Perhaps Ellis was not lying and believes it. I think there are women (some with help from lawyers) that make false claims during custody hearings but I reckon they are a very small minority. The mythology is about exaggerating the extent of the problem to make a gender political point in the same way victim blaming occurs in rape cases.

Ignoring domestic violence, rape or child abuse claims also has a negative impact.

The 1 in 3 figure seems a bit high to me I can't believe there are one in three families regardless of the gender issue, experiencing DV. If 1 in 3 families are experiencing a violent female partner then 2 in 3 families are experiencing violence by men - that seems too high and suggests no family is violence free.

Fact is DV services are available to men and women but I don't believe more women are violent in society than men. The figures speak for themselves. Either way, victims should be supported regardless of gender. Male victims of rape (by other men) are provided support if they seek it, but like women many victims of rape are not reported so the statistics are not often accurate.

People will need convincing that the 1 in 3 figure is real and not a segue to minimising the impact of violence by men which seems to be an issue in today's modern gender vs gender world.

Much of the Flood/feminist efforts to exclude fathers from children's lives has money at heart - CS, which has become defacto alimony since that was largely abolished with no-fault divorce, and a larger property settlement for the parent "winning" residency/custody.

So they, and the FCA, do not take into account that the major perpetrators of child abuse, on a proportionate basis, are mother's boyfriends (so often referred to as "stepfathers" and far too often as "fathers" which should only be used if adopted). It is violence towards the CHILDREN, not mothers, that should be the primary consideration in residency cases.

"Stepfathers" abuse children at a far greater rate than biological fathers, particularly sexual abuse of girls, and having the biological father still involved gives the children someone to talk to, to take action, to protect. And gives the "stepfather" a break, quality time with his lover.

Yet this fact is not considered by the FCA when making its decisions, nor parliament in making its laws; before my trial in the FCA, in which the allegations against me of violence were proven to be perjury, my lawyer warned me against telling the court the statistics on violence by mothers' boyfriends as it would be held against ME!

Shared residency was awarded, and during a time with her mother, my daughter was bashed by mother's boyfriend - just the most serious assault, by no means the only one. I got a restraining order against him physically disciplining her or being with her without another adult.

Yet prior to that assault a FCA Registrar refused to hear my tape of my daughter screaming in pain while being belted - I illegally and unrepentantly taped a phone conversation - so the thug continued his abuse.

The police took no action as mother had authorised boyfriend to physically "discipline" my daughter.

"Stepmothers" do not abuse children at the rate of "stepfathers"; fathers generally are less likely to allow it than mothers.

Fathers need to be encouraged to stay involved in their children's lives, not excluded based on the predudices of Flood et al

As a school principal, I am regularly in the middle of custody disputes as they flow over into the school. While many are handled appropriately and well by the parents, there are a small percentage (5-10% I would estimate) that get pretty ugly.

I have seen 2 cases where false accusations were made by one partner against the other, with one resulting in an ADVO which was later shown to be based on false testimony. The other resulted in the children not seeing one parent for over 2 years, despite court rulings to the contrary. In both instances, the claims were made by the mother.

Mind you, I have also sat through parents of both genders making all sorts of wild statements about their ex partners. You can only say, "I am here to help the children" so many times before actually asking them to leave...

So it does happen, but, in my experience, not often. I do not present this as evidence of any sort, just a brief outline of my experience.

pelican,

'The mythology is about exaggerating the extent of the problem to make a gender political point in the same way victim blaming occurs in rape cases. '
So, when a feminist advocacy group exagerates, it's to help the cause of victims, when a male advocacy group does, it's to blame the 'victims' (ie women) of the cause. That's warped man. All advocacy groups exaggerate and twist statistics.

'The 1 in 3 figure seems a bit high to me I '
Ya think!? I think it's low. You forget it is 'In their lifetime'. That's a bloody long time. I'm surprised that 100% of male and females haven't experienced violence (Let's not forget this includes shouting these days). Simple trick pelican, surprised you missed it. Par for the course in advocacy spin.

'suggests no family is violence free.'
I would say this is accurate. Did your parents never raise their voices or ever put each other down in an argument.

'Fact is DV services are available to men and women but I don't believe more women are violent in society than men. '
Agreed.

But, with the propaganda around DV (That it is exclusively something men do to women), and run by raving feminists who see any man in a relationship where violence occurs as more than likely to be the problem (The majority of violent relationships both partners are violent) then what guy is going to turn up to a witch hunt with a pointy hat on?

See, with that Australia says no, I would have been happy with even 4 depictions of male partner violent, and 1, just 1 token violent female partner. Even an equally violent couple.

A bit of reality wouldn't go astray.

'People will need convincing that the 1 in 3 figure is real and not a segue to minimising the impact of violence by men '

Tell me pelican, do you see the WRF as 'a segue to minimising the impact of violence by women'?

Double standards man. As I said, just 1, would that hurt them? Who is minimising again?

The Family Law Legislation amendment Bill 2011 has been drafted on the basis that the proposed amendments will reduce child homicides. The reverse is actually the case. Statistics show that the 2006 Family Law Reforms helped save the lives of many children. The threatened rollback is likely to increase child homicides to pre-2006 levels which negate the purpose of the proposed Family Law Reforms.

Over the last few years a well orchestrated campaign has been mounted to make the claim that children are more at risk from violent fathers and that there has been an increase in child homicides at the hands of biological fathers.

It is often presumed that fathers are the main offenders in child homicide cases. This is not the truth the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) showed in its 2006-2007 annual report there were eleven homicides involving a mother and eleven homicides involving a male family member. However, when the ‘male family member’ category was broken down, five perpetrators were biological fathers and five were de-facto partners of the mother who lived with the child.

A study in the Medical Journal of Australia found similar results. They stated that fatal child abuse was the most common cause of death and the offender was most commonly the child’s mother or her de-facto partner.

It might be noted that child homicide has reduced by almost 50% since the introduction of the much fairer 2006 reforms according to NSW figures. The NSW Child Death Team Annual Reports stated:
• In 2005, twelve children aged between 0-17 died by fatal assault
• In 2007, nine children aged between 0-17 died by fatal assault. 2007 had the lowest child mortality rate observed over 1996-2007. This is the year directly after the reforms were instigated.
• In 2009, seven children aged between 0-17 died in six incidents.
These results indicate the 2006 reforms reduced the lethal danger to children. The new proposed reforms could well see child homicides go back to their pre 2006 levels. This would be an appalling outcome for our children. Greg is right to point out the weakness.

This is all about money, power and control and because parents no longer have any legal parenting right to parent their own biological children. It is therefore a complete waste of time for parents to seek perceived parenting rights in our Family Courts, when they don't exist!

If the following initiatives were adopted by Governments and enshrined into legislation, most of the gender divisive community conflict, would slow to a trickle and people like DR. Flood who fuel the debate, would lose their taxpayer funded powerbase.

As a result, the nation's children would be better protected and the concerns that are the subject of this debate would become irrelevant when:

• The ‘sole parent physical custody’ model is abolished and BOTH responsible, biological parents, are legally recognized as equal primary care parents.

• Each parent is awarded a legal equal parenting right, to share a meaningful, near equal percentage of physical primary care parenting time, following separation.

• Withholding of contact by either parent invokes a criminal charge of Kidnapping.

• Violence and abuse allegations are only dealt with in the criminal justice system, providing due process of law and harsh penalties for perjury. Such allegations are to be accompanied by immediate court ordered protection of responsible parent/child relationships, in order to prevent an accusing parent taking advantage of false allegations.