Yet this rightfully embarrassed lawyer presumes the state may hold absolute parens patriae authority. They never had that power to begin with. If you want to fix the system the law must recognize unwed mothers and married fathers as having absolute authority to the control of their children. Any cockamamie and hairbrained theory the state presumes as having an arbitrary and absolute authority over a child when the child has a natural law guardian is damned.
There should be a national apology and recognition of the many (way too many) alienated fathers who after trying to clear their name and fight against a totally rigged system took their own lives. It’s nothing short of a national disgrace and hopefully one day we will look back in shame at the way these fathers and their children were sold out.
A national compensation payout would be more useful ,to the thousands of men who lost a life’s savings paying lawyers , etc. It would run into billions of dollars , claims could be made by the families of the men who suicided because of the unfair treatment in the Family Court as well.
I thought it was April Fools day. In Queensland the one term government Liberals have just announced laws which will enable Police to issue a Domestic Violence order for 12 months. Now they have become judges all the time they will ruin a man’s career & the female will use it in the Family Court. Liberals are as bad as Labour, this is why I’m not voting for either. No democracy in this country.
That doesn’t seem right police should not be allowed to make a DV order that lasts for 12 months , they can make an order for 2 days or similar if they have good reason. Any longer should be a court hearing . Now police can act as judge and jury , very wrong and why are not the lawyers protesting?
If any father needed a reason to NEVER vote Labor, check the response from my local member. Still harping on about the hyper inflated dv nonsense. No idea of the impact on children the courts cause. No acknowledgement of PA, including nothing to benefit fathers:
Dear Mr Miller
Thank you for contacting me with regard to the very serious issue of family law.
The Albanese Labor Government has passed significant reforms to make the family law system simpler, safer and fairer for all Australian families.
The most recent reforms, passed in November 2024, are aimed at making division of property and finances safer, simpler and fairer for separating families, especially where family violence is present.
For the first time, this Government is writing into law that the care and housing needs of children may be considered in property settlements and spousal maintenance orders. We are also giving power to the court to consider a range of factors, including family violence, when determining the ownership of pets.
These reforms also:
specify the approach that a court will take when deciding the division of property and finances, making the law clearer for all parties;ensure the economic impact of family violence is considered where relevant as part of dividing property and finances;ensure that the care and housing needs of children are considered in financial and property decisions;ensure financial information is disclosed at the earliest opportunity to promote the early resolution of disputes;expand the court’s ability to use less adversarial approaches in all types of proceedings, not just for children’s matters, supporting parties to safely raise family violence risks and ensuring the safe conduct of proceedings; and establish a regulatory framework for Children’s Contact Services to ensure the provision of safe and child-focussed services for children whose families are unable to safely manage contact arrangements on their own.
These significant changes demonstrate the Government’s commitment to reforming family law to make sure that victims of violence and their children are not left financially worse off.
The Albanese Government is continuing to build on our landmark family law reforms which came into effect on 6 May 2024. These long overdue changes replaced the often-confusing law around parenting arrangements with a simpler child-focused framework. This new framework guides the parents who can agree on their own post-separation parenting arrangements, and, where an agreement has not been reached, helps streamline the process for courts to make determinations.
The changes put the needs of children front and centre in the law. We’ve removed the former long list of considerations used to decide the best parenting arrangements and replaced it with six simple ‘best interests’ factors that the court will now use to decide what’s best for each child.
We’ve also removed the presumption of ‘equal shared parental responsibility’ because these provisions were widely misunderstood, causing prolonged litigation and conflict. This helps ensure that the best interests of children are the central focus of every parenting decision, both inside and outside the court.
In the near decade the former government was in office there were more than two dozen reviews into the family law system, with hundreds of recommendations that were simply ignored. The Albanese Government has acted to implement many of those recommendations to make the Family Law Act simpler and safer for separating families and their children.
This is textbook Marxist propaganda, “ protect the children at all cost” nothing else matters , not even long established principles of justice , and certainly not the civil or legal rights of fathers and husbands .
We need to call their bluff and say “ f#ck the children “ a man is more valuable to a society , this would no doubt cause outrage but it’s the only way , fight fire with fire .
A lesson can be taken from more primative societies who don’t mollycoddle children , a young or middle aged adult is regarded as far more valuable by virtue of the amount of time and resources used to raise , feed and train the individual. A child can be replaced cheaper and easier ,it may sound harsh but is true.
Welcome to the world of pre-scripted responses from a Politician and this one is certainly looking like a pre-prepared 'ready to ward off all enquiries'.
