Dear Antiseptic,

I get the feeling I am standing in front of you with a large insect net trying to catch all the butterflies issued forth every time you open your mouth. While I'm not sure where each is headed it is admittedly entertaining.

Best start at the beginning. I think you are getting confused between reality and statistics. Further you are indeed making a value judgement when you call 'family violence' a pathological construct. My examples were pertinent to my point that violence in a relationship is not routinely exposed at divorce proceedings since as your own statistics reveal most settlements do not get the stage where full disclosure is felt to be warranted by either party. For many it is shameful and kept private.

As to my judgement regarding the potential violence in a relationship, having been very close to the family of the earlier episode I would think my antenna for such things was pretty good, but ultimately it is a value judgement so another source perhaps. In a regional town close-by there is a report in today's paper regarding 700 family interventions a Christian welfare organisation made last financial year. There was a wide range of requests for assistance in areas such as financial, gambling, homelessness, alcohol etc. however by far the largest reason at a whopping 58% was family violence. Doesn't your determination to think the issue is a furphy speak to a evident pathology?

But let's tend to your statement “"potentially serious violence" makes no sense as a determinant of anything. The tendency to generalise from the particular is pathological in that it takes no account of the facts, just the "potential".

For the sake of argument, and because you have run without including the word 'altruism', I am happy to explore this further. If you truly believe what you have written how do you assess the billions spent on counter terrorism, the serious erosion of civil liberties and the continuing loss of Australian lives all for the notion of 'potentially serious violence' which has yet to eventuate on our shores?

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Further why do we continue to hear the argument used as the reason for locking boat arrivals up behind razor wire for months if not years when not one has been shown to be a terrorist intent on harming Australians? If you want to call this a pathology then you have my vote.

The Freeman case has seen the erection of barriers on top of the West Gate bridge which certainly obscure what had been spectacular views. Yet millions of car trips are made across it with no violence occurring. Is this the type of pathological decision making you are talking about?

You said ; “Your niece and her boyfriend will experience very different earnings trajectories. She will continue to grow her income with seniority and his will languish, unless he manages to either start his own business or chooses to go and work somewhere not very nice for very long hours.”. Nope, not a chance. He is on well over six figures and she is doing a degree in childcare. She will never even get close. I also do work in the construction industry and a plastering mate of mine is able to send four kids to a top end private school and own a home in the most affluent area of town. He prefers employing Grammar kids as apprentices as they are the most compliant and there are plenty of takers. In nearly thirty years of being around building sites and meeting hundreds if not thousands of tradespeople I can only recall meeting two women with tools in their hands although there are plenty doing the clean-up before hand-overs.

As to McGrath without better figures we will have to agree to disagree.

We might call holding on to old ideas when the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming a pathology but I just think it is part of the grumpiness and stubbornness that comes with old age. If you are not over fifty Antiseptic then there is definitely something wrong.

Mollydukes, the pathology lies in the failure to look for any kind of contradictory evidence. I don't know if anybody believed the things you say, but if they did, it was pathological if there was evidence to the contrary. If there were only guesses on both sides, then it's not pathological, although it may still lead to poor outcomes.

The determining factor is the focus on the small whilst ignoring the large. Thus csteele focusses on the Darcy Freeman cas eand ignores the harm done to the large majority by draconian laws. It's pathological.

The article on aboriginal chldren not being given blood-screening tests because it might upset them is another example. The benefit they might gain is ignored because of the small pain and upset they might be caused.

csteele:"you call 'family violence' a pathological construct"

I don't. The pathology is in the pretence that it is universal. It happens in some cases, but not all or even most. Very often it occurs as an emergent feature of a relationship breaking down rather than being causative, therefore, making it THE central part of any family law dispute is not merely wrong, it is wrong-headed and pathological. It doesn't address the real factors that lead to the breakdown or the violence and it doesn't lead to fair outcomes.

csteele:"how do you assess the billions spent on counter terrorism [etc]"

As a waste of money for the most part, but not an act of pathological altruism. The people making the spending and other decisions around these subjects have vested interests. Altruism implies no personal benefit.

The Westgate Bridge barriers and similar ones elsewhere are not pathological altruism, because there is no unforeseen and ignored impact that creates a bad outcome. The view may be obscured, but that was known and understood before the decision to install them was made and it was acceoted as a reasonable tradeoff. Besides, there's nothing altruistic about it - it's simple nannyism.

On the subject of the construction industry, you may be getting confused by the high wages that have been available to some tradesmen in Victoria through the artificial construction boom of the early part of this century. I did very well from 2005-2009 in my business, with a major slump in 2010 and this year I'm closing the doors. Why? Simply becasue there is no demand for my products becasue there is no activity in the sector, at any scale. Even large firms like Leightons are unable to hold staff and sub-contractors are in real trouble.

If your niece chose to work in childcare, she effectively chose a lower-skilled path that does not really require a university qualification. She made a bad choice, but that doesn't invalidate the general proposition. Nonetheless, she will continue in work relaibly whilst her boyfriend is in and out of work as the industry demands.