testing through the courts is getting his money back.

A Child Support Agency spokesman said courts decide on a section 143 order based on "particular circumstances of the parties".

But making mothers pay back child support was last night condemned by women's groups.

Sole Parent's Union president Kathleen Swinbourne said garnisheeing a mother's wages would only hurt the child.

"The money has already been spent on rearing the child," she said. "If the mother is forced to pay it back, its hard to imagine the child won't be disadvantaged."

She said men should raise doubts about paternity when they are first told they are a father.

Men's Rights Agency director Sue Price said men wrongly named as a father of a child were entitled to justice. She said all child support payments made by a man should be "refunded in full" by the Child Support Agency where paternity is successfully challenged and then recouped from the woman.

"A woman's knows who she's been with in a particular month," she said. "They must know if there is any doubt about whether the man they are pointing their finger at is actually the father."

The repayments are being made despite a landmark 2006 High Court ruling that stripped a $70,000 compensation payment for pain and suffering to father Liam Magill.

The High Court ruled there was no legal obligation for husbands and wives who cheat on each other to disclose their infidelity.

11 November 2008
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)

I'm not this kid's dad, so where's my money?
By Kelvin Bissett

It will take 233 years for Ken Rodgers to recoup the money he paid for a child he never fathered.

Over a decade he forked out $71,000 supporting a son he was told was the result of a drunken fling in 1993.

The payments, of up to $200 a week through the Child Support Agency, meant the Townsville man was unable to buy a home of his own.

But despite never seeing the mother again, he agreed to do the right thing and provide financial support to the boy when told he was Brady's father two years later.

"I was no scumbag. I grew up in a decent family and we took these things seriously" the 38-year-old aircraft mechanical engineer said.

But as the years rolled on, Mr Rodgers became increasingly frustrated at the lack of communication from the mother, Christine, despite his payments. Requests to meet Brady were dodged as the mother moved around Australia, from Hobart, to Launceston and Perth.

Addresses were never long-lasting and even pleas for a photograph went unanswered. At one point he hired a private investigator to track down his alleged child.

Finally, in 2006, he obtained a stay order on his payments along with an order for a DNA test, in the face of threats and protests, from the mother, to prove he wasn't the father.

In 2007, in a hearing in the Federal Magistrate's Court, he obtained an order for $60,000 to be repaid under Section 143 of the Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989.

He was the first to get access to the new repayment policy.

However, any celebration from his court outcome was short lived.

Mr Rodgers learned the woman was a Centrelink client and is only required to pay the minimum $12.70 a fortnight. "I estimated that at this rate it will take me 233 years to get it all back," he said.

Now married to Anong with a five year old, Mr Rodgers, 38, said the amount he was paying from his income each week had stopped him buying a house for years.

He is especially bitter that a home in Townsville that could have been purchased five years ago for $150,000 was worth $300,000 by the time he was in a position to buy, when freed from his child support obligation.

Mr Rodgers said there were several men Christine had been seeing at the same time in 1992. He claims, based on discussions with mutual friends, that his name was the only one Christine could remember from that period so that's why he was targeted.

"It's terrible what was done to me, and really I want something done so I can get all my money back," he said.

09 November 2008
The Age (Melbourne)

Children of strangers: a fight for the right to know dad
By Lauren Burns

IF I have to tell the story of my family history, I can't tell much, at least from my paternal side. As far back as I know, before conception, I was frozen in a vial in the now defunct Prince Henry's Hospital. The fertility expert who helped my mother conceive was Professor David de Kretser, now the Governor of Victoria.

As debate rages about the Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill (2008), we, the children created through donor gamete conception, are the real experts on the issue. Unfortunately, our voices struggle to be heard. While the debate has mainly centred on removing discrimination against single women and lesbians Ñ who do not get the same rights to fertility treatment as women in relationships with men - little attention has been paid to the fact that buried in the ART Bill is a demoralising discrimination against me and people like me.

People born through assisted reproductive technology in Victoria before 1988 are the only group of Victorians who are denied, explicitly, by law, access to information about their genetic identity.

