October 19 was a dark day in Australia’s social history after our Parliament voted for more fatherless children… Labor’s draconian family law bill became law, removing almost every word from previous legislation which promoted children’s rights to care from both parents after divorce. This brave new law sets aside many decades of international evidence showing it is harmful for children to grow up without dads.

For almost two decades Australia has been a world leader in encouraging separated parents to share decisions about raising their kids. That achievement dates back to John Howard’s path-breaking 2006 reforms promoting ‘equal shared parental responsibility’ which resulted in a major increase in care from dads, more shared care, better relations between parents, and less litigation.

The result was improved children’s well-being, according to UNSW research, and the reforms were a big hit with the public, ‘overwhelmingly supported by parents, legal professionals, and family relationship service professionals’, according to research by the Australian Institute of Family Studies.

That mighty legal reform, which had bipartisan support, has now been swept aside. According to the eminent former family law professor Patrick Parkinson, the new divorce laws strip ‘almost all references which encourage the meaningful involvement of both parents in relation to the child after separation’. That means dads will be cut out of their children’s lives, he warned.

Labor hustled the bill through Parliament last week as Australia was distracted by the referendum results, after cutting short the usual extensive scrutiny required for such a massive change.

Watch fiery Michaela Cash in the Senate exposing Labor’s unseemly haste to get these changes into law and their refusal to answer questions about why they chose this treacherous betrayal of fathers.

The process was fuelled by comments from Attorney General Mark Dreyfus, who I believe wrongly claimed the changes had the support of numerous previous inquiries.

In one example, the removal of the key ‘equal shared parental responsibility’ clause was done by claiming this deluded dads into thinking that they might just be entitled to equal time with their own kids. It’s true that various inquiries, including the Australian Law Reform Commission, had pointed out there was sometimes confusion, but they simply suggested changing the language, not tossing out the whole thing.

No committee suggested removing all mention of children’s right to know and be cared for by both parents, and their right to spend regular time with both parents and other significant people like grandparents, nor the provision that parenting plans should start by considering the option of equal or substantial time with both parents.

So how did they get away with it? For decades, feminist ideologues have been manipulating the family law system by claiming that all women and their children are at risk of attack by violent ex-partners. They’ve succeeded brilliantly in hushing up the key statistic that puts a lie to the claim that so many dads pose a risk to their children – namely that only 1.2 per cent of women are physically assaulted by their male partner or ex-parent each year in Australia, according to the most recent 2016 Personal Safety survey. Physical violence is blessedly rare.

Even though violence orders are commonplace for many of the tiny numbers (less than 5 per cent) of couples who actually appear before the Family Court, these families are not the norm. What matters most is the impact of family law legislation on decisions made about parenting by ordinary separating couples who don’t battle it out in court.

Now these couples are to be told the imperative is keeping children safe and that means putting care of children firmly back into female hands. Look at this press release from the Women’s Legal Services Australia, congratulating Attorney General Dreyfus on the bill, which was circulated within minutes of the vote going through.

‘We strongly support reform of the Family Law Act to make the law clearer and fairer, including the removal of the presumption of equal shared parental responsibility to improve safety.

‘When violence and abuse are factors, courts will be able to deal with them more easily and reduce the number of children and mothers forced into dangerous situations.

‘Removing this dangerous provision will give the courts the freedom to focus on safety and the genuine best interests of children and families.’

It’s another superb victory for the feminists, one more achievement for their mighty domestic violence juggernaut, which already works a treat tilting the family law system to favour women. Currently, all it takes is one vague claim that violence could occur, requiring zero supportive evidence, to set in train a sequence of events starting with dad being removed from the home, denied contact with children and, if he’s lucky, paying big money to see his children in our draconian supervised contact services.

No wonder Australia has become one of the world leaders when it comes to men suffering false allegations. Look at this fascinating new YouGov survey, involving 9,432 people across 8 countries. Australia came out as the worst country, after India, when people were asked if they had been falsely accused of abuse.

