Family Law - Is the Man the Loser, NSW Parliament House, 16 June, 2009.

Family Law - Is The Man The Loser?

http://dadsontheair.squarespace.com/family-law/

The group Forum Of The Round Table held a public forum at Parliament House, NSW on the evening of Tuesday 16 June 2009 on the topic of “Is the man the loser in family law?”

Two of the speakers were Dads on the Air team members John Stapleton and Peter van de Voorde. Transcripts of their speeches follow below.

LINKS TO THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE: 

ONE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXmowplvgqg

TWO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_JcAro6ojo&t=9s

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FINAL VERSION SPEECH PARLIAMENT HOUSE 16 JUNE 2009

Just to clarify, in case anyone hasn’t realised, the poster for this event was unfortunately incorrect and I was labelled as thefounder of Dads In Distress (DIDS), rather than as one of the founders of Dads On The Air (DOTA), by mistake. While it would be an honour, I don’t actually have any connection with Dads In Distress; but we do have in the audience Phil York from DIDS, who would be happy later to give the coal face view of the issues we have come here to discuss.

I would like to thank the organisers Forum Of The Round Table and everyone else who has helped to put on this event.

For those of you who don’t know, Dads On The Air is a community radio program run out of 2GLF in Liverpool in western Sydney which by dint of pure perseverance has become the longest running fathers show in the world. Our topic today, “Isthe man the loser in family law?”, is shorthand for much broader debate on whether the style of custody order most common in the Family Court, and most family courts around the Western world, that is sole-mother custody, is really thebest for our kids. And whether or not the almost universal anti-father bias in our public institutions in child support, child protection and legal aid is producing the best outcomes.

There isn’t much doubt family law is biased against men - unless you want to discount the voices of 100,000s of fathers here and around the world.

Dads On The Air would not exist if family law was not biased against fathers. It was the collective outrage of a group of heartbroken men which meant when the opportunity came up back in 2000, we started a dads show. We’ve gone on to attract a talented team with journalistic, entertainment and internet experience. The first few years must have been a bit of a strain on the audience, with long spiels against the impacts of family law and elaborate deconstructions of domestic violence or anti-father ideologies.

None of us had any radio experience, but we have been fortunate to find ourselves in an era when there has been plenty of material to broadcast. We have made mistakes. The program today is very different to what it once was. While we continue to follow Australian family law and child support issues more closely than any other media outlet we also pursue more broader debates.

Dads On The Air has been proud to broadcast a range of voices little heard in the mainstream, as well as having politicians, authors and academics who’s voices, at least on these subjects, are often ignored by gender study courses and journalists alike. Dads On The Air was born not just out of a sense of injustice, but out of frustration with the mainstream media’s failure to take men’s issues seriously, often confusing social affairs reporting with feminist causes.

We have been proud to provide an outlet for a number of groups including the Shared Parenting Council of Australia, theMen’s Rights Agency, the Fatherhood Foundation, Fathers4Equality, Fairness In Child Support, Lone Fathers and Dads In Distress, mostly sad dads who want to see more of their kids. The single most barbaric thing any civilisation can do to its citizenry is the removal of children, yet this happens every day. They’re told it is in their children’s best interests. They often show signs of post traumatic stress disorder, repetitive, obsessive, fragile, fighting injustices they have no hope of solving. We’ve broadcast their voices, taxi drivers, teachers, firemen, policemen. It does the country no good to have a body of such disaffected people.

But we’ve also tried to be open to the many complexities of the debate, and guests have included Diana Bryant of theFamily Court, then Attorney General Phillip Ruddock, the head of the family law inquiry Kay Hull and many others. Over the years we’ve also broadcast some of the world’s best known father activists, including Fathers For Justice founder Matt O’Connor, the brain behind Britain’s most sensational stunts, including climbing Parliament House, Buckingham Palace and bridges across England. Author of Family Court Hell Mark Harris, jailed for waving at his children as they drove past him on the street.

Recent guests such as Professor Stephen Baskerville, author of Taken Into Custody, argue the long march through theinstitutions is almost complete and the divorce regime comprises the most totalitarian institutions ever to arise in thewestern democracies. Families have been systematically portrayed as dangerous places for women and children.

