Family Relationships Quarterly (The Snow Job Continues)

This newsletter could be more aptly titled, "The Snow Job Continues".

Family Relationships Quarterly
Newsletter No. 1, 2006
"Our children come first":
The heart and soul of the new family law system
Associate Professor Lawrie Moloney, Head of the Department of Counselling and Psychological Health in the School of Public Health, La Trobe University, Victoria

You gotta love the little gotcha's in there.

At the end: "8 Anything said in privileged mediation is not generally given as evidence in court. "

If it is privileged mediation, then there is no ethical basis for repeating anything that is said in court.

The one gotcha is there is no legal or ethical protection for evidence of a crime. With the legislation currently in place, raising your voice in an argument or arguments is illegal. It is defined as "domestic violence" in the legislation.

IOW, if you admit that you have raised your voice in an argument to a mediator, you can expect that incident, -- and anything pertaining to that incident in the opinion of the mediator, opposing counsel, or the court -- to be used against you in evidence.
Additionally, the broader definition of "domestic violence" defines hogging the remote, angry looks, and silence.

These idiotic definitions, coupled with the known prejudice already in the system, poses many questions:

• Will the woman be held equally accountable for her voice, anger, and silence?
• Doesn't this scenario mean the court could be easily swamped by charges of "domestic violence"? (in order to sabotage the new procedures?)
• Will it be ethically required of the mediator in a privileged context to report such criminal behaviour?

As Phyllis Schafley pointed out, we have now criminalized normal human behaviour. There are few breakups where arguments are not involved; and where voices are raised.

• Silence would appear to be the only defense, if the person no longer wants to argue, but that too is now criminal behaviour under the law.
• For the person to just leave the argument and go watch television is now a criminal act.
• If the person leaves an argument in frustration and dares to express that frustration with an angry look, that is now criminal behaviour.

The sad fact is that these actions have been de facto criminal behaviour for some time now, based on the actions of the courts, the legal and social system.

And there is the influence of lawyers, who will encourage their clients to start arguments just to record such incidents to present in mediation, and demand that the mediator report them as "criminal behaviour".
Lawyers are not the only so-called professionals who will coach such incidents, and perhaps even make them up.

A reasonable person would put aside these incidents and seek to find an equitable settlement through an understanding of the pressures involved and a respect for the intense feelings on both sides.
Will the mediators be trained to realize that the party demanding these behaviours be reported is the unreasonable party?
Or will they follow the long-standing logic that the first to complain must be the victim?

The answers to these questions may damn the FRCs to the waste bin.

Another gotcha. Nothing like a little self promotion in a nationally distributed and federally funded newsletter, huh? You have to read these things carefully. This one presumes to offer a different solution, but fails to give the reasons why it wasn't implemented.

Drawing on research evidence that pointed to the many negative impacts of ongoing parental conflict on the behaviour and mental health of children the report, Every Picture Tells a Story, shifted the focus of dispute resolution processes back to child-related interests. Crucially, it recommended that the predominantly adversarial methods of resolving post-separation disputes be abandoned. It suggested that these processes be replaced with a non-adversarial tribunal that would include social science professionals amongst its decision makers.

Every Picture Tells a Story's recommendation that a Families Tribunal be established, has not been taken up. Instead, the reforms have, in effect, built on the Family Court's own Children's Cases Program which began approximately two years ago7. The Children's Cases Program, details of which can be found on the Family Court's website, represents a radical departure from adversarial procedures.

The government's official response to this proposal is here:

As you can see, the proposal for a tribunal brought some significant response.

The reason is simple, and very financial.
This is not the first time the proposal to replace the Family Court and Federal Magistrates Court with a tribunal was put forward; nor will it be the last. In fact, the report that formed the FCoA first suggested a tribunal instead of a federal court.

So why has this proposal not been implemented?
Simple enough, it was opposed by lawyers, judges and magistrates, and a large number of social services professionals -- because it would remove the lawyers, judges and a larger portion of social services professionals from the process altogether and eliminate the divorce industry.

Note the comment, "It suggested that these processes be replaced with a non-adversarial tribunal that would include social science professionals amongst its decision makers."

This is the career divorce industry "professionals" wanting a place on the tribunal.

Is the tribunal an answer? Who knows?
The new FCoA procedures are a clear recognition that the adversarial process is destructive to families, individuals, and society as a whole. Getting the lawyers and courts out of the process, as much as possible, is certainly better (and better still the more they are removed from the process.)

One thing is for certain, it will not happen with the support of those who are making a career on the blooded welts of children and families.

If the FCoA and FMC fail to make the new procedures successful (or if the divorce industry "professionals" succeed in making it a failure), then the most likely next reform will be a tribunal approach.

You gotta love the hypocrisy.

Quote: "The new family law reforms are to be seen as a package of services that include Early Intervention Services such as relationship and pre-marriage education and counselling, specialised preventative services that address men's issues and the problem of family violence, and a range of dispute resolution options for both "intact" and separating families. "

Then only a few paragraphs later, is ..

a.. children have a right to know both parents and to be protected from harm;
b.. parenting is a responsibility that should be shared, providing this does not put children at risk of harm; and
c.. parents and children benefit when parenting arrangements after separation are resolved outside the court system.
In tendering for the running of Family Relationship Centres, organisations and consortiums have been required to demonstrate in detail how they plan to make their services user-friendly and accessible.

Hey folks, if only men need "specialised preventative services that address men's issues and the problem of family violence", then you are making a mockery of a, b, c, and the effort to "make their services user-friendly and accessible."

Here in only a few short lines, buried in the verbiage and flood of buzzwords, is a statement that the new FRCs will ignore the efforts to achieve the best for the children of Australia -- equal rights and equal parenting -- and continue to implement the destructive prejudice of the past.
Both men and women need specialized preventative services, such as anger management courses which don't exist across Australia for women.
This paragraph dismisses men's issues without offering any effort to address them, then focuses again on the "problem of family violence", associating it -- again -- wholly with men.

If I can make a suggestion, we should write to the authors about this sexist propaganda and demand that it cease.

There are those who believe that since the reforms are in the FCoA, we should stop the pressure on these groups. This newsletter is the best evidence that we cannot. If we allow it, these new FRCs will only become centers for the loathing of men in families.
Whoever wrote this newsletter needs to be removed from the FRC program immediately. And anyone who believes he or she has to develop the FRCs into another prejudiced organization to destroy men should go along out the door.


Say goodbye, Prof Moloney.
Obesity is a problem in Australia. That's enough balogny out of you. You're only bloating the problem with foul air.