Law Commission recommends repealing Male Assaults Female offence
From the New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse; see here
A new report from the Law Commission recommends additional provisions that will make parent and caregivers liable if they fail to protect their children from injury or fail to intervene when a child is at risk.
It has also recommended that the core assault and injury offences be simplified and replaced by six new offences and repealing the offences of assault on a child and male assaults female. Minister of Justice Simon Power responded to the Law Commissions report stating that there are no plans to remove the male assaults female offence due to the current focus on domestic violence.
The bill introducing the new offence of failing to protect a child or vulnerable adult will be introduced early next year.
The Law Commission’s Report is available at: www.lawcom.govt.nz/ProjectReport.aspx?ProjectID=147
Note that the link to the specific projectID at lawcom.govt.nz does not exist; presumably lawcom have taken the item off their site.
Simon Power seems to be content to advance and propagate the “myth” that domestic violence means MAN beats Woman! We can only surmise that Simon and friends are happy to manipulate crime statistics to ensure that the alleged “falling crime rate” comes at the expense of kiwi males in an abusive relationship. We are confronted with the simple conclusion that female assaults male just does not happen; and if in the most unlikely event, it did, then it’s just not worth the police time or paper work, reporting it. All is well for the kiwi male; thank you very much! Well done Simon.
well, when the new law comes in I’d better leave the country.
I’ve had to involve cyfs and police a number of occasions with regard to my ex and her abuse on our children. However, the family court judge thought I was just ‘causing trouble’ and has chastised me by not allowing me to see my kids for 4 weeks. He’s done more than just that but I’ll leave the details for another time.
When this law comes in to effect; what am i supposed to do ? When my child calls me and is scared of their mother…
Comment by noconfidence — Tue 3rd May 2011 @ 10:26 pm
I hear you and completely understand you noconfidence. I have done what you have as well and ive been labeled the problem. 6 weeks I was refused access to my child and yet still accused of possible assault (within that time frame).
Its going to be another excuse to force the male away.
Comment by Jono — Wed 4th May 2011 @ 7:29 am
Sadly, noconfidence and Jono, this is not uncommon. I have seen the Family Court punish a woman’s children (by depriving them of one of their parents) for her complaints to authorities about what she believed was abusive behaviour by the father towards those children, but I have seen the same thing done five times as often to men who dare to tell authorities about maternal child abuse.
The Family Court decides that the complaints are unfounded and inappropriate, and usually that decision is based on the opinion of the Lawyer for Child.
When women falsely accuse men of sexual or other crimes and their accusations are proven to be deliberately false or they admit they lied, they are hardly ever charged or otherwise punished for this. Yet it is downright dangerous for a man to attempt to protect his children against what he genuinely believes is abuse from those children’s mother, because he is quite likely to be punished for doing so and his children also are punished for his impudence.
Comment by Hans Laven — Wed 4th May 2011 @ 8:57 pm
My ex was violent in front of the child. Mostly she was violent towards other people but occasionally also to me in front of the child. I never reacted to her violence. There were many witnesses. Including completely independent people.
I talked to my lawyer about it. My lawyer explained that the court would simply re-frame it as “parental conflict’ and use this to justify excluding me from the child’s life. My lawyer had seen it happen over and over.
I quickly realised how accurate my lawyers advice was. My lawyer could not have predicted the behaviour of the court more clearly than if she had scripted it.
I made one suggestion about this in an affidavit. They court’s reaction made it abundantly clear that I should never mention any violent behaviour of the child’s mother if I ever wanted to see my child again.
I am not aware of a single case where the family court has placed the child in the temporary custody of the father to protect the child from the mother’s violence based on an allegation from the father. Not a single case in the thousands of cases heard by the court.
In addition I am not aware of the FAMILY COURT ever punishing a mother for perjury. Not a single case.
How can anyone have confidence in such a court?
Comment by Vman — Thu 5th May 2011 @ 2:02 pm
You cannot have confidence in any caught that often behaves in this way.