The importance of the biological link of families is ingrained in the species. The emotional climax of Star Wars, for instance, comes when Darth Vader says "Luke, I am your father." If biological links were not important, Luke's response would have been. "So what?"

My birth certificate is the document I look to for information regarding my parentage and identity. But it is a deception. A minority of people lie about their child's parentage on their birth certificate. However, the crucial difference in our case is the deception is sanctioned by law.

The current legal situation discriminates against people based on the year in which they were born and the manner of their conception. Those, like me, who were born through assisted reproductive technology before 1988 have no rights to information.

In 1984, Victoria led the country in creating a law allowing all adopted people retrospective access to their records, regardless of any understandings about anonymity. I believe this to be a precedent to providing donor-conceived people similar retrospective access to information. People may hold the view that gamete donors acted altruistically to help infertile couples, on condition of anonymity and that anonymity should be respected. However, it should be considered that those most affected (the children) were not party to the contract and it would be unfair to ask them to abide by it. Donors will always maintain the right to say they don't want anything to do with the children they gave up before they were conceived and I accept this.

It is a classic clash of rights, with the right of the donor to remain anonymous in direct competition with the right of the child to know their genetic heritage.

When rights collide, it is necessary to decide whose rights are more important. The charter of all assisted reproductive technology legislation states that the rights of the child should be considered paramount.

At the moment the rights of people, such as myself, to know their identity is secondary to the rights of parents who wish to record only the social structure of the child's family on their birth certificate, and the donor to remain anonymous. Thus the law only pays lip service to what is cited as the ideology of the legislation.

The main reason people choose to have children from gamete donation rather than adoption is so they are genetically related to their children. In the case of children born before 1988, the law simply says "tough cookies" and the children are left to deal with the consequences and with unanswered questions.

Almost all donor-conceived children have half-siblings in the Melbourne area that they will probably never knowingly meet. If you are a male born in December 1981 or July 1984 or a female born in August 1981 you could be my half-brother or half-sister. It is, indeed, a tangled web. My identity should belong to me, instead of being locked away.

At the moment, I know six things about the man who gave me half my genes. One: Date of birth, January 1957. Two: Blue eyes. Three: Fair hair. Four: Height 1.8 metres. Five: Weight 73 kilograms. Six: General good health.

Two of my biggest questions are "What nationality is he?" and "What does he look like?" And I would also like to know if I am following in his footsteps or maybe, like Luke Skywalker, forging my own path.


Lauren Burns is an engineering student.

06 November 2008
The Age (Melbourne)

Children suffer if parents do not share care equally
By Carol Nader

Separated parents are increasingly sharing the care of their children, but the wellbeing of children who spend equal time with their parents is no different to those who see their father just once a week, a new analysis suggests.

But where parents share the care of children unequally - that is, the time with parents is split 30/70 instead of 50/50 - parents report that children fare worse.

The findings come from the biggest study of parents since changes to family law came into effect in 2006. Under the changes, the Family Court must consider shared care where it is deemed to be in the children's best interests.

Figures show that 17% of newly separated parents registered with the Child Support Agency were sharing the care of their children as of June this year, compared with 9% in 2003. Of all cases managed by the Child Support Agency, 12% now have shared care, compared with 7% five years ago. Children are deemed to be in shared care when they spend 30% to 70% of the time with each parent.

Associate Professor Bruce Smyth, from the Australian National University's department of demography and social research, said fathers were becoming more involved in their children's lives. But when both parents spent significant but unequal periods of time with the children, it could be problematic.

"Unequal care looks to be a proxy for conflict," he said. "In some cases, unequal shared care may represent an unhappy compromise."

Parents who had an equal share of care were probably more likely to get along better and to have an egalitarian approach to parenting.

Professor Smyth said parents who reported high levels of conflict tended to report that their children were doing less well than parents who reported a co-operative or friendly relationship. It is not the arrangement that matters but the quality of the parental relationship.

