MENZ Issues: news and discussion about New Zealand men, fathers, family law, divorce, courts, protests, gender politics, and male health.

Dr Muriel Newman

Speech to the Christchurch Mens Political Forum, Christchurch Community Law Centre, 7pm.

Today we are being asked what our parties would do for New Zealand men. For a long time I have been extremely concerned about government policies, which disadvantage men and marginalise fathers. Since entering Parliament, ACT has consistently campaigned to right the balance in our laws.

As a priority, ACT would reform family law to introduce shared parenting. This means that in the event of a family breakdown children would have the support of their mother and father, as well as both sets of grandparents and wider family. It is disgraceful that in spite of a Private Members Bill to introduce shared parenting having twice been debated in Parliament, the Labour party, the Progressives, the Greens and New Zealand First failed to consider the issue important enough to send it to a Select Committee.

As a consequence of the present system, which gives the custody of children almost exclusively to mothers – and tolerates the frequent use of false allegations against the fathers of the children – many fathers lose contact with their children. That not only causes intense heartbreak and trauma for children, fathers and grandparents, but it leads to far higher levels of non-compliance with child support orders than would be the case if dads were able to take part in parenting.
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The Government will close a loophole that enables DPB recipients to block the collection of child support payments.

Social Development and Employment Minister Steve Maharey revealed the planned change yesterday, after being questioned about assertions by National that more than 200 fathers on the Domestic Purposes Benefit refused to “name” the mother of their child – preventing the state collecting child support from them.

In fact Work and Income knows the identity of all the mothers, because it requires a birth certificate with the mother’s name to be presented before the father can claim the benefit.

But Mr Maharey said there was differing advice on whether the department could demand a liable parent contribution from either non-custodial fathers and mothers without the signed agreement of the custodial parent on a benefit.

Some beneficiaries are penalised by $22 a week a child for failing to sign the liable parent form – but if the liable parent is working the state would recover significantly more money per child.

There are 223 men – down from 250 earlier this year – who have not signed the consent forms and about 15,000 women who have not signed.
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National welfare spokeswoman Judith Collins, who raised the issue of fathers not naming the mothers at her party’s weekend conference, claimed victory for the law change.

The Government had taken the matter more seriously since leader Don Brash had announced National would introduce stiffer penalties for non-liable parents in his Orewa welfare speech, she said.

This week Newman Online looks at the Labour Government’s feminist agenda and how it is undermining the New Zealand family.

It is difficult to understand how a government that deliberately undermines the family – disadvantaging children and marginalising fathers – can retain popular support? That is unless the unsuspecting public is not really aware of their anti-family agenda.

That extreme agenda is deeply embedded within Labour’s radical feminist and lesbian factions and has been a significant force driving not only the Party, but also parts of the public service, for more than thirty years. There is no doubt that while many New Zealanders have suspected that this is the case, it was former Minister John Tamihere who confirmed it in the recent “Investigate Magazine” interview.

The feminist vision was to end the oppression of women by liberating them from the shackles of a husband and family. They wanted to see power firmly in the hands of women, with women ultimately taking over the country’s top jobs. With four of the major players in the feminist movement having now become Prime Minister, Parliament’s Speaker, Chief Justice and Governor General, their agenda is extremely well progressed.

But while seeing women winning top jobs by competing equally with men is one thing, three out of four of those top positions are appointments made by the Prime Minister: by appointing her mates, Helen Clark has shown that she puts cronyism ahead of merit and can’t be trusted.

The march of modern-day feminism was given a significant boost in 1984 when the Labour Government established the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Over the years the Ministry has focussed exclusively on women’s rights and if those rights have been achieved at the expense of family wellbeing and the rights of men, then that is the price we have to pay for giving the radical activists within Labour who were driving the driving force, a free reign.
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By Farah Farouque The Age (Melbourne)

What has made the dominant sex feel like victims?

Paul Black is not the sort of bloke to take to the streets in protest. But this week he did something atypical: fuelled by intense feelings of frustration, he got in his car and made the long trip from Mulgrave to Canberra to attend a two-day conference of the Lone Fathers Association.

“I don’t see myself as a radical, I’m not the sort who wants to go ripping out letterboxes or shouting slogans,” says this new recruit to the men’s movement. “But the inequalities that were there for women 20, 30 years ago are now there for men. The pendulum has swung from too many opportunities for men to too many opportunities for women.”

