It is not just 60 minutes that failed to maintain basic standards. Newspaper coverage of the story (and online as well) was slanted heavily in the mother's favour. Basic information was systematically excluded. No-one asked the father for his version of events, not even the basic and obvious question of why he apparently chose not to return the children to Australia.

We were told that the mother had a Family Court judgment in her favour. Why did the mother never release a copy of that judgment so we could assess the details. The father also had a Court judgment in his favour from a Lebanese Court. If it was mentioned at all it was buried deep in the msm articles.

I am afraid that you are correct. There was an obvious and conscious bias in favour of the pretty blonde over the foreigner from a dodgy country. Racism and xenophobia were rampant.

The media also downplayed the fact that the mother had a baby to another man while still married to the Lebanese father. That may be seen as no big deal in Australia, but in Lebanon it would be a big black mark.

It also needs to be noted that although the father is not interested in pursuing charges against the mother and the kidnappers and the 60 Minutes crew,that is a decision for the prosecuting authorities, just as it is here in Australia. They are not out of the woods yet.

Just imagine if the father had come to Australis with a snatch team and the Lebanese 60 minutes crew in train. Would our authorities have been as lenient and forgiving? How would the local press have reacted to this violation of OUR laws?

I have a degree of sympathy for the mother. But as for 60 minutes and the snatch team, they should still be over there facing the full force of Lebanese law.

dkit

I have received an official communiqué that Channel Nine will air a documentary about the selfless, yet herioc, Channel Nine crew being gaoled by swathy, evil, Lebanese baddies.

It will score the highest RATINGs of the week (or is that weak?).

Money well spent.

So what will the father be charged with? He took these children from Australia, in the good faith that he would return them.

The issue of money is still a question. It is a common way of solving these issues in the Arab world. The father denies being paid. Is that really the truth, or is this a question of a smooth operator and good salesman of his case, but maybe not really the truth?

I don't blame the mother for trying to retrieve her children, what would you have done in the same situation?

Channel 9 were prepared to pay for the story, as do most tv networks. The mother seems to have decided that this money should fund the retrieval operation. Fair enough, that is her decision.

If she had sold her house to achieve the same, would anything be different, except that she would have been alot poorer?

plantagenet,

Heh, heh, good one.

However the prize for opportunism, gall and crassness goes to human headline Ray 'Watch my Rug' Martin and what a worthy winner he is!

Ray Martin got in early to piggyback with a story about his exploits 'rescuing' children from those always rotten fathers and his own great panache and enormous courage in doing so.

Ray is never restrained where building himself up is concerned.

Soon after, Ray's daughter helped out with a story on the same theme about her dad.

The Rug for first President of the 'Big A' Republic!

Marrying a man caught up with terrorist makes you wonder much about the mothers sanity or judgement. I am not sure whether the mother or father would be considered fit to be parents.

What a revolting farce. Given their mentality, it is no surprise they stuffed up and every reputable journalist and columnist in the country now adds different bits and pieces that gives an unsuspecting public a unique glimpse into the hidden world of consent manufacture and audience capture and commodification, tabloid style; a mentality expressed best in the contemptuous reference to stressed people involved in hard situations as "the talent".

There as absolutely no doubt that the basis for this episode and others is a sort of judenhecht, applied instead to Arabs and Muslims. This massages bogan fears, particularly amongst women. The failure to balance, as a show like 4 Corners might do, is naked evidence of a profound dumbing down of content for a preconceived out come, thus audience dumbing down.

Isn't this a bit cruel and unnatural, this ramped up anxiety developed in an info vaccuum? To what point.. audiences bonded to the show through crude soap opera, with a predictable demographic delivered to advertisers?

But what use does it do for our society when its location relative to reality in a real world becomes so severely compromised that a flilm crew thinks it can pull such a stunt in an other country, surely this is at the height of delusion.

You can wonder from this point whether a better informed public would vote for those who farm out privatised detention camps contracts, complete with victims, worth $ billions and then laws that suffocate press freedom to obviate scrutiny of corporate activities?

A fearful, mushroomed public allows, for the want of some sort of challenging of false memes and paradigms and reorientation to real issues, a situation where the country is open to corporate criminalty for which the poor benighted fools must then pay and be trained to like, paying for.

