Amy Adams’ Consultation is a Sham?
FYI, our letter to Hon Amy Adams. For background see (hear) http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player/201768136
Dear Hon Ms Adams
I am in the process of preparing a submission on your Department’s discussion paper “Strengthening New Zealand’s legislative response to family violence’. I note that you have now announced commencement of one of the proposed measures in that document, that of providing bail judges with a defendant’s past “family violence’ records. This shows you are pushing ahead with your ideas regardless of the claimed consultation process, so is the consultation a sham wasting the time of those who are responding?
Can you inform me of the details of the intended evaluation of the trial prior to rolling it out more generally?
I would strongly recommend that any evaluation include interviews with defendants whose bail hearings were informed by any “family violence’ history. All previous evaluations of family violence law have ignored those parties, mainly men, who have been on the receiving end of the relevant laws. This has been a foolish and counterproductive policy because it is the offenders who need to develop enough respect for the law to change their behaivoural patterns, and it is the DVA respondents and Police Safety Order “bound persons’ who need to maintain enough respect for the law to contain their anger at how they were treated. In contrast, the degree of satisfaction that applicants, “persons at risk’ and victims might have with the law will have little bearing on the future behaviour of those they targeted (accurately or falsely) through that law.
I would also recommend that any evaluation include involvement by human rights experts from the outset in the evaluation’s design, implementation and interpretation.
Important questions that should be included in any useful evaluation will include:– Should all domestic police call-outs be provided to bail judges or should the information be limited to the family violence nature of convictions properly made on the tested evidence?
– To what extent does widely practised sexism by police cause certain information to be misleading and a threat to justice? For example, the fact that someone (usually a male) has been issued with a Police Safety Order in no way implies that person was the aggressor or even an aggressor in the incident or ever in their lives. The legislation in section 124B(2)(e) allows Police to take into account any consideration they choose to in deciding whether to issue a Safety Order and to whom. We know from numerous men’s accounts that even when a female partner was the only violent party, the man is still ordered out of the house with a Police Safety Order, presumably on the assumption that the man is stronger so she is the person at risk in case he might at some point retaliate should she continue to provoke and/or assault him. In those many cases, if a bail judge is given the basic fact that this defendant was once issued with a Police Safety Order this is likely seriously to threaten justice. Similarly, we know from numerous accounts by men already that Police almost always use a woman’s allegations over a man’s, so that even if he is the only party with bruises and injuries and she has not a scratch on her Police will record her statement but ignore all or most of what the male stated. Why Police do this is unclear and has never been researched; it may arise out of training that causes them to prioritize women’s rights and safety over men’s or out of simple expediency knowing that it’s much easier to convince a Court to believe a male was violent than a female. The point here is that Police incident notes cannot be trusted and the sexist injustice clearly practised by them should not be allowed to be compounded by influencing later, unrelated justice proceedings.
– To what extent will the injustice inherent in Family Court Protection Orders mislead and threaten justice in bail proceedings? Similar problems arise as described above regarding Police Safety Orders, but in this case they arise out of the lack of due process involved in making Protection Orders. No evidence is required apart from an applicant’s allegations that are given cursory scrutiny by a judge especially if a lawyer has assisted in ensuring the right wording. Respondents are treated as guilty unless they can convince a judge of their innocence and safety, and in the case of without-notice ‘temporary’ orders they don’t even get any opportunity to do so. This represents a major abandonment of one of the most important fundamentals of justice. Further, no violent behaviour is even necessary for a Protection Order to be made because judges are allowed to (and do) issue them on the basis purely of an applicant’s claimed fear. I have read affidavits resulting in Protection Orders that stated things like “He has never behaved violently towards me but sometimes he gets an angry look in his eye and I feel uncomfortable and believe he could be violent.” Many Protection Orders are applied for dishonestly to gain unfair advantage during ‘custody’ and relationship property disputes, and this practice is encouraged by the fact that people, especially females, are almost never prosecuted for perjury in such cases. All in all, the fact that a Protection Order was made previously against a bail defendant actually provides no reliable information about that person’s behaviour or risk. The only information that might be trusted to reliably and justly inform bail decisions will be relevant convictions on the basis of proof beyond reasonable doubt.
These matters must be included if any evaluation of the trial bail programme is to be adequate. Failing to do so may cause any extension of this programme to produce opposite results from those intended. Accused people denied bail suffer great damage to their lives because they have not had the opportunity to put their affairs in order. If that occurs on the basis of past falsehoods and injustice, one day those accused will be released and we can expect their resentment and disrespect for their society to be reflected in their subsequent behaviour. Ironically, it is the most dangerous of those defendants who, if they know they have been unfairly treated, will take revenge on their accusers and/or others without care about further consequences. This is not conjecture, it happens and contributes significantly to the statistics that presumably we want to reduce. Injustice is State violence and when the State models such violence the population will follow.
Yours sincerely
Representing the Ministry of Men’s Affairs, a community group because successive governments have neglected the voice and welfare of New Zealand men.
FYI also, our letter to Radio NZ:
Comment by Ministry of Men's Affairs — Thu 27th August 2015 @ 11:54 am
Good work MOMA.