Australian National University professor of family health and wellbeing Bryan Rodgers said the preliminary findings also suggested that parents in the equal-shared-care group reported better wellbeing than parents in the other groups. They were also more satisfied with the care arrangement for their children.

"It's the quality of the relationship with the parents that's important," he said.

Professor Rodgers said the researchers wanted to investigate whether shared-care arrangements had grown since the changes to the child support formula came into effect in July.

The formula is used to determine how much financial support is owed. There have been concerns that it might create a financial incentive for non-resident parents to spend more time with their children, as child support is reduced once they share the care of a child for at least 35% of the time. This could mean that shared parenting might rise further.

06 November 2008
The Sydney Morning Herald

Shared care: quality matters most
By Adele Horin

With soaring numbers of separated and divorced parents sharing the care of their children more or less equally, the first major Australian study into the revolution shows it is not causing the big problems its detractors had feared.

But nor is the 50-50 split better for children than more conventional arrangements, as supporters of equal time had claimed.

The study of 5,000 parents on the Child Support Agency register shows it makes no difference to children's wellbeing whether they see the non-resident parent half the time or every second weekend. What counts is how well parents get on.

"It's not the arrangement that matters but the quality of the parental relationship," said Bruce Smyth, associate professor in the department of demography and social research at the Australian National University.

The study shows the children who do less well are those in near-equal share arrangements where the non-resident parent sees them for two to three nights a week.

Dr Smyth said near-equal care arrangements may be an unhappy compromise between conflicted parents. The "new high water mark" in parenting after separation is a 50-50 arrangement. "Unequal shared care may be the new soil to which conflicted couples move," he said.

With an ANU colleague, Bryan Rodgers, professor of family, health and wellbeing, Dr Smyth examined differences in reported wellbeing and conflict among three groups of separated and divorced parents and their children: those with 50-50 care, those with 30-70 or 40-60 splits, and those with the "standard" pattern, usually alternate weekends with the non-resident parent.

The study shows the main beneficiaries of the 50-50 arrangement are the parents, who were happier in themselves and happier with their child-care regime than parents in the other two groups.

Professor Rodgers said, "The bottom line is that the move to shared care is not going to make things worse for kids. But the presumption it will lead to better development of the children is looking very flimsy."

However, he said, a lot of parents wanted a more equal arrangement and other research had shown this included many mothers with sole care, as well as many children.

Since amendments to the Family Law Act in 2006 put more focus on joint parenting time, the number of parents opting for more balanced care arrangements has soared.

New data from the Child Support Agency show that in the year to last June, 17 per cent of new cases were non-standard child-care arrangements - with the non-resident parent having the children more than two nights a week. This is a dramatic leap from the 7 per cent of all cases in 2002 or even the overall 12 per cent now.

Some arrangements were short-lived. The study shows that about one in 10 parents with sole care of the children had tried a more balanced arrangement at some point but ended it for practical reasons. These included distance, work commitments or the fact that the children did not like constantly moving between houses or were unsettled.

For about half of those who had tried shared care, the regime had ended within 12 months. For about 20 per cent, it had lasted for three years or more.

Until the latest study, to be reported today at a Family Relationship Services Australia conference, little was known in Australia about the outcomes for children of shared care.

Smaller studies had indicated shared care could be damaging to children where parents were in high conflict but could benefit children and fathers where there was low acrimony and co-operation with the mother.

One study of high-conflict parents by Jenn McIntosh and Richard Chisholm showed that higher rates of shared care arrangements emerged from Family Court matters.

Dr Smyth said parents with high levels of conflict also tended to report their children were doing less well than parents with a co-operative relationship with the former partner.

05 November 2008
Family Relationship Services Australia
Inaugural National Conference 2008

ATTORNEY-GENERAL SPEECH - FAMILY RELATIONSHIP SERVICES AUSTRALIA NATIONAL CONFERENCE

Acknowledgements

- The Honourable Justice John Faulks, Deputy Chief Justice, Family Court of Australia (also speaking)

- Federal Magistrate Norah Harnett (also speaking)

- Associate Professor Helen Rhoades, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne (also speaking)

- Mr Ian Kennedy AM, Chair, Family Law Section, Law Council of Australia (also speaking)

- Distinguished guests

- Ladies and gentlemen

Introduction

1. It's a great pleasure to be here today for Family Relationship Services Australia s inaugural conference.

2. A lot's happened since FRSA was created last year.

We have a new Government, more new services have been rolled out and the Departments and the sector are working together in new ways.