More importantly, you should not act, based on having (or wishing you could have) confidence in such a caught. To do so, your own delusions would be leading you to behave in a manner that disadvantages yourself and your ability to take real world care of your children.
When the public are misinformed by anyone, about what really goes on within our caughts, the mis-informers are manipulating the public so that the public find it more difficult (maybe impossible) to get the best possible service from such a caught.
I am not criticising the familycaught more than the other caughts, as all of them are riven by unmanaged conflicts of interest, that bedevil their operation – if you expect them to achieve what Parliament funds them for. (To me, it looks as though the conflicts of interest ARE being actively managed by “judges”, to enhance the capability to take unearned income, without delivering any social value at all, managed against the public interest.)
Secrecy in familycaught and legislation which allows them to impact onto so many long term facets of your life, gives the familycaught more threat power over people’s lives. This can then be used to enhance individual worker’s incomes and many take full advantage of the opportunities created in this caught.
When you are misinformed by the people who gain personal financial advantage, the we have a big and family destructive problem.
There is now to be an enquiry into familycught. What Wayne Pruden asked for, they said no. Now they are announcing the same thing themselves, as their own idea!!!
Will we rise to the occasion and make sure that the full range of familycaught actions is exposed to competent public evaluation and that all of the necessary constructive changes will be made?
Yes, I have heard of familycaught placing children with a good father. I have also heard of familycaught placing children with fathers less successful as parents than the mother. These actions put a lot of pressure onto parents to create unnecessary legal action….
I have come to believe that tossing a coin would be a more successful way of making these decisions, than selectively hearing evidence and then deciding more on sympathy than evidence anyway.
All of this misses the main point. Children are best cared for by allowing them to access the best from both of their parents, not putting their parents into a fighting ring, to compete against each other, where neither parent can have confidence in the professional capability of familycaught or their integrity. The legislation already provides for this. Parliament already funds familycaught for this! So why is the best for children NOT being delivered?
Think of Kay Skelton and Jaydon Headley, the familycaught made hay while the sun shone, lots of very wrongly taken legal fees and “judges” wages. Where did it leave the parenting relationships?
It is so easy for administrative “judges” to blame Kay Skelton for being a dishonest and manipulative parent. I believe that if the familycaught “judges” acted with integrity and some concern for the people involved, then Jayden most probably would be enjoying successful relationships with both his parents and his wider family.
Pure relationship vandalism, just to be able to take unearned income from other people.
Good will only come, when many many many people speak publicly about the performance of familycaught, well before the official enquiry runs. The real battle is to persuade the public to require that all of our caughts are forced to become successful performers. This will never happen by accident, only by the public forcing constructive changes to happen.
Best regards, MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 7th May 2011 @ 7:38 am
Excellent comments and exhortation, Murray, thanks.
Comment by Hans Laven — Sat 7th May 2011 @ 8:50 am
Even when my ex wife’s violence and lies were exposed to the ‘family’ caught they took no action.
Lemming-like and gullibly believing the courts to be just I went ahead with costly and ultimately pointless depositions, hearings and conferences all inexorably moving in one direction – a defathered child and a father bled dry financially and emotionally.
Over time the message to me became profoundly clear and powerful.
As far as they were concerned I was not a person, but simply a means (wallet) to their ends (financial enrichment).
My story has been repeated countless times by other New Zealand fathers.
Simon Power, through his incentivizing false accusations has set New Zealand back further into a feminist dark age.
I made two big mistakes in my life.
Firstly marrying under ‘no fault’ laws which encourage female relationship fickleness and hypergamy.
Secondly entering the ‘family’ ‘court’.
Neither of those mistakes will be repeated.
I learnt from the trauma. I’ve moved beyond the dark ages and entered a form of enlightenment –
I don’t live in New Zealand whereby my tax money would support such corruption and if I ever did live in New Zealand again I wouldn’t marry or cohabit there.