It is clear from what is written in her consultation document that they have planned out many things already, they have even excluded some things that should be examined, as they are being developed by the Law Commission separately. Also DV laws are being added into other laws, using propaganda techniques. IE The new child sex offenders register ‘presented to the public as only including them’ is actually, by admission, going to be an ‘any ‘male’ offender register’.
One only has to examine the consultation document to see that there is clear intent to examine issues with sexual bias. The ‘women and children’ comments for example.
The propaganda machine in the media is well underway. This morning I happened to listen to an arranged interview on News Talk ZB. The ‘female’ was salivating over the phone talking about how great the changes could be, how Amy Adams was being viewed as some sort of hero for dealing with DV law. Pity the interviewer is a national party lover and would not dare criticise a female’s opinion, or ask the easy questions that would expose the bigotry and misrepresentations of the interview, and the true intentions of Amy Adams. Forget the hard questions as they are well out of his depth. Puppets are not known for independent thinking.
Comment by DJ Ward — Thu 27th August 2015 @ 12:31 pm
Thank you ‘ ministry of men’s affairs’ .
You have aptly described how it it was for me last year after I was assaulted and accused and then charged and put in a cell for two days as a result. (Regardless of my assaulters confession and all evidence)
Five weeks later I was called to the station and issued with a temporary protection order. The order’s conditions were no diferent to the bail conditions and apart from the 50 hours of anti violence brainwashing I was ordered to undertake. The only real purpose for the TPO was to ensure that I couldn’t speak to family and friends and others about the matter as any communication would be deemed indirect contact with my accuser if they had mentioned my communication with them – to her.
This ensures presumption of guilt from everyone else as well as police and courts.
I don’t know if Amy Adams will understand how the police practices encourage and perpetuate retaliation when men are systematically vilified by presumption of guilt just because one party is a post-pubescent male.
Few women are willing to accept that the majority of men are non violent towards females until they have been backed into a corner and repeatedly abused.
They just feel so comfortable with recognising men as the party at fault. And uncomfortable with accepting that women are assaulters.
Another example is the way society views women that are known to be sexual predators of children.
Thier abuse is considered less serious and less harmful resulting in a lessor penalty.
It seems our laws are dictated by the way women “feel” about the seriousness of a crime rather than evidence of the crime or consideration of harm caused.
Reducing the impact of these “feelings” on policy is a challenge.
Recently I saw a YouTube clip feauring professor Don Dutton talking about male victims of DV.
He quotes Francis Bacon from the 17th century.
“Human understanding, when it adopts an opinion draws all things else to support and agree with it. And although there might be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side,- these it either neglects and despises or by some distinction sets aside and degects in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination, the authority of its former conclusion may remain inviolate. ”
This is what social phsychologists call” belief perseverance” . Says Dutton.
“Once people form a belief it doesn’t matter how much the evidence contradicts it, they will stick with that belief. Through thick and thin. ”
He also quotes a fictional charachter named Serlock Holmes-
“Its a capital mistake to theorise before one has the data. As one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts “.
But understanding of all of this is only of practical benefit to those who seek to reduce crime and violence.
The maggots that feast from the carcasses of injustice hide – from the light of truth.
Comment by Voices back from the bush — Thu 27th August 2015 @ 12:37 pm
In response to publicising this initiative on the Its Not Ok Campaign facebook page I wrote the following this morning:
As many people as possible need to make submissions to Amy Adams so that she does not just get one side of a two-sided story.
Comment by WayneBurrows — Thu 27th August 2015 @ 2:27 pm
FYI, our email correspondence with the Ministry of Justice:
Comment by Ministry of Men's Affairs — Sat 29th August 2015 @ 3:40 pm
Thanks MOMA, for providing us updates. By doing so you inspire and encourage others that aren’t confident or familiar, writing to parliament or to ministers about important matters.
I wrote to them also.
I recieved an official government PDF reply on August 7,
The Hon Amy Adams, Minister of justice has asked me thank you for your correspondence on 5 August 2015 regarding Male victims of domestic violence. You will recieve a response as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely , Robyn Tiller , private secretary.
I’m not holding my breath. …
But at least mine was signed.
I’m not surprised your one paragraph response wasn’t signed. If it was you could’ve put that letter to the human rights comittee as evidence of systematic government corruption.
They say “the family violence death review comittee -defines death differently to other scources. ”
Smoke and mirrors of domestic violence “redefined” is about all they’ve left in thier arsenal now.
They won’t debate figures or sources. When “death ” is unable to be defined it indicates that thier barrell of facts is totally empty.
Why don’t they just be honest and say that “in this game the only ones allowed to keep score are females”.
Instead we have more DV “”Redefined””.
Redefined is telling us that simple figures and statistics cannot be counted by anyone but them – the experts.
Experts that are currently employing more expert family violence lawyers, judges, secret courts and of course needed to collect and collate all the wisdom bouncing off the walls, they will need to release a new batch of “specially trained” advocates and shrinks of various quacks to help us “define” all this violence whilst go on incriminating men without evidence.
Then in two years or so when progress is estimated (by more comittee’s) they will say ” goodness – gratuitous we still have all this violence – perhaps a specially trained division of our police force is what’s required to round up the criminals and our specially trained shrinks can direct the new headhunters to “predict” where violence might occour and remove the man before the crime is committed.