@ Yabby

"So what will the father be charged with? He took these children from Australia, in the good faith that he would return them. "

Yabby,if you can remind me what the offence the mother who removed 4 daughters from their Italian father's home, was charged with, I'll probably be able to answer your question. That mother was assisted by the Australian Embassy in Rome.

Roscop, I can't remind you of anything, as I don't know anything about the case which you mention. All the details would have to be examined, as we are doing in this case, for anyone to pass informed comment.

Yabby,

"All the details would have to be examined, as we are doing in this case, for anyone to pass informed comment."

Ok, so I take it this is uninformed comment:

"I don't blame the mother for trying to retrieve her children, what would you have done in the same situation?"

But as the to your question, I guess I'd just have to suck it up like Australian father's are expected to do, when the mother nicks off for good with the children (and hoovers the home) whilst the father is at work. Happens every day in Australia. I don't think it makes any difference if the two parents are in different countries or different suburbs.

Roskop, well in this case the mother clearly did a stupid thing in actually trusting her ex husband to keep his word and return the children, as had been agreed. So if anyone has kidnapped them, it seems to have been him.

Yabby, as far as I know the father has not broken any laws. I think the mother obtained custody after the children returned to Lebanon where they had spent most of their young lives. The mother has a 3 month old baby to another man yet I don't think she is divorced from her estranged husband in Lebanon at least. Does that make her an adulteress? Father apparently is not happy with his children living in another man's home.

I have noticed that Tara Brown since her release from custody in Lebanon and her return to Australia in all photos and video shots she has had a stupid grin on her face. I guess as far as she is concerned the whole matter was a joke.

Does this Lebonese father have Australian citizenship?

Did the mother marry him thinking he was an Australian citizen?
He married this woman under false pretences. Pretending he was
an Australian citizen.

He does his little daughter no favours to take her to a country,where she has no
rights under the law. He is selfish to do this. It is all about him.
He knows the law in Lebanon would never allow his wife any legal right to joint custody of the children. Why didn't he just take his son over there. That little girl is really going to need her mother as she grows up.
The Lebanese judge failed in his duty to impose a more just custody arrangement between the mother and father, instead he just left the decision and the power in the hands of the father. That is not true justice, that is Lebanese justice.

The fault for this whole sorry saga is the fault of the father, becoming an Australian citizen and marrying an Australian woman who believed him when he said he was now an Australian citizen. The second cause is the unjust law courts in Lebanon, who
dont allow women any kind of justice.

Like a lot of these immigrants coming here divided loyalties, and a supremisist attitude to women.

Roscop, there is in fact a global convention called the Hague Convention, to deal with these kinds of cases, but Lebanon has not signed it. Under that Convention, this would be treated as a case of child abduction. The children were born in Australia, are Australian citizens and their mother has legal custody of them. Under the convention, they would be returned to their mother as it should be.

The two had been separated for two years, so it is frankly non of the fathers business as to whom his wife now has a relationship with. To me that just sounds like an excuse. Whether the two are still married or not, is immaterial. They have been separated for a long time.

It serves as a warning to women who have children with Muslim men. Be careful, for under Islam, men are usually given custody of the children. The mother here made a huge mistake. She was far too trusting and is paying a huge price for that.

Roscop you talk about Tara Brown having a huge grin on her face, well what about the camera-happy grinning daddy who appeared in front of the cameras looking very pleased with himself?

Not only has he won full custody of the kids after threatening to have their mother jailed if she didn't give him full custody, but he allegedly got paid for the media interviews he laughingly gave. He is actually happy he has denied such young children any time with their mother.

Yes, a true prince among men....and a more than worthy poster boy for all fathers who are angry and bitter that 'their' woman dared to leave them. Like all cowards that choose to use their own children as revenge pieces in the dirty game of relationship breakdowns.

In my view this is a clear case of chequebook 'journalism' gone wrong.

The primary issue should be whether or not the children are safe, going to be happy (whatever "happy" is really supposed to mean) and are going to be raised in an environment suitable to the best outcomes available in a country like Lebanon.

I could care less for the rest of the mob involved in this shamozzle, hopefully those involved will be given the opportunity to air all the dirty laundry in the appropriate legal settings, which should ensue in both Lebanon and Australia given laws have been breached in both countries. It is quite possible money will change hands and it may all go away, I for one hope so as there are much more important issues to worry about.