Black has entered the organised men’s movement along a well-worn path: relationship breakdown. There are up to 200 men’s groups in Australia, according to estimates – and many could be called estranged fathers’ groups. They bear names from Dads in Distress to the cuddly sounding Fatherhood Foundation, and typically attract men in midlife. While the groups claim a growing membership, the extent of their support is unknown. The Lone Fathers Association says it helps 30,000 men a year, but their paid-up membership is 9000 nationally. However, La Trobe University researcher Michael Flood says the number actively agitating in the men’s movement would be no more than 2000.

What makes them remarkable is that they subvert the traditional paradigm of social activism in that they represent the interests of the dominant group in society. Or do they? The argument these men’s groups mount, with growing political muscle, is that they are getting an unfair deal, not only when it comes to family law issues but in other areas such as men’s health. There is a growing lobby for free prostate screening, boys’ education – crystallised in a federal push for more male primary teachers – and even domestic violence.
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Barry Williams, the president and founder of the Lone Fathers Association, prosecutes some of the familiar themes of the men’s rights movement in a mild tone sometimes at odds with the strength of his rhetoric. “Both men and women are, in fact, equally likely to be perpetrators of violence in relationships, although women are somewhat more likely to be seriously injured,” he declares.

He warns his membership to be on guard against “further development of an ideologically based domestic-violence industry funded by the taxpayer”. “There is a very serious issue of discrimination here,” he says.

Martin Van Beynan Christchurch Press

You would have been shocked, as I was, by a story from Britain last week about the latest terrible turn in child abuse.

The story, which would have found its way into most major world newspapers, was about a study done for the London police by a social worker and lawyer into the beliefs of immigrant African and Asian communities in ritualistic abuse.
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I’m sensitive to this sort of stuff because I wrote one of these sorts of articles in 1991, during a sad period in Christchurch’s history when a mist of unreasoning belief in sadistic and organised child kidnapping and abuse seemed to descend on the city.

Covering the Family Violence Conference in September of that year, I interviewed specialists in the field of ritual abuse in New Zealand. Two Wellington counsellors, Jocelyn Frances and Ann-Marie Stapp, talked of having interviewed three people who had survived horrific satanic rituals undergone from an early age. They claimed about 20 more were seeking their help and said the floodgates were about to open on the practice.
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Announcing the Manhood 2005 Conference (open to women).

The Men’s Health and Wellbeing Association (Queensland) Inc. is delighted to announce the Manhood 2005 Conference, to be held on the 20th – 23rd October 2005 at the Novotel Twin Waters Resort, on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.

This inaugural conference will bring together organisations and individuals who are involved in grassroots men’s work with government departments, agencies and private sector men’s and boy’s health providers.

The Manhood 2005 conference will provide an opportunity to see and hear keynote speakers and presenters showcasing current programs, initiatives, research and trends associated with the health and wellbeing of men and boys. The title ‘Redefining the Roles’ has been chosen so that the relevance and importance of what contemporary masculinity means can be reviewed, openly debated, highlighted and celebrated.

A number of notable speakers have already been secured including Steve Biddulph, Richard Fletcher, Jed Diamond, Alan Blackburn and Dr Arne Rubinstein.

Australian and New Zealand Men’s Gathering

The Conference will be followed by the biennial ANZ Men’s Gathering, which will be held at a camp on the sunshine coast. This will be followed by the:

Queensland Manhood Festival

This is the local Queensland men’s gathering for the men of that area, however they are looking forward to Kiwi men joining them.

Manhood 2005 incorporates 3 events in 11 days!
Conference OCT 20 – 23
ANZMG OCT 25 – 28
Festival OCT 28 – 30

Costing for NZ Men and attending all 3 events: AU$ 990 GST included.

Attend 2 events – Manhood Conference and ANZMG: AU$ 800 GST included.

or ANZMG + Manhood Festival: AU$ 420 GST included.

If you are attending only 1 event we can only really offer a discount on ANZMG and Festival

AU$ 250 for either, GST included

ANZMG and Manhood Festival costs included accommodation and food.

Conference registration documents can be found on line, link below. Conference accommodation at Novotel Twin Waters has been negotiated at good rates and up to four adults can share in one room to save on costs.

We are looking forward to sharing this time and space with a strong group of men from across the Tasman.

To view more information on Manhood 2005, including registration, venue, accommodation, and flyers, please visit; www.menshealthandwellbeing.org.au .

We welcome email enquiries to– manhood@menshealthandwellbeing.org.au .

Across New Zealand society, marriage has become unfashionable. Sole parents have increased from 10 per cent of families with dependent children in 1976 to 29 per cent today – higher than in any other developed country except the United States. By the age of 20, 35 per cent of Pakeha children, 49 per cent of Pacific children and 57 per cent of Maori children have lived in homes without one parent, usually the father.

