750,000 across Australia

Mens and Family Rights groups critical of the Family Court and the supporting social process were asked recently to estimate from their readership the number of activists in each group. In a country of jst over 20 million people, with 7.4 million in relationships (according to the ABS), there are 750,000 people -not just men, about 30% are women- who can be considered 'activists.'

The common myth is that only 5% of family breakups end up in Family Court dismisses these people, their feelings and concerns.

Based on the estimated numbers, 1 out of 10 of relationships produce activists.
Their numbers have increased sharply in the last few years, as politicians make statements without checking their sources and facts; as government funding is wasted on ridiculous and even dangerous 'research'; and the public sources of information become increasingly closed to the average citizen.

When spokespeople for administrations or government ministers quote from documents to emphasize horrific numbers, -which has given Australia a pitiful reputation across the world- without bothering to note the sources clearly state that only women were surveyed, questions arise about competency. Why would a government minister authorize a statement condemning every male in the country without checking the biased source?
It's not as if the bias of these sources are not known to government. Federal and state governments fund the groups.

YouTube has become the platform for free speech as this freedom becomes increasingly restricted in Australia. Here are recent comments by Dr Bonnie Russel.


Not Mr Ficticious

Fact - In the last year I won 14 appeals in a row with CSA on various claims. Almost all were the the mother refused because she discovered that the only way I can prove she is refusing to work - thereby continuing to receive maximum CSA and other payments- are virtually unproveable. Because of the way that the legislators have written the CSA rules for variations and applications for change, fathers are silenced.
Fact - My new wife and I pay CSA worked out on our combined income prior to tax so surely that means we are paying their tax?
Fact - Yes we have been told repeatedly that if we get married, and we are honest and tell them, CSA then includes our partners income. But if the mum re marries that doesnt happen. This advice came from different case workers too, not just one.
Fact - Even in 50-50 (shared parenting), CSA payments will continue from the father if the parents don't earn exactly the same amount. The case can be open if there is a liability to each other of zero.
Even if you elect or agree to go private they still send you an assessment each year - CSA never goes away.

Is it any wonder so many more people want this system changed?

Read more!

A couple of good pages

Women are Just as Likely as Men to Commit Domestic Violence...

Men Sustain Over One-Third of all DV-Related Injuries...

ABC 20/20
Men Battered by Their Wives

JOHN ARCHER, Ph.D.
Sex Differences in Aggression Between Heterosexual Partners: A Meta-Analytic Review

LEONARD PAULOZZI
Surveillance for Homicide among Intimate Partners – United States, 1981 – 1998

...But Men are Less Likely to Report the Incdent...

DAVID FONTES
Men Don't Tell

GEORGE ROLPH
Domestic Violence and the Male Victim

Strikingly, despite the safety of children spin peddled by myopic opponents of a shared care presumption not one instance of child abuse in shared care families was documented in the household data tables. (Yuri Joakimidis, one of researchers for fathers4equality-australia)

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Santa's NPC HoHOHOooo

A staffing company out of California has perpetrated a Politically Correct crime against sanity, reason, and those of us who can still hear the bell.
Santas in Sydney will no longer say "Ho Ho HO!". According to the PC crowd in Sydney, and a number of dysfuntional apologists: That's an insult against women. It's calling them whores.
So -- Santa will say, "Hahaha" in Sydney Australia this year, or face class action lawsuits by academics on behalf of women.

Ghuuhh -- HUH!! (Where is Homer Simpson when you really need him?)

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE INSANE!
__________
‘Twas the night before Christmas and Santa’s a wreck.
How to live in a world - that’s politically correct?
His workers no longer would answer to Elves,
Vertically Challenged they were calling themselves.
And labor conditions at the north pole
Were alleged by the union to stifle the soul.

Four reindeer had vanished, without much propriety,
Released to the wilds by the Humane Society.
And equal employment had made it quite clear
That Santa had better not use just reindeer.
So Dancer and Donner, Comet and Cupid,
Were replaced with 4 pigs, and that looked darned stupid!
The runners had been removed from his sleigh;
The ruts were termed dangerous by the E. P. A.

And people had started to ring for the cops
When they heard loud noises upon their rooftops.
Secondhand smoke from his pipe had workers all frightened.
His fur-trimmed red suit was judged `Unenlightened’.
and to show you the strangeness of life’s ebbs and flows,
Rudolf was suing over unauthorized use of his nose
And had gone on Geraldo, in front of the whole nation,
Demanding millions of bucks for `just’ compensation.

So, half of the reindeer were gone; and his wife,
Who suddenly said she’d enough of this life,
Joined a self-help group, packed, and left in a whiz,
Demanding from now on her title was Ms.
And as for the gifts, why, he’d ne’er had a notion
That making a choice could cause so much commotion.
Nothing of leather, nothing of fur,
Which meant nothing for him. And nothing for her.

