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The Forum > Article Comments > Safety first in family law is long overdue > Comments

Safety first in family law is long overdue : Comments

By Elspeth McInnes, published 16/11/2010

Proposed changes to Australia’s Family Law Act will better support children’s safety.

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Cotter I get what you are saying but I think a big part of the problem is the determination of some to play this as a gender issue and to make out that child abuse is a male thing.

Even where the wording of one part of a topic may be in gender neutral terms there are other factors at play which offset that (eg the material I referenced earlier about profiling in DV legislation).

The unscrupulous will play off that will false claims and after a while it just get's too difficult for everyone else to separate the real from the false except in the worst cases.

The issue of dealing with false allegations is a difficult one, it will all too often be difficult to differentiate between false claims and unsubstantiated ones and on-one should be punished or rewarded for making a true but unproven allegation. Likewise no-one should be punished for being the subject of an unproven allegation.

It's probably true that in some cases children are being placed with dangerous parents but that was happening before the previous changes and will continue to happen if the new changes are brought in.

Again you have used loaded language "the issue is not about good dads. It's about unsafe dads. Not all dads, or even most dads, just the ones who are unsafe for their children. "

why isn't that "the issue is not about good parents. It's about unsafe parents. Not all parents, or even most parents, just the ones who are unsafe for their children."

and "It's not saying 'all fathers are perfect no matter what they do', yet there are good dads who have lost meaningful involvement in their children's lives, had their reputations damaged etc because their ex was granted unchecked power by a system which differentiated based on gender."

McInnes is a player with an agenda running very strongly along gender lines who as far as I can tell never tries to bring any balance to the issue. The bad parents in her writings are always male.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Monday, 29 November 2010 8:55:11 AM
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Cotter, Robert raises some very pertinent points.

You mention about mothers being fined for trying to stop their children from being abused.

The question is, is there a conflict here of parenting styles. I dont know the details of the cases that you are familar with, but understanding that even in an intact family there can be conflict between parents and parenting styles.

Sometimes this conflict can esculate beyond the original conflict. I have seen it happen a number of times.
Posted by JamesH, Monday, 29 November 2010 9:05:44 AM
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JamesH : "Children have an amazing capacity to survive the most incompetent of parents male or female." - Very profound!. And of course they then spend much of their surviving lives in prisons, prostitution, and go on to mess up more relationships and their own children ad infinitum. The cycle of neglect and abuse.
The whingeing Glasgow Defence of `WAZNAMEE' used by fathers is getting more than a bit tedious and cliched. "Its not us but all those Live-in Lovers, or Step-fathers, or Single Mums who are abusing the kids". In my experience Live-In Lovers and Step-Fathers are better fathers to children than the inadequate biological fathers who have been rejected by the mothers and by their children. Why?. Because the mothers have learned to be more selective and to choose men who rae less likely to be brutal and to be more caring and concerned for their children's needs. Many single Mums do far better with their kids once they have rid themselves of the brutal self-centred males, who unfortunately have fathered their kids, but the wounds and scars remain in the post trauma depressions of the mothers and the children. Many never fully recover from their experiences and their lives are ruined by the experiences of violence and abuse.
They then often have to face the abuses by the Courts and the lawyers and `Expert' psychiatrists who are the hired guns for the father's rights groups.
Posted by ChazP, Monday, 29 November 2010 9:49:30 AM
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I thought you were on holiday, dear? Fish not biting?

Here's some more light reading for you while you wait for the big one.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-emotion.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-fear.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/biased-sample.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/composition.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/burden-of-proof.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/poisoning-the-well.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/personal-attack.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/misleading-vividness.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/false-dilemma.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/special-pleading.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/two-wrongs-make-a-right.html

You'll also note that I am consciously employing the conversational strategy of http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-ridicule.html.

Sometimes it simply can't be helped.
Posted by Antiseptic, Monday, 29 November 2010 10:08:32 AM
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Anti it's fairly obvious that ChazP got quite upset by the relativly civil tone of the discussion and was hoping that a flame targetted at those evil Menz groups might be just the wedge to provoke an in-kind response and get the discussion back off track.

Probably not the best day for the beach today.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Monday, 29 November 2010 10:15:38 AM
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<In my experience Live-In Lovers and Step-Fathers are better fathers to children than the inadequate biological fathers who have been rejected by the mothers and by their children.> ChapZ

Ouch! Nasty.

Firstly on the hierachy of evidence, expert opinion has the lowest rating.

So you wish to extrapolate your own personal experiences and apply that to ALL other relationships.

Sure without doubt that there are alot of very good step dads out there, just like there are alot of very good fathers. Often the cases of abuse that get quoted only make up a vey small percentage of society, but the way it is portrayed is that every child is being abused.

Just as there are some who are not particularly nice people.

Interesting piece on child sexual abuse, is that there are female perpetrators, and children who do report this abuse are not believed.

It is a topic that the media tends to steer away from.

Interesting article on research in todays paper.
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/research-reports-are-often-beyond-belief-20101128-18cg5.html

And this is suppose to be extremely rigorous scientific research published in peer reveiwed journals and papers. One must ask what hope is there for the softer science of humanities research.

Sensationalism tends to get the headlines, even when there are errors in methodology and fact.
Posted by JamesH, Monday, 29 November 2010 10:15:47 AM
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