The commonly understood narrative is that false allegations are a commonly misused tool in family court proceedings and that women are the main people making these allegations. If, as two of the linked reports suggest, men are making many false allegations, then fathers groups need to publicise this fact. It may well garner more sympathy for their cause from women.

This article also inclued a number of links to news reports about fathers who had killed their kids. It is unclear why the authors of these articles only ever discuss cases where fathers have killed their kids. It is hard to escape the conclusion that concerns about child safety are just a front for promoting the interests of mothers. Perhaps if they gave equal attention to cases where courts have ignored the concerns of fathers and a mother or step-dad killed their kids then men might feel a little less cynical. I also tire of these people using the Darcy Freeman case as an example, given that no allegations of abuse were ever made during family court proceedings.

Chaz:” The point made by Trish Merker about whether a biological father has `Shared' the parenting prior to separation is an extremely important one, and should be given high precedency in any post-separation determinations of custody and contact.”

Completely lost me there. Why?

R0bert:”If we want to really see how people choose to parent get the property and any other motivators to chase residency out of the equation and see what patterns develop post separation. We should be finding way's to minimize the external factors influencing residency decisions so that it really is about the children.”

Yep, it occurs to me that if DV was an issue it ended at separation. Residency must be really difficult, for the children you would want them to retain a house they have possibly lived in their whole lives as part of some kind of stability for them. I suppose that is “ideal world” stuff.

What would you suggest as a practical way of dividing assets?

“…6 per cent of all divorcing or separating couples use the Family Court, and of those, less than half involve parenting disputes. Therefore, these “millions” of children do not involve millions of children with a parent living elsewhere because of a Family Court order.”

That was interesting.

“In retaliation, father’s rights campaigners insist that the allegations of child abuse (and its inextricably linked cousin - domestic violence) are mostly rampant false assertions raised by malicious mothers.”

Can someone explain this one to me because the Father’s Rights people do keep mentioning DV in solo mothers homes is real and rampant while this is saying that the Fathers Rights people claim they are false assertions…?

Jewely, allowing for some protections over what people bring into a relationship, etc a 50/50 split of assets aquired during the relationship seems to be the most practical approach.

The custodial parent is generally free to sell the house and relocate disrupting schooling, social networks etc without any restrictions so unless people want to start not allowing that to occur then the custodial parent aquiring ownership of the home to maintain stability for the kid's looks to be spin in most cases.

If independant review shows that the disruption really is an issue in specific cases then perhaps the house could be kept in trust for a period until that was resolved. Distributing assets on tbe basis of residency just over a year out from seperation is a recipe for conflict over residency.

The reality is that peoples lives, future plans etc will be disrupted by seperation including the lives of children. There is great value in reducing the impacts on children where we can but trying to do so in a way that set's the parents up for conflict and makes kid's the pawns in the middle is never going to be a good plan.

R0bert

Arent Fathers Rights advocates tiring? Arent they biased and blinkered?
what about this scenario.The father is an abusive alcoholic gambler who refuses to provide for his children in any way and begrudges even the $13 a fortnight that the mother is forced to accept by law and centrelink.The mother is remarried to a really good man,an excellent father model who works hard supports his 2 children from a previous relationship and helps the mother support her own children.All 4 children go to private school,this stepfather gives his time to the stepchildrens school sports coaching,reading,.gets up at 6am while the real father is sleeping off the alcoholic excesses of the night before & never turns up to any event and usually when he has contact leaves his children with his alcoholic girlfriend who has anger management problems and physically abuses the children The stepfather is a good parent and a good role model the father is not.My point is that not all stepfathers are abusive in fact most of the violent abuse perpetrated upon children is from the biological father and the father's girlfriend or wife.But of course this does not fit in with your dogma does it?FACT children are mostly murdered by their BIOLOGICAL father.FACT the biological father is most likely to be abusive and these comments of single mothers having boyfriends,where do you people come from? so obviously all single fathers and esp those belonging to fathers groups must have taken a vow of celibacy and live like monks so dedicated are they to their children!! what rubbish..IF YOU ARE A DECENT LOVING SUPPORTIVE PARENT YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR FROM THESE CHANGES,it seems to me that you are all so fearful.WHY?? also lets abolish the CSA and see how many of you really ,really want to play full time daddy!!

[Deleted for "shouting".]

Jewely
I reply to your query regards why so few couples don't go to the Family Court.

I believe the waiting period is currently 2 years, and particularly the father has to have a very deep pocket, because a family law solicitor can charge up to $1 just to photocopy a piece of paper.

To spend over $100,000 is common.

The Family Court system has no jury, and the decisions made are often arbitary. Even Family Law solicitors have been known to say this, and there is believe that the Family Court is also non-constitional because it does not have a jury.

For a father to get 80:20 is basically automatic, and most of the CSA is set up around 80:20.

If a father spends much time looking after the children before the seperation it makes no diference.

He automatically gets 80:20 but has to spend a lot of time and money in the courts to get anything more than 80:20.