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

28.09.05 10.20am

LONDON – A lone protester from a group campaigning for the rights of divorced fathers climbed onto the roof of Britain’s Houses of Parliament on Tuesday and unfurled a flag while police officers watched.

The protest group, Fathers 4 Justice, has staged several stunts in the past including scaling the walls of Queen Elizabeth’s London residence and pelting Prime Minister Tony Blair with coloured flour while he was addressing parliament.

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“They left the door open here (parliament). Security is very tight in Brighton and there would have been a risk of someone getting hurt. We wouldn’t want one of our people to get injured or to put the police in that position,” he said by telephone.

- REUTERS

Apparently, it will take longer to mention that most of the victims were women and children. I noticed three commentators who brought up the delicate subject of the mostly missing males–George Will, Gary Bauer, and Thomas Bray, a columnist for the Detroit News. Will noted that 76 percent of births to Louisiana’s African-Americans are to unmarried women, and probably more than 80 percent in New Orleans, since that is the usual estimate in other inner cities. Will wrote: “That translates into a large and constantly renewed cohort of lightly parented adolescent males, and that translates into chaos, in neighborhoods and schools, come rain or come shine.”

A good deal of hard evidence shows that this is so. Two decades of research produced a consensus among social scientists of both left and right that family structure has a serious impact on children, even when controlling for income, race, and other variables. In other words, we are not talking about a problem of race but about a problem of family formation or, rather, the lack of it. The best outcomes for children–whether in academic performance, avoidance of crime and drugs, or financial and economic success–are almost invariably produced by married biological parents. The worst results are by never-married women.

Cindy Kiro
Children’s Commissioner
New Zealand.

25 September 2005.

Open Letter.

Quoting Herald on Sunday:Who Killed My Girl.

Children’s Commissioner Dr Cindy Kiro conceded yesterday she had few clues about why the problem (child murder) was so bad. One of the issues was that people did not realise how serious the problem was.

Dear Ms Kiro,

The only thing you have going for you at this point is that you didn’t mention section 59 of the Crimes Act, beyond that your duplicity is a betrayal, not only of the integrity of your office but of every child that dies during your tenure.

If we had tolerated the arrogance and stupidity of your predecessor, Fathers day would by now be national abuse day. I would happily defend the intelligence of the NZ public, and our well informed position any time you can rise above your position of ignorance to accept the challenge.

When you can put the lives of children above the subjective truths of your ideology, you might do justice to your position. You know what the issues are as well as the any of us, and so you should. The tax payer does not take kindly to funding the lazy and the incompetent, and I am not prepared to let you hide behind any form of pretence.

If you are not up to the challenge of the position your immediate resignation would be an acceptable alternative.

Bevan Berg.

A new wave of JUSTICE.

After 2.5 yrs of litigation concerning a prenup contract and 3 court hearings with my ex wife, I won my case and was left with a bill of $160K. To my dismay my child’s mother then sold her home and moved to another town against my wishes and without court approval. I was forced to apply to the court to have my daughter returned.

In order to have this process halted my ex wife laid a complaint to Child Youth & Family Services (CYFS) that I had been performing sexual acts in front of my daughter and inappropriately touching her. This devastated me. The court was forced to halt my application and suspend contact with my daughter except under supervision until an investigation was undertaken.

These investigations can sometimes take more than six months to be completed….. However this wise Judge smelt a rat and she demanded the investigation to be completed in just 3 weeks!!!!.

The case was heard last Friday and to my surprise and delight I was not only cleared of all suspicion but was granted the return of my daughter to Auckland. With it was the order to now have equal time with her. The cherry on the top was the bollocking the Judge gave my ex wife for lying on the stand, attempting to manipulate the court via devious means and alienating a child from its father.

It is my hope that this will now end what has been 3 years of hell for me. The worst part has been the feeling that the system had no concern for fathers & therefore no genuine concern for the child.

The sun is shinning again!!!!

Regards
“Bruce”

Sisterhood is Global Institute (SIGI)
Address:
4095 Chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges, # 12
Montreal QC
Canada
H3H 1W9
Year of establishment: 1984
Phone number: (1-514) 846-9366
Fax number: (1-514) 846-9066
Number of staff: 1
Introduction: Sisterhood Is Global Institute (SIGI), founded in 1984, is dedicated to the support and promotion of women’s rights at the local, national, regional, and global levels. With members in 70 countries, SIGI works toward empowering women and developing leadership through human rights education of basic rights guaranteed to women under international human rights conventions and to increase public awareness and concern about human rights abuses committed against women. It also facilitates the direct participation of women from the Global South in international debates concerning their rights. SIGI also facilitates research and provides training models for women from the developing world in the areas of human rights education, communication and leadership.
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The care of Children Bill is not clear on one very important point, providing in section 4(5) that the Welfare of a child may rest with “a court or a person”. We must also realise that the best interest principle has been moved from within proceedings to the administration of the act. What we now consider to be in the Judges realm will be able to be transferred to an organisation. While in the not to distant future we may see the family court written off as a bad experiment or have its structure and use reviewed, much of its current workload is likely to be transferred to new organizations – see (Revenge is just an Allegation Away.), and such that replace our failed CYPS. See - ( Social service agencies wary of sharing CYFS workload) One issue that hasn’t been resolved yet is section 59 of the Crimes Act, which legally still leaves parents holding the power. In terms of creating the state parent during the term of this next socialist government, it is imperative that those free thinking parents that value the family make the loudest possible protest against alterations to Section 59. It is has nothing to do with smacking your children and everything to do with ownership of your offspring and the manner and values you impart to them. If you want family you will have to fight for it, because the power is with the legal few that think otherwise.