Nothing that might be construed to pollute.
Nothing to aim. Nothing to shoot.
Nothing that clamored or made lots of noise.
Nothing for just girls. Or just for the boys.
Nothing that claimed to be gender specific.
Nothing that’s warlike or non-pacific.
No candy or sweets, they were bad for the tooth.
Nothing that seemed to embellish a truth.

And fairy tales, while not yet forbidden,
Were like Ken and Barbie, better off hidden.
For they raised the hackles of those psychological
Who claimed the only good gift was one ecological.
No baseball, no football, someone could get hurt
Besides, playing sports exposes kids to dirt.
Dolls were said to be sexist and should be passé
And Nintendo would rot your poor brain away.

So Santa just stood there, disheveled, perplexed
He just could not figure out what to do next.
He tried to be merry, tried to be gay,
But you’ve got to be careful with that word today.
His sack was quite empty, limp to the ground
Nothing fully acceptable was to be found.
Something special was needed, a gift that he might
Give to all without angering the left or the right.

A gift that would satisfy, with no indecision,
Each group of people, every religion;
Every ethnicity, every hue.
Everyone, everywhere-even you.
So here is that gift, it’s price beyond worth.
May you and your loved ones enjoy Peace on Earth.

- Anonymous, been 'round the Web fur year
(Anonymous s/he has been, and always will be, still in white fur...)

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Why I don't practice Family Law..

A long-time lawyer explained why he doesn practice Family Law. He is not alone. I've met at least two other lawyers who've expressed similar feelings to me.

I feel for my clients. One big reason I can¹t practice family law.

The result needs to be fair and equitable.

The legal process as a whole is one which is unfortunately in practice has nothing to do with justice and very much to do with winning.

Unfortunately the family law system is one which is entrenched.

The only way to change it is to change it is to change the law, and that is through the politicians and government both at state and federal level.

A very interesting point, but people should look at the internal guidelines of places like the Department of Human Services in Victoria.

Their guidelines in relation to domestic violence are written in a gender specific nature.

We must ensure that the mother is protected from harm...² we must do everything possible to assist the mother and protect her and the children from the violence and abuse of the father.

I am paraphrasing but people need to look at this. How does a man have a fair chance when government departments have policies such as these!

It's great when one sincere quote from a knowledgeable source pretty much says it all.

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The BUZZ: 20 Oct 2007

The Australian
13 October 2007

Family Court grabs the lion's share of federal funding
By Michael Pelly

Attorney General Philip Ruddock has promised adjustments to funding for federal courts amid concerns the Family Court is citing the complexity of its work to justify massive discrepancies.

The court will receive $131million in funding for 2007-08, a figure that matches the total for both the Federal Court ($78million) and Federal Magistrates Court ($53 million).

Yet court statistics show it is doing a fraction of the work of the other two courts.

It's an understandable figure really. There are a lot of costs involved in supporting inhuman acts and abuses of civil rights.

Dear colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that I (for the second time in as many years!) have secured a commitment from Amnesty International' s International Secretariat in London to remove false and misleading statistics on violence against women from their websites and printed materials, and to conduct "thorough checks on the sources of all statistics to be used on the Stop Violence Against Women campaign pages" in the future.

Time will tell whether they keep this commitment up or whether they lapse once again into the lazy use of feminist factoids.

The WHO organization has also promised to withdraw the copy of this spurious report from its international pages.

Legal experts in the US have publicly declared that the administration of abuse and domestic violence legislation, especially VAWA, is unconstitutional because it assumes men are guilty until proven innocent. -- Wonder how long it will take Australia to find a few brave leaders or intellectually honest academics to do the same?

In aussie slang, "The Family Court is a BROTHEL and everyone knows it, including Ruddock. .." jez 'bout sez it all (but there is much more in this election year!)

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Old News: Psyche reports on quotas

A man tells the story of catching up with some friends socially, where a frank discussion of the career path for Australian psychologists ensues.
Such frank discussion is rare outside the closed chambers of the psyche profession. The saddest fact is the admonitions are confirmation, not revelation. What is exposed here is notorious to the general public, even those who have never been to court.

To an observer, it is not surprising that Australians have a jaundiced and cynical view of the psychology profession. The ethics of psychology in Australia more closely resemble the arguments for working at McDonald's than a responsible profession.
This sort of institutionalized and socialized prejudice has produced a profile of Australia as a truly sick society. Imagine, if you will, a nation where 97% of fathers are unfit to raise their own children. - Yet that is the goal of the quotas in reporting, based on the experience of one frank commentator within the profession.

Caught up with mate today at a small social gathering and one the folks there was a psych in private practice.

His comments and observations were interesting.

He claims that all well paying/regular paying psych work means the psych must agree in advance as to the outcomes the customer is seeking. In the event it is a Govt department or a private insurer or whatever, the psych is required to produce a predetermined ratio of outcomes.

