Benk,

The current issue being debated has nothing to do with child support. Far too often certain vested interest groups have cried foul regarding the current child support laws. This debate is about the proposals to change the Family Law Act, not proposals to change the Child Support legislation. (oh and no I do not receive one single cent of child support in case you are interested)

Tired,
How many times have you read in the paper about a father mistreating their children at any time, or, of a father mistreating their children when they are granted permission to see their children every second weekend or half the school holidays.

Looking after children on the weekends or during the school holidays is the most difficult time (because the children are not at school), but now, there is to be a return to the presumption that fathers are not capable of looking after their children, when the children are at school.

Under a feminist system, the father has to give his children back to the mother on a Sunday afternoon, so that the mother can send them to school on Monday morning, and of course, the father has to pay the woman mnoney.

The Family Court has no interest in the child. If they did, they would be acknowledging the amount of child abuse that occurs in single parent families.

But I have never heard anyone from the Family Court even mention the child abuse occuring in those families.

benk "As Robert says, people will always lie while money is involved."

I don't think I said that. What I am saying is the the current approach places pressure on people to do the wrong thing and all to often leaves those who try to act decently in an unworkable position.

Tired my earlier comment re you post was about the claim by Kerry Davies that you had provided proof of your previous comment. I know we can't always provide proof and am Ok with that although I do get very tired of those who demand proof from others that they can't or won't provide themselves.

I do think that issues like child support and property settlements are very relevant to this discussion because they provide motivators for some to seek a level of child residency which they might not otherwise pursue. Some will lie or exaggerate concerns where there is personal gain to be made from it. Getting the bulk of the families assets (or getting to keep some of them) can be strong motivators for people to act unreasonable. A regular income stream with no strings attached can be a strong motivator for those with few employable skills.

It's crazy to try and have this debate without either looking at putting in place stronger checks to prevent abuse of the protections using false or exaggerated claims or by removing some of the incentives for false claims. I struggle to work out how to do some of that without the risk of making it more difficult to report hard to prove claims.

R0bert

What I am seeing is a broadening of “what is abuse” in this article. I’m not seeing family court, child support or shared parenting as anything more than a small side issues.

I can see govt agencies being given a plethora of reasons to remove children from their families.

It follows the not-for-profits and charities growing rapidly because we ignore the abuses that have occurred over generations in Australia via these NGO’s. Apologies later, but keep giving them children.

I thought the cherry on top was the Woods Report in NSW recommending that we privatise the care of our state wards. “How do we get even more children behind NGO doors” would obviously have been the next question.

Reworking exactly what child abuse is becomes the second cherry.

This NGO sector appears to have everything swinging its way and now even more opportunities to place children under their administration and keep them there until 18 years old.

These new definitions of abuse are about implementing more removals without looking at exactly where the children are removed to. Foster care benefits from privacy policies and laws so that once removed you have no right to information about these children.

I have never found research anywhere in the world that shows foster children do better than their peers.

Where in all that is reasonable does this have anything to do with the “best interests of a child being paramount”?

I have to agree piper.

Broadening the definition of anything is a big red flag! It sticks out like dogs balls.

Whenever someone wants to broaden definitions, it's for 2 reasons.

a) To inflate statistics for the purposes of 'raising awareness' ie funding for their cause.

b) Someone is having trouble obtaining hard evidence and wants some artificial credibility to be attached to what is mere suspicion.

What we have with broadening definitions always boils down to a witch hunt. As I said in the other article in this topic, it's actually a call for more accusations without changing the underlying level of 'abuse'.

What they should be doing is actually trying to investigate and prove abuse more effectively rather than lowering the bar as to what constitutes abuse to make it so they don't really have to thoroughly prove anything.

Even such an intuitive statement such as...

'Family violence and child abuse are unacceptable and cannot be tolerated.'

are very troublesome, especially once you 'broaden the definition'.

If you look at it realistically, there are many children better off with contact with a parent who ONCE raised their voice in an argument than being banned from seeing that parent.

With these new definitions, I would say every parent in Australia should have their kids taken from them. Ask any of your friends if their parents ever raised their voice to each other or were ever manipulative and then ask them if they think they should have been taken from their families

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