From the Hearld Online

About three years ago the Government began a review of child support legislation, with all sides of the debate agreeing that the law is unfair, inflexible and causing many families serious harm. Last year a bill emerged, but there seems little enthusiasm to make progress and it is in 49th place on the parliamentary Order Paper as it awaits a first reading before being sent to a select committee for consideration. To be fair, the new law is not due to come into force until 2013, so it is not exactly urgent. But there is some suspicion that the bill is being kept on the back burner because IRD won’t be able to implement it if it does enter the statute books. John Key has already noted that the IRD’s ageing computer system needs a $1 billion upgrade.

Regards

Scrap

John Potter made the following comment: http://menz.org.nz/2012/triple-p-parenting-or-pet/comment-page-1/#comment-730030

It seems to me that the dynamics of parenting as a couple are quite different to how it is if you are solo. It’s not clear to me how well PPP addresses this issue.

John has made the distinction between solo and separated. Another very important comparison, is together or separated parenting.

This is an important distinction, in that a much greater set of better developed skills is required to separated parent well. By the very fact of aiming for separation, there is a prima facie case that one or both parents lack this higher level of parenting skills. (To pour petrol onto the fire, I might suggest that more hazard generally comes from the party suggesting separation?)
(more…)

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/6606448/Hamilton-girl-made-false-rape-complaint-police

The alleged abduction and sexual assault of a Hamilton schoolgirl was a false complaint, police say.

The 15-year-old girl told police she had been forced into a car and raped while walking home from school on Durham St, Nawton on February 27.

Detective sergeant Robbie Hermann of the Waikato CIB said investigators re-interviewed the girl this afternoon.

“As a result of enquiries made into the allegations a number of inconsistencies in the girl’s account were identified and when confronted with these the girl admitted to police that she had made up the story and that she had not been raped as she had earlier reported.”

He said the admission was frustrating as it wasted police resources that could be better utilised helping the victims of genuine incidents.

“Many hours work that could have been spent on investigating genuine cases of child abuse have effectively been lost,” he said.

“In addition to that partner agencies and the girl’s school had worked to ensure her needs were being taken care of.”

Hermann said publicly highlighting the incident had inflamed public apprehension and fear.

Taken from the “Stuff / Dominion Post” web site – 15 March 2012. “Pasted” in full here due to Stuff’s propensity to clean out the annuls of history.

Just to maintain a bit of balance; it’s not only dispossessed dads that get upset with the state grannies at cyfs. Seems cyfs can rile up mums to busting point as well.

Mother punched social worker at CYF office
MICHAEL FORBES
Last updated 05:00 15/03/2012

A custody meeting at the Child, Youth and Family office in Palmerston North descended into chaos when a woman “lost control” and repeatedly punched a social worker after finding out that her children would not be returned to her.

Nadine April Hawea, 36, pleaded guilty to one charge of assault in Palmerston North District Court yesterday.

Hawea was at the CYF office in Church St on February 15 to regain custody of her 5-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter, the court was told.

The police summary of facts said Hawea became angry during a meeting with a social worker and her family lawyer, grabbing the social worker by the collar and repeatedly punching her in the head and body.

When the social worker fell to the floor, Hawea continued to punch her. The lawyer had to intervene to stop the attack. Hawea then walked out, leaving her victim lying injured on the ground.

The social worker needed two days off work to recover from extensive bruising to her arms, legs and right armpit.

Hawea’s lawyer, Richard Bedford, said his client arrived at the meeting only to find she had not completed the paperwork necessary to regain custody of her children.

“It was a terribly stressful time for her … and she simply lost control.”

Hawea was also on “really serious” medication for her health problems, Mr Bedford said.

Judge Gregory Ross remanded Hawea on bail to reappear for sentence in May and ordered her to attend an alcohol abuse rehabilitation programme.

Child, Youth and Family general manager of operations Marama Edwards said social workers were trained to manage difficult situations, but attacks on staff did occasionally happen.

The social worker in question was shaken and distressed by the ordeal, she said.

“It’s appalling that anyone can be attacked while carrying out their duties.”

The department had security measures in place to protect its staff, but she did not elaborate on what they were.

The department is already embroiled in a national security review, spurred by the rampage of Iraqi refugee Thamir Abdulridha El Mehdi, 49, who caused $2250 of damage at a temporary CYF office in Christchurch on November 7.

Parenting training is often seen as an insult.

This is unfortunate, as parenting skills are vitally important to the welfare of our children. Good parenting skills would also help negotiating skills, which alas may also be useful in making the best from being forced to separate. Parenting skills help with negotiating, which can also help in being a good employee.
(more…)

The NZ Herald has published an article on the best places to be a woman since it is/was 101st International Women’s Day.

