Headed: ‘Man —haters’ on abuse checklist , a story in the Press yesterday written by Kim Thomas notes the fact that we recently linked to an item on another site containing a checklist for spotting women who make false abuse allegations.

Thomas reports:

The Masculinist Evolution New Zealand (Menz) website says false allegations of domestic violence are commonplace. It is a view backed by another lobby group, The Union of Fathers.

Women’s Refuge is deeply angered by Menz’s promotion of the checklist, which it says minimises family violence.

Menz is affiliated with many of New Zealand’s male rights groups and has thousands of names on its database.

(Actually, I told Thomas that our number of subscribers was “less than a thousand”, but I’m not going to bother complaining about that.)

The article continues with Union of Fathers spokesman Darrell Carlin confirming that false allegations in order to deny a father custody rights are common in New Zealand.

The article continues:

Women’s Refuge national trainer Debbie Robinson said she was angered by Menz promoting an article, which undermined efforts to deal with family violence… New Zealand research showed that only 1 to 2 per cent of people with protection orders abused the process.

Even if this ‘research’ had any credibility whatsoever, Robinson’s attitude is astounding. Even her dodgy figures represent hundreds of children loosing their dads because of the Refuge’s ideologically-inspired campaign of social engineering. Just because bad things happen to ‘only’ a small percentage of victims, we can safely ignore them, according to Robinson. I wonder if she would apply the same reasoning to other social problems that affect 2% of the population?

The Radical Feminist attack on Judge Recordon for daring to deviate from the politically-correct line continues.

A Press Release issued by Karen Price, National Women’s Rights Officer at the New Zealand University Students’ Association, insists the Judge’s attitude to domestic violence is outrageous.

Price argues in favour of continuing with the ‘one size fits all’ approach:

“Any minimising or differentiation of domestic violence risks normalising such acts, and reduces the likelihood of survivors speaking out and being taken seriously.”

I can understand why she is confident her prediction is correct – the RadFem strategy of differentiating between male and female violence then minimising the latter has so far proved fantastically successful at stopping male victims from speaking out and being helped.

Regarding the Judge’s reference to 80% of women choosing to stay with abusive partners, Price gives a revealing insight into how women of her ilk see the world:

“This is simply not true, as many women do not have genuine ‘choice’. A more accurate description of this phenomenon could be that 80% of perpetrators of domestic violence manage to retain their victims.”

I wonder how many students these days really support this perverse and twisted reasoning? Do they even pay attention to the values their representatives espouse?

In an October 22-28 2005 Listener article titled: ‘My Eyes Stay Awake‘, Dennis Welch writes about the “effect on children exposed to domestic violence”. Personally, I can’t help wondering if the article is more about the effect of young, attractive, blond interview subjects on aging male journalists!

To enlighten us, Welch interviews Jane Drumm, Executive Director of the organisation Preventing Violence in the Home, an “Auckland agency formed to help women subject to domestic violence”. The information that Drumm is actually a prominent Women’s Refuge [JP edit: her organistion, previously known as the Domestic Violence Centre (Auckland) is no longer formally part of the National Refuge Collective, but the website is still unambiguaously aligned with Refuge’s radical feminist ideology] activist is inexplicably omitted; in fact the words ‘Women’s Refuge’ do not appear anywhere in the article.

Drumm tells the Listener that out of “concern about the effect on children of violence between their parents”, the organisation set up a child crisis team of social workers who supposedly give “kids the tools to cope with what they have to cope with… and to be safe”. It also presumably opens up huge new opportunities for getting public funding to pay feminist activists.

I’ve copied every mention of violence in the article below – who can spot what is wrong with this picture?

Dad had been drinking. He threw my mum on the floor and got a big knife from the kitchen. He strangled her. He said, “I’m going to kill your mother tonight” I said “No, Dad don’t hurt mum” but he wouldn’t stop. Mum was saying to me “help me” but I didn’t know what to do.

My dad hit my mum. Dad pushed mum onto the fridge. Dad is naughty for hitting mum ’cause it makes Mum say “no, no”

All blood came out of her face. She needed a towel. I cry lots of times.

