Abuse is abuse there is and will never be any justification. Imagine someone two or three times your size belting you...with or without weapon/s in anger or yelling down at you...yes this is abuse.
regarding only parents involved in family court matters using abuse card - wrong.. newspapers overseas children sexually abused by fathers kept daughters as prisioners even raping them for years and having their father's children, none of the two current cases were involved in divorce or family court matters... a control freak will beat wife/kids/dog whatever... usually pillers of society involved in care of children to have effective cover of their bullying. The problem with the family Court is dual residency is mandatory.. as such some parents have dual residency to minimise financial settlement....these children are at risk with parent decides he/she cannot cope with children and deliberately attempts to hurt children so authorities will remove them from care... unfortunately DHS will not as there is a protective parent (either) the Government uses this to avoid responsibility of CHILD PROTECTION if a child's language development is ga ga ga then there is no legal disclosure, and the only effective way of conviction is by post mortum (dead child) wake up

JamesH rather than detail a reply to you...there is mountains of research and stats readily available on the Internet but here is a good starting point here for you:

video: govt. mulls shocking child abuse figures

www.abc.net.au/stories/2008/10/03/2381707.htm

Some of difficulties in the legal system is that the standard of evidence required is so high. Children who are the victims of sexual assualt are often under 5 years old. In the court system children are still required to give evidence to exacting adult standards.

I recall that there is one state in Australia that has never had a child sexual conviction for any child under 7 years old. Are you saying there is no abuse in this state?

So yes many 'victims' never recieve any thing close to justice, these are the real 'innocents who are crucified'. The general stat. for false allegation is 1 in 10.

There are many books and much information available to you on this subject I am not here to spoon feed you but more to support the call for Australians to wake up from their coma to the society we live in.

Caroline Taylor a child abuse survivor has written a book titled: "Court Licensed Abuse" (I think!) in this book she details the abuse of children by the legal system itself.

I have three autistic/intellectually disabled children, who cannot provide the evidence need to gain a conviction, regardless of photo's of bruises, nameing of the perp. doctors reports, etc....child must be able to say jo blow did this on tues 24th oct 2004 at residence 34 st. ville yes this was an unprovoked attack.

Most children are unable to state this.. however, there is statute of limitations on sexual abuse..one can only hope that some time in the future the child can give evidence.. if not nothing will be done.

I note that for physical/psychological/starvation/liberty infringements the statute remains.... leaving absolutely no hope for children.

Is this a society you want to bring your child up in, perhaps that is why Australia has such low or negitive population growth
Keep up the work perhaps some Minister who relys on votes will get the message if they want to keep their job

what a pile of unsubstantiated feminist propaganda
your claim that "women are the source of moral education"
demonstrates just how far off the planet you are

put the shoe on the other foot for 2 secs
"men are the source of moral education"
ridiculous, eh?
only as ridiculous as what you said

and the most authoritative sources of info
are not the 'self-reporting' sources you cite
but the Personal Safety Survey
conducted Nationally by the ABS

this, among other things,
makes it perfectly plain
that most child abuse
is carried out by mothers

which is also confirmed
by the performance report
from the Dept of Child Services

also of interest is that female children
living in single parent families
that have mothers as their head
are 10-15 times MORE likely to be sexually abused
than children living in a single parent family
with their father as the head

and if you care
what the children of divorce
think about equal custody themselves
try this

Fabricius, W. V. (2003). Listening to the children of divorce
Fabricius listened to the children of divorce – I wish someone else would

It is illuminating that those who are pushing this barrow are women who have had their claims rejected by the Courts. If the cases they have presented here are any guide, the Courts quite properly rejected their testimony as hearsay presented by people whose motives were questionable. The really sad part of all that is this is that the constant stream of false allegations has left genuine complainants with a far more difficult task.

Claims of abuse have long formed part of the armoury of lawyers acting on behalf of women in custody matters and have consequently been debased. It's the old story of the boy who cried "wolf". As well, it was long held in the Family Law that a mother had a "right" to her children, while a father had merely an obligation. That is changing with the obvious consequence that some of those who are losing their "privilege" are not happy.

What is really sad is that the claims of some or all of the women posting here may well be true, but thanks to the long history of false allegations and nebulous evidence in the particular matters, those claims will not truly be tested, which can only be to the detriment of the children involved.

The New Family Law Act in Australia Mandates dual residency, if this is so beneficial to children why have abuse rates nearly doubled? After Orders are made. There are no figures on the children who are forced to live with an abusive parent who commit suiside. My own eldest son did this, as HE had no voice in the court this was ordered by the then chief justice - in an attempt to stop further litigation by the abusive parent. Throw away the mountains of paperwork, that no one will read, and give up back the old detective, the truth is out there. Obviously some of the previous comments have not kept abrest of the F L Act