Forty-one per cent of Pakeha babies, 55 per cent of Pacific babies and 76 per cent of Maori babies were born last year to unmarried parents.

The Labour Government sees nothing to worry about. In a Herald interview five years ago, Social Development Minister Steve Maharey said that as long as sole parents were “able to provide love, discipline and sound nurturing, things are going to be okay”.

But National leader Don Brash told the Orewa Rotary Club that the domestic purposes benefit (DPB) had contributed to the growth in fatherlessness and births outside marriage: “It is idle to pretend this is anything but a disastrous trend.”

Sole parents are accustomed to being political footballs, but Brash’s proposals would be tougher than any previous regime since the DPB was created in 1973. They raise questions. Why does New Zealand have such a high rate of sole parenthood? Does it matter?
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Women of “marriageable age” are flocking to New Zealand at rates of up to one-third higher than men.

A new study has found that New Zealand has a higher ratio of women to men in the peak childbearing ages of 30 to 34 than any other industrialised country, with 9 per cent more women than men.
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Researcher Paul Callister says the surplus of women in their 30s is higher today than it was after thousands of men died in the Great War.

“In New Zealand in 1921 and 1926 we were busily building war memorials in small towns to ‘missing men’,” he said.

“The overall picture of sex ratios in 2004 is even more dramatic than the ongoing effects of loss of men in World War I.”
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“It could be to do with how the economy is changing,” Dr Callister said. “We have always had historical immigration that has been gendered. When we had a lot of tree cutting, we had more men than women.

“Now that we want more nurse-aides, childcare workers, cleaners and, dare I say it, prostitutes, we are going to bring in a different sort of labour and it’s going to be predominantly female.”

An ACC sponsored conference dealing with sexual and physical abuse is creating a stir over comments made by some of its speakers.

Streaming Video of TV One News item

The National Party’s Katherine Rich says: ACC must clarify role in abuse conference.

“This fringe conference has a wacky, and what appears to be in some cases a dangerous programme.

“I am not denying the right of people to gather and debate their ideas. What I am questioning is why taxpayer money is being diverted to fund the conference.

“ACC is being promoted as a major sponsor. The Minister needs to explain ACC’s involvement and divulge the level of sponsorship,” says Mrs Rich.

But it is MUCH worse than that!

A plenary speaker is Anne McDonald from Melbourne, who cannot talk, walk or feed herself. Her communication is ‘facilitated’ by Rosemary Crossley, the inventor of Facilitated Communication – a technique whereby a facilitator supports the hand or arm of a severely disabled person and thereby enables that person point to letters of the alphabet. This technique gives severely disabled people the ability to spell out words, sentences and even whole paragraphs of astonishing, unlikely and often wildly pornographic prose. As a result of Facilitated Communication (FC), 100s of families and caregivers worldwide have had their lives and careers destroyed by devastating and subsequently-discredited allegations of sexual abuse.

FC is not a valid technique and has clearly been demonstrated to be quackery.

The use of FC is opposed by organisations such as the AmericanPsychological Association, the American Association on Mental Retardation, the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. In the UK Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, President of the High Court Family Division has condemned FC as dangerous and that it should not be used by British courts to support or reject allegations of abuse.

NZ speakers at the conference also include group-action lawyers Roger Chapman and Sonja Cooper. Their workshop is entitled, “Damages claims for abusive treatment at psychiatric and psychopaedic hospitals.”

By Alexandra Frean, Times Online

A HUGE shift in attitudes towards fatherhood has occurred, with the present generation of fathers considerably more willing than their fathers were to stay at home to change nappies and warm bottles.

A survey by the Equal Opportunities Commission of 1,200 fathers of 3 to 15-month-old children disclosed that almost 8 in 10 would be happy to stay at home and look after their baby. Nine in ten said that they felt as confident as their partner when caring for their child.

In a bold attempt to move the debate on parental leave on to a more challenging level, the commission said that if men were expected to take a more active part in bringing up their children, they should be able to become fully involved from the moment of birth.
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Jenny Watson, the acting chairwoman of the commission, said that the findings showed just how much men’s attitudes had shifted within the space of a generation.

“All the evidence shows that fathers today are different from their own fathers and grandfathers. Policymakers need to keep up. Dads no longer see themselves solely as the breadwinner. They want to spend more time at home, actively sharing the responsibility of caring for their baby,” she said.
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Duncan Fisher, the chief executive of the charity Fathers Direct, said that it was vital for long-term child welfare that new fathers be closely involved with their newborns.