My eyes stay awake at night. My dad might kill my mum and the night. He hit her bad before. There was lots of blood.

“I want to get in between I am too scared”, said a seven-year-old girl who saw her mother abused. “I am mean not helping her”.

How do you help a three-year-old cope with Dad hitting Mum?

Katy Reeves asked the mother about the danger posed by her violent husband — now living apart from her but still paying threatening visits.

Drum and colleague and Rachel Williamson surveyed the child crisis team over a period of five months and found that nearly half the children spoken to (27 out of 62) had witnessed their father’s or stepfather’s violent abuse of the mother.

The article concludes with a promotion for the National Network of Stopping Violence Services conference “Courageous Practice” to be held at Waipuna Lodge on October 20-22. Why is the Listener colluding with these radical feminist organisations in promoting hatred towards men and the removal of fathers from involvement in children’s lives by spreading this type of disinformation ?

If this article had been written by a wet-behind-the-ears journalism student straight out of school, the lack of balance and uncritical reporting of an extreme ideological agenda might be understandable, even if unacceptable. That it was written by a senior and experienced reporter like Welch should be of grave concern to us all.

Rift erupts over male suicide policy The Press

A serious rift has appeared among suicide experts over policies targeting male suicides.

The debate erupted yesterday as the Males and Suicides Symposium 2005 organised by Suicide Prevention Information New Zealand (Spinz) opened in Christchurch. Spinz is a non-government, New Zealand-wide information service, in partnership with the Mental Health Foundation.

Suicide researchers based at the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences have challenged claims by Spinz director Merryn Statham, calling them “misleading”.

In a statement supported by six other academics, Associate Professor Annette Beautrais said yesterday Statham had pointed to the disproportionate rate of suicide in males and proposed male suicide was a major area to be addressed.

However, a clear decline in the male to female suicide ratio had occurred in recent years, she said. In 1994, four males took their own lives for every one female. By 2002 the ratio had declined to 3.2 males for every one female suicide.

“Under these circumstances the extent to which further policies to reduce gender differences are needed is debatable.”

Refuge supports not jailing wife-beaters NZ Herald

Glenda Ryan, manager of Henderson’s Viviana refuge, said local refuges supported a Waitakere pilot scheme which encourages men charged with domestic violence to plead guilty and attend anger management courses and drug and alcohol counselling.

The pilot makes men charged with domestic violence less likely to be jailed in Waitakere than in most other parts of the country apart from Manukau, where a similar pilot started in February.

Judge Philip Recordon, one of three Waitakere judges who hear domestic violence cases, told a conference in Wellington that men who beat their partners should not be jailed if their behaviour could be changed in other ways.

“The more you can do to change his behaviour the better – what’s the point of locking them up if you can avoid it?” he was reported to have asked. The text of his speech has not been released. He is reported to have said that judges should consider discharging first-time offenders without conviction in a minority of domestic violence cases “at the lower end of the scale”.

Ms Ryan said many women who were beaten by their partners wanted the violence to stop, but still wanted the relationship to continue and were not willing to send them to jail.

“In the old system a lot of the men would plead not guilty and go to a defended hearing. On the day their partner would refuse to give evidence and they would walk free,” she said.

“When there is a chance to offer help and services to those families, women are prepared to stick with their complaints on the basis that their partners will be sent to things like anger management and drug and alcohol counselling and any other personal counselling that they might need.”

JohnP comments: Although the Herald finds support for Judge Recordon from a refuge is “unexpected”, it is perhaps not so surprising when you understand that the Henderson Refuge is not aligned with the National Collective of Women’s Refuges, precisely because it dares to support grass-roots community values and initiatives rather than the radical feminist hard line.

This story raises important questions of equity – how long will men who aren’t lucky enough to live in Waitarere or Manukau be forced to tolerate the simplistic ‘one size fits all’ Domestic Violence intervention model (ie: Duluth), based on the ideological agenda of man-hating 20th century lesbians?

Justice Ministry should be prosecuted for Family Court bungle
Press Release: New Zealand National Party

Nelson MP Nick Smith wants the Ministry of Justice prosecuted for publishing on its website sensitive Family Court information in which a family and children could easily be identified.

