Counsel services for men planned
As part of a comprehensive overhaul of the [Australian] family law regime, scores of new services for men will be funded in a $74 million prevention package.
Mensline Australia will get a big funding boost to support more fathers and to help them become more involved with their children before and after separation.
Up to 45 new “men and family relationship centres” will be funded to help men manage difficult relationships with partners, ex-partners and children.
The extra services are part of a $392 million family law reform plan, which has at its heart a radically different system for handling separation and custody.
Instead of heading to the Family Court, separating parents will be sent to one of 65 new Family Relationship Centres to see if they can agree on a custody plan for their children before they engage lawyers.
Lets not remove the root cause/s lets create an industry around the problem.
Comment by Scrap_The_CSA — Wed 11th May 2005 @ 1:20 pm
Exactly my thoughts too Scrap.
Comment by Stephen Gee — Thu 12th May 2005 @ 12:20 am
Just like a bad tooth….you can take pain-killers and feel absolutely awful all of the time or you can have it extracted.
My pick would be to extract the bad tooth….bye-bye! the Anti-Clark, all of her worshippers, her anti-child, anti-parent, anti-family agenda.
Comment by Sparx — Thu 12th May 2005 @ 8:24 am
Even if a miricle happens and a father-friendly party like the NZ Republicans wins a landslide victory, many separating couples will still need assistance and some will need intervention.
If these Family Centres are run by genuine community-based organisations (ie: they are protected from capture by gatekeepers with extreme ideologies), and they hire qualified staff with proper mediation skills, with adequate supervision and performance monitoring, they are the best path forward in my opinion.
I do have concerns that their effectiveness will be compromised if the court can be counted on to continue favoring maternal custody over shared parenting and to turn a blind eye when women blatently flout its orders.
The pilot projects currently running in NZ along these lines certainly need close scrutiny by father’s groups, but I believe it is a step in the right direction.
Comment by JohnP — Thu 12th May 2005 @ 9:15 am
Hey I’ve had a great idea for how to make oodles of dosh!
Let’s turn a blind eye to dealing with the really tough stuff and go for the easy money!
We could really cream it here!
Let’s totally ignore the huge incentives for defacto relationship/marriage breakdown including –
*’no fault’ split on a whim divorce.
* DPB.
* no means testing for child support payers.
* a family court run by women for women.
* easy discarding of fathers with false
allegations and total impunity for false accusers.
* overwraught and exagerated Domestic violence propaganda demonising men.
* regular media denigration of male in general.
Yeah! let’s do that and build a social services industry around patching up the wounded after we’ve blithely watched the battle!
Wow! We could be onto a real gravy train here!
Comment by Stephen Gee — Fri 13th May 2005 @ 1:20 pm
Mr Gee,
Please stop stealing my ideas! I plan to form an organisation and seek goverment funding to prolong the problems and generate myself a well paying fulltime job.
Seriously this is a big danger and I do think that some well meaning individuals have already done this and are now trapped by the very system that they loathe.
Its the danger of being absorbed by the system and failing to generate the necessary counter hegemony required to change it.
Comment by Scrap_The_CSA — Fri 13th May 2005 @ 1:29 pm
Comment seen on the back of a Mainfreight Truck:
“Consultants are the people who come down from the hill, after the battle, to shoot the survivors”.
Mum & Dad are required to fight over their children, then regardless of who ‘wins’ or ‘loses’, the real winner will be the ‘consultants’- the Child protection agencies who establish an interest in the children
Comment by John Brett — Tue 17th May 2005 @ 10:11 am