Note:
18) Best place to leave your husband: Guam
(more…)

I find this story rather sureal.

The situation seems to be that a family traveled willingly to another country. It is implied that the father then decided to stay in that country with his children and with the mother if she wishes. The mother was always free to leave at any time. The father has done nothing illegal under that country’s laws or under NZ laws. He has not done anything to harm the childrens’ relationship with the mother or to seperate them.
(more…)

On Tuesday, TVNZ ONE News screened an item: Male domestic violence victims speak out.
(more…)

Submission regarding Open Marketplace Conversion of Family Court

Review Questions

Public Interest v Personal Matters – what role the Family Court should have in private family disputes;

Generally the law should make clear the limits and people should be able to negotiate freely within those limits, without needing intervention from courts. Disputes relating to facts don’t generally need the services of a judge and should be resolved by parties, with assistance that they obtain from friends and family, that they pay for. If a dispute about facts or final decisions remains after mediation, then this will need to be decided by a judge, who doesn’t need to be a Government employee. By allowing user pays for judicial services, open competition on service quality and price should improve the relevance, timeliness and quality of service. Parties can then negotiate the agreed maximum liability that they require with the judge and this will be reflected in the charges. Initially, a quick informal check of application documents and affidavits for sufficiency would not warrant any liability and the charges would be lower as a result.
(more…)

Positive Men is grateful TradeMe has removed from its site an item that trivialises and makes fun of domestic violence.

The “choking husband toy’ caused considerable outrage in the community, and Positive Men yesterday called upon TradeMe to immediately stop the auction of this offensive item.
(more…)

Positive Men has expressed outrage that TradeMe is selling an item that trivialises and makes fun of domestic violence.

The item is a “choking husband toy’. The seller says, “This is a toy that you will get a kick out of and it really helps if you angry with your partner or husband. You press his hand and he says something bad about you and then you can put your hand around his neck and he pokes his tongue out like he is choking and his legs start kicking and he changes his words to compliment you he is real funny “¦ “
(more…)

DownUnder gave examples of unsatisfactory and illegal performance by familycaught “judges”, so I though that a brief international comparison would help to understand this issue:

NZ
California The Constitution authorizes the Commission to continue proceedings after a judge retires or resigns
UK Annual Report UK

USA seems to be proactively addressing these issues.
UK is moving forwards, under pressure from news media, rather than proactive Government moves.
(more…)

http://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/joanna-moss-how-financial-crisis-might.html

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2012

Joanna Moss: How A Financial Crisis Might Turn Into Much Needed Reforms
Labels: Family Court, family policy, Joanna Moss

The financial blow-out in the Family Court could be a blessing in disguise if the crisis is put to good use in terms of understanding the wider system and bringing in much needed reform. The Family Court is the court that most New Zealanders have contact with either directly or indirectly. It plays an important role in defining what courts are like and how they operate and also in upholding the rule of law. For these two reasons alone we need it to work well let alone considerations of the children and the family as the building block of society.

But let’s take a step back and look into why this crisis happened before we can look at the much needed reforms. Previous Minister of Justice Simon Power ordered the review when it became obvious that the costs had gone up 63% over the period 2004/2010 and the number of cases had remained roughly static. The figures showed clearly that cases were taking longer to resolve and that the Care of Children Act was the chief culprit.
(more…)

The New Zealand Herald carried an article about 16 year jail sentences given to two executives, as a result of 3000 asbestos related deaths of workers and neighbours of the factory.
Note that the executives didn’t bother to attend the trial and I guess might not care to attend the jail either?
(more…)

Putting oneself into the position of another, is a challenge. Especially when the viewpoint is of children or babies, who are not well placed to verbalise their needs or desires.

Joanna Rose has written about Donor Insemnation, from the viewpoint of the child and says that insufficient consideration is given to this viewpoint, in our adult donor insemnation consumer society.

Please evaluate her work for yourself.

She raises many issues, which also apply to many other broken family issues, so her work should have a much wider readership than what the title would suggest.
Cheers, MurrayBacon

Family First lobby group have published a book about the consequences on children, of the use of daycare. This has aroused considerable response, from groups who feel that it criticises choices that they have made, in particular working women.

Who Cares Mothers Daycare and Child Wellbeing in NZ
(more…)

For those in Wellington or who can make it there on Friday, a few of us will be setting up the Ministry of Men’s Affairs in parliament grounds and raising awarenss of the Family Court review and mens/fathers’ issues around this. We hope to speak to a few relevent big wigs and perhaps a radio interview.