“This is a serious breach that undermines the confidence of tens of thousands of families who use the court,” says Dr Smith.

“The Solicitor-General last year saw fit to prosecute TV3, Radio New Zealand and myself for revealing far less information about a case.

“The family concerned are outraged that very personal information about their relationship and finances was put up on a public website when they could easily be identified. The website uses their initials, ages, the town they lived in, and the specific small business they ran together. The family was alerted by someone who immediately identified them from the government website.”

Jail no solution for wife bashers Dominion Post

The first thing that struck me about this article was the odd headline – the use of the word “basher” is clearly intended to inspire hatred towards the men referred to in the story, even though it directly contradicts the reported facts. Headlines are an editorial decision – one wonders why the Dom. Post has so much investment in ‘spinning’ this.

The story by Anna Saunders begins by paraphrasing the judge concerned:

AS: Jailing men who beat their partners is not always the best option and some should be let off without conviction, a judge says.

Now I bet the word “beat” was not what was actually said. This type of systematic language distortion is characteristic of Radical Feminist propaganda about Domestic Violence – how it works in a court situation is described by lawyer Terry Carson in his article ‘Fiction In The Family Court’.

By the time the article starts reporting the actual facts, we have been given two clear signals that what follows is not considered politically correct.

AS: Judge Philip Recordon, who works at Waitakere’s pilot Family Violence Court, told a restorative justice conference this week that a hardline approach to domestic violence “flies in the face of reality” and fresh ideas were needed.

Next, before expanding the judge’s comment or putting it in any kind of context, a spot of character denigration:

AS: He angered women’s groups and some media earlier this year when he granted an All Black permanent name suppression after he pleaded guilty to beating his pregnant wife. The player was discharged without conviction. Critics said the decision sent the message that family violence was not being taken seriously.

I trust by now you are all going tut, tut, shaking your head and thinking “why would anybody take this man seriously?” No? You’ve obviously been spending too much time reading MENZ Issues!
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Fathers will pay less for child support Sydney Morning Herald

Minimum child support payments are to be raised, but most fathers will find themselves paying less, after the federal cabinet approved the biggest revamp since the inception of the controversial system.

Instead of payments being calculated as a percentage of taxable income of the child support payer they will be based on the combined income of both parents. The changes could take effect as soon as July 1 next year.

The amount of time each parent spends caring for the children will also be taken into consideration and the cost of raising children will be assessed in two age groups – up to 12 years and 13 to 17 years. As a result, about 60 per cent of non-custodial parents – usually fathers – can expect their payments to be reduced.
…

The decision comes as the Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, prepares to take amendments to the Family Law Act to Parliament, including the requirement that separating couples visit a counsellor at one of the new Family Relationship Centres in an attempt to settle their differences out of court.

A most fearsome virus has been released into society, in some ways even more lethal than the feared H5N1 strain of avian (bird) flu. The strain PRA (XY-XX) is already estimated to have infected nearly 70% of NZ couples with potential for financially and emotionally debilitating results. There have been cases of suicide.

At the time of writing, this virus has been circulating for the better part of three years. Most couples are not even aware they have contracted it. Perversely, couples that have vaccinated to avoid the virus can be the ones most at risk. Although XY genes are most at risk some XX can also be vulnerable.

Those that believed they were inoculated using “COA” (old batches were called “prenuptials”) inoculum (at $500-$1000 per dose) find that it can actually encourage the disease. One couple became vaccinated then 3 years later almost to the day he came down with a severe attack of the strain known as “section 21?.

He caught this off his partner whose health provider had only suggested he may have administered a bad dose of vaccine. This turned out not to be the case but in such cases the cost of testing the vaccine can be more burdensome than the disease it was designed to prevent. The cost falls not on the health provider but the victim.
(more…)

Standards push in Family Court NZ Herald

The Family Court is facing a fresh shakeup, with Principal Judge Peter Boshier insisting on more formality to ensure it – and the legal orders it makes – are respected.

Judge Boshier wants a higher standard of evidence presented to the courts, and has decided lawyers will be asked to stand, not sit, when they address judges.

He has already applied to the Government to lift a legislative ban on judges wearing gowns in the Family Court.