If the psych wants the work, and some of it is very lucrative, they are effectively forced to only seek out and record information that suits the required outcome. If the psych doesn't like it then the customer will have no trouble finding another psych who happily will do it.

He gave examples.
Workers seeking disability payments due to mental stress. The insurer would only accept a rate of one in ten regardless of merit.
He explained it was not always easy to produce the outcomes and if he has a person who displays say twenty symptoms of stress and only two behaviors that do not indicate stress then he must concentrate and report on the the two non stress indicators just so the person's application can be disqualified.

He refuses to do Government work and especially Family Court work.
He recalls Court work required him to pre-agree to produce reports which favoured the primary care giver or the lowest income earner of the marriage. He alleged he was only permitted to report negatively on mothers if they were drug dependent to the point of complete dysfunctionality.

The trouble with this predetermined system is that litigants are unaware of the predetermined quota arrangements and therefore unaware of the corruption of professional evaluation and independence.

How would it look in the family court as soon as the psyche was called as a witness. " Ms. Stare-Decisis, "I understand you are required by the govt to produce reports favouring mothers and disparaging fathers in %97 of all cases".

In a proper legal process, the judge would have no option but to dismiss these reports as biased and contaminated. (Comment by the psychologist, in summary.)

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The Third Stolen Generation

As we sleep,
Pain which we cannot forget
Comes drop by drop.
And through the night,
Comes wisdom
Through the awful grace
of God.

- Escalus, as quoted by Robert F Kennedy to help the crowd in Indiana deal with the news RFK had just announced: That Martin Luther King had been killed.

You are the Third Stolen Generation of Australia. You, and your children. And I.

The First Stolen Generation was the children of the Aborigines.
The Second Stolen Generation was forced adoptions from young mothers.
This is the Third Stolen Generation.
All these Stolen Generations share some painful similarities. In all these Generations, well-meaning people acted in what they thought were the best interests of the children. These were people who tried to understand things in their society they could not accept, and tried to understand.
As they thought they understood, they tried to help.

In all three Generations, they created abominations against the deep moral needs of human beings: crimes against human rights through the exercise of civil rights.
Well-mea ning people, usually good people, -- Not evil people usually.-- have created these tragedies.
Australians look in shame at the two previous Generations for many good reasons. As these same Australians, conflicted, will someday look at the Third Stolen Generation, then lower their heads in shame, glad the time is over.

Their help came in the form of misguided laws which attempted to dictate and enforce morality through the law. Those who wrote those laws did not understand the limitations of the word of law. Law cannot dictate morality.
At best, law can dictate what cannot be done.

To attempt to use the law to prevent an action, -- Perhaps unless there is a certainty that this action will be carried out,-- should be unconstitutional. When there is no history of violence; no threat other than that in a heated moment; and the parties are still rational, then.. -- But isn't that a contradition which requires further examination?
These three Stolen Generations share similar supporting reasoning.
They have all failed because of this shared reasoning being applied.

Many times, I have seen people seeking the right words to express what they endured and endure. I believe these words express that pain in a way that can be communicated to all Australians, regardless of their opinions about God.

These are, and were, law-abiding people. These were people who - other than those who abused the laws for personal greed - sought to make something good out of what was seen as horrible. And in some cases, perhaps they did.
In all of these Generations, it was the inequality before the law which was horrible in the end. That was all that could be rectified.

Another characteristic which is shared is that compensation has been made to any of the victims of Stolen Generations. There will be no compensation for the Third Stolen Generation either.
For that to happen, the immense shame of those who administrate(d) these laws would have to be exposed.

Human rights have been reiterated internationally.
When civil authority seeks to abuse human rights, it seeks civil law to accomplish that task. Only rarely does the civil authority become so brazen as to expose their brutality be making criminal law of the abuse.
This is also why the answer is not in the law, other than to disabuse the administrators of the law of their misconceptions. The answer, for all three Stolen Generations, is in the hands of those who love their children; and their country.

Please take a few moments to ponder these words.

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Betrayal

Betrayal is one of the most difficult emotions to handle.

There are so few things in this life which prove trustworthy. Young people trust everyone and everything. It's a natural beginning.
Distrust and fear must be learned.
Sad people learn to distrust too many people and things. - This is the disease of middle age which brings so many to an unhappy old age. These people live their lives in fear. Too often they teach their children this fear too young.
When we finally find something we feel we can trust - and love - and that person or thing betrays us, it earns our distrust and teaches us fear.

Literature and the news are full of the stories of those who feel betrayed. Mothers destroying their children (e.g., Media from the Illiad) rather than allowing their father to see them; or filling their children with unreasonable fear.
Pained by a real or imagined betrayal, these parents betray the love and trust their children place in them. It rends the heart to see that the parents do not see that. Their excuse is that they are "protecting" the children from the other parent.
Too often the betrayal is only imagined; or nothing the other person could control (illness or accident) - but the vicious self-righteousness of the scorned or betrayed is never ending.
"The wrath of a woman scorned...", even is she is not.

