thanks gerrit gonna check your site today, cheers for that info.

Gerrit, thanks for taking my comment in the intended spirit. I agree with the view that we do need to get to the root of problems - often very difficult when you have groups and individuals determined to ensure that does not happen. As a single dad trying to get people to take the issues facing fathers (and children) following seperation seriously I am very well aware of that.

As someone who is not convinced that the level of racism in this country is as bad as some suggest I think it appropriate to say the article got my attention in a friendly manner. Kirsten may not have hit on the root of the problem but she did raise awareness of the day to day reality for people.

As I mentioned in my earlier post I don't take incidents without context as proof, I do suspect that a lot of what is attributed to racism may be a reflection of other issues but then I have never lived in western towns. I am prepared to change my view if the evidence is clear enough whereas contrived examples (the grooming example from the TV story) make it look like there is not enough real examples to use.

Kirsten appears to be on the same side as you, just coming at the problem from a different angle.

The left cannot possibly run out of racist expletitives.This is their crutch,like some Muslims with their Jihad,George Bush with his WMDS,the Nazis with their hate.There must be always be some one to blame,or some cause to fight since sometimes being responsible and attending to your own back is just too damn hard.
The left is always there generating this perception of racism when in fact we see little evidence these days in Australia.

I was a single father once caring for up to 5 of my children! I know first hand the discrimination I suffered then.

For example, I was scorned by people that despite being separated from my (then) wife, she kept having babies, who eventually all came to live with me. Just, that I knew, that at least 2 of them were not my biological children, but I pretended they were, to protect them. Now that they are adults, and know the truth, they ask me why did I cop all the flake, and just didn’t tell people the truth. I make clear, it was none of their business, and my priority was to protect them.
I know what it is being judged by people, being cursed and verbally abused, and all because they were ignorant to reality.
People often do this, they condemn a person because they assume a certain position!

When as a single father I reported sexual abuse of one of my daughters, after returning from access to her mother, and the Children’s Hospital found the evidence confirming my concerns, the judge made it clear, that unless I had personally witnessed it I could not prove who had it done, and so that was the end of it. This, even so my daughters mother (remarried) had at the same time her other daughter in a Children Court case and her husband was ordered from the residence because of sexual abuse with that child.
Now, if a woman was to claim sexual abuse, then without needing medial evidence, the father immediately is generally denied access!
We clearly have double standards!

With child support the same, as a judge made clear, if I could not support the children without child support then I should not have the children. So, I had a total of $300.00 child support over 15 years! Now let see if the same applies to women!

Now being remarried, my wife and I are retired, I spend my time writing books, exposing the rot involving lawyers/judges/politicians so others may perhaps not suffer the same!

Gerrit, your last diatribe about discrimination does not belong on this page. It is about racism, which is alive and well in country Oz. After living 4 years in a country town in Vic, where everyone is either indigenous descent, farming family or mixed, it's a definite line in the sand. The first thing you get told as a white person is to "watch out for the .... family". They're not racist mind you, but they'll call an aboriginal a coon as soon as they know you're not one. The aborigines in my town find it hard to get jobs because they look aborigine. If they don't look aboriginal, they are accused of rorting the system. They just can't win because of the attitude at the grass roots. In 4 years of running employment programs I have heard every excuse that hasn't changed for 40 years about why "we don't employ them". I have not met an indigenous person in this town that has not met abuse, distaste or discrimination on a regular basis whilst going about their business. And this is from respected elders as well as youngsters. We, on the ground, must start looking to them as regular people and seeing them as people that need the respect that all human beings deserve, that we unhesitantly accept their history and their whole and the fact that there have been major mistakes white society has imposed. Otherwise, nothing will change. Laws can be useful and necessary but people must drive them with spirit and action. I like most of the indigenous people I've met in this town. And most of the white people. Skin shouldn't come into it. Culture's a more difficult issue. But I've never met an aboriginal redneck! Even in Redfern.

Well Di ,what Govt instsitutions have made these people unemployable.It is an attitude of the world owes me a living and Govt bodies telling them that they don't have to try too hard.In the present environment private enterprise cannot afford the risk.Just employ them in Govt institutions,tax the life out of the private economy to pay them not to work and watch us all slide into recession and poverty.This is the logic of the lunatic left!!