Family Violence is still on the menu on Australian Family Court

Despite recent changes implementing family violence laws in the Family Court, Family Violence is still thriving.  Whilst the past year I have barely spent online, I have talked to hundreds of mothers affected by this mostly with recent cases where the judgments favor the perpetrator above the child and all victims involved.  Victims still barely have a voice.

Despite all the well crafted speeches from the court in public space, private-sphere is a different story.  Alike all forms of abuse occurring in private, so does human rights violations against the most vulnerable and least likely to afford the fine things in life that the courts actors enjoy at their expense(and sometimes the cost of a life): children and women.

The court relies all too heavily upon the notion that it makes its decisions based upon the rights of the convention of the child.  This is used to protect child's privacy, "best interests" and right to know the other parent.  I make no error in my judgement when I write that these interests are only upheld when the courts interests are upheld first and if they are compatible, the child's rights are not violated.

When family violence(not limited to domestic violence) is historical to the family, these interests usually clash with the courts.  This is because most victims are robbed of resources that the perpetrator has at his disposal.  The gender divide is just touching the surface when examining the root of the issue. Its why these laws do not work.  We could lobby again and change the laws to ensure that every child's voice is heard, but the reality is that the court navigates around these laws creatively and completely at each judges whim.  The political culture of the courts is ingrained in neoconservative values, over-toned by patriarchy with the old fashioned, "children and women should be seen and not heard".  One only needs to read the views of the judgments to find their own perfect flavor of disgust.  For many years, activists have continuely recommended the court become more open and tested with community values, but the best recommendation I have heard is a royal commission.  The court needs to be investigated, not merely touched superficially by a 2d tabloid view, but a thorough investigation where every aspect is examined.  Where the money trail is followed all the way to the end and every name of every child homicide is checked against the court records with or without the courts approval.  It is something that is no longer a request, idea or merely a discussion point:  Its an expectation.  Without it, the court remains liable to the deaths of all victims affected.

Europe sides with Aussie Chauvenists

Australia, renowned for male chauvinist behavior, racism and all round backward thinking. The intelligence is clearly lacking when they called it "The lucky Country". With three major political parties leaning from moderate to far right - It is no wonder more and more women are fleeing this country. It is only the lucky country, because at the end of the day, there is always a scapegoat paying for it.

When of course there are complaints, the media does a remarkable job at cleaning up after its thugs. One would only have to view articles like these to learn that there is little truth in the tales from down under. Ask any partner of any non white member of the Australian community about the daily racist slurs she or he receives in the public and suddenly the veil lifts.

To consider that male white supremacy is righteous is in fashion for Australia and as it seems, every Aussie is following suit. Dig deeper at the victims of Australian white supremacy and there are many women, mostly mothers who care a lot for their children. They are Australian societies scapegoat. Those many who have tried or succeeded in escaping violence are the "untouchables" of Australian culture. The biggest reason for leaving is for their children. Most are not concerned what happens to them, just their children.

Of course, there are always bad examples of motherhood, but these are trophied as recognition that all mothers are this way; that in a bizarre logic - they are not human, but merely a brand of product on the patriarchal market. To the male dominated judicial system, the family court views mothers as a machine useful for providing children as though they are a commodity. Even the values of equality are distorted to feed the masses of male supremacist, by faking shared parenting. Sharing the parenting before divorce for most Australian men is too much, but if the woman leaves, sharing the parenting is invoked as a means to use the child and chain her to him for life.

This was after all instigated by the same group that invoked censuring the internet. The festival of the Light. Men like Warwick Marsh, Barry Williams and John Abbott, wanted to enforce marriage as a non-negotiable contract. They blamed women for the problems in marriage, but grossly ignored the violence from men. Warwick Marsh himself had a close family member commit a murder-suicide, the ultimate act of possession and obsession. Yet, his interpretation of the event was misappropriated to condemn and punish the women who leave.

John Abbott was an extreme example, but successfully pushed for shared parenting in alliance with the members of the shared parenting council. He believed that women who cheat should be punished by death. A rogue and violent attitude that one would consider reserved only for the underdeveloped world where stoning women is an everyday account.

In contrast, Europe gender divide is far less than Australia. Shared Parenting occurs before divorce and the European Assembly had raised UK's treatment of mothers in the Family Court as abhorrent. In the case of Melinda Stratton however, it appears that Europe has sold out on human rights as they arrested her for taking her child.

The media in Australia has written dozens of articles applauding the pursuit of a mother who stated that she went to such a great length to save her child from being abused. The media painted this business women as mentally ill, yet omitted this diagnosis to originate from the courts hired psych. In the Australian Family court stats, nearly all of the mothers who are cut off from contact are deemed mentally ill. Dig a little deeper into the family court judgments and many abuse cases mostly the mother raising concerns lose contact because they were persistent and challenged the court.

The family court was so abusive during the Howard era that they trophied cases that were deemed to meet the "Parental Alienation Syndrome" criteria, a popular theory amongst the pseudo-psych legal community. It was popular largely because the family court could deliver cheap cases without addressing the abuse, whilst the protective parent was barred from contact and the ability to collect or provide any further evidence of its occurrence and thus providing a false sense of credibility towards family court decisions. The problem is that "Parent Alienation Syndrome" is largely debunked by the scientific community as the Dr who created it also supported pedophilia.

When the Australian was given a ten page letter by Melinda Stratton on her side of the story, they were constrained by the Family Court from publishing her concerns about sexual abuse by Ken Thompson. Yet, the media were not constrained to convey her as "Paranoid" or as an abductor. It would be too much of course, for the family court to convey this mother as a human being or focus on the child's real best interests, rather than its own interests.

The Politics of Child Abuse

Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity. 
-Albert Einstein 

If one were to summarise all abuse case outcomes, it would be factual to establish that child abuse is only recognised as criminal when it has not been perpetrated by the state or its actors.  

In both the child protection and the family court system, cases where the government is responsible for the abuse go unchallenged by the public and independent organisations.  This is because both laws surrounding children restrict publication.  The argument for restriction is that it "protects" the names of the children involved.  In ABCs Law Report titled "Restrictions on media coverage of child protection and family court matters", journalists raised cases where the child abuse was not being addressed.  The story with the cases and a variety of commentary provided an evidential backdrop on the reasons why suppressing deaths and abuse of children is not being protective.  It highlighted how the government had misused children's rights as a means to a political end.  

The inquiry into family law was purely based on politics as most of the submissions were from men's groups.  All of these groups requested laws aligned entirely with their own interests. When groups against child abuse began to appear regularly in the Australian media spotlight, men's groups responded with political blackmail:

I know that separated groups, fathers' groups in particular, shared parenting groups can conjure up over a million votes and that's something that I think the Government will take into account. - Michael Green

No doubt, that men's groups have influenced the general population to believe that men are far more disadvantaged than children and women, that their rights must be taken into consideration above all others.   This is reflected in the survey findings on community attitudes on violence against women.  Some members of society even believe that it is ok to rape.  It should not be a reason for politicians to see it as an opportunity to lower the rape law bar so that they can appease the growing population of rapists.  There needs to be a point where popularity is not the drive for our leaders.  

 

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