There are other relationships in our lives which we must trust, such as the trust in law and government. Men who have experienced the prejudice of the courts and legal/social system feel betrayed.
Volumes can be written describing how such betrayal endangers the foundations of freedom in a nation. If the citizens cannot trust the government, then they will change the government sooner or later.

Australia betrayed me. I joined the ranks of tens of thousands of Australians - men, women, children and families - who were betrayed by Australia.
By allowing my ex to use the prejudice in the system to extort my home and possessions, slander me with my own suffering, then condemn me without incident or proof and even an attempt to find the truth, Australia betrays the faith and confidence of its citizens. Mine is just one small example amongst the ever-increasing many...

Despite the friends I made later, I could not forget Australia's betrayal. I will never again trust anything Australian. It speaks volumes to me that the close friends I made after leaving the relationship were with foreigners living in Australia, or Australians who wished to leave the country.
The eyes and feelings of the men I met who were also betrayed by their country show that they will never trust the legal system. Many have committed their lives to seeing the system changed because they still love their country, but cannot abide the sense of betrayal by an arrogated few.

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Love and Family Law

The most important aspect of family law is the love of the parents for the children and each other. Anyone who hears the term, "family law", intuitively realizes this fact. Yet as as "family law" progresses, it increasingly excludes any consideration of this aspect of the family. So long as the courts and the law ignore this factor in their proceedings and structure, the courts are relegated to the irrational.

Love is based on trust and respect, two other emotions that the courts ignore. The courts vacate the love, trust and respect between all the parties, usurping the concept of individuals in favor of procedures and more tightly defined proscriptions. The only trust and respect remaining in "family law" are to be directed to the courts and officers of the courts.
Yet the courts are not members of the family. This simple fact eludes the courts, and confounds the families which face the courts.

Marriage and Madness
Based on the concepts which guide the judgments and ongoing actions of the courts and bureaucracy, the courts and bureaucracy may as well be parties to the marriage ceremony.
Of course, a marriage is not a marriage until it is registered with the state. A couple can exchange vows before a dozen congregations but it isn't a marriage until the registrar fills out the paperwork.
This is a uniquely binding contract, since it is not the only means for tax breaks and family responsibility to be placed in Australia. A couple can simply register for benefits as a De Facto, and after 6 months it is as binding as any registered marriage. However, registering as a de facto couple is done in applications to CentreLink, for benefits. There is an easy cynicism in that fact.

De Facto
De facto relationships, although they did not enjoy legislative access to the federal courts until July 2006 (- This was one of my ex's main reasons for executing her abuse of the Intervention Order process when she did. She and her barrister gloated about it the extorted settlement. -), are still largely the province of the state courts.
Over 40% of marriages begin as De Facto relationships (ABS); and there are more than 1 million people in De Facto relationships in Australia. These relationships can produced children; and the people involved should have all the rights of any married person, but they don't.
It is only when the children of a De Facto relationship appear in the federal courts and bureaucratic rules, commonly accompanied by false allegations of abuse, that the "protections" of the law are involved.

Indeed, it would be reasonable to require by law that anyone entering into a registered marriage or indicating a De Facto relationship undergo a full explanation of the FLA and its attendant agencies - before going any further. Although the courts will recoil at such a suggestion, I'm sure that those who are in love will hardly be dissuaded. Most will simply find such training a raving bore.
It might, however, save a few shaky families from being formed. And such training would be at least a step towards equal protection under the law for all parties, including any children.

Love and Lawyers in Family Law
Rarely have two words been more appositive and dichotomous than "love" and "lawyers" in this context.
Indeed, lawyers are trained that the clients be treated like ‘wards of the state’, as if they were mentally deficient or children too young to understand the issues before them.
Rank sexism is displayed by the courts and lawyers when the father is told not to declare his love for his child(ren) or his ex because it will be seen as a motive to abuse by the courts; yet the mother is expected to beam her love for her children - and loathing for her husband - during the court procedures.
It must truly frustrate the magistrates and lawyers that some 37% (nearly 2 out of 5) of those who put on this performance for the courts return to the relationship after divorce. Is this because they are still in love or find new reasons to love one another? Or is it just the force of patriarchy and financial pressures?

There is nothing constructive in these attitudes, especially when children and parents are involved. That any parent or individual would endure a professional attitudes designed to bloat egos and perpetuate an arrogant laziness is astounding.

It's the Law
The range of human emotions and expression are not defined in the law. The best the law can do is to proscribe certain actions.
When the law attempts to define fully an individual, it fails; and in its failure breaches the human and civil rights of the individual, which are the moral groundwork on which law and society find their purpose. The law and the courts cannot deal with the concept of love. There is no mentioon of it in the law. Yet it is love that brings two people together into a marriage; and it is love that keeps them together - whether it is love for one another, their children, or just a love of financial advantage or social appearances.