The changes he has outlined are intended to improve the authority of the Family Court and to prevent its orders, including those protecting children, being flouted.

But it is also understood Judge Boshier wants to strengthen the performance of professionals, including lawyers, social workers and court staff, to avoid “embarrassing lapses and delays”.
…

In a speech in Wellington yesterday, Judge Boshier said that, when established, the Family Court was allowed to receive “any” evidence which might not be heard in other courts.

“At what point, do we say there is an honourable limit to the admissibility of second-hand, unoriginal and sometimes questionably sourced material?”

Call to respect Family Court Dominion Post

“I would like there to be no perception at all that Family Court orders, when issued, can be negotiated, avoided or informally modified,” Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier said yesterday.
…

“The Care of Children Act does much to strengthen our court’s powers, making it clear that our role has authority and that the orders we make are not to be flouted,” he said.

But many litigants still lacked confidence in the court and did not see its orders as requiring compliance, he said.

JohnP’ s comments: Now that it is no longer able to operate in secret, the NZ Family Court is being forced to undergo a rapid image make-over. Principal Judge Peter Boshier has realised that allowing judges to continue making decisions on the basis of “second-hand, unoriginal and sometimes questionably sourced material” is not a good look, as is tolerating “embarrassing lapses and delays” on behalf of court professionals, and blatant flouting of Court Orders by some parents.

Many of Judge Boshier’s suggested reforms are on the right track, but it will take a lot more that a change of costume and protocols to rebuild public confidence in the court. For a start, an acknowledgement that thousands of families devastated by the court’s past disgraceful performance deserve to have their cases reviewed. And how about making public statistics on custody awards by gender which will demonstrate unequivocally how much institutional bias against fathers still exists?

Newly released book by Mary Fielding and Jane Westaway
ISBN/ISSN 1877361151
In bookstores now – $29.95

ACCUSATION is Mary Fielding’s gripping account of a nightmare that begins one ordinary evening with a knock at her front door. Minutes later three police officers lead away her husband Steve. Later that night he is charged on two counts of indecency. What is his wife and mother of his two daughters to believe? And which is worse: that her husband is guilty as charged, or that an innocent man is subjected to such on-going anguish?

After a two-and-a-half year battle which threatens the Fielding’s emotional and economic survival, Steve is spat out of a system that Mary now sees as deeply flawed, shockingly unjust. It’s easy to believe in justice, to trust police to investigate and judges to deliver sound verdicts, that is, until someone in your family is arrested, charged and tried. Then that belief can be shattered forever. ACCUSATION is a compelling story told with remarkable courage.

A Stuff News Release advises the launching out of the blue campaign, for male depression and suicide, then links to a website about female and gay depression.

For anyone looking for a more appropriate website try this link to the
mental health site.

Brazen and streetwise teenage girls are responsible for an increasing share of the violent crime in New Zealand, a senior judge says.
This week Principal Youth Court Judge Andrew Becroft told The Press that 20 per cent of youth crime was now committed by females, compared with 15% two years ago.

Article by
By KIM THOMAS
07 October 2005

Anti Domestic Violence Campaigns take on a new meaning while sensible people step up the fight against the rising hysteria of the Domestic Violence Industry which pales the religious frenzy of the middle ages. This burgeoning billion dollar business is home to the lazy and incompetent — the hyenas of family destruction and social meltdown. An ideology of subjective truth has left a festering train of vagrant minds, unable to distinguish right from wrong, fact from fantasy, and reality from fallacy. These people are more dangerous than the few pedophiles that escape the incompetence or failure of our social administration. In a parade of self righteous antagonism their trail of destruction will diminish the legacy of great wars.

The 2005 annual conference of
The National Network of Stopping Violence Services
Extract:

2.12 Fathers’ Rights Groups and Their Impact on the Effectiveness of Domestic Violence Laws in New Zealand

This workshop will present on the impact of fathers’ rights campaigns on the laws about domestic violence and care of children and the approach of the New Zealand Family Court; and also about how gender bias and a parental rights focus makes it harder to get effective legal protection for victims of family violence. This will be followed by discussion about strategies to increase the effectiveness of our DV laws.
– Wendy Davis is a Wellington family lawyer and much of her work involves family violence. Wendy’s workshop will address many of the issues raised in her paper Gender bias, fathers’ rights, domestic violence and the Family Court, published in Butterworth’s Family Law Journal in December 2004.
Extract: Gender bias can prejudice both women and men, but it is not symmetrical. Unlike gender bias against men, gender bias against women occurs in the context of women’s generally disadvantaged position in society and, historically, under the law.