Men have been systematically propagandised as violent, abusive patriarchs or historical relics. Separated men have been ridiculed as nothing but aggrieved litigants. He argues the divorce industry is a serious perpetrator of human and constitutional rights violations. No political party and no politicians question it. No journalists investigate it in any depth.

Other guests have included John Hirst, author of Kangaroo Court: Family law in Australia, who tracks the public perception as a wonderfully progressive court to become one of the country’s most hated institutions. He said: “I cannot see the way by which the Court can be rescued. Until there is fundamental change, it will continue to give offence.”

Commentators such as Warren Farrell, author of several books The Myth of Male Power: Why Men are the Disposable Sex and Father and Child Reunion have provided unique deconstructions of the domestic violence, child abuse, child support, family law and social welfare industries predicated on the vilification of men. He claims the traditional image of male-as-oppressor is inaccurate and has hindered both genders, leaving men feeling undervalued and women angry.

We’ve also interviewed many women critical of the anti-father bias in family law, including, most fascinatingly, Erin Pizzey, founder of the first women’s refuge in Britain, who has been critical of the way the refuge movement was used to perpetuate a radical anti-male agenda. We’ve also interviewed a number of non-custodial mothers. Recently one mother, Diana, who copped all the false allegations and alienating behaviour commonly perpetrated on fathers, brought tears as she spoke of parking opposite a school just in the hope of catching a glimpse of her children.

It is telling that amongst academics who have come on the show, the University of Western Sydney is the only dedicated men’s study unit, the Men’s Health and Information Resource Centre. John MacDonald and Michael Woods have examined the poor outcomes amongst separated men, while Men’s Health Australia has argued for gender neutral approaches to domestic violence.

This is but a small sample of the numerous authors and groups we have interviewed, many focusing on the impacts of family law and its anti-father bias.

It is common, perhaps even fashionable in family law circles, to blame the litigants for their own problems. The fact they are silly enough to get bound up in complex and expensive family litigation is sniffed at. But unfortunately separated parents have to have family law orders in order to gain payments through Centrelink or that much reviled institution theChild Support Agency.

Nothing sends a shiver up a politicians spine more than the sight of a separated dad clutching a large file of legal documents making a beeline for him or her at a public function. For these things are insoluble. Their grief and their sense of aggrievement cannot be assuaged by a few rote letters to department heads. Family law creates an enormous well of pain. How can this politician helps this poor bastard, who has just been through the worst time of his life, who has lost his children, his home, much of his assets and income, his dignity, his social position, his sense of self worth.

The issues which affect men are not being addressed. One simple example: On the Dads On The Air website we have a counter which estimates the number of clients of the Child Support Agency who die every day. We estimate the figure at around 12 a day, probably an underestimate. Every fathers group in the country has linked family law and child support with the high death rate amongst separated men. Where are the inquiries, the concern?

We covered the family law process in Australia begun by the previous Howard government closer than any other media outlet. There was ample evidence during the family law inquiry, including most powerfully from many grandparents, of the pain the present system creates. We interviewed many people who hoped the well of misery would be resolved. It is deeply unfortunate in our view that the previous Howard government baulked at true reform of family law, despite widespread public support, and even those modest reforms keeping father’s in children’s lives could now be wound back. But at least now a detailed record of the hopes and frustrations of so many people is actually on line, documented,undeniable. Available for future researchers.

I often wonder how younger generations of fathers, those you now see walking their kids to school or in shopping malls with their children climbing all over them, will deal with all this. Surely there are enough cautionary warnings to suggest further reform is needed so broken hearted dads and children unnecessarily deprived of their fathers becomes a thing of the past.

All is not lost. But governments are wise to listen to the voices of the people over the those of their own tax payer funded academic, bureaucratic and judicial elites. I hope when the history of all of  this is written Dads On The Air will be seen as having had a civilising influence on the debate, making available voices and points of view which may otherwise have been ignored. Men are the losers under the present family law regime, but so are we all. Thank you.

John Stapleton

Program Director

Dads On The Air