The Law cannot deal with the love of one person for another. It gives no "weighting" to such a concept, as it does for finances, possessions or income.
The Law cannot deal with the love of a parent for their children, at least not well. Even if the love between two people dies or becomes poisoned for some reason, the love of each parent for the children remains. When the law attempts to define how this love is expressed, the purpose of the law seems to be to ensure that any love that remains is turned to loathing. Both parents have to struggle against this pressure for years.
In the saddest cases, the law succeeds in even turning the love of a parent for their children to resentment.

Love, I was taught by literature and experience, is a strange emotion. Unlike other emotions, love is given and returned in equal measure. Even those who fear to love cannot resist its irresistible power.
The love between two people is as instinctive as the love of a parent for a newborn child. Science has only recently proven what bards and history have recorded since the dawn of time, yet the law is silent on this fact of human existence. There is no "weight" in the law for love.
At that point become the enemy of the human rights and freedoms it was established to protect.
Once under the "protections" of family law, the family may as well make room for magistrates, lawyers and bureaucrats in their homes. The family will never be free of them. The family will suffer for the arrogance and presumptions of the courts and bureaucracy for the rest of their lives.
The law ignores the damage done to adults, in favor of protecting the children by depriving the parents of their authority and self respect - and in the process only does greater damage over years to the children.

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Dan on Parental Alienation

(A comment by Dan O'Moore from the fathers4equality forum on Yahoo reproduced here with permission)

IMO this is where alienation plays it's most pivotal role. Kicking and screaming children need to be taught to respect thier parents. It is essential in raising reasonable people.
R E S P E C T.
Why does anyone think our society is in the whole it is in?
IMO no one respects JACK SHIT and why should they? The legislation does not respect it's people, the legislation is a tool of money hungry posturing puppets all wanting thier bight of the pie.

Normal children have issues with parents. Childish issues generally but issues none the less. For the alarmists yes there is abuse and that abuse should be stopped but lets look at the less extreme cases. Not all cases of separation mean abuse of children prior to the separation as some would have us believe. Alienation is abuse.

Enter the child abuse that is opportune parental Alienation.

Opportunity for children to act out against one or the other parent guided by the alienating parent.

The alienating parent has great opportunity.

Promises/threats/ accusations are made by the alienating parent and drilled into the children's minds without the excluded parent around there is no rebuttal. Essentially brainwashing IMO.

The children's world is small. Smaller because it is halved. They try to survive. They do what they can to reduce conflict and protect one or the other parent. Generally they try to protect the parent who is most consequential in their lives: The custodial parent.

How can any child make a decision on the parent they wish to/should be with. Their judgment is essentially distorted. The consequences to the ongoing mental health of the child are innumerable. Guilt, anger, hate, jealousy, angst, fear all go into the mix.

When parents parent they will, if they care for the children, make some decisions for the children that the children wont like. Easy opportunity for alienation.

Dads are generally given the role of disciplinarian of the house. "You wait till your father gets home".

Fathers are easily made out to be dangerous." I love you darling you know I'll never hurt you, I'll never let Daddy tell you off again".

I feel the choice of the child is not good parenting unless it is a choice of friends, school subject, sporting activity, ice cream flavour or the like.

The Secret court seems to like its position of overseeing parent. This is why we have alienation that is inadvertently sanctioned, delivered & amplified by the Secret court. IMO this is essentially why the Secret court is not receiving parental alienation syndrome easily. As all in the court live off it!

Child's choice equals alienation opportunity IMO. While children must have the right to choose that right should be implimented very carefully. Just because a child doesn't like one or the other parent does NOT mean the parent is not parenting well. Children are at a grave disadvantage if they are to choose on the basis of which parent they like the most versus both parents police each others actions toward the child and have only the childs best interests at heart. Two parents offering balance and a broader spectrum of reactionary and educational outlook.

Both parents mould new individuals of their children with the balance that is two parents. That is the essence of life and natural selection. Individualism creates new ideas. Ideas that seem to be lacking in our country. Many overseas people have told me that we Australians are seen as the cattle of the world shunted whichever way our legislation pushes us and what do we do about it? Nothing! All the Australian votes go toward enterprise. Our little group (for our egos - ever expanding group - :) is a rarity of public discussion regarding legislation. Australia has been moulded against the individual. Is it no wonder that most individual enterprises fail on all scales?

Only having one parent makes half an individual. Half an individual is behind the leaders from the start. No less a different person but definitely bereft of the love, experience and parenting quality of the excluded parent. Knowing Daddy loves you is not being loved at all, that is having love taken away by exclusion. Being loved is unreplaceable. I dare anyone to rebut that. Money can't by love! I believe this is where youth anger is building from. The lack of love.

Besides life what is it we give our children? Our love & life experiences that is what. That adds up to a whole lot of love missing from a child's life. It adds up to a biased outlook for their lives. It does not add up that children should have either parent excluded. Even in extreme cases I believe that children should have opportunity to glean love and knowledge from both parents. It makes them whole, a whole individual.