In the US they have employed this tactic against terrorism. Any suspected terrorist can be incarcerated without trial – not for what he has done- but for crimes he might consider committing.
I often hear the words “domestic terrorism” especially from Australia lately- Is this an indication of how men can expect to be processed by DV redefined.?
Comment by Voices back from the bush. — Sun 30th August 2015 @ 9:55 am
Thanks ‘Voices’, and keep up the good work in corresponding with key players.
Comment by Ministry of Men's Affairs — Sun 30th August 2015 @ 10:59 am
I will !
And I notice I’m some of your correspondence you use “I ” and in others you use “we”.
I can’t speak for everybody but ministry of men’s affairs has my support and I approve of the narrative and intentions as they are my own, so please feel compelled to use “we” in future communications as a representative of our interests.
Comment by Voices back from the bush. — Sun 30th August 2015 @ 11:34 am
I read this in the Dom Post yesterday, they talked about “training” judges for the new court and that probably means showing them a picture of a man with a label saying “guilty” and a picture of a woman with a sign saying “poor innocent victim”.
Then I turned over the page and read a story about a man who was dragged into court in handcuffs facing a 5 year sentence for bashing his girlfriend on valentine’s day. But it turns out that he had been cheating on her and she made it all up to get back at him! Of course she was jailed for lying and attempting to destroy an innocent man’s life. No just kidding, the judge warned her that next time she might face a charge of perjury – it’s no wonder so many women make up false complaints when there is zero penalty.
Show THIS to Amy Adams and ask where is the justice? She did mention “killing a few sacred cows” but I doubt if one of them is the idea that all women are saints and all men are brutal thugs.
Comment by Doug — Sun 30th August 2015 @ 12:47 pm
Thanks Doug. Incredible what’s going on. Important that we say all this stuff in submissions to the Ministry of Justice DV law review. Reason won’t do it alone, but reason by more than three or so people will have an impact.
Comment by Ministry of Men's Affairs — Sun 30th August 2015 @ 7:28 pm
Just a little addition to the argument.
How is it (I think MOMA has previously made this comment) that 100% of females don’t serve their full sentence.
One of the reasons for being made to do the full sentence is being violent in prison.
“the worst overall assault rate in the year to June was at Christchurch Women’s Prison, with 37 assaults per 100 prisoners.”
And the nearest male prison, coming in a distant second is this “The Hawke’s Bay Regional Prison was next, with a rate of 23.5 assaults.”
So much for females being not violent compared to males.
This shows that females, compared to the worst group of males, are 57% more violent than the worst males.
So why is it that there is not 57% more females serving full, or fuller sentences compared to males?
Ill take a guess, first society looks at female violence with bigotry, then the police looks at female violence with bigotry, then the judiciary looks at female violence with bigotry, and now we have proof that corrections looks at female violence with bigotry as well.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11507263
And to top it all off we get this from corrections.
“In response, prison director George Massingham said Corrections had a zero tolerance policy toward violence.”
Obviously not, if you a violent women, beating on other women, because there is no men around, so don’t worry.
Amy Adams will come to your rescue. I just cant work out what male she will blame for it.
Comment by DJ Ward — Thu 3rd September 2015 @ 4:34 pm
There are issues relating to picking up and dropping of kids when dealing with a violent EX, like being repeatedly stabbed.
However because the crown has difficulty in believing that women are a violent group in society, even if laws were made to minimise the opportunity of conflict, the law won’t stop this.
http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/nsw-woman-charged-with-stabbing-ex-husband/story-e6frfku9-1227512055752
Comment by DJ Ward — Fri 4th September 2015 @ 10:27 am
Here we have an example of many of the acts of bigotry that males have to deal with.
Firstly why is a person who does this, got care of a child?
‘Tehuia then hit her in the face, grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to the ground and held her there until a family member intervened.’
What would happen if a male did that?
If a protection order is for protecting a child from abuse, why was it against him? She was the child abuser.
If as the judge said, they were both violent people, why did he also not have a protection order made against her, to protect him and the child?
Why is it if both parties are violent, that the protection order is only made against the male and only applies to the male? Only his actions were viewed as a breach.
Ah here is the bigotry.
‘Defence counsel Kelly Beazley said the victim had a protection order against him.
“She was just protecting her kids and herself.”
That’s right, the ‘victim’ meaning female. How is it that she offended against him, but she is the victim?
The fact that the female lawyer said the “protecting her kids and herself” part, should mean that she should go before a disciplinary procedure. Why? Because she blatantly lied about the events that took place. A person who removes themselves from a violent situation ‘that is what he did’ is not attempting to be violent against the other person. It was her that followed him and attacked him. She could have driven off and been safe as a result, despite him fleeing the situation had already made her safe.
‘When the victim left the car Tehuia moved into the driver’s seat and followed him around, the court heard.’
That means the offender ‘stalked’ the victim.
‘After another heated exchange through the side window, he ran south on Le Cren St.’
The victim attempted to flee from the domestically violent person, but was chased down by the offender.
‘Police prosecutor Sergeant Mike Wingfield said she followed him and drove onto the footpath, striking him with the front of the car and pinning him to the wall’
That’s attempted murder.