I am sure most of the Australian sheeple will be glued to their TV's, iPhones and tablets waiting for the next instalment to hit their matrix screens, continuing their MSM indoctrination process, whilst some of us in the real world consider about the upcoming political 'House of Cards' saga, the slow and guaranteed financial train wreck approaching (bank bail-ins included) and the myriad of other real things chipping away at our freedom and so-called great Australian dream.

Tara who?

Cheers
Geoff

This smacks of 'Lebs good, Aussies bad'. The Lebanese are "welcoming"? Their representatives in Australia are rapists and wannabe terrorists, in case you haven't noticed except for the Christian ones. Lebanon operates on Sharia law, in case you haven't noticed. And what sort of creep grabs his kids from their mother, and slithers off to an administration that he knows will see his side of things, no matter what? What if the father did the same thing in Australia? He had already broken Australian law when he snatched the kids and took them to a country which has no agreements on such matters with Australia, as do civilised, non-Muslim countries.

Channel 9 did what the television industry does for ratings. Channel 7 immediately got on the bandwagon and criticised them for not doing something spectacular as well for an obscure African who got mixed up with Kenyan hoodlums and police in the way of sour grapes and 'competition'. Tara Brown and the TV crew get paid to do this stuff. The only victims of the play-acting nonsense were the kids.

Same old, same old from the spinmasters: how to make Tara Brown and others the victims.

The Court says otherwise. If the television executives are smart they would let up on the 'poor Tara' spin. Because there may still be a time of reckoning where evidence not spin, rules.

My heart bleeds for the mother and her children, none of whom have an outcome they wanted.

One should not forget an Australian family court had previously awarded custody of the children to the mother.

A generous and completely naive mother allowed herself to be flim flamed by a patently untruthful deadbeat dad, who would it seems just regards the kids as property?

I mean who amongst us knowing what we know about the middle east would want any of our kids to be raised there?

Perhaps to be future grist for the mill as radicalized teens and turned into human bombs?

I mean these KIND AND GENTLE LEBANESE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN AT WAR WITH THEIR NEIGHBORS FOR YEARS, with the paris of the Middle East turned into a monument of rubble as a first consequence!

Politicians routinely blown up and women not safe on the streets at night?

Yes the attempt was clumsy at best by a bunch of bumbling MONEY FACED AMATEURS, who thought they could just snatch the kids in broad daylight, whereas, a properly planned professional operation, would have seen the (devastated) mother using all her feminine whiles, in order to be allowed to take the kids on a (goodbye forever darling) shopping trip and used the allowed time to slip a (it's just sugar mum) mickey finn into the grandmother's coffee, during a stage managed nonviolent coffee break, while someone kept grandma innocently distracted by repeatedly asking for directions?

Then get her (passed out) into an ambulance, (we'll follow in a taxi and see you at the hospital mum) and the kids on a fast boat (a traffic beating shortcut, kids) and into a (minutes away) Israeli port, where preplanned waiting connections and cooperating officials, would be able to get them legitimate identifying documentation, luggage full of newly laundered clothes etc, and on an australia bound plane.

And nothing a divided Lebanon could do about it?

By the time anyone was wiser, the kids would be up, up and away; in any halfway decently planned operation!

SUCCESS LOVES AND REWARDS GOOD PLANNING!
Rhrosty

@Suseonline

What an absolutely vile and grossly presumptuous thing to say about fathers who claim custody of their children:

“Yes, a true prince among men....and a more than worthy poster boy for all fathers who are angry and bitter that 'their' woman dared to leave them. Like all cowards that choose to use their own children as revenge pieces in the dirty game of relationship breakdowns.”

Is seems to me Suseonline that in your desperation to take the focus away from the sins committed by the mother and the other disreputable mobs involved, you take every opportunity to traduce a competent loving father who simply wants to exercise his right to raise his own children in his own home and not see his children finish up in some other man’s home. Of course you are one of those people who thinks the custody of children should always default to the mother irrespective of which parent is quitting the marriage.

As far as I can see the father is a good father and has the support of his mother who appears to have been criminally assaulted by mercenaries engaged by the mother and ch9.

Suseonline, like on a lot of things, you are dead flat wrong when you say the father “has denied such young children any time with their mother.” That is an absolutely ridiculous thing to say given that in the media it was said the mother returned Australia with the children then ripped up their passports.