3. I can assure you of the Rudd Government s strong support for the Family Relationship Services Program and the work you do for Australian families.

4. Picking up on the conference theme, Together we are Better , I want to take the opportunity today to talk about the importance of service providers and other family law practitioners working together as a seamless family law system.

5. Whether you are helping families avoid relationship breakdown or helping them deal with family separation, you are all helping achieve the objectives of the framework better outcomes for families and especially for children.

6. The guiding principle must be the best interests of the child.

The Government intends to push forward with an integrated family law system:

- where family disputes are resolved outside courts, leaving them to deal with only the cases requiring a court process to resolve;

- where cases of family violence and child abuse are managed safely and effectively.

7. How do we achieve this?

8. A significant part of the answer is for organisations to work collaboratively together.

9. But it also requires you to work collaboratively with other parts of the family law system the courts and legal services with whom some of you may have not had a close relationship in the past.

Changes to the Family Law System

10. The family law system has undergone significant change in recent years.

11. As well as changes to the law and changes to the courts, there has been a significantly greater emphasis on resolving disputes outside the courts.

12. New and expanded services and new requirements to attempt to resolve disputes before going to court are all aimed at reducing conflict in families and helping parents agree on arrangements for their children.

Family Relationship Programs

13. Family relationship services play a key role in enabling families to achieve better outcomes for their children.

14. This can occur through preventing the original separation or enabling parents to reach an agreement after it occurs.

15. A parental agreement reached through mediation is a product of both parents. This creates a greater degree of ownership. The evidence is showing that parents are more willing to implement solutions agreed in this way.

16. In order to enable access to mediation, the Government has substantially upgraded the family mediation infrastructure across Australia.

17. This year we have opened 25 Family Relationship Centres, 14 Children s Contact Services and 22 Early Intervention Services.

18. To assist high conflict families, 14 Post Separation Cooperative Parenting services in regional areas have been established.

And my Department is currently undertaking a selection process for 14 more.

19. There will also be 18 new services, opening later this month, to support children dealing with issues arising from the breakdown of their parents relationships.

20. While the implementation of the reforms is in its early days, good progress has been made.

21. For example, in the 12 months since July last year, there has been a drop of approximately 18 percent in the number of family law cases filed in the courts.

22. And it seems the public has embraced family dispute resolution. In the twelve months to June 2008, the first 40 of the Family Relationship Centres held almost 14,000 family dispute resolution sessions.

23. The signs are promising, and to further enhance the quality of services we have introduced a number of initiatives.

Let me mention a couple of these.

New Standards for Dispute Resolution Practitioners

24. With an increased emphasis on mediation services, it is critical to ensure that mediators are trained to consistent standards which maintain the highest levels of professionalism, and, of course, the ability to get outcomes.

25. And so, in September, I announced new accreditation rules for family dispute resolution practitioners.

26. These are based on new standards of competency.

They have been developed for the family relationships sector by the Community Services and Health Industry Skills Council, and include new qualifications within the Vocational Education and Training System.

27. One of these qualifications is a Vocational Graduate Diploma in Family Dispute Resolution.

28. The new accreditation rules will recognise the skills and experience of existing practitioners.

29. However, existing practitioners will need to be assessed to ensure they have demonstrated competency relating to three specific units of the six compulsory units making up the Graduate Diploma qualification.

30. The three units of study are:

- working with vulnerable parties in dispute resolution;

- responding to family and domestic violence; and

- operating in the family law environment.

31. All three are important but the compulsory competency on responding to family violence is critical for the proper functioning of the family law system.

32. It is important to understand that there are exceptions to the compulsory dispute resolution provisions in the 2006 amendments, and one of these is family violence. Practitioners should be able to identify this at an early stage and make sure that immediate action is taken.