I've had such responses about other stuff that is very disheartening - the last one quoted 'policies' ; but getting back to the response: third paragraph in and it is all about money and not children!!
That says it all, I think!!
And making finances safer??!! When today in the news is about 600 superannuation funds in australia being cyber attacked.. mmm nothing is safe actually..
If I were a suspicious person, I would say the response you received was already constructed for every sitting Labor MP, they probably were anticipating a huge amount of emails after Bettina story.
The discussion around police and other institutions lacking moral judgement is so true. We have police who will charge men with DV because the legislation gives them an easy way out from doing proper policing, example being coercive control. How can police make sound judgement when the accuser alleges coercive control. It’s difficult to prove yet here we have Police just handing out DV orders like lollies. It’s disgraceful. Then of votes the DV orders like gives them an easy accuser ammunition in the Family Court.
I'm onto it Bettina, the job really starts now. We can no longer accept any further corruption of the Family Law Act and it needs fixing fast, before our communities around the nation implode with youth crime stemming from absent fathers, male suicide, maladjusted and perhaps vulnerable daughters, overburdened courts, family assets wasted on legal issues - in general, a sick society. Enough is enough! Hoping everyone here puts some time into this.
Right , it’s clear now that the feminist’s aim has been to destroy the traditional family structure , but what is disappointing is that the legal profession has helped this happen with enthusiasm . Lawyers have made fortunes from marriage breakdowns and the DV “industry” , shame on them , they threw moral principles out the window in pursuit of money.
It's a shame his conservative Christian views on other matters (which I don't support and consider irrelevant) will be used to denigrate him and detract from these critical, informed insights on court practices, which simply make work for lawyers and judges, and which, IMO, should be the focus for radical reform:
I am quite sure that the majority of voters simply vote for the party that they have voted for for years and pay no attention to the party's policies. This is a good reason why the conservative parties have stayed in power for so long. With so many younger voters taking a good look at the party's policies hopefully this will change .People should start paying attention to current rights given to so many who use those rights for nefarious action and do not care about who gets hurt in the process.
Wanting to commend your efforts, Ms. Arndt, on topics we could suspect many people would want to ignore or keep quiet and also for your interviews with brave persons who are speaking out. As for the comment, yes, agree, it seems this way although I don't know a lot about the "feminist ideology" but trying to get more informed through your newsletters: this comment was posted for three main (amongst other) reasons: 1. to, as you point out, note that women are also subject of this type of injustice; this means that the situation is not only now just a plague perpetrated against men but also anyone else at risk of abuse by those who abuse authority and the judicial systems; 2. further, from 1., if so, this means that the feminist ideology is now even more out of control and doing more damage to society, hypothetically; 3. the comments are more about the "system" (feminist ideology) outside of the family court which also would effect (and does) the "system" in the family court and also raises the question as to whether or not this type of abuse was occurring deliberately and often before the feminist ideology took over as has been suggested and it rode on the back of a system already set up which lent itself to possible injustice or whether or not it is the other way around. Either way, it's not a "system" to be proud of and does not give any noteworthy aspects to be proud of (except, perhaps, for a person who aligns with that type of feminism) in a first world country/state. This broader system, at least hypothetically (and including the feminist ideology) is now one which is punishing large sections of the community even if they are not themselves involved first hand.
I have followed your instructions on getting the message across to our politicians, with a little bit of tinkering, I managed to contact all of my local senators with a slightly modified message Bettina. A very worthwhile and plaudable initiative, I hope that many will follow suit.
The former Judge is a practising Barrister, I commend him for his bravery in highlighting the workings of the Family Court, even as a Barrister he still will come across Judges who will disagree with his comments & probably act accordingly.
Yes, I am trying to get this story into mainstream media, with no success so far. It should be news but there are so many feminist editors and producers in radio/television etc that won't give this a run. If anyone has good contacts please help to spread the word.
Yet this rightfully embarrassed lawyer presumes the state may hold absolute parens patriae authority. They never had that power to begin with. If you want to fix the system the law must recognize unwed mothers and married fathers as having absolute authority to the control of their children. Any cockamamie and hairbrained theory the state presumes as having an arbitrary and absolute authority over a child when the child has a natural law guardian is damned.
I have the same response from my local in WA.
See lawyers for what they are with my podcast here or change my mind..
https://open.substack.com/pub/soberchristiangentlemanpodcast/p/lawyers-what-are-they-in-the-court?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=31s3eo
.
