The last thing that's needed is knee jerk reactions to change laws when the fundamental problem is an accurate assessment of the adults within the family, including where appropriate, the Grandparents and their influence and involvement.

What is desperately needed is an adequately funded Community Services body that is staffed by people with appropriate family skills who are capable of detecting the tendencies to violence and abuse while not being influenced by the vindictive distortions of either party.

There is still a need for changes to Family Law that can only be implemented after continuing reviews and case studies of past decisions for their appropriateness and fairness, considering the interests of the children as the primary purpose but at the same time not ignoring the Rights of loving parents

By summarily dismissing the evidence, findings, and recommendations of the Family Law Reviews, Attorney General McLelland is condemning many hundreds of children to continuing abuse and even death, until changes are made. That must remain on his conscience and those of every member of his government and Party.
Those children will suffer for the rest of their lives from the physical and emotional damage caused to them, and the social consequences and costs will be enormous. Clearly McLelland and his Party have little or no concern for children and families, if this is an example of how they ignore the needs and rights of children and bow to the clamour of a howling angry mob with their own selfish parental rights and financial interests to protect. The government's actions will be judged by the Australian people at an appropriate time but attempts to suggest at election time that the ALP are concerned about families will be pure hypocrisy... as is their commitment to human rights when they protest at human rights abuses abroad and promote and argue the rights of asylum seekers, yet ignore the abuses of human rights of Australian children in the Family Courts of Australia. Shame Australia that it cares so little for its children.

Knee-jerk? That's a rather strange way to describe the public expecting changes to a law that 3 separate reviews have warned are putting children in danger. CHILDREN ARE IN DANGER. Forget your reference to parents rights - they don't count when childrens lives are at stake.
It is rather frightening to watch the AG brush off these reviews. They were ordered, they delivered and confirmed the doubts that motivated them in the first place. Now we trust the government to act on that evidence. They MUST so something right now to address what is obviously a terrible injustice to so many children. They are helpless - Attorney General, DO YOUR JOB and fix this - thousands of children are waiting for you to help them escape the mess that the Family Court dropped them into.
Thank you.

So, IT'S OK TO LIE IN COURT? To lie under oath?

Thats what the Rudd Government's carefully commissioned reports say. That no woman should face the prospect of punishment for lying under oath.

The Divorce Court tries to judge the best interest of the child. But if that judgement is based on a lie, the decision is unlikely to be in the child's interest... thus LYING IN THE DIVORCE COURT IS CHILD ABUSE.

The current legislation is good. It says that the magistrate can "consider" awarding court costs against a parent who "deliberately" lies under oath.

Before Howard's legislation, 97.5% of kids whose parents went to Family Court, lost a parent.

While I strongly believe that nobody should endure abuse, but think about it... do 97.4% of marriages have an abusive parent?

Clearly the previous law robbed many innocent children of their human right to be cared for by their natural parents, too often. Robbbing a child of a good parent is a human rights abuse.

The Rudd Government's reports, assigned to hand-picked feminist zealots, have delivered what they were commissioned to deliver... the feminist line on divorc.

That women never lie, and if they do, they are only lying to protect the kids from baby-eating, alcoholic, violent and bad-breath afflicted, abusive fathers.

Think about it... in divorce if you get the kids, you get everything... the house, the super, you get close to 50% of your husband's after-tax income in 'child support', and you keep him on a leash, because you control his kids. That's a pretty big incentive to lie.. and if there is noo possibility of any punishment (and the divorce court process is secret) there is no harm in trying.

No harm, except that you are robbing your husband of the house, and robbing your children of their natural father.

Today I read about an Australian mother who killed her two beautiful children, because she wanted sole custody. Allyson McConnell drowned her two young sons, because she wanted sole custody against the wishes of the children's loving father.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/1007841/boys-drowned-in-bathtub-in-bitter-custody-battle

PartTimeParent@pobox.com

There have been some terrible things done to children by parents and carers recently. I was familiar with one case recently where a 12 year old child in foster care died through neglect by her carer who was the child's aunt, a callous woman who should never been allowed to be a carer, yet her history would show she had made an industry out of 'caring' A Family Services case worker had been in touch, yet the child died, not because the law needed changing but because the system is dysfunctional with unsuitable screening of foster carers and because of inept people in Family Services.

What is desperately needed is an overhaul of the infrastructure charged with administering the child protection laws. Practical people are needed as case workers, not freshly graduands with newly acquired Social worker degrees.
Funding is required to increase staff to sufficient numbers as to permit case workers to carry out more regular visits.

in custodial situations, the courts prefer equal access as a starting point. all things being equal; However there needs to be implemented procedures designed to detect abuse and abusers through medicals, teacher observations and neighbour information on a more regular and active basis. Family Court Counsellors need to be involved at the earliest possible time and often enough for the Counsellors to produce a comprehensive report on mutually agreed arrangements,to the Courts for registration. Both parties must work to the agreement

Oh come on partimeparent! This is not a competition to see who is most deserving of kids- mums or dads. The new laws were supposed to be about about getting the Family Courts to rule in favour of what is best for the kids.....not the parents.

I agree that originally some Fathers were often unfairly cut out of their children's lives after divorce. Children should be cared for by both parents in an ideal world.

However, the child's right to live free from either physical, sexual or emotional abuse should outweigh the rights of both parents in any case of disputed access to them. The current laws have pushed the pendulum too far back, and some children are spending strictly 50/50 time with each parent, no matter how detrimental it is to them.

Bringing up sad cases of children killed by their mother is not helpful in this debate, especially as we all know that children have continued to die from violent parents of both sexes, both before and after the new Family Court laws were introduced.

I would hazard a guess that there are just as many liars amongst Fathers as there are from the Mothers. Men are known to deny they abuse their partners or children, even as the evidence against them is undeniable. They will also lie about their partners being unfit mothers, purely to punish them for leaving them.

Women who lie to keep their children from their Fathers for no good reason are just as bad. Often their motive is revenge too.

The only way to get past this is to have an army of very effective psychologists and social workers who are specially trained in working out who is lying about abuse among arguing former partners of both genders. This would cost money though, so I don't have much hope that this dispute will be resolved any time soon.