So why was she not charged? The fact that her attempt to run over and kill her victim was thwarted by a wall, does not mean that if the wall was not there, that he would not have died as a result of her running him over. That’s what running a person over with a car is about. Killing the person, and everybody knows that to be true. Why is the prosecutor too stupid to work that out?
“You show no remorse or empathy towards the male victim.”
That’s because she is disappointed that he did not die.
It would have been OK if she did. After all she had a protection order against him. So he would have deserved it.
Well that’s the connotations of the defense lawyer’s comments.
What, apart from a long prison term, would a male get for doing that to a women? And to the child? And for breaching bail?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/71956445/timaru-woman-appears-in-court-after-pinning-her-partner-with-a-car
So Amy Adams based on how the police behave, and how lawyers behave, and how Judges behave, the review has no chance of addressing domestic violence in society. She has to fix institutionalised sexual bigotry first.
So Amy Adams, would your desires to punish men more, to have power and control over them more, to ostracise them more, going to prevent what happened in this case?
Protection orders are a sexually bigoted SHAM already. Making it worse will solve nothing, in fact increasing the oppression of men may in fact result in more serous, end of relationship violence, and higher rates of murder.
Comment by DJ Ward — Fri 11th September 2015 @ 2:20 pm
Just another example of female domestic violence.
What’s interesting about the article is the statement at the end of the article.
It makes me wonder what country the author lives in.
“There’s a raft of Government and non-government organizations dedicated to preventing domestic violence but victims need to take the first step and ask someone for help.”
Raft? What they have already abandoned the sinking ship?
‘Dedicated to preventing domestic violence’. What? Women’s Refuge, Shine? How the hell would they even begin to understand that men can be victims of domestic violence?
Ring the police? Yeh right, that would work for a male for sure. That’s right the police turn up and stop the violence! By arbitrarily giving the male a Police Safety Order. Good faith? NO! Reasonable Care? NO!
“The tragic thing about domestic violence incidents is often they can be avoided.’
It’s called MGTOW, but it’s not a loving solution.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/71963370/woman-charged-with-stabbing-partner
Comment by DJ Ward — Fri 11th September 2015 @ 3:17 pm
“There’s a raft of Government and non-government organisations dedicated to preventing domestic violence but victims need to take the first step and ask someone for help.”
Recently a Masterton give away paper had a whole page about domestic violence including 8 advertisments from “helping agencies”. Not one mention that men might be victims of such abuse and each advertisement clearly assumed they helped just one gender.
Comment by Allan Harvey — Fri 11th September 2015 @ 7:28 pm
Hi DJ and Allen, Re points made at 14 & 15,
I found another article about the same incident.
It said the woman was to appear in court the next day charged with Assault with intent to cause GBH. Yep MULTIPLE STABBING = GBH
But surely she wont go to prison as she doesn’t have the correct body parts to be the aggressor. The bloke must’ve done something wrong to provoke her eh?
As for the bit about victims needing to take the first step – the Sergent seems to have given it some more thought and has more appropriately said Quote:
“There’s a raft of Government and non-government organisations dedicated to preventing domestic violence but victims need to take the first step and ask someone for help. If you find yourself in a compromising situation find someone you can trust and tell them because domestic violence is not ok.”
In other words if your being stabbed, or you might ring your mechanic or your plumber- your barber or your mum, Mabye the bloke who cleans your septic tank ?
I think I will write a letter to that cop and thank him for his realisic advice on behalf of males who have been victims of female attacks.
Comment by voices back from the bush — Fri 11th September 2015 @ 8:51 pm
Great comments and analysis. Thanks for all the hard work and thinking. Humming.
Comment by Ministry of Men's Affairs — Fri 11th September 2015 @ 10:05 pm
#13 example
See Police, the rest of the world can work it out, its attempted murder.
http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/woman-who-ran-down-man-to-face-court/story-e6frfku9-1227525672934
Comment by DJ Ward — Mon 14th September 2015 @ 8:59 am
Voices put me to shame, by completing his submission a month ago. Thanks also to MoMA for bringing these submission to notice and encouraging action.
Here is my last ditch effort (you can see by the time…!)
Submission to: Strengthening New Zealand’s legislative response to family violence
Minister Hon. Amy Adams
I applaud all attempts to reduce any and all non-consensual violence.
NZ’s record of measures against domestic violence (DV) have been surprisingly ineffective, as judged from domestic violence murder statistics. Even without a complete evaluation of outcomes, it would appear that the present measures are having zero impact. In others words, they cause as much harm as they cause good, as far as murders go. This suggests that doing more, in legislation, will achieve only more no-improvement. Clearly the application of DV Act in Family Court and/or the legislation itself, need to be very carefully evaluated.
Although there have been some very low budget evaluations of some aspects of DV Act, there have been no full evaluations of desired and perverse outcomes. Such evaluations are expensive to carry out. To fail to make such an evaluation, is proving to be far more expensive, in terms of social damage and prison costs.
Generally, society wide violence has fallen markedly in the last 50 years. We now prosecute much more minor assaults, so the statistics for low level violence haven’t dropped, where the physical harm done by violence has dropped to a moderate degree. This is seen in hospital day stays for violence. Although most parents have improved skills, the lowest 10% have possibly gone backwards in the last 50 years. This is very slowly being addressed. Schools now teach positive mental health and community support. This is flowing through to reduce violence in the community.
