The amendments to the Family Law Act emphasize ‘equal shared parental responsibility’. Much should be made of the term ‘responsibility’ and heavy weight placed against the parent who harms the child through neglect, abuse of any kind, be it violence, financial and emotional deprivation, or harm or omission of any kind, including interfering with the rights of the ex partner to live without fear and interference.

Things like promoting sibling rivalry, encouraging violence or criminal activity, denigrating the other parent, threatening and silencing the child are all abusive strategies and must be accountable.   Courts need to have regard to the overall well-being of the child. Pity the child at school whose parent is violent and abusive and ask why the child is not learning or complying with standards. But do not overlook the almost perfect child, the one too scared to make a mistake, and the one who runs, smiling to sit on the supposedly violent parent’s lap. 

Children learn very easily to expect punishment for non compliance. That’s why they are often seen by psychologists to be pro a supposedly cruel parent, and often naughtier with the protective parent, because they can safely do so. Sadly, too many experts are looking for the wrong signs and miss the obvious signs and symptoms of abuse, and then denigrate the safe parent’s parenting skills because the child behaves ‘better’ with the other. 

The amendments to the Family Law Act emphasize the ‘right’ of the child to know both parents, and the ‘benefit’ to the child of a meaningful relationship with both parents. Where is the proviso that says ‘so long as it is safe for the child’? 

There is no ‘right’ for a child to decide they do not want to know one or both of their parents. It may be impossible for a child to ‘have a meaningful relationship’ with a violent, drunk, mentally ill, drug addict, criminal, terrorist, abusive or otherwise unsafe parent.  Yet the way to ‘prove’ the unsafe nature of such a relationship reverts to the protective person, a person who will be seen to be manipulative and oppositional to the other parent, often in increased danger, no matter what the dangerous parent may have actually done and may be continuing to do. Instead, the system threatens to punish (usually) the woman who can’t prove claimed violence.  
Proof – that mysterious issue ‘evidence’ is a topic constantly being reviewed at law.  May I point out the obvious?  A slap is violence and it may leave a mark of proof, but a loaded gun held in your face, or inside your private part, does not.   The slap may well be done in public, but I’ll bet the later is not. Proof; that’s not something a victim has any control over, but an accused has plenty!

The Federal Judiciary remains apparently blindly confident that the criminal jurisdictions serve us well.  For example, Child Sex Assault cases – the hardest types of cases for the child witness, have an atrocious rate of successful prosecutions. Either judges prefer the view that fathers (and some mothers) do not sexually abuse their own, or they still believe that incest reflects ‘dysfunctional families’ rather than criminal assault, or they just can’t see what’s wrong with it (e.g. man-boy love associations). 

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