By Simon Collins NZ Herald

Some social service agencies say they will refuse to “prostitute” themselves by taking part in a plan to farm out possibly around half the children notified to Child, Youth and Family Services (CYFS).

The controversial plan, due to go before the new Parliament, is designed to help CYFS cope with an increase in notifications of suspected child abuse and neglect in the wake of recent high-profile tragedies.

Some agencies welcomed the plan at a conference in Auckland of the Association of Child and Family Support and Community Services.

But the director of Catholic Family Support Services in Hamilton, Carole Fleming, said she was “frightened” to see agencies accepting CYFS cases just because they needed the money.

“At a hui of the providers in Wellington in July, the overriding agenda people had was solely money,” she said. “Our organisation made a conscious decision not to pick it up. We declined to contract. The term ‘prostituting ourselves’ was applied.

“We were being asked to undertake assessments, but our strengths are in support, and it seemed strange to us that money was being made available to provide assessments and investigations.”

Quentin Jukes of the Warkworth agency Homebuilders said his group would also refuse to do CYFS assessments because it believed in working alongside families as equals, not threatening to take children away from them as CYFS did.
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He noted that a CYFS speaker at the conference had confirmed that private sector companies, as well as non-profit agencies, would be eligible to take on CYFS investigations.

“We are seeing the opening of the door to privatisation,” he said.

“My prediction is that in two years’ time, as demand management gets going and there is a real shortage of workers in our sector, people are going to be leaving CYFS and setting up private companies and coming back in and doing that work.”
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CYFS chief executive Paula Tyler denied reports that 60 per cent of notifications would be farmed out to community agencies under the new plan.

By Simon Collins NZ Herald

Men or women who beat their partners will find it much harder to escape prosecution under a proposed law that would accept victims’ statements to police as evidence, even if they later changed their minds.

Chief District Court Judge Russell Johnson told a conference in Auckland yesterday that the Evidence Bill, expected to be passed next year, would reinforce court reforms aimed at resolving domestic violence cases quickly rather than trapping victims in a “deadly dance” of legal delays.
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If a woman is forced to give evidence, and tells the court a different story from what she told police originally, the bill would also allow the judge to accept her original statement to police as contrary evidence.
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Judge Johnson said the courts had struggled to cope with domestic violence cases “ever since the police began to intervene in family disputes, which dates back now to about 1992″.
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“You don’t have to be in the game long to know that unless a family violence case is heard within about six weeks, you haven’t got a case, because for one reason or another you haven’t got evidence.
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Judge Johnson said a new “fast-track” process was now being followed in special family violence courts in Waitakere and Manukau.

The Manukau experiment had led to more guilty pleas and fewer “no-shows” in court.

“Far more often than ever before, the victims are turning up also, [enabling] a consultative process to go on.”

NZ Herald

Radio New Zealand has lost an appeal against a Broadcasting Standards Authority ruling that it apologise to convicted child molester Peter Ellis.

Radio NZ had argued that an apology was a voluntary expression of contrition and to be ordered to say sorry, when it was not, amounted to dishonesty.

The order for an apology and publication of a summary of the authority’s decision in four major daily newspapers was the result of finding that National Radio’s Nine to Noon programme in August 2003 was not fair and balanced. A man interviewed on the programme had made new allegations against Mr Ellis.

Radio NZ also had to pay Mr Ellis $5300 costs and $5000 to the Crown. It accepted the finding that the story lacked fairness and balance but objected to apologising.

By ANNA SAUNDERS The Dominion Post

Legislation on paid parental leave discriminates against fathers, an Upper Hutt couple say.
Melissa Tiraha, 21, and Aaron Mahony, 28, are expecting their first baby this month.
Mr Mahony restores houses and Miss Tiraha works part-time and is also studying for a pre-police course at the New Zealand Institute of Sport, with plans to enrol at the police college next year.

If she misses her police college entry exams this year, which she has paid for, rules do not allow her to re-enrol for two years, she said.

So the couple decided Mr Mahony would stay at home and care for the baby, while Miss Tiraha finished her course.

But under paid parental legislation, fathers cannot directly receive payments.

Working mothers can transfer all or some their payments to the father and continue working, but fathers themselves are not entitled to paid leave.
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They could separate and Mr Mahony could go on the domestic purposes benefit while Miss Tiraha finished her course.
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Labour Department workplace policy acting manager Heather McDonald said the main reason for getting paid parental leave was that mothers needed “time off after the birth to physically recover and rest, and this entitlement allows them to do this without threatening their job security.”