It is good that we are paying more attention to downstream impacts of violence, such as traumatisation of adults and children. This offers great hope for the future.
I recommend that the DV Act be fully evaluated, including perverse effects, such as:
1. the effects on children’s development outcomes,
2. whether the Family Court has sufficient skills to perform as expected by Parliament and
3. perverse impacts such as father’s and mother’s suicides.
At the same time, a full and competent literature search should be carried out, to allow the best wisdom and experience to be incorporated.
In practice, the largest problems are not in the legislation, but the failure by Family Court to implement what Parliament set out. Improvements in protection of vulnerable children and adults will only come from enabling and ensuring that the Family Court does follow legislation satisfactorily and supporting separating parents to negotiate in good faith. Such good faith is essential to protecting the children’s interest for a good upbringing.
Introduction
Family violence in New Zealand
The discussion document is written in non-gendered language. However, reading between the lines, it appears to follow both Labour and National Party policy of seeing women as the only victims and men as only being perpetrators.
Some people suggest that if men comprise only 30% of victims, then they don’t “need” to be considered at all!? This policy would be offering protection to only 70% of victims, on the basis of their sex. This would be a breach of the principles of the Human Rights Act. (Although the Government is able to pass legislation which breaches these principles, it is shown later in this submission that this seriously disadvantages children with violent mothers and is also an unethical breach of rights with respect to the men victims. Humanist Governments protect men, in the same ways that they offer protection for women and children.)
Statistics for victims of domestic violence homicide show about 30% male victims. Some suggest that men don’t need protecting, as they are big enough to protect themselves. Looking more closely at these homicides, we see that these men were usually attacked without any prior warning being given. They were assaulted with knives, hammers, motor vehicles, guns or boiling water. Even if they were physically larger or stronger, the use of tools made the strength factor irrelevant. these men were is essence as vulnerable as any woman, in the particular circumstances of their demise.
Pre-emptive violent strikes cannot be protected against, by offering PO protections, to either men or women. Protection can only be given by ensuring that separation processes proceed with due notice and respect for all parties rights.
If you are having any difficulty in seeing men as possible victims of DV, remember that more children die at the hands of their own mothers, than step fathers and fathers combined. Also that fathers are far behind step-fathers, in killing their own children. Most of these child deaths are classified as infanticide, so don’t show up in murder statistics.
Providing protection to men as well as women, is essential to protecting children’s interest for having a good quality and safe upbringing.
Providing protection to men as well as women, is essential to protecting women’s interest, as a system to protect one, should function equally well to protect the other. The present Family Court behaviours, are not satisfactorily protecting women’s proper interests either.
Appropriate and proportionate responses
The DV Act is too often used as a pre-emptive strike to effectively gain total custody of the children and take advantage of the Child Support payments. To gain such advantages, when not justified by the facts of the situation, is not a proportional response to the facts. The end result is too often driving the father out of the children’s lives. This is the single largest factor in filling our men’s and women’s prisons and also in perpetuating the cycle of solo parenting leading to the next cycle of poor quality parenting.
The government’s work programme on family violence
All of the DV legislation has been prepared without sensibly taking into account the full body of DV research available. Certainly, full appreciation of academic literature does take considerable cost. By skimping on prior analysis, we have introduced poor quality legislation, which has in the course of time, unnecessarily imposed huge social costs.
I recommend competent analysis of relevant DV literature, not just selected feminist literature, before drafting legislation. Full analysis of both intended and perverse outcomes is necessary, to show that legislation is likely to be successful, before passing into law.
To fail to complete the required prior analysis, is to blunder into a Building Act type scenario with leaky buildings. Our children are worth more than buildings, so we should prepare legislation with due care and competence, not indecent haste.
Review of family violence legislation
Legislation drafted in haste may be seriously hazardous. Rushing through Select Committee stages cuts off public comment and debate. Open debate can bring out potential problems, before they start impacting onto hundreds of thousands of people’s lives. Failing to evaluate the performance of legislation for desired and for perverse outcomes after bringing into law, allows earlier errors to continue to impose huge social costs for an extended period of time.
Perverse outcomes includes:
1. the effects on children’s development outcomes,
2. whether the Family Court has sufficient skills to perform as expected by Parliament and
3. perverse impacts such as father’s and mother’s suicides.
Keeping children and adult victims safe in parenting arrangements
As a society, we wring our hands when we hear about a woman murdered by an ex-partner, or children murdered, in situations where, with hindsight, we might have been able to have offered protection.
If we looked back at the same situation and only considered the information available at the time and remembered that there are thousands of similar cases to be considered, that resolved without violence or with only trivial violence, we would appreciate that the measures we suggested, would actually cause considerable harm in the thousands of other cases. Before the murder, there is little or nothing to distinguish the few cases which end in murder, from the thousands that resolve safely. So the measures that we might take in the murderous case, must necessarily be applied in the thousands of cases which will proceed to an appropriate conclusion. Our proposed measures are likely to cause much poorer outcomes, in a much larger number of cases.