According to my reading the father has told the mother she can see the children anytime she likes. Before the mother returned to Australia the parents and children had a peaceful meal together at a Maccas in Beirut. He also said something along the lines that he would arrange for the children to be seen by their mother from time to time in a third country. Taking into account the mother’s actions I suggest the father is being rather kind to her.

According to my reading, the father had been denying the mother any contact with her children via Skype etc, for months, claiming it "upset them". So he justified this to his children by claiming it was the time difference that was the problem. Amazing how he has now changed his tune!

According to my reading, the mother only got out of jail, once she had agreed to give up Australian custodial rights to the children, who did not know that she was in jail.

According to my reading, the kids were thrilled when informed that they were going back to Australia, when interviewed by the 60 minutes team.

Instead of growing up in Australia and having a mother, which every young child of that age needs, they will grow up in a warzone.

As these kids grow older, they will learn to spell their names and they will learn how to use Google. They will find out the truth and what really happened. They will have good reasons to hate their father for what he did. They are the ultimate losers in all this, which is the sad part of the story

@Yabby,

I don’t think it would be wise for the father to allow the mother to emotionally manipulate the children on Skype whilst she is still seeking to gain physical custody having been given legal custody in her (not his) homeland. I would be surprised if by now the children did not have Lebanese citizenship.

The father is smart in not subjecting himself to Australia’s fundamentally flawed family law legal system. He has shown the world the contempt that it deserves. In his situation better to stick with the legal system that favours himself than one than that favours mothers.

Yabby, I won’t bother with the rest of your twaddle.

Many of you are trading in BS and don't know what you're talking about.
You should really try to get the facts straight before you slander others.
This interview shows how easily people jump to conclusions before getting the full story.

http://soundcloud.com/kiis1065/21416-father-of-60-mins-kidnap-saga-ali-elamine

*Australia’s fundamentally flawed family law legal system.*

Ah Roskop, so you think it should be like the Sharia law in Lebanon?
Where men are openly favoured, laws written by men for men. That is not justice, more like religious laws gone crazy. Are you in favour of Sharia Law, Roskop?

with feminist in control of family courts in Australia, I suspect Sharia law does not look to bad to many hard done by Australian men.

@ runner, my sentiments as well. Actually, in my somewhat younger years I lived in the middle east, a stones throw from Mecca. The law seemed to work well. At least the women there were a good bit less arrogant.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/01/19/interview-women-unequal-under-lebanons-law

You may have a point, Runner. As this article highlights, it is not just Muslims, but various religions under Lebanese laws.

It seems that "arrogant females" are a problem for some males, so instead we have marital rape, domestic violence, honour killings,
stoning to death in some countries, considered acceptable by the law of religious authorities.

Now I am male, but I do actually have a sense of justice within me. Laws where males have all the rights, because some men resent
"arrogant females", are not what I call justice, even though it seems that they are part of Arab patriarchy and religion

Hey Yabby, is the young mangina idiot in the YouTube video, which the following link takes you to, a friend of yours? He is desperate for a thumbs up (up 25, down 2,817) and he'll probably be in need of therapy after he has read the comments below the video.

https://youtu.be/moUdLZuEzzc

Next stage of the spin to buff up Tara Brown and excuse the Channel 9 executive responsible for the decision to participate in serious crimes in a foreign country and risking a diplomatic incident (averted by the responsible actions by government),

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/04/25/60-minutes-child-abduction-case-tara-brown-thought-reason-would-prevail

Totally irresponsible of the taxpayer-funded SBS to lend any assistance to Channel 9 spinmasters to excuse Tara Brown et al and to help her and ors play the victim. Shame, SBS, shame.

Fortunately some media outlets are having none of that,

"60 Minutes: Tara Brown's comments were wrong and she should count herself lucky"

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/60-minutes-tara-browns-comments-were-wrong-and-she-should-count-herself-lucky-20160425-goe14p.html

Tara Brown is an intelligent woman, but thinking that reason would prevail in the Middle East, when Sharia Law is involved, was indeed a huge mistake!

Roskop, there is a thing called integrity, it matters to some of us.

Yabby,

'Reason' is wallet journalism and being along for the ride, breaking the laws, most serious, in a foreign country?

Channel 9's CEO says he was kept in the dark about it all. I don't know about anyone else, but it stretches my credulity.

Why there isn't already a shareholder revolt against the CEO is beyond comprehension. If the CEO wasn't aware, he damn well should have had policies in place to ensure that he was! How can a CEO avoid any responsibility for such a huge embarrassment?

