In any society that professes to value children, practices, beliefs and attitudes that destroy and kill children, are unacceptable.

So, many people of our earth, decry the beliefs in certain areas that lead some to rape babies,thinking this criminal act a protection against the HIV virus.

With increased acceptance in many countries of ideas like alienation and false allegations, there has been an increase in the murders of women and children. Australia, when it imposed a law of shared parenting, wielded a very blunt instrument which had the effect of increasing woman and child murders and escalated unnecessary misery and suffering.

Statistics place between 90-98% of divorces worldwide, as settling all questions of divorce with little discord. The 2-10%, which are inappropriately termed "high conflict", cannot be protective of children or the adults concerned, by the use of ideas,theories,opinions attitudes or values such as greed.

These cases need to be carefully examined by educated individuals who have as a sole consideration, the safety of all concerned.

I not only hope that the proposed amendments are accepted; I wish,pray,plead and implore the government of Australia to demonstrate their sense so that other countries may follow suit.The destructive and reprehensible actions of some are not confined to Australia.

Perhaps the amendments could be called the Darcy Freeman Laws. Thank you Mr.Pragnell for this article.

from a Canadian

The issues involved with the blanket 50% shared custody arrangement do not just involve worries about abuse or negligence of children, although this is certainly the most important consideration.

To my mind, one of the most important sentences in this article is as follows:

"Too little attention has been given in the existing Family Law and by the Courts in establishing whether a parent has an existing "meaningful relationship" with a child and whether a parent has actively engaged in the child's emotional, physical, social, and educational development prior to the parental separation which are the core elements of good parenting, and merely the participation of an adult in the conception of a child has been accepted and upheld by Courts as qualifying an adult as a "parent"."

Correct me if I am wrong, but I couldn't find the word FATHER used detrimentally in the whole article.

It talks about PARENTS, and is written by a guy who is a Specialist Adviser on Child Protection and Children’s Rights to the National Council for Children Post Separation.

I would imagine this guy is fairly well educated on the subject, and I am sure the government, social workers and family courts are far more likely to listen to someone like him than any of the bitter, selfish, militant parent groups out there.

We should not be forcing children to split their time 50% between warring parent's households unless it is in their best interests to do so.

suzie,

Great quote. I love how financial support doesn't count. So men who are responsible and work hard to support their families are penalised because of their lack of 'emotional' connection with their children.

I guess men who are on the dole but at are at least at home should retain custody because of their continued 'emotional' connection?

Cold North Wind care to provide some official statistics to back up "Australia, when it imposed a law of shared parenting, wielded a very blunt instrument which had the effect of increasing woman and child murders and escalated unnecessary misery and suffering."

There has been a 4% drop in substantiated child abuse in Australia during pretty much the same period.

I've struggled to find recent clear data on trends in intimate partner homocide but one report from 2003 http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/241-260/tandi255/view%20paper.aspx
said "Over the 13-year period covered by this analysis there were 77 intimate partner homicides, on average, each year. The majority involved males killing female intimate partners (75 per cent). Females comprised only 20 per cent of offenders of intimate partner homicide, confirming prior research that males are more likely than females to kill their intimate partner (Johnson & Hotton 2003; Silverman & Kennedy 1993; Silverman & Mukherjee 1987; Websdale 1999)."

In 2006-07 there were 65 intimate partner Homocides in Australia with 44 male offenders and 21 female offenders. http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide/victim-offender.aspx
http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide/victim-offender.aspx

Some coverage of fatal assault of children at http://www.community.nsw.gov.au/docswr/_assets/main/documents/accan/presentations/1s3e-1.pdf

It's difficult to find any national trend data on the Fatal Assault of children however in the NSW data there has been if anything a drop in the number of fatal assaults of children.

It's also clear that most fatal assaults have other factors involved, a criminal history, substance abuse, employment status all factor heavily as contributors.

Suzie "but I couldn't find the word FATHER used detrimentally in the whole article", the piece is written against a backdrop of other factors which do make this a gender issue. Those most vocally supporting the changes tend to have long histories of support for gendered outcomes of family law. The changes being made to DV legislation and proposed for the family law act to nominate male's as the likely perpetrators of DV will prejudice and claim's of DV from the start.

R0bert

RObert, I do understand that there are very nasty women out there who are intent on 'punishing' the fathers of their children, for various reasons. I know of some myself.

What I don't believe is that there is some great feminist conspiracy to punish all fathers for the crimes of the few.

Surely there are enough bright men (fathers)out there who work in family law, or social work or as specialist advisors etc such as the writer of this article, who would work towards ensuring men are treated fairly in the child custody situations?

There are mainly men in Government too who enact the laws
for the family courts and centrelink etc.

Are you sure that some of the men's groups who violently oppose some of these laws are not just doing it out of spite towards their ex-partners, just like they accuse the women of doing?

At the end of the day, it is the children's welfare that is at stake, and I am hopeful that most of the people working in the family court system can tell who is lying to them by now.

Suzie "Are you sure that some of the men's groups who violently oppose some of these laws are not just doing it out of spite towards their ex-partners, just like they accuse the women of doing?"

I could almost guarantee that there will be some men and some groups doing that. Not violent that I know of.

I don't tend to think of this as a great feminist conspiracy. Feminists do seem to lead the charge in creating a false impression of DV and I suspect that most feminists never dig deep enough to see what's happening there. I think a lot of feminists toe the line to stick up for other women.

Try out vanna's challenge to find positive comments about men (or masculinity) by identified feminists employed by Australian University's and have a think about the role their research plays on public policy.

Support from men seems to be a mixture of those with poor views of "other" men and men with relatively traditional views on gender (men who have put career's ahead of family) who are unlikely to get those of us who have not taken that path and from those who like most women have never dug deep to look at the issues.

It's not just about revenge, the financial stakes of child residency can be massive at the time of property settlement. Both gender are impacted by that but there seems little interest in finding a way to take that out of the picture, there most be better options that winner takes almost all.

It also involves choices about how children are raised.

Found a great quote today '"For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."

JFK Yale University graduating class speech (June 11, 1962)'

R0bert