Family Courts in the firing line
- The worldwide fightback.
“Breaking news. The 3 Strikes Law is officially moving forward in Australia to hold repeat custody interferers accountable.”
This week saw this fascinating announcement from an American advocate Robert Garza who is intent on fixing the family law system not only across America but in countries across the world. Having pushed out over 400 pieces of legislation in the past few months to legislators across the United States, he now has set his sights down under.
His 3 Strikes policy aims to prevent non-compliance with custody orders, stopping parents from wrongfully withholding children. It’s all about making sure breaches of parenting orders are taken seriously, with escalating penalties beginning with fines and ultimately resulting in criminal consequences for repeat offenders that include jail time.
Wouldn’t that be a novelty for our Australian Family Court which is notorious for not enforcing its orders, leaving the wronged parent with no choice but to return to court to try to see their children?
The 3 Strikes bill Garza is proposing involves:
First contravention: a $500 fine plus make-up time equivalent to the period the parent has been denied the child.
Second contravention: a further $500 fine plus additional make-up time and/or modification of the parenting order, when there’s a second contravention within 5 years.
Third contravention: prosecution for an indictable offence plus consideration of reversal of custody or reduction of parenting time for the offending party, when there’s a third contravention within 7 years.
The bill is carefully framed to be gender-neutral, the strategy which is achieving great success in the USA. Garza has been talking to Australian parliamentarians about sponsoring the bill and looks like getting the green light. Our community is well aware of the shameful truth about the court’s unwillingness to enforce its orders – so it would be a popular move to draw public attention to this important issue.
Garza is a man with a mission, a real powerhouse, absolutely convinced his legislation can change the world. Currently he’s managed to push through Time Taken Time Back legislation in Texas and North Dakota. And his legislation addressing parental equality in custody determinations, parental alienation and related issues is currently being circulated to advocates across fifty states, and internationally. He’s a man who fought his own mighty family law battle, facing 43 false allegations – so he knows what fathers are up against. See his website, Facebook and this video to learn more.
Meanwhile, over in the UK, men’s groups are reeling over news of the latest feminist success in weaponizing the Family Court against men. Here’s the announcement from TheTinMen:
As TheTinMen explains, the government looks like scrapping “the presumption of parental involvement”, which means custody decisions will no long start from the assumption that involvement with both parents is best for the child. The feminists have successfully lobbied parliamentarians, arguing this “pro-contact culture” places the rights of abusive fathers over the safety and well-being of children.
And now the Starmer government has announced it will move an amendment to the legislation, dropping the presumption of parental involvement in order to “protect children from abusive parents.” Sound familiar? That’s exactly what happened in Australia two years ago when the Albanese government stripped our family law legislation of all the provisions protecting children’s right to contact with both parents. Here too it was claimed this was all about keeping children safe.
How’s that for an achievement? Our proud Australian feminists have led the way and now the UK sisterhood is playing catch-up, browbeating their parliamentarians into making the same move.
“It’s not about safety. It’s about power. It’s about silencing fathers, erasing them from their children’s lives,” says Nadine Taylor who works as a McKenzie Friend in the UK Family Court, supporting parents, mainly fathers. Taylor, who spoke at our conference on Restoring the Presumption of Innocence in 2024, says the Family Court already has every tool it needs to protect children in genuine cases of abuse: “Judges can block contact, issue safeguarding orders and take swift action when real danger exists. But those cases, involving genuine, proven abuse, are the rare exception,” she says, explaining that false violence allegations are rampant in the court, which women use to get legal aid and deny fathers’ contact with children.
These claims are rarely investigated and even if they are eventually found to be baseless nothing happens. “No accountability. No apology. Judges shrug their shoulders, fathers are left broken, emotionally and financially crippled and children cut off from decent loving fathers,” laments Taylor.
As in Australia, false allegations have long been the silver bullet which ensure women have all the power in family court battles. And now the UK parliament is planning to streamline the system even further to remove the one tiny obstacle in guaranteeing that power.
As Rick Bradfield explains in his just published EmpathyGap.uk blog on the subject, the presumption of parental involvement was a reputable presumption which includes the proviso “unless the contrary is shown.” This places the burden of proof on the party who opposes contact, usually the mother.
Not that this burden proved more than a minor inconvenience in this heavily biased family law system. But now even that reasonable burden looks like being swept away, if the legislation passes through parliament. “The ultimate aim is to empower mothers to be able to remove fathers from the lives of their children with ease and without hinderance,” Bradford writes.
That’s assuming the amendment gets through. Hopefully the UK men’s groups will do a better job than we did here alerting parliamentarians that this latest move is no more than a blatant attack on fathers.
They should heed Nadine Taylor’s fighting words: “This isn’t reform. Its revenge dressed as virtue. Unless fathers and those who support them, unite and push back now, the next generation will grow up believing dads don’t matter.”
Briefly, some good news, from parentalalienation.eu, reporting the Danish Supreme Court has ruled that a child’s right to family life cannot be obstructed by one parent’s refusal to comply with orders. In a recent case, a father who had never seen his child was granted supervised contact. Despite daily fines, the mother continued to withhold the child. The Supreme Court ordered that authorities must bring the child to 10 supervised contacts with the father and confirmed that fines will continue until compliance.