There should be a national apology and recognition of the many (way too many) alienated fathers who after trying to clear their name and fight against a totally rigged system took their own lives. It’s nothing short of a national disgrace and hopefully one day we will look back in shame at the way these fathers and their children were sold out.
A national compensation payout would be more useful ,to the thousands of men who lost a life’s savings paying lawyers , etc. It would run into billions of dollars , claims could be made by the families of the men who suicided because of the unfair treatment in the Family Court as well.
I thought it was April Fools day. In Queensland the one term government Liberals have just announced laws which will enable Police to issue a Domestic Violence order for 12 months. Now they have become judges all the time they will ruin a man’s career & the female will use it in the Family Court. Liberals are as bad as Labour, this is why I’m not voting for either. No democracy in this country.
That doesn’t seem right police should not be allowed to make a DV order that lasts for 12 months , they can make an order for 2 days or similar if they have good reason. Any longer should be a court hearing . Now police can act as judge and jury , very wrong and why are not the lawyers protesting?
If any father needed a reason to NEVER vote Labor, check the response from my local member. Still harping on about the hyper inflated dv nonsense. No idea of the impact on children the courts cause. No acknowledgement of PA, including nothing to benefit fathers:
Dear Mr Miller
Thank you for contacting me with regard to the very serious issue of family law.
The Albanese Labor Government has passed significant reforms to make the family law system simpler, safer and fairer for all Australian families.
The most recent reforms, passed in November 2024, are aimed at making division of property and finances safer, simpler and fairer for separating families, especially where family violence is present.
For the first time, this Government is writing into law that the care and housing needs of children may be considered in property settlements and spousal maintenance orders. We are also giving power to the court to consider a range of factors, including family violence, when determining the ownership of pets.
These reforms also:
specify the approach that a court will take when deciding the division of property and finances, making the law clearer for all parties;ensure the economic impact of family violence is considered where relevant as part of dividing property and finances;ensure that the care and housing needs of children are considered in financial and property decisions;ensure financial information is disclosed at the earliest opportunity to promote the early resolution of disputes;expand the court’s ability to use less adversarial approaches in all types of proceedings, not just for children’s matters, supporting parties to safely raise family violence risks and ensuring the safe conduct of proceedings; and establish a regulatory framework for Children’s Contact Services to ensure the provision of safe and child-focussed services for children whose families are unable to safely manage contact arrangements on their own.
These significant changes demonstrate the Government’s commitment to reforming family law to make sure that victims of violence and their children are not left financially worse off.
The Albanese Government is continuing to build on our landmark family law reforms which came into effect on 6 May 2024. These long overdue changes replaced the often-confusing law around parenting arrangements with a simpler child-focused framework. This new framework guides the parents who can agree on their own post-separation parenting arrangements, and, where an agreement has not been reached, helps streamline the process for courts to make determinations.
The changes put the needs of children front and centre in the law. We’ve removed the former long list of considerations used to decide the best parenting arrangements and replaced it with six simple ‘best interests’ factors that the court will now use to decide what’s best for each child.
We’ve also removed the presumption of ‘equal shared parental responsibility’ because these provisions were widely misunderstood, causing prolonged litigation and conflict. This helps ensure that the best interests of children are the central focus of every parenting decision, both inside and outside the court.
In the near decade the former government was in office there were more than two dozen reviews into the family law system, with hundreds of recommendations that were simply ignored. The Albanese Government has acted to implement many of those recommendations to make the Family Law Act simpler and safer for separating families and their children.
I hope this information is of assistance.
Kind regards
Kristy
The Hon Kristy McBain
This is textbook Marxist propaganda, “ protect the children at all cost” nothing else matters , not even long established principles of justice , and certainly not the civil or legal rights of fathers and husbands .
We need to call their bluff and say “ f#ck the children “ a man is more valuable to a society , this would no doubt cause outrage but it’s the only way , fight fire with fire .
A lesson can be taken from more primative societies who don’t mollycoddle children , a young or middle aged adult is regarded as far more valuable by virtue of the amount of time and resources used to raise , feed and train the individual. A child can be replaced cheaper and easier ,it may sound harsh but is true.
Welcome to the world of pre-scripted responses from a Politician and this one is certainly looking like a pre-prepared 'ready to ward off all enquiries'.
I've had such responses about other stuff that is very disheartening - the last one quoted 'policies' ; but getting back to the response: third paragraph in and it is all about money and not children!!
That says it all, I think!!
And making finances safer??!! When today in the news is about 600 superannuation funds in australia being cyber attacked.. mmm nothing is safe actually..