The National Network of Stopping Violence Services is a network of 33 Community based organisations working to prevent violence and abuse in families in Aotearoa New Zealand. Services provided by member agencies include stopping violence and support/education programmes for men, women and children under the Domestic Violence Act, advocacy and support for victims of domestic violence, domestic violence training for organizations and professionals, and interagency coordination.

This is especially for people who are stuck on the casual link theory.

Part 1.

Keith Rankin 2001.

Part 1.

“Marriage breakdown is a significant characteristic of male suicide in the 24-39 age bracket. The anxiety and emotional pain of separation and divorce appear to effect men differently. Whilst suicides may simply be recorded as statistics, it is the increasing number of murder/suicides, involving children that have brought the tragic reality of male suicide, and male mental health issues in general into the public arena. Where children are concerned, there is evidence to suggest that many men sense they are being discriminated against in Family Court judgements, and often find themselves in financial straits having to pay legal fees and child support payments. The difficulty in maintaining access to children also heightens the frustration and isolation of separated and/or divorced men.
“Following two murder/suicides in Western Australia in 1999, where fathers gassed both themselves and their children to death, Allan Huggins, director of Men’s Health, Teaching and Research at Curtin University, said “There is a whole range of psychological issues for them to deal with, but ultimately they see their situation as being totally hopeless and then a realm of fantasy begins where they want to take their children with them to what they perceive as being a better place.” It seems that ‘stressed fathers will keep killing’ both themselves and their children, until adequate support services are provided. Professor Pierre Baume, Head of the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention at Griffith University in Queensland found that, in a study of 4,000 suicides, at least 70% were associated with relationship break-ups. Men were 9 times more likely to take their own lives following break-up than women.

“Why do men and women respond so differently to separation? Research suggests that the majority of divorces are initiated by women, and that in most cases, married men did not want to separate and had tried to resolve the problems. Further evidence suggests that the period of ‘separation’ is one of the most stressful times in a man’s life, and often this anxiety and frustration continues for many years.”

Part 2.

I published a paper in 1999 on the way that the Child Support legislation makes it extremely expensive if not impossible for separated fathers (ie ‘secondary caregivers’) to have effective contact with their children. (See Fiscal and Welfare Barriers to Effective Fatherhood, or the revised internet-only version.)

My paper considers the financial position of a separated father of three whose only financial debt is a student loan. In order to provide a roof for his children during access, I assumed he would rent an apartment for $200 per week. If he was unemployed, after paying rent, tax and child support (which most likely would be paid to the state and not to his ex), he would have $2.34 to spend on himself and his children. (In practice, he would have to live in accommodation unsuitable for access.) If he then got a job grossing $500 per week, he would in effect keep 20% of that $500, leaving himself and his children a total of $102 per week for food, bills, transport etc.

Insert (I can’t blame men for leaving NZ, when I see these engineered political cover-ups, I wonder why I would even want to exist on the same planet as these people. Perhaps we could have a conference about the number of men that have committed suicide in the last 6 months while being pursued by IRD child support.)

New Zealand’s alarmingly high rate of male suicide will be the focus of a conference in Christchurch next week.

Organised by Suicide Prevention Information New Zealand (Spinz), the conference will look at ways of accessing and supporting the emotional well-being of males, and examine prevention.

Spinz director Merryn Stratham said that while the overall suicide rate had been declining since 1998, there were still 350 male suicides in 2002, compared with 110 female.

The rate was higher for male Maori and meant New Zealand had the sixth-highest rate of male suicide within OECD countries.

“Men are dying by suicide at completely disproportionate rates and we must find ways to prevent this,” Ms Stratham said.

Every suicide had devastating effects on families, friends and communities.