Denmark has also introduced sweeping systemic reforms which include parental alienation to be classed as psychological violence and recognised in all family court cases. “Denmark is showing Europe and the wider world that parental alienation must be met with recognition, education, and timely intervention,” says this advocacy group.
My work brings me into contact with hundreds of Australian dads who are fighting back – sadly not united but mounting individual battles to expose the injustice men are facing by making complaints to our authorities.
I first heard last year from a NSW man - I’ll call him “David” – who sent me a tragic “hostage” type video of his daughter. At that time, despite having 50/50 court orders in place, his ex-partner had moved away, cut off all communication and was hiding the 13-year-old from her father. And doing a great job alienating the girl from her dad, judging from the tragic video sent by her mother showing her spewing hatred towards David. It was heart-breaking.
Desperate to find his daughter, David contacted all the authorities, but to no avail. “I’ve sought help from the Family Law Courts of Australia, police, Legal Aid NSW, and Family and Community Services (FACS), but have been blocked at every step. Legal Aid even forced me to place a caveat on my home just to access support.”
Just recently I heard from him again. He’s now discovered his daughter and her mother are in Queensland, living in a caravan. And the mother has registered the girl for home schooling. It turns out that this is the latest tactic, being used across Australia. The parent who abducts or unlawfully withholds a child places them into home schooling — effectively preventing the other parent from locating or maintaining contact. Neat trick, eh?
David has discovered that some state home schooling departments are enabling or protecting these situations, which directly contravenes federal law and the rights of both the child and the other parent. In theory, state legislation cannot override federal parenting orders so Queensland Home Schooling should not facilitate or accept a registration that is inconsistent with binding Family Court orders.
David is conducting an impressive one-man campaign to point out the illegality of what is happening, writing to home schooling authorities and education departments in Queensland and NSW, members of parliament, ICAC, the ombudsmen in each state, child protection, the Family Court, State and Federal Attorneys’ General.
There’s endless buck-passing going on, with the various authorities trying to pretend it is someone else’s business. We’ll see how it all turns out but we are keen to hear from anyone who has come across this problem and had any success in achieving a response from relevant authorities.
On another front…I have been hearing for years from men whose ex-partners have successfully used a false domestic violence allegation to immediately destroy their careers. These are men who are required to use firearms as part of their work - in the army, police-force, security services. One domestic violence complaint is enough to have these men stood down from work and their firearm licences suspended and ultimately cancelled if an apprehended violence order is issued.
It’s happening everywhere, particularly in the police force where angry ex-partners are all too aware that the firearm issue makes domestic violence allegations a particularly effective way of rendering the men unemployed and potentially unemployable.
There’s a Canberra man currently making the case for human rights violations and legislative reform in relation to the mandatory suspension of firearms licences following the application of an interim violence order. He’s a sporting shooter who has captained his team in national titles but this year has been unable to train or compete after an interim violence order was issued following a false allegation. He happens to be an expert on risk management, so he is well placed to assess the evidentiary basis for the current mandatory suspension of firearm licences in the context of domestic violence allegations. Here is a document he has put together on the topic.
He has been proactive in seeking accountability and reform. Drawing on data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, ACT Policing, and the Australian Institute of Criminology, he found no evidence to support the assumption that licensed firearm owners present an elevated risk in domestic violence cases. If you’d like to know more contact www.familylawreform.com.au.
One final thought on Family Court reform. Everyone is talking about Helen Andrew’s brave essay warning of the way our culture is being changed by feminization, with the increasing domination of women leading to the insanity of wokeness. She’s also argued in a recent YouTube video, Have Women Ruined the World? that when institutions tip over to becoming majority female, they become hostile to men. (See 27.01 of transcript)
One of the most telling parts of her article spelt out her fears that the rule of law will not survive the legal profession becoming majority female. She writes about the Title IX courts for sexual assault in American colleges which “lacked many of the safeguards our legal system holds sacred.” Andrews points out these legal protections were abolished “because the people who made these rules sympathized with the accusers, who were mostly women, and not with the accused, who were mostly men.”
If the legal profession becomes majority female, Andrews expects to see this ethos spread. “Judges will bend the rules for favoured groups and enforce them rigorously on disfavoured groups, as already occurs to a worrying extent.”
Too right. Not just the judges, but the massive bureaucracy associated with our courts, particularly the Family Court. And the parliament enacting the laws to support it. The dangers of the feminized world Andrews warns about are on display in Family Courts in many Western countries. And fathers and children are paying for it.
Australians for Science and Freedom, the organisation which sponsored our conference last year on Restoring the Presumption of Innocence are holding another conference in Sydney on Nov 21-22. Speakers include many people who have featured in my videos - like Fiona Girkin, Augusto Zimmermann, James Nuzzo, Damian Coory and Chris Kenny – discussing important social issues. This conference will provide plenty of opportunity for meeting these people. Check out the conference program here.
On another note similar.
My ex wife made an anonymous statement to CASA to get my pilots licence cancelled.
I was told by CASA I could FOI the 'aparrently' anonymous complaint but a female CASA lawyer wouldn't allow it's release because it could identify her.
More women, protecting women.
"David" unfortunately will already be labelled as aggressive and controlling by most departments simply for going to great lengths to get justice and not backing down.