Bernard
If I were a suspicious person, I would say the response you received was already constructed for every sitting Labor MP, they probably were anticipating a huge amount of emails after Bettina story.
No need to be suspicious. I can assure you that is business as usual and happens at multiple levels.
My late Mum was "author" of dozens of "letters to the editor" on behalf of the ALP and published in local media. She wrote none of them.
Top to bottom.
It certainly came across to me as a well used and pre-scripted response. Will be interesting to see if anyone else receives this same message.
The discussion around police and other institutions lacking moral judgement is so true. We have police who will charge men with DV because the legislation gives them an easy way out from doing proper policing, example being coercive control. How can police make sound judgement when the accuser alleges coercive control. It’s difficult to prove yet here we have Police just handing out DV orders like lollies. It’s disgraceful. Then of votes the DV orders like gives them an easy accuser ammunition in the Family Court.
Correction. Then the accuser uses DV orders as ammunition in Family Court.
I'm onto it Bettina, the job really starts now. We can no longer accept any further corruption of the Family Law Act and it needs fixing fast, before our communities around the nation implode with youth crime stemming from absent fathers, male suicide, maladjusted and perhaps vulnerable daughters, overburdened courts, family assets wasted on legal issues - in general, a sick society. Enough is enough! Hoping everyone here puts some time into this.
Right , it’s clear now that the feminist’s aim has been to destroy the traditional family structure , but what is disappointing is that the legal profession has helped this happen with enthusiasm . Lawyers have made fortunes from marriage breakdowns and the DV “industry” , shame on them , they threw moral principles out the window in pursuit of money.
His comments about the "wickedly inefficient” court bureaucracy are insightful, from here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5EZuf-6nzA&t=1389s
It's a shame his conservative Christian views on other matters (which I don't support and consider irrelevant) will be used to denigrate him and detract from these critical, informed insights on court practices, which simply make work for lawyers and judges, and which, IMO, should be the focus for radical reform:
http://davidthorp.net/justice
I am quite sure that the majority of voters simply vote for the party that they have voted for for years and pay no attention to the party's policies. This is a good reason why the conservative parties have stayed in power for so long. With so many younger voters taking a good look at the party's policies hopefully this will change .People should start paying attention to current rights given to so many who use those rights for nefarious action and do not care about who gets hurt in the process.
Wanting to commend your efforts, Ms. Arndt, on topics we could suspect many people would want to ignore or keep quiet and also for your interviews with brave persons who are speaking out. As for the comment, yes, agree, it seems this way although I don't know a lot about the "feminist ideology" but trying to get more informed through your newsletters: this comment was posted for three main (amongst other) reasons: 1. to, as you point out, note that women are also subject of this type of injustice; this means that the situation is not only now just a plague perpetrated against men but also anyone else at risk of abuse by those who abuse authority and the judicial systems; 2. further, from 1., if so, this means that the feminist ideology is now even more out of control and doing more damage to society, hypothetically; 3. the comments are more about the "system" (feminist ideology) outside of the family court which also would effect (and does) the "system" in the family court and also raises the question as to whether or not this type of abuse was occurring deliberately and often before the feminist ideology took over as has been suggested and it rode on the back of a system already set up which lent itself to possible injustice or whether or not it is the other way around. Either way, it's not a "system" to be proud of and does not give any noteworthy aspects to be proud of (except, perhaps, for a person who aligns with that type of feminism) in a first world country/state. This broader system, at least hypothetically (and including the feminist ideology) is now one which is punishing large sections of the community even if they are not themselves involved first hand.
I have followed your instructions on getting the message across to our politicians, with a little bit of tinkering, I managed to contact all of my local senators with a slightly modified message Bettina. A very worthwhile and plaudable initiative, I hope that many will follow suit.
We need more judges like this , willing to go public to expose a corrupt and dysfunctional justice system .
Unfortunately, they only seem to speak out after they are retired or left the system.
The former Judge is a practising Barrister, I commend him for his bravery in highlighting the workings of the Family Court, even as a Barrister he still will come across Judges who will disagree with his comments & probably act accordingly.
Well done Bettina
Annoyingly YouTube is shadowbanning my video with the judge. Please help me promote this important interview.
Well done Bettina, on this ground breaking article.
All of mainstream media, including the Murdoch media, appear to be amazingly quiet on the injustices inflicted on children by the Family Court.
Yes, I am trying to get this story into mainstream media, with no success so far. It should be news but there are so many feminist editors and producers in radio/television etc that won't give this a run. If anyone has good contacts please help to spread the word.