According to news reports, the male person in this matter was convicted in criminal court for possession of child porn. It was not just some vague allegation in the Family Court. Furthermore, it was recommended by the prosecution that the offender be placed on a sex offenders register and the judge accepted this. This indicates that the material in question must have have been very severe.

It was disturbing that, among the angry reactions in the news forum you cited, was the number of people who actually downplayed the severity of possessing child pornography or even defended it. One writer said that the man was "merely just downloading child Pornograhpy[sic]" (comment 62). Another trivialised possession of child porn as a "nasty quirk" and that readers ought to "Get over yourselves really." Same commenter pointed to a feeble analogy "Just like the video game arguement just because you see something doesnt make you want to do it. Killing a character on screen in a game doesnt make you want to commit murder." (comment 129) Another saisd "The fact is that he promoted illegal thoughts. If he filmed something he was a part of harming a child. His biggest crime seems to be the thought crime. (Comment 152)

It seems that these commentators have missed the point. Child porn is not the same as animated cartoon chracter being blown apart nor are they actors pretending to be children. Child porn is the depictions of real child sexual abuse for adults' amusmement. Anyone who uses it may not be a child abuser per se, but they are certainly an accessory to it.

I've never read a bigger load of bias cobblers in all my life!

It is embarrassingly clear that the author of this trashy piece of journalism has little or no understanding of the issue fathers continue to face in the Family Court system in Australia. I have experienced this injustice at first hand and I remain very unimpressed!
Why did my lawyers and barristers, who are seasoned Family Court advocates, advise me that “the mother would clearly get away with more” than me? Put simply, mothers are treated with less severity than fathers. Why did my lawyers advise me that we needed to be very well prepared in our documentation, much more so than the mother? In fact I asked my lawyers this very question, and the reply was, “because she is the mother, she doesn’t need to be well prepared”!
Bias is alive and healthy within the Family Court system. The problem is that no politician will risk loosing the woman’s vote if this practice is to be stopped. It’s a National scandal.

I was dismayed to discover that ABC News Online gave some space to the opinions held by a *particular* fathers' rights group on this matter. I am not opposing the airing of the opinions of a father's rights group. Indeed, I was looking forward to hearing fathers' lobby groups attempts to justify this decision.

The group cited in Ms Merkins' op-ed is no ordinary father's rights This group is "the Blackshirts". Its founder, John Abbot was quoted in this story: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/15/2846242.htm?site=northtas&section=news

Abbott has escaped jail time but not a criminal conviction for his organised harassment and intimidation of women. See

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/02/1096527988330.html

Abbott led groups of masked men into protests outside the homes of women with the clear intent to cause fear. " ...in at least 12 recent cases, disgruntled men have staged demonstrations outside women's homes, using megaphones to broadcast allegations of infidelity and child abuse to their neighbours...." (see http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/australian-legal-threat-to-fathers-in-blackshirts-649477.html)

He also performed letter-box drops shaming his victims to their neighbours and made late-night crank calls to victims. For someone who claims that the family home is soveriegn, he contradicts himself by being a busybody on steriods.

Abbott is more than just a misguided and benign vigilante nor a common garden variety right-wing nut job. He was branded as "gutless" by the Victorian Attorney-General, the Hon Robert Hulls MP. The-then Chief Justice of the Family Court, Alistair Nicholson, is quoted to have described the Blackshirts' behaviour as "one step along the path to terrorism" (see http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2002/s629744.htm) Yea verrily, the other fathers' rights groups have distanced themselves from him and his extremist tactics.

Abbot purports to be interested in children's rights but really seems to be obsessed with permissive female sexuality. Anyone who wants to read about Abbott's organisation can do it on their own. I refuse to cite his website.

This angry yet dangerous stand-over man should not be given a modicum of credibility. He does not deserve and should not get any encouragement.

I read the Tasmanian judgement. The father not only downloaded child porn, he had admitted being in bed with one of his daughters and was subject to a restraint order. He was also described as 'domineering'. The judgement makes clear that (a) there is no competence in the family law system to respond appropriately to child sex offenders (the judge and his advisors imagine that daylight prevents attacks) (b)the laws as implemented expose children to serious harm and risk of harm (c)there IS NO PROTECTION FROM ABUSE FOR CHILDREN OF SEPARATED PARENTS IN THE FAMILY LAW SYSTEM. The public care. The politicians' are running scared from the pro-paedophiliac fathers' rightsters - the likely outcome is that we will continue to have a pro-paedophile family law system because the government is too scared to do anything. They would rather have sexually abused children - they don't vote anyway.

Othello,

' Child porn is not the same as animated cartoon character'

Oh yes it can be...

http://www.theage.com.au/national/simpsons-cartoon-ripoff-is-child-porn-judge-20081208-6tmk.html

The part I don't understand is why 'The fact that the Family Court statistics reveal a very high rate of mental illness of mothers (31 per cent) compared to fathers (2 per cent) in a jurisdiction where child abuse is “real … severe and serious”, in the context of the suspect paradigms that are being invoked (PDF 63KB) is gravely concerning.'

I think that just shows that men are deemed to be abusers and women are deemed to have mental problems. Men are acting their gender, while women should be helped with their mental illness, but it's the same problem with different symptoms.

The 37% of men who are violent in the study are the missing lot who should have been looked at for some mental illness. That's where the bias lies. Or possibly some of the 36% of mental illness mothers should have been looked at more closely for violence.

Anyway, I don't see how the author has proved anywhere that any particular court decision is influenced by some 'fathers' (Apparently now the word fathers must be enclosed in quotes, revealing the author's bias IMO) groups.

It is disheartening to see that the question of bias in the family courts has come down quoting specific cases and sexual bias. Should the father in question be allowed unsupervised access? No. Should evidence that a mother is a violent alcoholic be excluded from the courts? No.
No fault divorce was a good idea but it has excluded basic evidence to the suitably of either the mother of the father to be the primary care giver.
Will me ever get past the sexually based arguments and look at what is the best for the children?