33. All registered practitioners and those who register under the current system by 28 February next year will be eligible to access subsidised assessments and training.

Entrenched Cases

34. One of the Government s aims is to help as many families as possible resolve their disputes out of the courts.

However some will inevitably end up in protracted litigation.

35. This has financial and emotional costs for the parents as well as economic costs for the community. It also has huge emotional costs for the children involved as the conflict is played out in the courts.

36. We do have specific programs for high conflict families, particularly the Parenting Orders Program and the new Post Separation Cooperative Parenting services.

37. But I also think Family Relationship Centres and other services can play an increased role in working with the courts to help reduce the number of entrenched cases.

38. This requires a closer working relationship between your services and the courts to maximise opportunities to move people out of the court process into appropriate services.

39. It also sometimes means taking a firm approach to pushing entrenched disputes towards a mediated resolution.

40. I see family dispute resolution services, including Family Relationship Centres as a key part of the family law system, rather than a separate service. To perform this role they must be prepared to push for tough decisions and achieve outcomes in entrenched cases. It can be difficult where people are emotionally vulnerable but no one is well served by copious and traumatic litigation.

41. Service Providers must also be alert to those cases that do need to be fast tracked to the court and ensure that irreconcilable disputes are resolved as expeditiously as possible.

42. For any of this to work, the courts and family relationship services need to have a good understanding of each other s processes and to develop appropriate ways of transitioning families from one to the other.

Integrated Approaches

43. I can t emphasise too strongly the need for greater integration of services right across the family law system.

44. Each part of the system, whether it be family relationship services, legal aid commissions, community legal centres or the courts, needs to work seamlessly with the other parts of the system.

45. For this reason, I held a Round Table in July this year with representatives from different parts of the family law system, including family relationship services.

46. FRSA played an important part in that discussion.

47. I asked the Round Table to identify issues, strategies, and concrete measures to further integrate and strengthen the family law system.

48. A number of ideas came out of those discussions, including the need to use common terminology and promote a better understanding of the different roles and responsibilities across the family law system.

49. The Round Table proposed the development of a national blueprint for managing the different types of family law cases and their pathways through the system.

50. I propose to invite a wide range of representatives from across the family law system to an inaugural family law conference in February next year, to progress the ideas of the Round Table.

51. While that is happening at the national level, I ask all of you to look at how you can even further improve collaboration at the local level.

52. Collaboration needs to occur from the ground up taking into account local diversity, local culture and local issues.

53. There are some great examples of this collaboration springing up across Australia in the form of family pathways networks and I commend everyone involved in such initiatives. For those who haven t developed formal channels of collaboration I recommend that model to you.

54. Developing local protocols and relationships is where the success of the national integration strategy will be determined, and the Government needs your support.

55. The crucial task is for families to be connected at the right time to the right people and services.

Conclusion

56. This conference, with its theme Together we are better , is a very timely opportunity to think about how to make that happen.

57. FRSA has put together an impressive conference program and I congratulate the organisers and FRSA as a whole for reaching this milestone.

58. It's a great opportunity to network with colleagues and to learn from the insights and experiences of others.

59. I wish you well for the rest of the week and for the future.

05 November 2008
The Sydney Morning Herald

Can't buy me love
By Barbara Drury

Money can be the straw that breaks the back of an already rocky relationship.

As the financial meltdown plays itself out on the world stage, there's a quiet crisis building up behind the closed doors of suburban Australia. There's a link between relationship breakdowns and the All Ordinaries index: when markets are up, divorces are down and when markets are down, relationships fracture.

Last year, at the height of the sharemarket boom, the number of divorces fell by 6.6 per cent to 47,963, the lowest divorce rate in 20 years. Divorces peaked in 2001, along with the market crash in technology stocks.

Because of the time lag between separation and divorce, last year's substantial drop in the divorce rate was possibly a legacy of Australia's long economic boom, or the rising cost of living.