We might say that life is sacred and we must do everything to avoid a murder. However, disrupting and damaging the upbringing of thousands of children, to possibly avert one murder, may in fact overall be doing more harm to society. many children will have been denied a good relationship with their fathers. In many cases, these fathers will have been the more effective parent, so the parentectomy has removed the parent who contributed more to their development. Children’s loss of relationship with their fathers, is the single largest factor filling our prisons, to say nothing of the loss of enjoyment of life for the children.
Although Parliament set a statutory limit of 42 days for adjudication of PO applications, this is exceeded in over 90% of cases. Parliament has failed to manage this abuse ofprocess and in doing so, has seriously failed to protect children’s developmental interests. This damages father’s trust and respect for Family Court. Fathers don’t see why they should have to spend many thousands of dollars, to defend from Family Court, what they Family Court should be protecting for their children and themselves. This is funds denied to the development of their children. I suggest that Parliament should have set the limit at 14 days, in terms of protecting children’s development.
Pre-emptive strike using DV Act, to gain custody, is probably the largest single factor impeding children’s development in NZ. Allowing this to happen, is not proportional response to DV.
If it is difficult to protect men, from a pre-emptive strike, ie where no warning has been given, it is similarly difficult to protect women.
The DV literature shows clearly that cutting off intimate or parenting relationships suddenly, without any warning, is sometimes very dangerous, in terms of murders, assaults and suicides. (This was quite clear in the literature, well before the DV Act was passed in 1996. This is why careful literature search is so important to producing good quality and safe legislation.)
The safer approach is to allow separations to proceed on notice. However, the DV Act, as applied by Family Court, allows pre-emptive strike to be used to take sole custody and resulting “child support” payments. Allowing this to occur is mot proportional response to the facts of the situation.
Although Parliament foresaw the possibility of using the DV Act for pre-emptive strike, it relied upon Family Court to not allow this to happen. It never checked on Family Court performance. About 30% of separating mothers make without notice PO applications. Hospital data suggests that 80% of those PO applications pre-emptive strikes, ie about 25% of separating mothers. This impacts at some time or another, onto about 15% of all our children.
In many cases, the fathers give up on trying to protect the children’s relationship with them, as these mothers have intended. These mothers appear to have little understanding of what they are doing to their children in the long run.
Going back to the case of police attending a callout, where a man has been assaulted by the mother of their children. It is common for police to warn the man that they will take no action on female assaults male. He is further warned that if he insists on making a formal complaint of assault to police, that they will notify CYFs that children are affected and CYFs will likely remove the children from the couple. Although CYFs could leave the children with the father, many CYFs social workers will refuse to consider a father assault victim as possibly being a competent parent and will proceed to remove the children.
This father is left with a terrible set of options (which exactly parallel those faced by most women 40 years ago):
1. stay and put up with ongoing violence. (Usually the children will also be affected.)
2. leave the children with the violent and uncontrolled mother
In both cases, the children’s interest to be protected and to receive proper development will not be met. In the first case, the father’s mental health slowly deteriorates and his ability to parent suffers.
Both of these options are as unsatisfactory for the children, as they are for the father.
Proper protection for the children can only be given by extending the same DV protections to fathers, as are provided for mothers. In essence, by complying with the Human Rights Act.
It is only by offering proper DV protection to men, that we can ensure that proper DV protection is available for women, without unwittingly offering PO pre-emptive strike to mothers. This will also take away much of the apparent workload of the Family Court and reduce the resulting costs to sensible levels.
The solutions to DV don’t lie in legal procedures, but in good parenting and child protection, by following on-notice procedures and incentivising parties to act in good faith. (This would reduce legal incomes, so will only happen when properly managed and supervised.)
Allowing pre-emptive PO strike is not proportional and does not protect children.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thanks to everyone else who put in submissions!!!!
Cheers,
MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Fri 25th September 2015 @ 11:46 pm
Brilliant MurrayBacon!
That just made my submission look like a school tuckshop lunch order.
Your a bloody national treasure mate.
This issue means a lot to me.
If all these letters and submissions carry no weight or mention at all I’m going to reconsider my tactics to gain attention to these issues.
Ive been kidnapped and held seiged in a cell because of the ridiculous policies of this government. I don’t want that to happen to other men so easily.I want to see changes in my lifetime not just leave a kind wish for the future.
Im thinking 500 Nooses draped from parliament to the caf’é might raise some eyebrows.
If its good enough for greenpeace then its good enough for me.
“I see vandals more than I see the wisdom of soloman” is that because the vandles took the candles? Is it time we MADE them see?
I have other ideas too and how legal they are is becoming less of a concern to me.
Our robot police allow accusations against men to be taken as gospel without any thought and whip our children away from us like mag wheels in a dark street.
Men Languish, men cry and men die. Just like the Edmond fitzgerald ” Like lambs to the slaughter, All that remains is the faces and the names of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
So we sit down and write a strongly worded letter, ever cautious not to reveal our anger because we know they don’t understand this anger is given to us. Not born of us.
The NZ mens/fathers movement has for some years been driven by lawful, polite, patient and respectable men. It is an asset to build on for the future generations. The history that’s detailed within these archives will be exactly what a young man will look to when he wakes up in 1984. But is that enough? Perhaps its also part of the reason we have little gains in the face of critical mass against us. With gps collars or implants and brainwashing techniques 1984 is exactly where he will wake up.
