Hey Romany I still have the marshmellows.

I think if memory serves me correctly that somewhere in the wedding vows is the phrase 'faithful from this day forward.'

It seems to me that the high court bent over backwards to find an excuse for ruling against the alleged father. Only a very foolish man would ask his partner if she was being faithful or being present at the birth of a child and ask "is this child mine?"

Research has shown that something like 40+% of women would lie about contraception in order to get pregnant. There was another case recently where the father had had a vasectomy and the wife fell pregnant.

He said, she said, "the vasectomy must not have worked." She was having an affair.

We already have a legal system that enters into the domain of 'private matters' between adults.

It would be really interesting to do a long term, large scale study on the rates of non-paternity.

Even today within maternity wards throughout the country if dad asks what blood group the child is? he will not be told.

Fortunately for men it appears that the male contraceptive may soon be available which unfortunately proved too late for me.

I wonder if this hypocrisy will ever end? Where women's rights are good and men's rights are bad.

Gee it's cold today and a big bon fire would be good

What is the percentage of men effected by paternity fraud?

If the man is a willing participant and he is thoughtful of an unwanted pregnancy he should take responsibility for the contraception.

Men are too QUICK to rely on the women and RELY on the method of contraception she maybe using.

Now let's all take a deep breath and say:

It is up to both the female and the male as consenting adults to take responsibility with contraception, remembering that no contraception is 100% effective.

Sex education has been an integral part of our education system for the last 40 years.

We can take a positive out of the latest statistic for under-age single mums and the decrease in their numbers

Akiva,

I was disappointed about the decision but to turn what was a test of the result of truth or lies into a treatise on men's v women's rights is a bit of a stretch. The court was not deciding on social issues or ethics, it was asked to review a lower court's decision on a point of law. That case, between those two parties, has now been decided. It's now for governments to review child support laws so that other step-fathers aren't caught by fraud.

The rate is about 10% of children are passed off as biological to their unwitting father. This has been know for about 15 years since the advent of DNA procedures but it never gets much press because it is politically incorrect as the inconvenient truth makes women look bad.

As Roama has indicated, it would be wrong to see the Magill decision as being one where the courts have considered paternity fraud not to be so bad. The courts had to decide whether Mrs Magill was guilty of deceit. It found that she had never actively represented to Mr Magill that the children were his. At most she had not disabused him of the belief that they definitely were. The court held that she was under no obligation to do that under the law of deceit.

This case prompted me to wonder how many women had been prosecuted for misrepresenting to the Child Support Agency that the person from whom they were asking to receive child support was the real father. However, when I looked at the relevant forms, I found that there was no requirement on the mother to make any such representation. All she needs to do is state some facts relating to marriage or cohabitation.

In particular, there is no requirement on the woman to state that no other man could be the father.

This skews the situation most unfairly against the man, because it means that the mother can extract money from the man, whom she presumably no longer cares much about, for the care of her children, whom she presumably does care about. The woman is in a very good position to know, or at least suspect, that the man is not the father, whereas the father may well have no reason at all to suspect.

The worst the woman need fear is that she may at some future time have to repay the money - if she has any.

The solution is not as simple as requiring a DNA test in every case - some men might prefer not to know - but a better balance still needs to be achieved.

Sylvia Else

Mr Magill's lawyer Vivien Mavropoulos was quoted in The Courier Mail as saying that the case had highlighted fundamental social issues in Australia.

"They are the importance of truth in relationships and marriage, a child's identity and heritage, parentage and the responsibilities that go with that and a person's blood line, health issues and medical history," Ms Mavropoulos said.

She urged courts, parliament and society to address the issues raised in Mr Magill's case "in a manner which is fair and just to all parties".

So will the senior managers at the CSA be counselled and lose their AWA bonus for not acting to correct policy that was obviously deficient and encouraged fraud?

After all, none of this would come as any surprise to them because there have been many similar complaints in the media over the years.

What about the Minister for Human Services, the Hon Joe Hockey MP? Would he be willing to explain why no action has been contemplated thuse far to correct the known deficiencies in government regulations? Maybe he doesn't get briefed or read the papers.