The YouGov survey showed false accusations in Australia are more likely to be made as part of a child custody dispute than anywhere else in the world – they are 41 per cent of such allegations in this country. Overall, the survey showed 80 per cent of victims of false allegations in this country are male and almost a third (30 per cent) of people surveyed know a victim of false allegations made in the last year.

It was Julia Gillard’s feminist government that set the scene for this state of affairs when they removed the 2006 penalties for perjury and placed violence accusations front and centre of decision-making about sharing of care of children. Her government also greatly expanded the definition of domestic ‘violence’ to include emotional and psychological abuse, threatening behaviour, etc. – adding enormously to the list of families precluded from court-approved shared care.

Magistrates’ courts have been overwhelmed with false violence accusations, which some magistrates have acknowledged are being used to gain strategic advantage in child custody matters. A survey of 38 magistrates in Queensland found 74 per cent agreed restraining orders are often used for tactical purposes. Similarly, 90 per cent of 68 NSW magistrates agreed restraining orders are often sought as tactical devices in family law disputes, ‘serving to deprive former partners of contact with their children’.

In a national survey of over 2,500 respondents, more than half agreed that ‘women going through custody battles often make up or exaggerate claims of domestic violence in order to improve their case’.

People know this is happening – including police, who are starting to speak out about the enormous amount of their time consumed by false allegations. Two years ago, the Queensland Police Union made a submission to a family law inquiry pointing out that false allegations of domestic violence are sometimes used to gain advantage in family law disputes, with members of the police force sometimes finding themselves on the receiving end.

In some areas of Queensland, domestic violence takes up to 80 per cent of police time. Note that in NSW, domestic violence assaults make up only 4.8 per cent of major crimes but take up 50-70 per cent of police time.

That’s the current reality. But now, things are going to get far worse. Under the new Act, shared care is only to be considered ‘when it is safe to do so’, which means only a very brave judge would risk such an order if a mother claims to feel unsafe. Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has also announced a new bill next year promising a greater share of the marital assets to victims of violence.

But getting the current bill through Parliament proved a breeze for the government. These momentous changes sailed through the lower house. Not a single word was spoken by MPs about false allegations. It was up to Pauline Hanson in the Senate to acknowledge the elephant in the room. She also introduced an amendment to reinstate the presumption of equal shared parental responsibility, which naturally failed.

The Opposition introduced some pretty feeble amendments, trying unsuccessfully to reintroduce some of the parenting sections of the bill. There were fine speeches warning about the impact of the bill on fathers and children by a number of key Senators, including Alex Antic, Matt Canavan, Linda Reynolds, Gerard Rennick, and Paul Scarr. And Michaela Cash did a great job dissecting key faults in the bill – do watch here to see how Labor utterly fails to justify what they are doing.

Yet, in the end, they sold us out. When it came to a vote, the bill went through, with the Greens, Pocock, and Jacqui Lambie’s group, all happily supporting Labor. Almost all the Opposition Senators abstained and then Michaela Cash turned around and voted for it.

Only three people voted against the legislation: Hanson and her One Nation colleague, Malcolm Roberts, along with United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet.

The Opposition may well claim they’ll stand up and be counted when they get back in power – they just need to avoid attracting feminist wrath until then. But should we trust them after the endless kowtowing to the women’s lobby?

What’s really frightening is how effectively the feminists shut down any proper public discussion of this critical bill, which I would argue is one of the most critical social changes imposed on us for many decades.

People need to know what’s happened here. These changes to the law will bring poorer outcomes for children, a fresh flood of new accusations against fathers, more conflict between divorced parents, a huge surge in litigation as men pay out to try to see their children, and more suicides for men as they realise that their chances of a fair hearing in an already biased court system will now be further reduced. All bad news, unless you are a feminist.

Get 10 issues for just $10

Subscribe to The Spectator Australia today for the next 10 magazine issues, plus full online access, for just $10.

SUBSCRIBE 10 issues for $10 REGISTER 3 articles a month

Already a subscriber? Log in