Tara Brown is small fish, the CEO is the one who should be receiving scrutiny and now.

As well, the Board should be apologising and reviewing its own performance and decision to appoint this sorry replacement for the previous CEO.

Hang on, wallet journalism is used every day in the commercial media, nothing unusual about that. This mother was clearly determined to be reunited with her children, who are Australian citizens and of whom she had legal custody in Australia. If this had happened in any other part of the civilised world, the Hague Convention would apply and they would have been returned to her. Her real mistake was trusting the father, who claimed it was only for a "holiday".

The money which 60 Minutes paid her for the story, was used to hire her crew. 60 Minutes filmed the whole thing, filming is not illegal. The story should be a great warning to other women that when it comes to the Middle East, Sharia Law applies in many countries and that clearly discriminates against women, so hopefully other women will never make the same mistake as she made, in thinking that our Govt could help her. When the law is an ass, it should be pointed out.

Yabby,

"The practice of checkbook journalism threatens to corrupt the newsgathering and reporting functions of the media. Because journalism — accurate and credible news — is so essential to the maintenance of a democracy, checkbook journalism is not only unethical, it threatens to undermine journalism and damage democracy"

http://www.spj.org/ethics-papers-cbj.asp

However, the larger issue is the duties and responsibilities of the CEO (and Board) of Channel 9. Was a legal opinion sought prior for instance and why wasn't the CEO involved? What about the audit committee, what did they say? Many questions and few are being posed, but why not?

Also, what about wee matter of its Code of Conduct that was signed off by the CEO and Board? Just stuff for show and to smack a junior employee with?

Maybe raise those sights a bit.

Yabby, so you think persistence in defending the indefensible wins the argument.

"Hang on, wallet journalism is used every day in the commercial media, nothing unusual about that." Yes but it is very unusual when the money is used to support the aiding and abetting of illegal acts.

As agents of the mother, scaring the living daylights out of children and assaulting their grandmother is one of the worst forms of domestic violence. As the domestic violence industry folk will remind you time and time again there is no excuse whatsoever for violence.

Roscop,

Can you imagine being in the CFO seat when that proposal was put to you? The paint on the walls would be blistering from the reply.

Onthebeach, clearly thousands of professional journalists don't hold such a black and white philosophical view as does your ethics committee writer. Each case is clearly different and depends on the circumstances. In many cases, win-win situations can apply and in the real world of commercial media, where ratings matter, it is a tool that can be used wisely. Poor journalism is paid for all the time, so are sportsmen, singers and everyone else. If I had a unique story to tell that would rate highly, I certainly would not go to the trouble of telling it for nothing. That is the reality today, even if you don't like it.

As to your other points, you are clearly jumping the gun. An investigation has been launched by Channel 9, which will in due course answer all those questions.

Roskop, the bloke who struck the grandmother clearly got it wrong, I have not defended him and AFAIK he was not instructed to do that, so is in the wrong. If Lebanon wants to be taken seriously, then hopefully they will take all domestic violence seriously, which when I google about it, is presently not the case. Violence is violence, wether it is committed by a husband of by a stranger

A number of commenters persist in referring to Sharia law in Lebanon. That probably says more about their own views than it does about the law. Lebanon does not have Sharia law. The legal system is set out in the 1926 constitution. It reflects the diverse nature of Lebanese society, and provision is made for Christians, Jews, Druze, and Muslims . There is no State religion.
The dominant civil code is based on the French system, hence the role of the examining magistrate in case currently attracting attention.
No legal system is perfect, and after more than 30 years of practice in the Australian family law system I can confidently say that is also true of Australia.
Having read all of the comments above I can also say that if there is one thing they reflect in common is that there is a lot of speculation and personal opinion, and very little based on the facts of this case. A major reason for that I acknowledge is due to the appalling coverage by our media that seem to suffer from the same faults as those who venture to comment.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/broadcast/60-minutes-to-midnight-as-ali-alamin-tightens-grip-on-children/news-story/53138a7517e0f9c3ae5bcb07060fcd96

James, according to this article, posted in the Australian on April 16th, according to Ms Faulkner's Lebanese lawyer, the father was granted authority to have sole care, by religious leaders. In other words, he took religious control. The speaker of the Lebanese parliament, to which the father is seemingly related, is Shia.

