c j morgan and robert perhaps you would like to take a look at figures from the nsw bureau of crime which show that between 1998 and 2007 the number of women charged with domestic violence has almost tripled from approx 900 to over 2300, and BTW I am certainly not a bitter divorced man, although both i and my daughter both endured plenty of abuse from her mother. I have recently become engaged to a lovely woman who herself went through an abusive marriage so i have a good appreciation from both perspectives of the effects of domestic abuse. The facts are however that incidents of domestic abuse and child murder etc by men always receive full and negative exposure in the media while incidents of domestic violence and child murder perpetrated by women/mothers rarely receive the same negative coverage, and in fact attempts are often made to excuse this behaviour by way of depression etc. If you cannot see this then you must be getting around with your eyes closed.you have only to recall recently the furore surrounding the darcy freeman case where the father threw his child off the westgate bridge, yet only 6 months previously a mother jumped off the same bridge and killed her child and THAT case received only a fraction of the coverage.I recall a year or so ago that a man kidnapped his child and ended up dropping him down a mine shaft, this story received prime media coverage for almost 2 weeks while he was hunted down all over australia. Yet while all this was going on i heard a story on ABC radio at 4.00am one morning about a woman who killed BOTH her children to get back at their father and i never heard or saw it reported anywhere else. OPEN YOUR EYES its my opinion that far from being part of the solution you are more part of the problem.

ROFL - as a non-Aussie the picture I've got of you `blokes' is that you're all sitting along the bar in Wally's Pub (Crocodile Dundee)whinging together and telling your tall stories, crying those crocodile tears in your beers and on each other's shoulders about your old ladies at home and then wandering off hand in hand to the dunny. Have a good time boys and keep up your playground antics, while others discuss the serious issues. Be good boys now and maybe there'll be a couple of snags left for you when you get home.

I never go to the pub except when i take my beautiful fiancee out for a meal or to the local lions club meeting,and from what i have seen its always the GIRLS who go hand in hand to the dunny. WOMEN/MOTHERS have had it all their own way for decades in the family court, they expect equality in every arena in life but expect SPECIAL treatment when it comes to family law. Now men have made a few small gains and are at last starting to network and organise themselves the feminists are starting to get worried and running scared, unfortunately the only response they can manage are the usual derogatory and infantile responses such as that just made by chazp.GROW UP. Robert i hope you have noted the contents of that post and can actually see it for what it is. Perhaps NOW you can see these people for what they really are, and will stop making excuses for them.

Chaz it's quite easy to develop a minds eye picture of those we disagree with based on our own bias's. It becomes a serious problem when you lack the capacity or willingness to recognise that you don't actually know about those people. That your minds eye pictures are your inventions, not reality.

Others may be discussing the serious issues but based on your recent contributions to this thread you are not one of them. You are so focused on attacking men that show no real regard for children or human rights. Child abuse is a human issue not a gender issue. Gender warriors from both sides hinder any advancement in making the world safer for children and your one sided posts clearly put you in that category.

R0bert

Well said Robert. It definitely should not be a gender issue. I have seen first hand abuse perpetrated by a mother on my own daughter. My fiancee knows of a young girl who was abused by her father. We quite often have spirited debates about issues like this as she is a bit of a womans rights activist [ as opposed to a radical feminist ] herself. Yet we both know that it happens on both sides and we both respect each others point of view. Unfortunately there are those like chazp who always resort to derogatory and hateful responses when they are unable to make an informed or intelligent one. You say gender warriors from either side hinder advancements in making the world a safer place for children and you are at least partly right, although every cause must have its warriors if it is to succeed. I have always prided myself on at least trying to see every argument from the other persons point of view even if i don't agree with what they say. But to stand by and let hateful comments like some that chazp or bobtwat make, go by without a challenge im afraid is something i can't do, you may call me a gender warrior if you wish but as far as i am concerned our childrens welfare MUST come first and i WILL fight people like that till the day i die. To do any less than that would make me less of a man and a father.

eyeinthesky, I don't think you need to ignore such comments to avoid being a gender warrior. The difficult bit is avoiding letting the aggrevation provoke equally one sided comments.

Back to the main issue one point which has played on my mind is the lack of a clear review process in the family law system. I wonder how much future decisions would be improved if those involved in family law disputes had the opportunity to take part in a review three years after the dispute. What has worked, what didn't? What decisions and agreements have been substantially changed? Perhaps they do something like that on a sample basis but if so I've never heard of it.

In my own situation I reached a decision to consent to changes in residency which I considered unworkable and not in my sons or my interests due to the harm being done to all of us by an ongoing dispute. I ensured that a notation to that effect was included in the material which went back to the courts.

Sometime later we had a dramatic shift away from those arrangments because they were destroying my son and my ex was not coping with our sons resulting behaviour. Dispite the notation on the consent orders no one from the courts has ever followed up to see how it turned out.

I was informally advised by a barrister that he believed that the magistrate had made an error in law in an interim judgement but was advised by the FMC that the only way to have that reviewed was to lodge a formal appeal (something which I could not have afforded, which would have dragged us back into dispute and which would not benefit my son or I at that point).

Given the impact of family law processes and decisions on peoples lives there should be a clear and independant review process of outcomes to ensure that they learn from their mistakes and do better in the future as far as possible.

R0bert