ChazP

It was HER fault for marrying him.

Taking extreme examples and then trying to extrapolate that to all domestic violence, is highly manipulative and plain propaganda.

I meet a man once whose wife poured petrol on him and set him alight. He suffered from horrendous burns, disfigured face, missing a few fingers, ears.

Yes there some extremely nasty and violent people of both genders.

The question should be asked, if after five decades, that is fifty years, of DV awareness, Erin Pizzey opened her first shelter in the 60's.

Why is it still a problem?

What has been missed?

Howard Beal - An example is the case of a 8 year old boy living with his grandparents in Tasmania, who was ordered to live with his mother and her de facto partner, who had been convicted of having vast amount of child porn. I don’t have the AustLii references but it was widely reported in the media. In the case of J & W FamCa 1002 where a 5 year old girl was ordered into the custody of a father with HIV/AIDS and it was alleged he had sexually abused another daughter and he had two convictions for child rape and convictions for violence and 20 other offences. The girl was placed in the father’s custody to punish the mother for fleeing interstate with the child. There were then more than forty reports of child abuse made by teachers and police,all ignored. The girl ran away at the age of thirteen and confirmed that she had been sexually abused from the age of seven by her adult half-brother and his mates with father’s knowledge. She was believed by police, the social worker and the court counsellor but the judge accused the mother of training her and ordered her to return to her father. Tasmanian Judge saying that two little girls would be safe staying with their convicted child sex offender father, but they needed to have a lock on their bedroom door and stay together at night. In another case, Judge was reported to have said that an 8 year old boy would be safe because the convicted child sex offender partner of the mother was only sexually attracted to little girls. And recently, Judge gave residence of children to a father who was awaiting sentencing for sexually abusing young children.
Examples of cases where domestic violence, sexual rape, and child abuse were alleged but could not be competently investigated, because Family Courts don’t have the powers expertise and resources, can be found in Aligante & Waugh, Langmeil and Grange, Krach & Krach to name but a few.

Gawd

Women must stop having children immediately.

Re J & W [1999] FamCA 1002: This was an interim hearing in which findings of fact cannot be made. The Mother ALLEGED the Father was a paedophile, had incest with his son, sexually abused and raped his 5yo daughter, and would deliberately infect his daughter with AIDS. Importantly she admitted some of her allegations were unfounded. Nevertheless she absconded with child to another state to avoid court ordered supervised contact with the Father. The forensic psychologist appointed by the Court recorded there was significant risk of psychological harm in the mother's care and likely that she would re-abscond. Clearly the Court had little option in the interim.

This interim judgement occurred 7 years before the shared parental responsibility amendments were enacted in 2006. How does this prove shared parenting forces children to live with paedophiles?

Samuels & Eddington was another interim hearing. The Father suffered from schizophrenia, lacked capacity to care for the child and was cared for himself by his parents. The Mother had cared for the child since separation when child was only two months old. The paternal grandparents sought custody when the Mother sought to relocate interstate, after consenting to the Mother living with the boyfriend. The boyfriend had been convicted for possession of child pornography not paedophilia.

“A parenting order depends on a consideration of the relevant section 60CC matters and not popular beliefs or stock standard responses. The Mother has shortcomings and her profession [exotic dancer] raises some questions, but this is not a court of morality”

In short ALLEGATION is not proof – until the family violence amendments are enacted.

This “reform” proposes increasingly loose and subjective definitions of family violence and abuse, dangerous moves to eviscerate the presumption of innocence in custody cases and encourages strategic allegations without penalties that seems to amount to a license to kill off an allegedly abusive spouse.

Public opinion must persuade the Senate to resist such efforts to limit individual rights in the guise of protecting women as a class, and reaffirm the fundamental principle of justice: equality before the law regardless of gender.

Haward thanks for that. It is very concerning that those pushing for the amendments either fail to discuss safeguards or make it clear that they don't think that men deserve any safeguards. I say men because the supporters only seem to list examples of dangerous situations where the dangerous party is male.

It is a difficult situation balancing child protection and burdens of proof. To make changes which improve anything we need way's of better testing allegations and of ensuring that false or unproven allegations don't provide a tactical or material advantage to the person making the allegations.

R0bert