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

I post in the hope of the collective wisdom giving me a clue. I have deliberately used gender neutral terms. I do NOT want this to degenerate into a slanging match over gender based issues. The background is real, and very sad. If there is a detail missing please ask.

Parent 1 is a US citizen who has lived in NZ for some years.
Parent 2 is a NZ citizen.

They met overseas and decided to live in NZ.

After several years they had a child. (Born in NZ)
The relationship has failed.

They have a sort of shared care arrangement. Neither will put anything into writing!
Parent 1 has gone on DPB with the consequential CS liability on parent 2.

The questions arising,
Parent 1 is off back to the US. Do they forego DPB? (It is an open ended visit)?
If they forego DPB does this inturn relieve parent 2 from the (NZ) CS liability?

Is there any consequent liability from the US?

If in the mean time parent 2 heads to Australia to work What happens to the liability for CS?

All comments needed, they will affect decisions.

Thanks folks.

I think it is appalling when men who study men’s issues under ‘gender studies’ at university condemn father’s and men’s groups who stand up for fathers and men to have equal rights. Women have come a long way changing society for females while men are still stuck in the past. Up until 2004, when a father took Germany to court in the European Court of Human Rights over discrimination, an unmarried man with a child was not accepted as a father. Still today this discrimination exists in the United Kingdom where an unmarried man can’t even sign for his child’s health, even though he is on the birth certificate and living with the mother. Decades ago unmarried women were sent to church facilities, had their child taken away and adopted out while they were sent back home childless.

Unfortunately, misandry (hatred of men) runs rampant in ‘gender studies’ (because it follows feminist ideology of man = perpetrator = bad and woman = victim = good). It takes a strong man to stand up to do what’s right instead of what’s easy and popular. And it just so happens there are men out there strong enough, who are insisting men have their own studies away from misandry (hatred of men) but that’s the American Men’s movement and for another article.

I am also appalled and think it is very sad and extremely bad that we don’t have New Zealand men representing New Zealand men but instead use (selectively chosen for their radical feminist outlook), men from overseas. Men as close as Australia with Michael Flood whose says his higher education made him want to be a feminist supporter. In other words, he is caught up in the man=bad, woman=good ideology. ……. to far away America with Lundy Bancroft who thinks every man who doesn’t follow feminism needs to be in prison for reprogramming that he insists takes as long as it takes (a life time for some).
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I am young enough to be a father but too old to rebuild all my life after divorce again. I still want to be an involved father more than anything in the world. Until just recently I thought this meant I needed to get married again. However the dates I have had recently have caused me to question this assumption. Do I need a wife? Perhaps good reader you would like to offer your view on this topic.

Under NZ law a 3 year defaco relationship is the same as marriage. So for a male any long term relationship carries all the same risks as marriage. For simplicity I will talk about “marriage” or “being married”. However in fact I mean “have a relationship for longer than 3 years”. In other words it is not relevant if there is a marriage ceremony or not. That is not the issue. It is just rather long winded to say should I stay with a woman for more than 3 years?

Dear reader keep in mind that my parents were childhood sweathearts who married until “death do us part”. Which to them meant exactly that. Hence this is my view of marriage also. I have never had any problem getting dates. I was married. Staying married requires both peple to work on the relationship which requires certain qualities. Finding a woman who is and will always stay comitted to marriage I have found to be so far impossible.

I am still open to that. If happen to bump into the love of my life then great. I certainly take great pleasure in loving and being loved by someone special.

However now I am questioning why would I hunt for it and sign up to marriage?

It is nice and would be best for any child but the risks and costs are extrodinary. Any child has a high risk of being denied one parent anyway.  It seems to me that the laws and women themselves have priced themselves out of the market. I don’t want to reach retirement in poverty it is true. But more than that I can’t afford to have another child shut out of my life. However there is a greater than 50% chance of  exactly both of those things happening.

Do I risk having a shortened life of poverty for a 50% chance of having a child and a wife?

Or do I find another way to have a child (who may well have no mother) ?

Please don’t tell me to change the system. In case you haven’t noticed the system has not changed and I will not live for ever. I have to make a decision based on the society and the system I live in now.