I don’t want this. My daughter is 12 and when she starts dating (@21) if a date doesn’t meet her standards and she slaps the guy, I don’t want him to hit her back but heres the thing Murray, I don’t want him to run away either. Because if she does that to the next guy he may have already been slapped and walked away, eventually she will get clobbered herself. I want men to have confidence in the future. Confidence that they too have a right to exist and something to offer her.
WW2 was funded on both sides by the same family’s. No disrespect but the whole shooting match was just another devide , conquer and rebuild exercise.
I see the Family courts playing the same game as those fed bankers in ww2.
New Flag or old flag – its time for bravery again.
Comment by voices back from the bush — Sat 26th September 2015 @ 4:18 am
Dear Voices, I really like your nom de plume. It seems to have a lot of meanings for me, as my voices tell me all sorts of helpful and divergent ideas, when I can keep them under a little control. When they get out of control, there is no limit.
I have plenty spare tritium, if you can think of a good use for it! Some has gone off, but most is still raring to go.
Unfortunately, I prepared a single document submission. The on line entry required separating into answers for 38 questions, many with several discrete subquestions. At 11.43 pm, I ended up submitting my whole submission under just one subheading. In practice, this is likely to lead to my submission being totally ignored. They appear to not listen anyway, so the end result is the same. Suitable punishment for one who dithered until the very last minute and only started preparation at 8.00 pm on the day submissions closed.
I seem to remember good cop, bad cop being a very good communicating technique. The police taught it to me and it did seem to be a very useful technique. Moderate speakers and a way out lunatic fringe making revolting and threatening noises in the background, is a much faster way of opening up dialogue, than just nicey pie.
I had thought that families of women and men driven to suicide might have some metal in them, but most are crushed and all their energy is needed to pull themselves back together (with a few very notable exceptions).
I am not too petrified at the DV lobby. Although they waste big amounts of money, the real work of reducing violence in society is quietly being done by school teachers and doctors. They are not the best placed to have the biggest impact, but they do know what to do and quietly get on with doing it. The people best placed to reduce violence more quickly, are familycaught$ judges, psychologists and social workers. They are lost, in the sense of taking positive moves to reduce violence. They just take care of what they see as their own best interests. History will eventually leave them in the dust.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 26th September 2015 @ 11:21 am
Hi Murray,
Thanks for making contact by email,
Ive started draughting a reply and decided to include some background.
Its turning into something of a novel so i’ll just keep writing and send tomorrow!
Comment by voices back from the bush — Sat 26th September 2015 @ 9:48 pm
On our behalf one of our members prepared a submission to the Family Violence law review. Being 25 pages, it has been uploaded to the media library and can be read here.
Comment by Ministry of Men's Affairs — Sun 27th September 2015 @ 10:44 pm
My submission mostly ignored Domestic violence as a result. I to got a bit caught out by the 38 Question thing, but all good. I ran out of time and put the same summary in every, other ideas box. Never mind. The Amos principle might play out.
My submission focused on three groups of female sex offenders, and how these groups form the foundations of DV.
Today to her credit, Minister Tolley, is sounding out an aspect of those issues. She by now can see how feminists will attack and defend their position on the issue.
Hopefully my argument will give her some ammunition to fend them off, as my proposition has a balanced approach to the issue.
My belief is that the state cannot (vary rare exceptions) interfere in a persons rights to have children. That right of the individual has to have limits if the right is being abused at the perverse expense of others. IE the right to replace oneself, meaning two children.
Like I said.
I have hope.
Scant.
But present.
Comment by DJ Ward — Mon 28th September 2015 @ 8:27 am
Another good article by Miranda Devine.
The tide is turning.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/miranda-devine-demonising-men-wont-stop-domestic-violence/story-fni0cwl5-1227545469411?sv=4b344aaafe868687b73773b8065f075f
Comment by DJ Ward — Mon 28th September 2015 @ 12:18 pm
Hi DJ,
nice work @ 24
great link @25
She speaks words that no public male figure dare utter.
She suggests Turnbuls $100 million “gimmick” was “cooked up to try to improve his vote with women.”
Perhaps the new PM wasn’t paying attention when Cunny said “Im sorry I’m a Man”,-
only to result in the lowest male vote count in the history of the labour party.(less than 10%)
Comment by voices back from the bush — Mon 28th September 2015 @ 2:34 pm
Congratulations MoMA and Hans, your submission reads very smoothly and in my opinion, is backed up by excellent work experience and qualifications.
Although it reads easily, it is intensely full of practical points about the performance of the DV Act, judges and police. Although I have so far spent 2 hours reading the submission, I haven’t done it justice and I will be re-reading it very carefully. There are 10 pages of detailed and clearly described recommendations.
I understand that Te Piriti sex offenders is well respected internationally, in particular for its reasonably low recidivism rate. This is something which many people experienced in the field believed was impossible.
I do recommend that people wishing to advocate for better quality DV programmes and legislation read this submission very carefully. If advocates prepare a submission of this level of quality, then it behoves all dissatisfied men or women to read, understand and support this submission. It must have taken a huge amount of work and planning to put this submission together. (Legal workers might also want to read it, so that they can see how to be devil’s advocates, to protect their own ill gotten roles and incomes.)
The only possible weak link, is in “readers” who refuse to see.
