Fathers' rights movement in Australia

Fathers' rights groups began in Australia in the 1970s with the founding of organisations such as the Lone Fathers Association. Other groups include Fathers4Equality, Dads Against Discrimination, Fathers Without Rights, The Men's Confraternity, the Shared Parenting Council., the Men's Rights Agency and One in Three. As with other fathers' rights activists, Australian organisations focus on issues of erosion of the family unit, custody, access, child support, domestic violence (including false allegations, and violence against men), child abuse, maintenance, the reintroduction of fault into divorce proceedings, biased and adversarial court systems and secrecy issues.

Contents

• Rebuttable presumption of equal shared parenting time
• Political Parties
• The Family Law Reform Party
• Abolish Child SupportFamily Court Party
• Non Custodial Parents Party Equal Parenting
• References

The movement to promote fathers' rights in the context of family law is small, marginalised and falsely represented as a threat to gender equality in Australia. Peer reviewed publications that state the influence of men's rights groups, vastly exaggerate their influence, by making the fundamental error of failing to compare the influence of men's rights groups with the influence of women's rights groups.

In addition the primary vote for single interest men's issues political party has dropped tenfold in recent years, and only one such party exists today. In the 2004 Federal election, prior to the 2006 reforms, the Non-Custodial (Equal Parenting) Party obtained 0.1% of the senate first party preference. In 2013 the first party preference vote had dropped tenfold to 0.01%.

The best example of the influence of men's rights groups was the "Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act 2006, which made both parents responsible for decisions about their child through the concept of 'equal shared parental responsibility'. The Act requires courts to consider an order that the child spend equal amounts of time with each parent under certain circumstances, but the Act does not state that courts must order that the child spend equal amounts of time with each parent. While the peer support group Dads in Distress expressed both appreciation of the Act as a small step in the right direction and concern whether the changes would be taken seriously by Family Law Practitioners and Barry Williams, national president and founder of the Lone Fathers Association, stated, "I think these new laws are going to be the best in 30 years", The Men's Confraternity welcomed the changes but also expressed disappointment and stated that the Act does not "force the Court to view parents as equals."

In reality the laws have had little impact upon the implementation of shared parenting. Prior to the introduction of the shared parenting act in 2004

Six years after the implementation of the act in 2012

This is because in 90% of contested trials the court does not order shared parenting Part of this is because of the belief of many judges that if parties have to litigate for shared custody then they are unsuited to it.

In 2009 the Chief Justice of the Family Court Diana Bryant, publicly sided against the 2006 amendments, flagging proposed changes soon after adopted by the Attorney General, Robert McLelland.

Once the shared parenting laws were in place, there was a significant push by women's groups in association with other interested parties, suggesting that Australia's shared parenting laws put children at risk because it marginalised family violence. Specifically it was alleged that "the legislation had moved away from protecting the rights of women and children to acceding to men’s demand for increased time with their children." In 2009 the government commissioned a report into the shared parenting laws, justified as being a response to the murder of a four-year-old Melbourne girl Darcey Freeman, who was thrown to her death from the West Gate Bridge by her father. Her father Arthur Freeman had obtained shared custody with his daughter through the family court. The story of Arthur Freeman was well but falsely publicised as an example of the danger that separated fathers posed to their children, despite the fact that separated mothers are twice as likely to murder their children as separated fathers. According to the Victorian Coroner between 2000 and 2010, 44% of parent child homicide victims where killed by their mother alone, and 3% by the mother and father together. For instance seven months prior to Arthur Freeman's actions Gabriela Garcia jumped off the same bridge with her 22-month-old son Oliver strapped to her chest to prevent Oliver's father from having contact with his son. In addition the Australian Institute of Family Studies evaluation of the 2006 Family Law Reforms, involving analysis of 27,000 parents stated that "the 2006 changes have improved the way in which the system is identifying and responding to families where there are concerns about family violence, child abuse and dysfunctional behaviours. In particular, systematic attempts to screen such families in the family relationship services sector and in some parts of the legal sector appear to have improved identification of such issues."

Despite the overall positive impact of these changes, in November 2010 the Attorney General Robert McLelland submitted amendments to the 2006 reforms, condemned by men's rights groups as a back-door attempt to dismatle the shared parenting laws. These amendments included the removal of any penalties for the making of knowingly false allegations in the Family Court, the removal of the requirement of both parents to facilitate contact, and a broadening of the definition of child abuse to include non-abusive behaviour.