The vice-president of Relationships Australia, Anne Hollonds, has observed a recent trend for separating couples to continue living under the same roof because it's too expensive to establish two households.

"We're likely to see a dramatic pick up [in the divorce rate] in a year or two," Hollonds says.

As always, the rich do things differently. There were anecdotal reports of an increase in big divorces when the market peaked last year. Sniffing the winds of economic change, unhappy spouses took the money and ran.

Family lawyer with York Family Law Nabil Wahhab, who practises at the heart of Sydney's financial district, says: "For big-money cases we see a drop in separations when the market is in a downturn or recession; they tend to increase when the market is doing well.

"We've started to see these [big-money cases] fall off. When shares are down 40 per cent, the [financially] weaker spouse might think: 'Things are bad but I won't add to my difficulties with a separation.' "

Wahhab says couples who were already in the process of divorce a year ago with a property settlement based on a pool of, say, $5million, may now be looking at a reduced property pool of $3million. An offer that was regarded as unreasonable a year ago may suddenly look attractive.

Property valuations for the purpose of a property settlement are undertaken at the time of the court hearing, which could be two years or more after separation. Hence, the financial position of people who separated a year or two ago has worsened significantly.

Couples contemplating separation, especially those with a bigger property pool, might delay separation until markets stabilise. Wahhab likens a financial settlement to a compulsory estate plan. "It's foolish to do it when things are uncertain. Parties are taking significant hits on their assets by selling at the worst time," he says.

Divorcing couples who bought a house in the past few years and are now having to sell as part of their settlement are losing money on the sale. Wahhab says a client with a relatively small property pool recently suffered a $115,000 loss on a forced property sale. In another case, divorcing clients who were offered $1.3million for their home six months ago sold at auction last week for $908,000.

Money is a point of contention in many marriages at the best of times, so it is no surprise that it becomes a red-hot issue in times of financial hardship.

Recent research by Relationships Australia suggests the number of people concerned that financial stress may break down their relationships, as well as their wealth, has more than doubled in two years.

In August, as the global financial crisis entered its most critical phase, 40 per cent of the 1200 people surveyed rated finances as a significant pressure on a relationship, up from just 18 per cent at the height of the boom in 2006. Work pressures (50 per cent) and job insecurity or loss (28 per cent) were also telling concerns.

Financial planners are also seeing the impact of the financial crisis on their clients. Couples who see an adviser together have a better chance of working through any financial crises co-operatively.

Alan Freshwater, of RetireInvest Bondi, says the sharpness of the market fall has caught many investors off-guard and resulted in some panicky decision-making, which can cause tensions.

A client recently abandoned his long-term investment strategy in favour of shifting a high percentage of his portfolio into cash.

"His wife didn't necessarily agree but she went along with it in compromise fashion," says Freshwater.

Relationship counsellors are seeing more cases where previously hidden debts are coming to light.

"This can lead to a sense of betrayal and loss of trust," says Hollonds. "If there were cracks in a relationship beforehand, this situation can drive a wedge between you."

Wahhab expects to see more separations occur as a result of an increase in bankruptcies.

Women are still more likely to instigate divorce than men thanks to their growing financial independence. However, Hollonds says they may be less likely to proceed to divorce if the economic downturn makes them feel more cautious about their finances.

The Relationships Australia survey states that while 37 per cent of women rate financial stress as a cause of relationship splits, only 30 per cent of men share their view. This may be because women do most of the household shopping and are first to notice the impact of higher prices on household budgets.

The survey also reveals a perception that divorce among the over 50s is linked to cashed-up baby boomers finding new financial freedom - alone or with a new partner - once the children leave home. It remains to be seen if the financial crisis puts a dampener on the divorce plans of baby boomers with itchy feet.

People respond differently to financial problems, says Hollonds. One person may become anxious and withdrawn while the spouse may want to talk about the problem.

"You need to be able to put all your financial issues on the table - although there's no point having all the facts on the table if you don't trust each other.

"When we're under stress, we're more likely to interpret other people's behaviour in a negative way and this can lead to fundamental miscommunication."