Sad so many remain stuck back in that dark cave though.
Comment by Skeptic — Sat 7th May 2011 @ 4:28 pm
Yes Skeptic I have come to similar conclusions. While I still remain in New Zealand I am now planning my escape. On top of this I have decided to keep all my future relationships in what I call “the safe zone”. This consists of the following:
1. No cohabitation.
2. No marriage.
3. No more children, (I’m now putting money aside for a vasectomy.)
This puts me in a position where I can enjoy relationships with women with no chance of ever being trapped and ripped off by them again. I simply do not believe that the laws of Western countries (ANY Western country) or most other countries are supportive of making a long term relationship a viable possibility anymore.
Women simply take advantage of the laws, which in essence, set the ground for what is acceptable behaviour and what is not. Since it is clearly not against the law in Western countries for women to lie to men, commit perjury, commit paternity fraud, lay false accustations on them, take their children out of their lives, rape them, and fleece them of their income there is only one course of action left open to men (in my opinion) and that is for men to protect themselves by not allowing women to take advantage of them.
Quite simply I am not going to risk loosing any more property, getting accused of anything, or potentially paying 19 years of child tax when a woman decides on a whim that she doesn’t want a relationship anymore. The situation with women, as far as I am concerned is simply too dangerous.
Since the laws are clearly not going to change, and men will continue to experience blatant violations of human rights at every turn I see little choice but to establish a precedent for future relationships so they can end with zero collateral damage.
Comment by Mr. Anonymous — Sun 8th May 2011 @ 12:58 am
Good thinking Mr Anonymous. However, you can be sure that the feminist state will develop the law further to thwart and/or punish rebellious apostates like you. We have already been deprived of the right to decide, through marriage, whether we wish to donate our earnings and previously earned assets to a cohabitant female. It will only take another small step (undemocratically imposed under parliamentary urgency) to extend feminist enslavement of men further. For example, any kiss, sexual contact or even conversation with a woman could immediately entitle her to receive financial or other support from that man.
For your information, our Dept of Corrections already judges male offenders’ suitability to be free in the community on criteria that include whether those offenders are in an established relationship with an adult woman and whether they have ever lived with a woman for two years or more. Men who fail to conform to these criteria are more likely to be deemed to be at high risk of future sexually deviant offending. I kid you not. While there may be some valid statistical basis for these criteria, imagine the feminist outrage if women offenders were judged as unsuitable to be free in the community unless they lived with a man.
Of course, regardless of our choices we are already all exploited by the feminist state through being taxed to pay pay for women’s choices and lifestyles under the DPB, often providing women with $600 to $1000 per week (more than most of us are likely to earn in full time employment) the biggest drain on government ‘welfare’ funds next to superannuation.
Comment by Hans Laven — Sun 8th May 2011 @ 10:15 am
Does anyone for a minute think any change is going to be a good fair one? Look at the changes made so far. Are any of them fair?
Are relationships in the future going to be like this:
1) man (forced to) donate sperm
2) woman has child
3) man pays child tax
Children are brought up never knowing there father.
Comment by 2c worth — Sun 8th May 2011 @ 3:53 pm
No matter what, you will never be thought of for looking after your own child. Those days are slowly but surely been taken from from us as males. Im going to court so I can at least see my daughter. So she knows who I am and that I love her so much.
I find it interesting that woman who dont give in to the feminist way of thinking are also deemed unworthy of bringing up kids also.
My daughter is now more “abused” than ever.
Since I was a kid, I have always wanted to have a child of my own one day. That is a dream that will never happen.
Comment by 2c worth — Sun 8th May 2011 @ 4:15 pm
Evidence is easily swept away by Sympathy
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sun 8th May 2011 @ 10:00 pm
Dear Hans, are you forgetting that many or most high class restaurants will not admit unaccompanied women, in case they make other customers uncomfortable or cause trouble?