Yes of course there will be scare mongering but with good quality observational accounting by re routing funds from bias enterprise the government could tip the balance in favour of better outcomes for children.

Education of errant parents is something I feel is lacking all ways round the Secret court structure. The Secret court is all about the fight. It is all about keeping income status quo for Secret court stakeholders. If they actually cared about the children the monster as we have it would not be in place.

IMO The legislation we now have is not about the people who must live under it. It is essentially political posturing. Nothing goes through without a vote attached to it.

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Possible class action: Discriminatory practices

Agencies working with parents often hear of, or receive complaint, that one parent is making false allegations in order to slow up the FCoA or FMC proceedings. Such allegations do considerable harm to the alleged perpetrator, not only in court proceedings but in their personal and professional lives.
The problem with all the legal verbiage in the new law that defines it is a simple matter of a Risk-Reward analysis. Until false allegations engenders enough of a risk to to outweigh the rewards that can be attained, it will be meaningless.

In the recently revised Family Law of Australia (FLA) such allegations are mentioned in many sections. The number of mentions in itself illustrates the political attempt to 'bulldoze' the public using the law. The punishments are comical compared to the possible risk.

The problem with this change and all the legal verbiage in the new law that defines it is a simple matter of a Risk-Reward analysis. Until false allegations engenders enough of a risk to to outweigh the rewards that can be attained, it will be meaningless.

The courts will be loath to make the order because the parent making the allegations has no income other than Government income support. It is meaningless to someone on government support to threaten them with financial penalties. Even if they are forced to pay, they know it will only be the government paying itself, in effect.

In other legal procedures, perjury - and that is what it should be called, not the euphemism "false allegations" - can mean jail time. Jail time is something that someone on government support will respect; especially if it means being separated from their children and possibly their home and possessions.

Making false reports and swearing false affidavits is criminal in every forum outside family law. Family Law is "different", in that it does not adhere to many of the recognized principles of western jurisprudence and legislation.
The 1 July 2006 ammendments require a costs order to be made against a parent making deliberately false allegations. Is this enough?

The government is happy to take away basic human and civil rights on the basis of false allegations, but is not willing to even mention commensurate punishment. Playing with the terms, the government has no sincere punishment for "perverting the course of justice" or "contempt of court" when the euphemism "false allegations" is employed.
It is another example of inequality before the law based on gender. It can be the basis of a class action suit against the government and numerous agencies.
This legalized discrimination, as has been noted by many legal scholars, guides 'judicial discretion' and the actions of other professionals and semi-professionals throughout the system and society. I think this can be proven easily, and these arguments have been used as the basis of lawsuits in the past - perhaps not in Australia. The examples I refer to come from the US and UK.

Since even the unequal risk is rarely real, the whole of the text of the sections quoted is nonsense. The rort will be much sharper defined when the policies of various police administrations across Australia are included; along with the implementation of these policies which are documented in statistics that already exist.

In Victoria, for example, police policy dictates that if officers are summoned to the scene of an argument, they are to initiate an Intervention Order against the man - and remove him from the premises if deemed necessary. The standard for 'deemed necessary' is simply continuing conflict, which leaves little discretion to the attending officers.
These Intervention Orders will be issued in spite even if both the man and woman involved state they are not needed or wanted. The Orders are initiated by the police.

This policy is highly politicized by Bracks and his Ministers, and based on misleading incomplete studies paid for by the government; and cited in the Press in inflammatory ways by Bracks administration Ministers (Hulls and Holding) along with other government spokespeople.

If such a class action were to be initiated, it would involve any man who has been removed from his home, lost possessions or income over the past decade. The reparations would be enormous, but they would be fair considering the amount of harm these practices have done to individuals, families, and the society as a whole.

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The most difficult part

Yesterday, someone actually asked me what was the most difficult part of this horrible time.
I thought about the weeks then months of panic attacks that continued for days followed by exhaustion; then said, "It was that there was nothing to defend against. - How do you defend against what didn't happen?"
If there had been incidents or specific accusations, it would have been much easier. But there was nothing. Not one specific incident - because there had never been any incidents.
There had been arguments, yes. I raised my voice, but never raised my hand to anyone.
The police had never been called to protect anyone.
There were no bruises, cuts or marks.

In fact, the only threats came from my ex, and her family. It's not hard to threaten someone who can barely stand.
I lost the right to recuperate from a painful surgery in my own home on nothing more than assumptions. Neither my ex nor anyone else accused me of anything specific. They couldn't. The best they could do was try to incite or invent incidents. There was nothing specific in the statements to begin the Intervention Orders; nor was there anything specific in the testimony in the court that warranted my being removed from my home.

I lost the right to even avoid arguments in my own home.
The police and courts assumed things that never happened, then acted as if they had. In a final act of injustice, a police prosecutor read into the record that I had been "increasingly abusive over two years" completely without evidence. If he had sought evidence, he would have found that I was increasingly abused over two years.

