Jewely,
If a father wants contact with his children, he fills out a standard piece of paper that is called a "Child contact agreement".

It goes somewhere, and when it comes back, the father gets to see his children every second weekend and half the school holidays.

If the mother doesn't agree with it, then the father has to decide whether or not to take the matter to court.

Throughout, the father has to pay child support which can be automatically taken out of his pay, and without his permission.

Most fathers just accept the 80:20, and that has become the norm, regardless.

Very few fathers are ever charged with child abuse or charges made, but it does appear that certain groups and individuals like to suggest that fathers are child abusers.

These same groups and individuals made no allegations of fathers abusing children when fathers were going along with the 80:20 norm, but of course a father cannot be a parent when he is only seeing his children every second weekend and half the school holidays.

I would suggest that these groups and individuals do not want fathers to be parents, and that is their primary motive.

Vanna - again a great distortion and misrepresentation. "I would suggest that these groups and individuals do not want fathers to be parents, and that is their primary motive."
These groups and individuals do not want any parent who has engaged in domestic violence as defined clearly in the proposed legislation and involving the abuse of children, to have an automatic right in law to contact with and custody of their (biological)children and similarly with parents who have taken no interest in `Sharing the Parenting' of their children (as eloquently described by Chiara) prior to separation. This is not gender-specific nor gender-biased This is not a plot to cut biological fathers out of children's lives, but to protect children from dangerous and toxic PARENTS of either gender, and those who have failed to act as good parents to their children in the past, but who now want to assert to right to `Shared (Sharia) Parenting'.
Please think about what is best for children from their perspective and abandon your Hobby Horse of "All (biological)Dads are Good, All Mums and their new partners are the baddies", such arguments are inaccurate and tiresome, although much loved by the euphemistically-titled Shared Parenting Council and its constituent organisations.

[Deleted for abuse.]

ChazP,
The author gives no statistics and gives any names, but attempts to portray fathers as abusers of children.

It is a standard method of villification and discrimination

That is:

Don't give any specifics, but make generalised comments about a group, all of which are negative comments.

Standard villification practice.

In other articles the author has not said a single positive word about fathers or about father's groups.

She mentions the Lone Fathers Association, but always in a negative way.

The Lone Fathers Association is not an illegal organisation, it has never broken the law to my knowledge, and incidentally, 30% of its executive are female.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11331#191920
"Arent Fathers Rights advocates tiring? Arent they biased and blinkered?"

Sometimes, about the same as supporters of a lot of rights issues.

"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 "

Sorry there will be some repetition in this (me doing my bit to be tiring - hopefully not biased or blinkered)

A couple of posts I've written recently dealing with child abuse stats

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11307#191415

and an earlier series of posts starting at
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11234#189898

It's clear from the material I've referenced there that the claims made by Chiara are very contradictory to what appears to be independant and authorative child abuse and child death stats.

The onus is on Chiara or anyone who read her post and agreed with her to provide links to credible statistics which back up those claims.

R0ber

Wow, thanks to this article I now know that the legislative provisions of the Family Law Act have no impact on the 94% of parents who negotiate 'in the shadow of the law' when negotiating parenting agreements.

I now know that in the 6% of cases where there is litigation, the best interests of the child is sole custody with the mother.

I now know that mothers make more natural parents than fathers.

I now know Dr Flood as an expert on family law.

I now know that 100% of funding for separated parents should go to mothers groups and 0% to fathers' groups.

I now know that anyone who disgrees with the writer belittles victims of domestic violence and child abuse.

And I'm so relieved that taxpayers money is being used to fund responsible groups like the National Council for Single Mothers to lobby, make submissions and educate people like me.