In terms of fairness between stable couples and their children versus separated unemployed mothers DPB versus single people without children, should the DPB be in the form of an advance against future superannuation and medical benefits?
Life is so serious… Cheers, MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sun 8th May 2011 @ 10:06 pm
Dear Bruce, thank you very much for your energy, research and posts. At times, we all need positive encouragement, to work to make NZ a better place, so I appreciate your positive force. It always seems like 2 steps forward, one step back, so we must try to keep a balanced scorecard and not see things just from our own perspectives – you do this.
If it is possible, I would like to meet with you and discuss these types of issue in person, this side of the election…
Cheers, MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sun 8th May 2011 @ 10:25 pm
Hi Murray. No, I’m not aware of any policy by restaurants to refuse admission to unaccompanied women. I would be surprised if this were so because it would be against the law. I’m also not sure what your point is in referring to this or how it relates to my piece of writing. Is the claim about restaurants supposed to be some sort of rebuttal of what I said about the criteria used to evaluate male offenders or my claim that parallel criteria for women would be totally unacceptable?
Regarding the DPB, I would like to see:
(a) A 6-month stand-down period applying to most cases to reduce the DPB’s appeal as a voluntary lifestyle option. The only exceptions would be when the partner has been convicted beyond reasonable doubt in a Criminal Court of serious and reasonably recent domestic violence, or when the DPB applicant can show she has been financially abandoned by the primary income earner (and perhaps a few other special cases I haven’t thought about).
(b) The total amount of the the DPB including all allowances never exceeds but remains slightly below what could be earned in full-time employment at the minimum wage plus any applicable Working for Families top-up.
(c) In the cases where the primary financial providing parent abandons the primary caregiver parent or commits serious violence against her, he is made to pay as highly as possible (probably around the current child-support formula) for the primary caregiver’s ongoing services in raising the children.
(d) The ‘child support’ component of the DPB be limited to half the realistic costs required directly for children’s basic needs (not including accommodation but including the proportion of additional electricity etc used by an average child), pro-rata for the proportion of time each parent has care of the children across the entire spectrum of shared-care.
With such amendments, I would not expect anyone to pay back their DPB from super, pension or other future entitlements. The total cost of the DPB and number of people opting for it would reduce markedly.
Comment by Hans Laven — Sun 8th May 2011 @ 11:10 pm
Dear Hans,
I agree strongly. However, I also believe that if one parent applies for DPB, the other should be given first option for raising the child. In some cases, the other parent already is setup and may have other children (or be planning them soon). In these situations, they can care for the child at lower cost to Government and the child would be raised in a larger family group, which is safer in terms of physical abuse and mental health too. Presently, we incentivise for the maximum hazard to the child!!!???
Yes, my comment related to danger assessment. I was slightly joking and I only heard about it, from hearing women complaining – though I do admit that was quite a few years ago. Yes, modern legislation would have removed this protection for other restaurant patrons. I have also heard the same comment about London, more recently, for exactly the same reasons – to avoid propositioning for private entertainment.
Best regards, MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 9th May 2011 @ 7:14 am
Hans and Murray,
It is well and good to be thinking about fair ways to proceed once a separation and divorce is underway.
However, there is a step before that which gets my attention more.
I think to circumvent the terrible crime of parental alienation so rampant in western cultures we should repeal ‘no fault’ (sic) divorce laws.
I put the words ‘no fault’ in commas with (sic) after them because it a euphemistic term which disguises THE FACT that most often blame IS CLEARLY apportioned in the process of splitting up family and assets (most usually in women’s favor under feminist ‘justice’ in our femily caughts).
The resultant amount of fatherlessness and (mostly) paternal under-parenting of children has been well documented on this site and elsewhere, so no need to expound upon that.
However, I stress such a phenomenon needs to be recognized much more widely for what it is – an institutionalized CRIME AGAINST CHILDREN.
