Houllebecq - "Sure kids die, it's terrible and tragic, I get that. But there seems to be this focus on denying children flawed but still loving parents rather than helping said flawed and loving parents to be better people. As you said, some child deaths are not predictable or preventable. Lets be brave and accept we cant save them all, and have the courage to help children have THEIR OWN parents a bit more safely rather than taking the easy route of denying custody under the excuse of 'safety'."
What a cavalier attitude towards deaths of children and protection from abuses. How are parents being loving when they are violent towards each other and their children are suffering abuse as a consequence?. If parents are `flawed', then we all have a duty to protect those children from them. Some `flawed' parents have serious psychotic disorders which are incurable and untreatable and they will always remain a danger to their children. Counselling or anger management are a complete waste of time on such parents and does nothing to curb their violence.
Pelican - "But if we start with the premise that claims of DV or child abuse are routinely made up or exaggerated I suspect that very attitude would endanger children. Faster investigation of the facts would probably be a better way to go".
No we cannot begin with such a silly premise when statistics show how many people are subjected to domestic violence in Australia. The Chief Justice Bryant and Deputy Chief Justice Faulkes have both said very clearly that Family Courts do not have the expertise or resources to investigate allegations of domestic violence and child abuse. So no allegation of domestic violence or child abuse has ever been competently investigated in FL proceedings. So how do you know they are "routinely made up or exaggerated'?.
It is precisely these defects and deficiencies in the present law which the amendments in the the `Darcey Freeman' law now being proposed, are seeking to correct. To oppose these amendments is to directly the continuation of domestic violence and child abuse.

Apologies - the last quote was from PIED PIPER and not Pelican.

I think that the material I provided earlier on fatal assault of children is indicative enough to show that the changes to family law have not sparked a rise in fathers killing their own children. The other area which bears investigation is the rates of substantiated abuse - not perfect but "substantiated" is about the best we have to go on.

The National Child Protection Clearing house provides the best resources I've been able to find. Some of their commentary can at times conform to the politically accepted scripts but as far as I've been able to tell the stats are pretty straight.

http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/resources/stats.html
The most recent report is at http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/cws/35/10859.pdf

Some key points from that report
• In the last 12 months:
– The number of children subject to a notification increased by 6.2% to 207,462.
– The number of children subject to a substantiation of a notification increased by 1.7% to 32,641 (from 6.8 to 6.9 per 1,000 children).
• Over the last 5 years the number of children subject to a substantiation of a notification has decreased by 4% (from 7.5 to 6.9 per 1,000 children).

The reports do not include all of the data necessary to tell who was the abuser but the living arrangements of abused children should be relevant for this discussion.

A second post will follow (posting limit's permitting with some relevant tables from two reports http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/cws/cpa04-05/cpa04-05.pdf and http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/cws/35/10859.pdf

R0bert

Part two
From http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/cws/cpa04-05/cpa04-05.pdf and http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/cws/35/10859.pdf
Sorry about the formatting, I don't know how to get columns to line up here.

Table 2.12: Substantiations, by type of family in which the child was residing,(a) 2004/05
Family type NSW Vic Qld WA SA Tas ACT NT
Two parent s/b n.a. 6 23 19 21 15 17 9
Single parent female n.a. 46 36 36 41 39 38 34
Single parent male n.a. 7 4 4 4 2 6 6

Table A1.6: Substantiations of notifications received during 2008/09, by type of family in which the child was residing, states and territories
Family type NSW Vic Qld WA SA Tas ACT NT
Two parent s/b n.a. 9.3 18.3 17.7 18.1 15.5 13.3 15.5
Single parent female n.a. 42.2 37.9 36.4 34.1 36.7 51.5 31.9
Single parent male n.a. 10.4 3.9 3.5 4.8 2.8 3.6 3.0

I've not yet been able to find the relevant material for the percentage of children living in those Family types.

Other than the lack of figures for NSW and a significant shift in substantiated abuse in the ACT for Single parent female (I assume that the process has changed more than the rates of abuse) I can't see anything in that data to suggest shared care has overall placed children at greater risk.

Just where is the crisis in child safety created by the changes put in place in 2006?

We are being told that the 2006 changes have created a crisis which requires changes which effectively lower the burden of proof yet I'm not finding independent evidence of any increased risk to children (the reverse in fact).

In NSW in 2009 no fathers were identified as having killed their own children, for substantiated abuse despite more children living in single parent male lead households the overall proportion of substantiated abuse for children living in those households has dropped in most states.

R0bert

Robert = Cases of domestic violence with the inherent abuse of children and the direct abuse of children do not appear in the statistics you have quoted because State Child Protection Authorities refuse to become involved in matters in the Family Court as Federal Law and the Family Courts supercede State laws. The State CPA state that such reports are a matter for the FCA but the FCA do not have the expertise and resources to carry out such investigations. That is why such allegations fail in the Family Courts. There is a test case in Tasmania where the Judge sought to engage the State CPA in proceedings and they refused. It is now going to the High Court for a decision.
The FL (Amendments) Bill seeks to correct this situation and require the State CPAs to conduct such investigations and report to the Family Courts.

Chaz:”Apologies - the last quote was from PIED PIPER and not Pelican.”

Umm... nup Houel said it first.

I got that he was talking about “flawed” but loving not "abusive" (under the old definitions) but loving.