"That would be crazy making." I was told.
- "Yes, it is. But that is the state of justice in Victoria, Australia. You can't expect the police or courts to correct themselves, can you?" I replied, then asked to drop the subject.
It's all past now. It's been almost two years since I simply signed over the house to my ex, and she went off to celebrate her successful extortion.
You do have to wonder if the people who executed this abuse of their authority and the purpose of law ever question what they have done? I doubt it.
After all, I was just disabled, and a yank - two things Australians truly hate.

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The underbelly of the beast

There is the perennial joke about three blind men trying to describe an elephant.
One finds a rough wall; another a whiplike snake; and the third a huge hose. The joke has any number of punch lines, some lurid or disgusting, depending on the mood or attitude of the philosophy instructor. The real punch line is to show that people form perspectives on how they experience the whole, in this case an elephant.
I had one instructor who showed an elephant, then a second slide of a pile of elephant dung, which led to a long discussion about whether elephants got viral infections...

For almost two years now I have used this blog as a personal forum to pour out my frustrations and experience. It has documented efforts to understand the injustice and abuse I suffered first at the hands of my former partner, then before the social policies dominant in Australia. In the aussie vernacular, I was not impressed.
Articles were republished here with the permission of the authors even when I marginally disagreed with the comments or apparent purpose. Usually, I wholeheartedly agreed with the purpose, but had to force myself not to comment. These articles came from the many other forums, blogs, meetings and conversations I've attended over these years.

I found that I was collateral damage in a much larger struggle across Australia and the world. My former partner had simply taken advantage of a systemic prejudice against any man in a relationship in Australia, - probably best illustrated by an unreasonable but commonly taught statistic: 8 out of 9 men (87%) in relationships in Australia are abusive.
A statistic driven by the prejudice of the courts, and simply a greedy divorce industry, with no sense of social responsibility or democratic leadership.
If that statistic were true, then Australia would truly be a sick society. It is not, judgments on the current state of Australian democracy aside for the moment. I have found the people of Australia to be a warm and gentle people, male and female.

Because of my own bad experience, I might continue the analogy to say my experience as the guy behind the elephant - when it had diarrhea. This sort of experience is bound to shape a person's thinking.
My experience was further darkened by stumbling into other failings of Australian democracy: anti-Americanism fueled by a crude nationalism; the social stigma against the disabled; and the failure of the Australian education system to convey an understanding of democratic principles for citizens to believe in.
In every case, I had to take my own experience and interpolate causes, which is a process that left a bitter sense of uncertainty. It is too easy for anyone at any level to dismiss such conclusions with attractive rhetoric.
I was not privy to the facts, only the results.
Although many shared similar bitter experience, and formed a brutal cynicism, few would acknowledge or admit to the roots of the problems because they felt a need to be proud of their country. As an American who has endured the tortured times surrounding Nixon and Watergate, Reagan's attacks on social services, and now the Bush administration, I understand those feelings too well.
From the underbelly of the beast, the best you can hope for is to not get squashed.

It is gratifying to see that my conclusions drawn from limited experience were largely correct.
From The Age, today:

The Howard Government has been progressively dismantling the democratic processes that create the capacity for public debate and accommodate dissenting opinion. The tactics used to silence critics are diverse, including the withdrawal of government funding, threats to destroy the financial viability of dissenting organisations, appointment of party functionaries or friends to key positions, strict interpretation of laws governing release of information, and the targeting of individuals. One sector that has been a particular target of these efforts to silence dissent is the non-government sector.

In Australia, recent years have seen an unprecedented attack upon non-government organisations, most particularly upon those organisations that disagree with the current Federal Government's views and values. The attacks have come from the Government itself and from close allies such as the Institute of Public Affairs. Questions have been raised about NGOs' representativeness, their accountability, their financing, their charitable status and their standing as policy advocates in a liberal democracy such as Australia.

Finally, the name of an organization that has coordinated what I have seen and experienced.
I first saw the dismantling of advocacy over two years ago while working to modify the functionality of a database for a disability-oriented organization in Melbourne. One after another, the trainers and workers needed to share the story of how the agency had been forced from its advocacy role into training because funding had been cut.
Auditors had come through their offices, I was told, to ensure that their primary focus was not advocacy, because government policy was not to fund advocacy. I was appalled, but wanted to shake off the politics and get my work done. In time, I came to understand that this was a coordinated effort to dispel dissent across Australia as the Clive Hamilton and , spells out in some detail in his soon to be released book:

(above) This is an edited extract from Silencing Dissent: How the Australian government is controlling public opinion and stifling debate, edited by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison. Published next week by Allen & Unwin, rrp $24.95

I have to wonder if this book will be restricted by the Howard government as "sedition" under the anti-terrorism laws still in full effect in Australia?

