Doing away with the Family Court and putting these matters back into the mainstream would probably help for a start. I was not trying to suggest that there aren't problems on the other side as well...I know there are.
All I really wanted to try and point out was that it should be "children first" in the equation.
The choice to have children also means taking on the responsibilities of caring for them. Too many people forget that.

Communicat, agreed. Sorry if I've misread your earlier posts. I'm somewhat over the public bagging of payers by C$A and others whilst they never speak out against payee's. We see report on report about their efforts to recoup unpaid money from payers but I've never seen anything about efforts to encourage payee's to take financial responsibility for their kids.

I think many payers don't see much connection between C$A payments and helping pay for their kids costs of living. There is no process to ensure that C$A money goes towards the real needs of the children.

I also think that most child residency issues would be better handled by the mainstream laws relating to child protection. Start with a default position of shared care and deal with the exceptions.

R0bert

It is nonsense to argue, as the courts at times does, that a parent who does not pay child support is a dead beat mum or dad. Neither do I accept that a parents ability to pay or not to pay child supports has anything to do with the right to see once own children.
In particular where lawyers are acting for tender children, they tend to implant their personal views as to translate it if the non custodian parent should or should not have access. What they ought to do is to be impartial and consider it from the child’s right that it is entitled to have contact with both parents unless there is a real danger (not a fictitious one) to the child’s welbeing and safety!
Regretfully, we had the B&B case where the judge denied the father his previous access because the judge held that the mother desired to get remarried and going to live with her new husband and it was in the interest of the children their mother would be happy as otherwise it would harm the children and so the biological fathers access rights were from then on denied., this, even so the judge acknowledged he had done no wrong.
In my view, the judges rightful place was at the bench all right, that is a bench holding the sink in a kitchen in a sanatorium and not a bench in a court of law.
It appeared to me that too often custody and access rights has to do with it being fixed between the lawyer and a judge rather then as to what the evidence was about.
This post does not allow a full set out, but I used to advise people to check the affidavit of their opponent, that was held at court file, and make a copy of it, before they filed their response. Then after they filed their response to check and get another copy and more then likely the opponents Affidavit would have been amended (but not by the deponent of the Affidavit)!

Life can grab you in the strangest ways, while contributing to this thread it came back in real life to haunt me again.
A bloke who can not even see his kids fronted me at work.
He did nothing wrong still loves his wife she no longer loves him.
And the kids he loves will learn to forget him, some middle class goose will hear his wife out and he will by degrees not have his kids in his life.
Doubt it? ask generations of dads it s the way we deal with far too many of them

Belly, "And the kids he loves will learn to forget him"

I don't know what research has been done on this but I have the impression that a lot of kids eventually seek out their dads. They reach an age where they want to know for themselves. If mum is in the habit of power games and controlling behaviours, in the habit of using the kids to get at others it will probably show when the kids really start questioning.

Dads and kids lose badly along the way, those missed years, the chance for the kids to learn from dads as they grow and for dads to be a part of their kids growing.

Currently the law does not really provide protection against the abusers and in some ways I doubt that it can do so so.

Often the best that a dad can do is to make sure he is not part of the problem. To ensure that when he does see his kids that he is someone they will want to know and be proud of when they do make contact.

Cheers
R0bert

RObert of course you are right, but some dads do not get to see the kids again.
Take one pair of boys 19 years ago, they in front of me talked of the lies mum told in court.
They spoke of the boy friends mum bought home while new dad was at work.
And pledged they would come look for real dad as soon as they could, but the lies continued.
Dad had died mum said! after she broke him with court costs she took his kids away with lies.
Kids first always but our country has no idea of justice and fairness in this area.