Perhaps you missed the Human Rights Watch link which I posted some time ago on this thread, which explained how family law works in Lebanon. Sharia Law applies to Muslims, but all women are seemingly discriminated against in Lebanon, according to the HRW article.

I have a firm conviction that a 2 year old and 5 year old, belong with their mother, so it is the kids that I feel empathy for. I needed my mother at that age too and it would be far worse for a girl.

@Yabby, "all women are seemingly discriminated against in Lebanon". So is discrimination a good thing or a bad thing? In the following paragraph you suggest that fathers should be discriminated against. Me thinks you may be a prize hypocrite

Wasn't the Media Watch episode tonight (2/5)illuminating?

Nine is in deep denial, too ignorant and arrogant to understand what it is they have done wrong.

If they had watched tonight's 4 Corners they might have begun to learn what current affairs journalism actually is, but you doubt their vanity would have permitted it.

Of course what 60 minutes did was wrong. I doubt anyone intelligent would condone what they did.
However, in my mind, the father asking for full custody or he would ensure their mother was jailed, is despicable. And the Lebanese legal system/religious leaders agreeing to this sort of deal is even worse.
The kids will find out about this one day, and they will hate their father....

@Suseonline "... the father asking for full custody or he would ensure their mother was jailed, is despicable." Yes maybe it has a touch of duress about it, but it is no more despicable than a mother lying or grossly exaggerating in her claims for full custody. If mothers were jailed for that (I can't think of a more serious offence) then our prisons would be overflowing with inmates.

Well no Roskop, what I put first and foremost is the kids and it would be foolish to deny basic biology. Those powerful maternal bonds exist for good reasons.

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-paternal-instinct-not-as-strong-as-the-maternal-instinct

Fathers certainly matter, but there is a difference between a 2 year old and a 12 year old and toddlers need a mother. Even the Sharia courts of Lebanon agree that a 5 year old girl should still be with her mother!

In this case, we have the 5 year old giving her mother her barbie ring and saying "so you don't forget me". Sounds to me like an abandonment issue could already be happening.

Now like it or not, the maternal investment and maternal bond are hugely powerful and I think that childrens mental health should be considered in all this, not just mothers of fathers rights. Bad mothers do exist, but I think it would need to be shown and proven in each particular case, when it does apply. That is basically the courts see it, as far as I know.

paul walter, "Nine is in deep denial, too ignorant and arrogant to understand what it is they have done wrong"

Yes and the Media Watch reporting was restrained.

Media Watch should also have challenged the extreme feminist political correctness that favours women and 'justifies' such lawlessness. It is somehow OK to subject the children and other parties including the uninvolved public to the dangers inherent to conducting paramilitary operations to kidnap (and especially on foreign soil).

It is an astounding, horrific outcome of the extreme political correctness that is systemic in Australia that the enormity of the crimes deliberately planned and carried out are not recognised or even comprehended by the feckless media and by some posters here.

Had the roles been reversed and had the attack been carried out in Australia it is quite possible that a firefight with intervening police would have resulted. Those who support these criminal acts would now be baying for life sentences for kidnapping and for immediate deportation. They wouldn't know which to put first.

It is interesting that the media are staying away from examining the claim by the CEO that he was kept in the dark, to find out later along with the public. Were the CFO/Operations Executive and significant others also kept in the dark, Mr CEO? What about members of the Board?

Media Watch is right to say that the internal review decided by the CEO will lack credibility with the public (AND shareholders). Media Watch should have gone further to explain why, through detailing the roles and responsibilities of the CEO and others. Some discussion of recent changes in executive management, examples being the CEO and CFO/Operations Executive would also have been useful.

The control environment flows down from the top. It is deeply flawed.

To be blunt, shareholders and the public need to be assured that this horrendous incident and offences that could easily have resulted in serious diplomatic flow-ons (and may still do!) was an aberration in decisionmaking at the highest levels and is not representative of a cowboy outfit of an executive and Board.

@Yabby, the STUDENT, who's hypothesis you referred me to, I would give a big FAIL. Just because mothers are more likely to wear their hearts on their sleeves as we saw in spades on the last episode of 60 Minges, does not diminish the bond that exists between a father and his children.

You say "Bad mothers do exist, but I think it would need to be shown and proven in each particular case, when it does apply." I think that should read "Bad dads do exist but ...it would need to be proven in each particular case to the extent that the father has committed an offence." We don't need laws that rely on subjective judgement...that is not justice.