No one will call George W Bush a constitutional scholar. But how he could fete and honor John Howard nationally as the "Iron Man of Australia", and in the same breath say that Howard had employed methods from Manuel Noriega makes my head spin. Thankfully to date Mr Howard has not incorporated all of Noriega's methods. There are no death squads - that we are aware of.
The tone and attitude of Howard's national government for the last decade has filtered down to the state level though, at least in Victoria. Victoria's A/G, Rob Hulls, is cut from the same political cloth despite being a member of the opposition Labor Party. Although few Australians voice it, the sense of fear is culpable in many voices even if they will only speak of such things guardedly - meaning in tense voices only on the phone. I have been warned more than once about speaking my mind since the phones may be tapped.

The continued attacks on the advocacy work of NGOs, along with the survey responses described above, paint a bleak picture of the state of public debate in Australia, suggesting a high degree of coercion on the part of Australian governments.

Many NGOs are reluctant, if not afraid, to speak out.

While state governments are also guilty at times of pressuring NGOs to conform, the Howard Government's willingness to smother dissent poses a disproportionate threat to the democratic process in Australia.

As an American, I have to wonder if this is the sort of ally America wants or needs in this part of the world?
A point made in The Age article is privileged NGOs were openly invited to cabinet-level meetings, and that that is a federal crime in Australia; while other organizations were only met with closed doors and no funding. There was little question in many minds that something was wrong, but no one I met had any idea where to point the finger other than generally and meaninglessly at John Howard.
It's hard to say that the Nixon and Reagan (Iran-Contra) indictments were good for America. All in all, probably, but there was nothing pleasant or inspiring in them. How Australia would fare if members of a sitting or former government were jailed for criminal acts is hard to say. Bitter cynicism is easier to handle if you're helpless; frustration in the face of obvious guilt can damage a person or society for as long as memory remains.

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Fighting the Flashbacks

I've been keeping myself busy working with a friend to develop a business plan for his small business; something to return the favor he did me by being there for me - pretty much a complete stranger then - for more than a year when I was a wreck emotionally and physically. We've been moving his things from one house to another, something that would have been impossible for me a year ago - physically, if not emotionally.
He acknowledged that a year ago, I could hardly walk.

A neighbor turned to me a couple of days ago and asked if I realized what I sounded like when I slept: that I was calling out, rolling back and forth, and choking out shouts to my ex? - I apologized for what they'd seen. I knew I was going through the flashbacks again, but didn't realize they were making me put on such a show when I just drifted off for a nap.
She looked at me, and asked, "Did you know what you were doing the first year?"
I had to admit, "No, not really."
"Were you looking for her to come fix it?", she asked.
"I suppose I was."
I kept hoping, just barely letting myself think of it, that someone - in her family, her friends, or even the police or courts - would realize that what she was doing was cruel, even inhuman; that someone would stop her; make her realize what a sick thing she was doing for no reason. It makes me laugh painfully now, but even she admitted she had no grounds for what she planned. It made no difference. She knew the brutish prejudices of her country well.
And once she turned to an attorney, there was no turning back.

You have to wonder if at some point she realized what a horrid example she set for her children. Maybe that example is the crass, cynical way she taught them? I have no idea. Someday, Australia will be behind me. Despite the friends I've made here, I will never forget those two years of abuse, and what happened afterwards.

Thinking about it, the realization came to me that I was not alone in those feelings. Many of the men I'd met and talked to seemed to have similar expectations hidden in their words and feelings.
For me, these feelings have become emotional flashbacks that rake tears from my eyes for weeks during a certain period each year. The feelings sit just below the surface, viscerally beneath my skin, ready to drive my mind into a painful blankness while my body shakes. I wonder how many other men have the same feelings but are unwilling or unable to talk about them?
From the 50-or-so men that I have met, I would say tens if not hundreds of thousands across Australia.


I try to keep my mind and self occupied during these times, but it only works on the surface. Any time I try to rest or relax, the emotional trauma comes out.
There is nothing decent, fair, or right in what happened two years ago. But it does illustrate the shallow brutality of the law. As much as the abuse from my ex and her family was wrong; the further abuse I endured from the Australian legal system was at least as wrong.

There is a story about Victorian Legal Aid sending out letters from the phone book accusing 5 men of fathering a 12 yr old child. One of the letters went to a 15 yr old boy; who would have been 3 at the time of conception. The public pretense is that this is a singular mistake, but based on my experience with Victorian Legal Aid, it would be characteristic of the ethics of that organization, the Victorian courts and police.
So characteristic, in fact, that my ex confidently threatened to use the raw prejudice in the system for months while I was painfully crippled and disabled, then executed her extortion successfully despite being exposed by me repeatedly to VLA.
This blatant prejudice and its illegal use are supported actively by the Attorney General of Victoria, Rob Hulls. I must assume for political reasons.

One of the stories in the news is that cynicism damages the heart. How can anyone avoid cynicism in a place where such people administer the law?

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