Thanks,
MurrayBacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Mon 28th September 2015 @ 8:58 pm
For #25
And this is the feminist reply to the article.
It’s one of those, me , me, me examples.
It must be wrong because it happened to me!
Statistically yes it can happen to you. But that is not a representation of the truth.
Quotes.
‘Violence is a gender-based issue’
Meaning females can’t be violent against men.
‘to solve the increasing problems of domestic violence and violence against women in this country’
Men don’t count? Female versions of violence against men don’t count?
‘Women who were victims of DV and VAW had made a crap choice in a man’
Or a good man was destroyed by a bad women!
‘found another crappy man’
She meant ‘poor me, dropping to my own standard’
‘every low-down, dirty, scummy man I could find.’
Yes, we got the point. It’s all men’s fault. Keep flapping those angel wings!
OHH! The irony. The hypocrisy. She’s pushing the feminist DV pram.
‘Stats, however, are subjective. That is, unless you look at the homicide statistics.’
IE yes the stats say this but we will ignore those because it makes me look bad.
But look at these stats. They make men look bad. I’m breathing, but I feel victimized by it.
‘What I am ashamed of is those women with a high profile who are insisting it doesn’t happen to women like me.’
Yes there it is.
Women Hating Women.
Like Slut Shaming etc
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/violence-against-women-and-domestic-violence-are-happening-everywhere/story-fnq2o7dd-1227547539979
Keep up the good honest work Miranda!
Comment by DJ Ward — Tue 29th September 2015 @ 8:27 am
Here is the reply to the reply.
fantastic.
Feminists actually having to fight back, and having the propaganda examined.
And failing.
Women on women.
Its entertaining.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/miranda-devine-answers-her-critics/story-fnpug1jf-1227549660186?sv=9100f650714949328f8fda0a301d32b7
Comment by DJ Ward — Wed 30th September 2015 @ 1:42 pm
And again.
Women on women.
Fantastic.
They are on the same teem too!
It sounds nearly impossible to consider.
Judith does not hate men enough?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/72571568/judith-collins-cant-talk-about-chris-brown-without-making-her-own-apologies
Comment by DJ Ward — Wed 30th September 2015 @ 2:51 pm
And again, for #25
Women on women
Quotes
‘VIOLENCE DOESN’T DISCRIMINATE: The stereotype that only those from low-income backgrounds experience family violence prevents those in wealthier communities seeking help.’
I had a conversation yesterday with a person on this issue. The implication was that the neighbours don’t ring the cops because the driveway is to long for people to hear what is going on at the other end. Ohh the irony.
Sometimes hypocrisy in an argument can be hard to see.
‘Surely then, only poor, brown people in council houses come home and beat their wives to a pulp?
Recent testimonies paint a different picture.
In the US, agencies reported an increase in spousal abuse since the 2008 recession, with more women from upscale communities seeking help.’
So what’s going on with the male then?
In the poor house, under financial pressure, there is violence present.
In the rich house, the presence of violence is dependent on the financial pressure on the male?
So violence is a result on males, not male is a cause?
The next bit on higher female incomes is complicated.
I won’t do quotes on what she has said, if I express my opinion it may result in you banging your head against a wall, doing yourself an injury.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/wairarapa-times-age/midweek/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503659&objectid=11525398
What’s this then?
Can you explain Erin, how was that his fault?
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/edelstens-breakup-is-getting-ugly-geoffrey-accuses-gabi-of-faking-pregnancy-and-miscarriage/story-fnk822dn-1227561359880
And I’m getting a bit sick of this Chris Brown crap.
Yes there is clear issues with things like ego, and I’m not a fan of the attitude either.
But have you considered this.
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/books-magazines/why-rihanna-wont-have-casual-sex/story-fnk84xng-1227559817356
So here we go. Chris is a very successful guy, with plenty of women willing to fall at his feet, wanting him to be their knight in shining armour.
Yet even he is not good enough. Ask Rihanna.
‘I will wait forever if I have to “¦ but that’s OK you have to be screwed over enough times to know, but now I’m hoping for more than these guys can actually give.’
No wonder Chris always looks dazed and confused.
There is this. Pertaining to her perception of sex, especially with her, take photos of me, I’m so hot, you can never have me.
‘If I wanted to I would completely do that,’ Rihanna confessed. ‘I am going to do what makes me feel happy, what I feel like doing. But that would be empty for me; that to me is a hollow move. I would wake up the next day feeling like sh*tt.’
Which is fine, needing specialized sex therapy to fix (the feeling like sh*t), but how much of that translated into the relationship?
If I was a betting man, it could sound like this.
I love you.
Have sex with me.
You’re not doing what I need.
No sex.
I love you.
Have sex with me.
You’re not doing what I need.
No sex.
Please repeat cycle many times.
Then contact the police, when the victim breaks.
Have a good weekend guys.
Comment by DJ Ward — Fri 9th October 2015 @ 2:51 pm
Hi DJ Ward,
great posts these ones. I especially enjoyed the Maranda Devine chronicles..thanks
Comment by voices back from the bush — Sat 10th October 2015 @ 6:32 pm
Why isn’t Helen Kelly arrested? She said she used an illegal substance. Admitted it on TV. Why no action by the police?
Comment by too tired — Sat 10th October 2015 @ 10:48 pm