"On January 29 2009, an unimaginable act took place on the West Gate Bridge in Melbourne"

"Unimaginable" because a father did it? Mothers kill more children than fathers; indeed on June 4, 2008, Gabriela Garcia, 35, jumped off the same West Gate Bridge with her 22-month-old son Oliver strapped to her chest. Garcia said in suicide notes that she feared losing custody of her son, although Oliver's father denied any intention to seek custody.

And the worst child abusers, especially sexual abuse of girls, are mothers' boyfriends. Yet the FCA, so ready to pander to women, fail to take any notice of that fact - I was advised that bringing up the mother's living situation would be held against me in my FCA trial that resulted in shared residency with the false accusations of DV and child abuse being shown to be no more than the malicious lies of a desperate woman concocted at the instigation of a contemptible lawyer.

Some time later, after a particularly brutal bashing by the mother's boyfriend, I obtained restraining orders against him on my daughter's behalf in both the Magistrates and FC. Cost me $8,000; money well spent, but what happens to little girls whose fathers are unable to protect them, to some extent anyway?

The howls of taxpayer-funded women's groups is more about getting Child Support as defacto alimony that it is about children's safety.

Maybe better asked as "The question is though, given the gendered nature of domestic violence research and given their preferences, who do these campaigners represent?"

Patricia says "Instead, we have a number of cases of children being killed after they have been made available to fathers and after the Court has made what was later realised was an unsafe order. "

Time to demonstrate that the overall risks to children have been increased by the changes which you are trying to reverse. You can drag up specific cases to reflect your own bias's but your silence on cases where mothers do the harm is telling. If there are increasing numbers of cases (and I've not seen the evidence of that) what else has dropped that you don't mention?

Shared care won't always work, the courts will get it wrong sometimes, parents of both genders will lie about all sorts of things (and in increasing numbers when the stakes are higher).

Violence will be a bigger risk when parties are placed under increased stress and left to feel that they never had a fair chance.

"Domestic violence is a behaviour whereby abusers use a variety of strategies to control and dominate their victims." - and that includes lying about the other party.

Protection of children will never be perfect, we can help by reducing the stakes and tension around seperation and divorce and ensuring that the needs of all parties involved are treated with respect and fairness. We need safeguards around any increased action based on accusations to ensure that the accuser can't gain tactical advantage from the accusations. Something the maternal bias crowd either dismiss outright or just refuse to acknowledge.

The real mischief in the Family Law act at the moment is the maternal bias crowd and their one sided attempts to portray harm to children as a male thing. Both genders do it, the tactics prefered by Patricia and others just increases the tensions and the likelyhood that people will be pushed past a breaking point.

R0bert

It's a pity that this issue quickly becomes part of the gender war in Australia. Both of the comments we see thus far, ably demonstrate this. One would think that the issue was not 'a growing body count amongst young children', but was 'who does more abuse, women or men?'

Some of the issues arising from this article are these. There is a growing body count amongst young children, where there is relationship breakdown between parents. Most of the dead are children (although a few adults also die and some of these are the perpetrating adults.) The majority of perpetrators, are male parents. It is not good enough to snipe about the women who kill children, they are in the minority. We are concerned about the dead children, and about how to prevent the killing of children by parents of either gender. We are also concerned by a Family Law Act which tends toward handing children to parents who have been identified as violent, along with punitive legal activity that presses parents (these appear to be mainly mothers) to not raise issues of abuse. It is this tendency that caused the death of Darcey Freeman.

Hi Ruthie,
"The majority of perpetrators, are male parents"
You better find us a statistic to back that up.
I suspect it is not true.

THe safest place for a child is with BOTH their NATURAL parents, even if this means shared-care.

If a child lives with only one NATURAL parent, the risk of abuse soars by 2600% Yep, you read it right - 2600%! THe most dangerous house for a child is with mum and 'mummies-new-boyfriend'.

Yes households with a "step-dad" and other male family members such as half-siblings and uncles are very high-risk households to children. Funny how the divorce court forces the kid's Natural father away, leaving the high risk of a "mummies-new-boyfriend".

Another way of looking at it is when the divorce court often orders dads free to live with any other child they like, as long as they are some-other-man's child. How perverse!

Sadly (and prefictably) the data behind these risks is not easilly available, even under FOI. The power of the feminist agenda is immense.

Children need BOTH Natural parents
Want the raw data from FOI? parttimeparent@pobox.com

Hi Rhys, and happy to help.

*1996 - January 25: Peter May shot and killed Lisa eleven, Andrew eight, and Natalie seven, he also killed his wife and her parents.
*1998 - October 23: Aaron DeBaugy 5,Ashlee and David seven, poisoned by carbon monoxide in their car
*1999 - August: WA four young children were gassed
*2000 - Rhonda Bartley (mother) was shot
*2001 - September: Mikaylah Green eleven weeks, Taylah Pringle eleven months and Jackson Merrott six, were smothered by their father,
*2002 - Ana Hardwick 35 is strangled by her former partner
*2002 - Kieren and Jordyn Rigg, 7 and 9 killed in a murder suicide
*2004 - April 26: Jessie Dalton nineteen months and Patrick Dalton thirteen weeks were smothered by father
*2005 - 4th September: Robert Farquharson killed his sons Jai ten, Tyler seven, and Bailey two,
*2008 - May 9: three year old Imran Zilic killed, after his father allegedly threw him down a mine
*2008 - January 3: Christopher McEwen allegedly raped and then killed his daughter Rhiannon McEwen on Bribie Island on New Years Eve.
2009 - Darcy Freeman, 4, thrown from bridge
*2011 - toddler died after father gave her horrific brain injuries
* A mother on Bribie Island gassed two of her three children, that may have taken place last year.
* A mother strapped her baby to herself and jumped off a bridge, an event referred to in this discussion.
* Kyla Rogers was gassed by and with her father, her mother and another man were also killed violently.
* Most recently a two year old named Hayley, who died because of injuries and if the injuries that killed were not given by the father, according to witnesses he had abused the child (news articles available online make a harrowing read.)