I think the antidote to that terrible crime means returning to a situation whereby divorces are only issued if there is uncontravertable proof showing good reason for divorce. Even then such should be balanced against the sensible idea of judges being able to say on occasions in effect –
‘No, you can’t selfishly divorce just because your experiencing a few difficulties. Now get yourselves to couple/family counseling to sort out your issues and to REMAIN AN INTACT FAMILY UNIT FOR YOUR CHILDREN’.
That kind of approach seems much fairer, saner and more human, as well as being less emotionally and financially costly to society overall.
A far cry from today’s highly incentivized and institutionalized con game of fickleness and serial hypergamy which burgeons the divorce industry’s coffers at children’s expense.
What’s truly byzantine about that too, is that any sane person would think it would be the government’s desire to get out of the divorce business. Yet no-one that I know of in any arm of government associated with the situation advocates getting rid of ‘no fault’ divorce to decrease the massive prevalence of divorce and opening up the ‘family’ ‘courts’ to real public scrutiny and accountability.
Two moves which I think would result in more intact families with subsequent life improvement for children, many who thereby avoid later in life becoming youth criminals, addicts and in many ways generally socially maladjusted and burdensome.
Comment by Skeptik — Mon 9th May 2011 @ 10:12 am
Dear Skeptik, yes I agree strongly with you. That is why I suggested that when one parent applies for DPB, the other parent should get the first right of refusal, if they can care for the children without claiming on DPB.
The advantage of this is not just in reducing DPB functioning as an unemployment benefit, but more importantly, it reduces the incentive to break up marriages taking care of children.
Even so, some marriages will break up, if one party just wants to escape.
The only real solution to “changing one’s mind”, is to make sure that parties are more mature and better informed, so that fewer people would start families and then decide that being a parent isn’t for them.
Accountability within marriage – both ways, greatly improves the quality of decisions and as a result improves the quality of life, for fixed income. Accountability affects quality of parenting, as well as quality of spending of money.
“Child and spousal support act”, reduces accountability of the “caregiving” parent to the “earning” parent and as a result, generally reduces the quality of parenting ultimately received by the children.
Do good ideas need to be much more carefully thought out, before being passed into legislation. People earning 5 times the average wage don’t have enough imagination to foresee how the incentives setup in legislation might be abused by some citizens. The example of a mother having one child only, to as many different men as possible, to get the highest financial return from “child and spousal support act” payments is just one example of perverse incentives resulting in severe disadvantage for children and the other parents.
Poor quality legislation does a huge amount of social harm and also makes it easier for legal workers to breed, again causing increased social destruction.
Cheers, MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 9th May 2011 @ 10:04 pm
DPB and child tax really are at unacceptable levels in my view. Surely it would be more cost effective to get rid of DPB and child tax in favor of something like working for families. Its making the man alone to pay for the childs upbringing. How can they justify DPB and child tax at more than what you were earning when together? If shes not working, then get the unemployment benefit. Females expect when they get pregnant that the man will look after them and there child. This will mean the man has to increase his income for the shortfall of her not working but also the increased cost of having the child (not to mention general tax increases as you earn more).
DPB is far too easy to get. There are women out there whos “job” it is to get pregnant so they dont have to work, and those out there who believe why work when I have a child. The courts and welfare should be working to getting both the parents involved in bringing up the child. Forcing the father out the kids life so she can get DPB is crazy and ultimately not in the child’s best interest.
Couples will always argue and tensions will always be high. Mere allegations from the mother is all thats needed for a male assault female in these cases. Males if they put what happened forward, they are further accused of harassment or psychological abuse. How is the truth going to be sort if both sides are not heard and followed up on?
Of course there is the “but I dont want to be involved” parent(s). Something that needs working on as not be abused as an a escape goat. Ultimately both brought the child into the world, both should be bringing up the child.
Comment by 2c Worth — Tue 10th May 2011 @ 10:22 am
DPB should only be given if one parent is either dead or leaves the country (for good).
Comment by 2c Worth — Tue 10th May 2011 @ 10:27 am