For those who missed the Media Watch episode that Onthebeach talks about, here is the link:

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4449933.htm

Fair enough Roskop, endocrinology is clearly not your strong point, so perhaps this article, written for mothers to understand, may help you.

http://babyreference.com/bonding-matters-the-chemistry-of-attachment/

That article is referenced, so you can read up the scientific papers involved if you wish. Now you might just fob all this off, but society does not, because the evidence is so overwhelming.

Now like it or not, the maternal investment in a baby is far larger than the paternal investment, for good evolutionary reasons. The bond thus created is extremely important to a toddler, less important to older children, which was my point. Issues like separation anxiety disorder can arise, when it is broken. Fobbing it off shows your lack of empathy and lack of understanding of the science.

Unconditional motherly love is well known. With males it is less common, as we know. Some males are simply not interested in their offspring, deny paternity and run a mile when asked to assist in providing for their offspring. Now I am a male, but I am not so foolish as to deny the reality

Roscop, would you be as forgiving if a Lebanese mother took her children for a holiday and then refused to send them back to their Aussie dad who had been granted custody here? If not, why not?

Or is it just a hate all women no matter what issue with you?

In The Australian today is an article titled:

"60 Mins dad has last laugh with happy family snap"

Yes it is indeed a lovely photo of dad and his kids having a happy meal. I'm sure the kids will have an enduring bond with their dad.

I am sure that is what you think Roscop, for you have not yet once shown in any way, that you might understand the world from the perspective of a young toddler. We might not even get to see what the kids themselves thought about all this, as it seems the father has insisted that the footage taken by the team is never publicly released. Is there something in there that he does not want us to know?

One day the kids will be old enough to find out what really happened.
They will have good reasons to hate their father for what he did.

Yabby, "They will have good reasons to hate their father for what he did." In your dreams Yabby! You can wish upon him as much as you & suseonline like, I don't think it will happen. Strange that I got to my ripe old age without being a toddler somewhere along the line.

"You can wish upon him"

Roscop, I do not "wish upon people" Are you in fact from the Middle East?

Common idiom,

"wish on
Foist or impose something on another, as in I wouldn't wish this job on my worst enemy. [Early 1900s]"

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/wish+on

Roscop

That Husband is not caring for his children, his mother is doing what women do over there, she is waiting on him hand and foot, and looking after those two little ones as well.
Looks to me like he only spends time with the kids when it suits him, like it's all fun and
Laughs for an hour then he hands them back to his mother when he tires of it.

That's the way it is over there. Probably the same when he was married, didn't pull his weight and his wife got tired of doing it all.

Funny you say you were a toddler, but you don't mention having ever done any major looking after,loving and caring for a toddler. Only then would you have any insight into the emotions and security needs a small child like that needs.
I think what he's doing, tearing those babies away from their mother is cruel and does not have the best interests of those little ones at heart. It's all about him, selfish.

Is he an Australian citizen or isn't he. Typical, swear allegiance, then turncoat.
Why the hell does he come to Australia marry an Australian women, now suddenly he's Lebanese again.
He caused this whole sorry affair. First by masquerading as an Australian,but now proves he's not an Australian at all. The Lebanese judge should have ruled on a proper shared access of the children between the husband and wife. Justice denied.

So An unjust and unfair Lebanese Justice system is also responsible for the whole desperate affair as well.
I doubt very much that, that grandmother was hurt as much as she claimed, playing it up to the cameras as though she'd been schooled in what to do.
I think they knew about that impending attempt to get the children out.
There was something fake or setup in my mind in the way that grandmother and other woman came walking down the street.

@Cherful, your prejudice against fathers is on full display in your fanciful story.

As the children are growing up they'll probably see their granny as the maternal figure in the family and the biological mother as a more distant relative who they get to see once in a while and sometimes online I suppose. The granny should make a wonderful maternal figure as she has already raised one strong son who knows how to stick up for his basic human rights. Don't forget he is very protective of his children. That's why he took them from the mother because they were jumping into bed with her and her male companion according to what he said to Kyle and Jackie O.

Onthebeach, I don't know about your friends but I would fall over laughing or feel insulted, if my friends presumed that I went around "wishing harm upon people", for they are educated enough to know that there are no fairies out there fulfilling wishes. It is however very much part of Arab culture.