Hollonds points out all research confirms that money doesn't buy happiness. "An investment in your relationship will have the biggest impact on your wellbeing," she says.

05 November 2008
The Australian

Academic divide linked to divorce
By Patricia Karvelas, Political correspondent

Women with tertiary educations who choose as a partner men who have not finished high school are 10 times more likely to separate or get divorced than women whose education is less than or equal to their partner's.

The finding is contained in a new study by researchers at the Australian National University commissioned by the federal Government, which looks at the factors behind the break-up of Australian families with children.

The project used Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey data to investigate the factors that preceded the end of relationships.

The research, conducted by ANU's Centre for Mental Health Research and the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, considered whether mental health problems, hazardous levels of alcohol consumption and smoking were associated with divorce or separation. It found that education was a key factor in relationship stability.

"Compared to couples in which partners had similar levels of educational qualifications, those couples in which women reported tertiary qualifications and men reported not completing high school had a tenfold greater risk of divorce/separation," it says.

"This may reflect two factors. Firstly, women's educational attainment may be a proxy for financial independence and, thus, the opportunity for women to support themselves outside of the marriage. This removes a potential barrier to divorce or separation.

"Secondly, these couples may experience greater conflict or dissatisfaction within the relationship, perhaps associated with the fact that they are not fulfilling the traditional gendered roles within marriage."

The analysis found couples with the opposite pattern of educational attainment - where men had the tertiary qualifications and women did not complete high school - did not demonstrate an increased risk of subsequent marital instability and, if anything, showed greater than average stability.

The lowest rate of separation was found among couples where both partners reported tertiary qualifications.

The study also found there was no association between alcohol consumption and relationship instability.

But couples in which women were smokers - regardless of whether the male partner smoked - were at increased risk of divorce or separation.

"We consider that this reflects the effectiveness of women's smoking as a marker of social and economic disadvantage and adversity," the report says.

The study found that marital stability was associated with the birth of a child within marriage and older age at marriage, and that religion was important in the couple's lives.

04 November 2008
MAN - Men's Advisorv Network
Media Release

STUDY SEEKS MALE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC ABUSE

The nature and extent of domestic abuse against WA men will be studied in ground-breaking research by the Men's Advisory Network (MAN) and Edith Cowan University.

Lotterywest is providing $140,422 towards the 18-month project, which MAN hopes will shed light on this little-understood area and provide solid data to underpin calls for more targeted support services for male victims of domestic abuse.

Executive officer Gary Bryant said MAN had been concerned for some time that the issue of intimate partner abuse against men was not widely recognised by the community or by governments responsible for funding support services.

Mr Bryant stressed that MAN recognised the majority of family and domestic violence was against women and that it was not seeking to divert funding from support for female abuse victims.

But studies from other States and overseas indicated there was also a significant number of male victims without specific services to provide them with vital support and counselling, he said.

"Men have traditionally been seen only as the perpetrators of domestic violence - there is very little recognition that they can also be abused," Mr Bryant said.

"Partly that has been because men are reluctant to admit they have been abused. They might feel embarrassed or ashamed to ask for help.

"There is also not enough understanding of the different types of abuse, not only physical but emotional and psychological abuse, that men can be subjected to.

"Police and hospital emergency services do not expect to see abused men and do not know how to identify or deal with these kinds of cases - it is completely off their radar.

"The aim of this study is to help paint a clear picture of what constitutes abuse, what might prevent men from reporting it and what is needed to support male victims."

Following discussions with the WA Government's Family and Domestic Violence Unit, in May 2007 MAN established a steering committee to pursue research into the area of intimate partner abuse against men.

Lotterywest has now funded Professor Alfred Allan and Dr Greg Dear of Edith Cowan University's School of Psychology to undertake the study.

Mr Bryant urged male victims, their family and friends and service providers from the Perth metropolitan area to participate in the research by contacting Emily Tilbrook at Edith Cowan University on 0414 807 911.

Media contact: Carina Tan-Van Baren 0414 236 791

Dads In Distress is funded by the Australian Federal Government.