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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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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*Dirty Tricks in Family Law*

No kidding. 90%, huh?

*Dirty Tricks in Family Law*
By: Bettina Arndt

Herald Sun - Monday 12 Februeary 2007

...

Many of the women's groups are very nervous about new Family Relationship Centers (FRCs) set up particularly to deal with children's matters. The government has rightly concluded that caring for children after divorce is a relationship issue, not a legal one and that the previous adversarial system was disastrous for children. But that legal system served the interests of the punitive mother very well since it failed so dismally to enforce contact orders and allowed allegations of violence to be used to deny fathers contact with their children. Remember the 1999 magistrate's survey which found 90% of magistrates believed false AVO's were used as a tactic in family law cases "to deprive partners access to children"?

The article describes a few other tricks barristers have pulled. I could add one: Threatening ridiculous lawsuits as harassment and intimidation, but only when the couple is alone - then denying it in court. The threat is enhanced by saying her lawyer told her she could sue.
The barrister stands and questions the man: "There were no lawsuits threatened, isn't that right? You are lying to this court."
I got a taste of that one myself.

There must be some list of illegal stunts or dirty tricks somewhere.
What is surprising is, after years of this stuff, the magistrates and judges don't catch on... It really is their responsibility to seek the truth before making judgments.

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