As it happens, earlier in the thread Roscop mentioned that he had lived close to Mecca and seemed to have no issue with the gross inequality of sharia law, as the women were "a good deal less arrogant". Subservience to men is hardly fair on women, yet that does not seem to bother him. Once again, that is part of Arab culture and does not apply here.

I gather that the mother left Lebanon in 2013 for good reasons. In 2012 the Sunnis and Shia were shooting each other in the streets and the place was yet again a warzone. The father is now denying those children a life in Australia. If that was my father, I would never ever fogive him. Yes the mother has a new partner and it sounds like they were living a happy and normal family life together, doing nothing which is not normal in Australia. Once again Arab culture seems to be the issue, as Roscop still can't see how laughable it is

@Yabby, you may think it is normal in Australia for a man's children to be hopping into bed and rollicking around with another man even if the mother is with them. But what if the mother has to be absent from the home say for hospitalisation for her next baby or for work requirements etc? Yes a laughable situation for you but not for most separated father's in Ali's situation, I suggest.

BTW, according to the press this week, 60 Minges was doing a story in 2014 on a woman who abducted a man's children from Turkey. Apparently that case has been going through the Family Court for the past year or so.

Roscop, your hypothetical above is not what was claimed to be happening by the father.

http://www.prb.org/Publications/Reports/2013/child-marriage-mena.aspx

It seems to me, what we have here once again however, is a clash of cultures. In the Arab world, children are sexualised at a much younger age, due to religious laws, so their human rights are not considered.
Women are commonly covered up and hidden away in their houses, some can't even walk on the streets by themselves and not even think of talking to a male who is not a relative. Nobody trusts anybody.

Our society is far more based on trust, communication and education. The best protection that child could have, is education of what is right and wrong and open communication about their rights. Our own problems with child molestation were far greater, when children were forced to unquestionably accept the authority of their fathers and other male figures in their lives. That is how things got covered up. Education is the best protection for children. I remind you that some of them need protection from their fathers too.

@Yabby, " your hypothetical above is not what was claimed to be happening by the father." Not hypothetical and you are dead flat wrong again.

Listen to the father speaking to Kyle and Jackie O:

https://soundcloud.com/kiis1065/21416-father-of-60-mins-kidnap-saga-ali-elamine

When you are done, watch to the end this video which shows why some children need protection from their mothers:

https://youtu.be/qdqJhkHHRTc

Roscop, I have already listened to the sound clip and nowhere did the father claim that the stepfather had been in the same bed as the child, whilst the mother was not there. That was purely your speculation, if you reread your own post.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage

Meantime under Sharia Law, girls as young as 9 are being forced into child marriages in places like Saudi Arabia, Yemen etc and this does not seem to be an issue for you. I certainly would not want my daughter living in a country where Sharia Law is also civil law.
No wonder so many from that part of the world would love to live in Australia! Yet these kids are being denied that option.

I have never claimed that all Australian women are perfect, that would be ridiculous. In situations where there are problems, we need to investigate what is the truth and what is simply a question of a vindictive male trying to get back that the female through her children, for that happens all too often, to the detriment of the kids.

@Yabby, If what the father says is true, the man in bed with his children, is not their stepfather, at least not at that time. According to my dictionary, for a man to be a stepfather he has to be married to the mother.

I have never claimed all Australian men are perfect, that would be ridiculous. In situations where there are allegations, we need to investigate, what is the truth and what is simply a vindictive woman trying to get back at the male through his children, that happens all to often, to the detriment of the kids relationship with their father.

You mention child marriage but I can not see the relevance of that to this thread. Whether people from the Middle East would love to live in Australia is beside the point.

Roscop, in Australia today, marriage is little more than a formality. People today live together, have kids together some are married some are not, it makes little difference. If you prefer to call him a defacto stepfather, then go right ahead, but you are nitpicking. It is a question of what role he is playing at the time.

*You mention child marriage but I can not see the relevance of that to this thread.*

Given that the welfare of children is part of this thread, it is highly significant and to me it seems that you have double standards.

*Whether people from the Middle East would love to live in Australia is beside the point.*

Well no, because in this case those two kids might have had a life in Australia, which has now been denied them. If my father did that to me, it would be a very good reason to hate him.

Our difference seems to be Roscop, that you focus on the rights of the father and I focus on the welfare of the children.