The Office of the Auditor-General is at the early stages of a performance audit of how well Inland Revenue manages child support debt. They are looking to get the views of people interacting with IRD about child support.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the agenda is to find ways to collect money but it can also IMHO be an opportunity to show up the flaws of Inland Revenue’s system and express the ill treatment from some of the staff. If you work with Inland Revenue on behalf of clients … I hope you speak up and if you have an experience of your own to share … I hope you speak up.

Contact Chris Gianos

Email : enquiry@oag.govt.nz

BTW, belated Merry Xmas and Happy New Year to you all.

Extract from a speech by Peter Dunne. The full speech can be read at:

www.taxpolicy.ird.govt.nz/index.php?view=706

This is our opportunity gentlemen. Tell them what we think. He expects a “Great many” submissions. Lets not dissappoint him.
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Dear Wendy,

I read your article about father’s suicides, with quite a bit of pain.

While men’s suicide shows up grossly and obviously in national suicide statistics, I suspect that women’s suicides due to court traumatisation from removal of relationships with children is a faster growing problem.

The feeling of traumatisation due to injustice does cut very deep and isn’t so obvious to someone who has not experienced it directed in their direction. This is why I see the “judges” who do it regularly, as relationship vandals and slaughterers.

In my own personal experience, I know of several father suicides and no mother suicides.

However, when I think of traumatisation by caught process, I know a roughly similar number of women as men, who are so traumatised that their adult life is presently destroyed.

This leads me to conclude that as the caught processes harden up, we may soon be seeing similar numbers of women’s suicides as we presently see men’s.
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Media release – Familes Commission

Non-resident fathers study suggests more support needed

21 July 2009

A group of separated fathers who experienced enormous grief and frustration when they were no longer able to live with their children have told researchers that community services do not provide the help they needed.

The study Pathways through Parental Separation [PDF, 557K], funded by the Families Commission Innovative Practice Fund, analysed discussions with 20 non-resident fathers to find strategies for supporting fathers through the process of separation.

08 April 2008

Child support shared care provisions under review

The government is looking at ways of improving the child support scheme to make it more responsive to factors such as the complexities of shared care, the income levels of both parents and the costs of raising children. For more information see themedia statement.
This is the only publicised Child Tax Review.Regards, Scrap

The Families Commission wants to have a better understanding of what separated parents need to help them make care, contact and financial arrangements for their children.

We would like to hear from you about your experiences with, and knowledge of, separated parenting. We are interested in hearing from all Couch members on this issue, regardless of whether you’re a separated parent or not.

Your feedback will help us contribute to the IRD’s upcoming review of the Child Support system, and will complement our existing and ongoing research on these issues.

Please take the time to share some of your wisdom. The more we have dialogue the greater chance we have of finding good solutions for all involved.

Fairer child deal sought
The Press 21 May 2009

Child-support payments may be changed to reflect the income of a parent’s new partner. The proposal is part of Revenue Minister Peter Dunne’s call for a review of the child-support scheme. Dunne said yesterday that he wanted to make the scheme “as even-handed as possible”. He said current payments did not take into account the financial situation of the new partner of the parent usually the mother with custody of the children. Payments were based on a percentage of the liable parent’s income.

“At the moment we take into account the non-custodial parent’s income but we don’t take into account the changed circumstances of the custodial parent, so if they’ve married a millionaire, for instance, we don’t take that into account,” Dunne said. “If on one side of the ledger everyone’s standard of living has significantly improved, then that clearly impacts what the non-custodial parent should be paying by way of support. You take a poor, struggling guy in the suburbs with three kids whose partner has run off with a millionaire. You can certainly say it’s a bit anomalous in a way for him to be paying a high level of child support to kids where the money is being used to pay for the upkeep of the kids’ ponies.”

While any changes would primarily affect men, there was a growing number of women who were non-custodial parents, he said. The Union of Fathers group said Dunne’s proposals did not go far enough. “Equal shared custody is the answer where everything to do with the child is shared equally time with them, contact with schools, financial support to provide for the child,” spokesman Darrell Carlin said.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/2428220/Fairer-child-deal-sought
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