one more fuitile letter to a Senator

Dear Mr Stephens,

This is my desperate plea for all of you to consider the joy good health and success in life of children who enjoy the ongoing love guidance and care of both the parents after separation of their parents, and so avoid the conflict, distress and emotional devastation caused when one parent is empowered to exclude the other parent after separation or divorce.

International research studies overwhelmingly show that children who have suffered the substantial or complete removal on one of their parents suffer several times the incidence of low self esteem, depression, drug abuse, poor academic achievement, teenage pregnancies (girls) increased trouble with police (boys) mental illness, metal illness and suicide.

Children continually say they want to live with both their parents. They don't want one of them taken away. It is simply a lie to suggest otherwise. It is preposterous to suggest that children are harmed or destabilised by spending half their time with each of their parents. Moving from household to household adds excitement, interest, contrast and the love and guidance of the other parent. It is a joy for children, and a right. To say otherwise is a lie promoted by those that have a financial interest in the devastation caused to children when one of their parents is banished from their lives.

Unfortunately, for our children, the government relies on vested interests, including the Family Court, the Law Council of Australia, Relationships Australia, the Family Court's Institute of Family Studies among others, for its information and advice on issues relating to family law. The government allows these groups to misrepresent research on children's issues which, contrary to their representations has overwhelmingly supported the inclusion of both parents in children's lives.

All of these groups and organisations have made formal submissions to government opposing reforms that would allow children to enjoy the love care and guidance of both of their parents in their lives.

These groups would mostly be out of business if the government reformed legislation to allow children equal access and contact with both their parents.

The parent exclusion business is a multi billion dollar business, and therefore exerts immense pressure on government to maintain the status quo. The money is made because parents typically spend everything they have and more, to protect their children from the damage that mutually exclusive custody outcomes cause.

Ask anybody in the street, any grandparent, any sister, brother, any mother who hasn't been got at by Family Court practitioners, any media poll. They'll all tell you the same thing. The vast majority of people want children to be spared the trauma and damage caused by having one of their parents vilified and removed by the Family Court and its practitioners. Don't rely on vested interest for your information because they will support their livelihoods.

The best outcome for children under the current system is a weekend a fortnight and half holidays. Typically this gets reduced to a couple of hours in a "Contact Centre" or none at all during litigation. This is nothing short of a horror story for children.

I call on you to support an independent review of research, all of which has been submitted in the many enquires into Family Courts since its inception in 1975.

"Equal parenting responsibility" does nothing to ease the conflict caused by the exclusion of one of the parents. Nothing in the government's proposed legislation makes it harder for a lawyers to deny a child contact with both their parent.

The proposition that a Family Court should consider equal time with both parents is testimony to the Court's opposition to allowing children both their parents. What do you think it was supposed to be doing in the first place? The suggestion that it only has to do this when its in a child's best interests is blantantly dishonest because it fails to recognise that it is almost always in a child's best interest to have both parents in their lives equally.

The Family Relationship Centres proposed by the government do not address the damage done to children by the mutually exclusive policy of the Family Court and its practitioners. This initiative is a deliberate effort to avoid reforming the Family Court and the Family Law Act. The proposal is a ruse, a humbug. Whilst mediation between separating and divorcing parents is always helpful, the problems can not be solved until the Family Court and its practitioners are prevented from excluding one of a child's parents through a process of vilification of that parent.

Three hours at a Family Relationships Centre can not deliver a reduction of conflict through improved sharing of parenting for a fundamental reason - because Family Relationships Centres will be run my organizations who have publicly opposed improved contact with the otherwise excluded parent.

The proposed Family Relationship Centres have been promoted as a way of allowing separating couples to ovoid the Family Court. As a solution, ending Family Court support of summary and ongoing exclusion of one of the parent has been thrown out in preference to an experiment in counselling. Leaving the court to continue its destructive ways. Nothing has been done to change the law applying to summary and ongoing exclusion of one of a child's parents.

I suggest to you that the fix is VERY simple. As in many things the solution is to remove the problem. The problem is the forced exclusion of one of a child's parents.

Accordingly the fix is brought about by;

1. Insisting that laws are passed that protect children from having one of their parents summarily, and unilaterally excluded by the other, a situation that the court currently endorses,

2. Insisting on laws that make the summary exclusion of one of the child's parents illegal,

3. Insisting on laws that allow any excluded parent to apply for immediate relief by way of enforceable court order. A parent must be able to make urgent application to the Family Court for immediate relief from their exclusion if the other parent has been obstructed them from having equal contact with their children. In other words a reversal of the presumption that an excluded parent must mount a lengthy and often unaffordable legal campaign (more often than not against Legal Aid funded lawyers) to seek that which the court currently denies in almost all contested cases - equal involvement with a parent's children, by so doing preventing the excluding parent from arguing that the wrongfully established status quo of one parent being excluded should prevail - ie: equal time parenting for all parents who want to (and can) stay involved in and relevant to their children's lives must be protected by law.

4. Insisting that Section 121 of the Family Law Act is rewritten to make the Court and its practitioners fully accountable to the public. Section 121 should only afford protection from publicity for the child, unless such publicity is needed to protect the child from sharp practice of court practitioners or bullying from the court when an excluded parent objects to their child being abused by process.

The biggest benefit of this "fix" is that it prevents most custody battles from even starting - when there is no summary exclusion of one parent, in most cases there is no issue to be fought over.

The vast majority of custody litigation is caused by the courts endorsement of the exclusion of one parent, because any parent will do everything they possibly can to protect their children.

Current family law legislation must be reformed so that the Court's role is;

i) providing immediate relief for any parent that has been summarily excluded from their child's life,

ii) resolution of financial matters between parents that reflect both parenst role in their children's lives, and

iii) in rare situations protecting children where one parent can be shown to be a danger to their own children.

The bond between a child and both its parents should not be breached unless and only unless a court has found on evidence that a child's contact time with either or both their parents was seriously dangerous for the child (ie: in extreme circumstances) and not in circumstances where one or both parents had demonstrated a functional capacity before the separation or divorce.

The government's proposals should be rejected because they do not address the problems they purport to.

For the sake of our children I implore you to protect them from the damage caused by a money driven adversarial system that literally destroys lives.

Regards,
Simon