Conference delegates will examine suicide prevention strategies in England and Scotland, along with strategies working specifically with Maori and Pacific people.

The gathering is being held during Mental Health Awareness Week, in recognition of the links between mental health and suicide.

www.spinz.org.nz

Note on Historic Research. New Zealand Medical Journal June 2003

2002 Suicide Statistics

The most recent statistics to be made available show the usual trends of high male suicide, both by gender comparison and international comparisons. Apart from the all male 85 and over age group, the highest suicide rates for men in NZ occur in the following age groups.

1st 25 -29
2nd 20 -24
3rd 35 -39
4th 30 — 34

Of all age groups for males 75 years and under with the exception of one, youth aged 15 — 19 have the lowest suicide rate, however female suicide is highest in the 15 — 19 and 20 — 24 age groups. On an international basis the most disproportionate statistic is female aged 15 — 19 where apart from Japan we are double any other country.

Also interesting in mortality statistics in 2000 men were marginally more likely to die from car accidents, than suicide, however in 2001 and 2002, they were more likely to die from suicide than car accidents.

The mortality (all deaths)rate for males has been double that of females through ages 15 — 45 years, over the last 5 years. If there is one glaring correlation here it is the similarity between the loss and males in population age groups and the loss of males by suicide.

If we were to gain an insight into NZ male suicide it might be easily gained by asking the same age group of men why the permanently left NZ ?

Child, Youth and Family (CYF) is so short of foster parents that children are being placed with caregivers before the new parents are properly trained.

A national recruitment campaign to find 300 caregivers has fallen short, with 120 signed up and a further 60 to be assessed.
…

Christchurch Family and Foster Care Association chairwoman Pamela Turner said being a foster parent was a “very challenging and stressful job which people needed to think carefully about before becoming involved”.

Turner said caregivers frequently faced allegations from children and young people in their care, which put a lot of stress on the family environment, in addition to dealing with children’s often difficult behaviour.

South Auckland Foster Care Association chairwoman Allysa Carberry said the area was extremely short of caregivers, forcing some foster parents to take on more children.

She also knew of caregivers, including foster parents and kinship caregivers, who looked after relatives’ children, who had not completed the CYF induction course before children were placed with them.

CYF training manuals describe the course as a “prerequisite” to placement of children.

Carberry, who has been a caregiver for 10 years, said not providing training was a “dangerous practice”.
…

Social workers to strike

Child, Youth and Family’s (CYF) 2000 social workers are to strike as abuse and neglect notifications reach a monthly record.

Nearly 5200 allegations of abuse and neglect were made to the child-protection agency last month.
…

A CYF spokeswoman said the department was investigating why the number of notifications to its call centres continued to break records. She said the trend was probably due to New Zealanders becoming less tolerant of abuse.

The number of phone calls to the agency rose from almost 28,000 in 2002 to over 51,000 for the year ending June 2005.

For the past four years, between 17 and 24 per cent of all allegations of abuse or neglect were substantiated. This amounted to almost 11,000 cases proven in the year ending June 2005.

28.09.05 10.20am

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

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

…

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

– REUTERS

Cindy Kiro
Children’s Commissioner
New Zealand.

25 September 2005.

Open Letter.

Quoting Herald on Sunday:Who Killed My Girl.

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

Dear Ms Kiro,

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

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

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

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

Bevan Berg.

A new wave of JUSTICE.

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

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

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

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

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

The sun is shinning again!!!!

Regards
“Bruce”

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

By Simon Collins NZ Herald

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quentin Jukes of the Warkworth agency Homebuilders said his group would also refuse to do CYFS assessments because it believed in working alongside families as equals, not threatening to take children away from them as CYFS did.
…

He noted that a CYFS speaker at the conference had confirmed that private sector companies, as well as non-profit agencies, would be eligible to take on CYFS investigations.

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

“My prediction is that in two years’ time, as demand management gets going and there is a real shortage of workers in our sector, people are going to be leaving CYFS and setting up private companies and coming back in and doing that work.”
…

CYFS chief executive Paula Tyler denied reports that 60 per cent of notifications would be farmed out to community agencies under the new plan.

By Simon Collins NZ Herald

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

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

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

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