Dear Health Sponsorship Council

Positive Men has been established to promote the use of positive imagery of men and masculinity in the media in Aotearoa New Zealand. For far too long men have been demonised and portrayed as abusers. A rare positive portrayal was going to occur when All Black Piri Weepu was going to be shown feeding his daughter in a Health Sponsorship Council anti smoking advertisement, but the Council was bullied by breastfeeding advocates La Leche League and the Midwifery Council into censoring this footage.

We argue this was outrageous. We all know breast is better than bottle. We probably even know it better than it is bad to smoke. However we rarely see or hear any positive portrayals of men and we argue the benefits of retaining the censored footage of Piri feeding his daughter more than outweighs any potential risk.

We call on the Health Sponsorship Council to reinstate the censored footage into its advertisements.

Yours faithfully

Darryl Ward
Spokesperson of Positive Men

Go here to join Positive Men: https://www.facebook.com/groups/246338658780119/

Go here to send your own message to the Health Sponsorship Council: http://hsc.org.nz/contact-us-feedback

Previously Scrap and I and several others considered the impact of DV Act onto saving the lives of women and children and came to the evaluation that it had negligible net positive impact.
Quantitative
Full analysis in submission

Another issue raised in wider discussion, how many fathers give up on parenting their children and leave NZ, as a result of harassment they have received under the DV Act?

Anecdotally, I know of a small number through the years personally, so I might hazard a guess that each year, about 200 men leave NZ with the intention to never return and to give up on being an active parent for their children. This leaves a large number of children in their wake. (A smaller number suicide, in the end the effective outcome for the children is much the same, probably somewhat worse.)

Although this possibility was very briefly discussed in Parliament, during the debate about DV Act, it was generally dismissed as not being an issue that Parliament needed to be concerned about. [sir] douglas graham, then Minister of Justice and supporter of the bill (more lately a lame director of a failed and fraudulent finance company) suggested that familycaught judges would miraculously not create problems such as this. (I don’t think that sir douglas graham has been jailed yet. I believe that he is the first ex-Minister of Crown to be charged with large scale financial fraud. As Sir Robert David Mulgoon said, any publicity is good publicity for a politician!)

What do these perjurous mothers tell their children, about the departed fathers?
Lies damage children severely, so why create opportunities to bring up children in a web of lies?
(more…)

The NZ government’s childrens action plan: Your opportunity to have your say here:

9 key questions etc. etc.

Maybe it’s just me; but the more I looked at this government kids action plan, the more I thought about one irksome question; how many mums and dads have killed themselves as a direct result of the intervention of government agencies in their family and domestic affairs? I can’t get the family court and CYFS our of my head; but the bigger picture in my mind is; are government agencies making kids even more vulnerable by driving one or other of their parents to suicide?

Perhaps the Green Paper should be entitled VULNERABLE FAMILIES?

new book by Warwick Pudney and Éliane Whitehouse.

Young children can erupt like little volcanoes when they are feeling angry. It can be overwhelming and difficult to deal with, and can produce angry feelings in the parent or caregiver too.

This book is packed with advice and strategies for those working with children under five on how to understand and manage anger in children, and also how to help their parents or caregivers to deal with anger. (more…)

Either a marriage contract in New Zealand should be overhaulled to require man and wife to committ to each other or else Bigamy should be legal. We can’t have the current situation which is hypocracy.

New Zealand marriage laws make no sence unless you view it as a contract to extract money from men and give it to women.
Under New Zealand law there is nothing romantic or lasting about marriage. There little to no actual committment except foe the higher income earner. This is usually the man. The marriage contract committs him to many years of massive fiscal responsibility. The other party to the contract hold little if any risk. This is usually the woman.

In 75%-85% of cases the woman will terminate the contract and in return she will receive a very large payout. Usually much higher than she would have been able to achieve had she never been married.

There is no crime or punishment for a woman to cheat on her husband. In theory this applies to men as well. He most likely has assets and income at risk but there is no crime and in theory no punishment if he cheats on his wife. In fact marriage laws have been designed to allow for a misstress to be part of the contract.

Make no mistake this contract is there only to determine how much of the assests can be taken from the man and given to the woman. It does not matter if she was having sex with another man the entire duration of the marriage.

Therefore why is it that Bigamy is illegal?
A man or a woman can live with another lover during their marriage. This is no crime at all. It happens very often.
Why is Bigamy illegal?

Under NZ law Bigamy is fraud and it is punishable by up to 7 years in jail.

Why is sleeping with another lover while you are married no crime at all yet Bigamy could see you locked up for 7 years?
You could kill someone in New Zealand and serve less time in jail than a Bigamist.

Let me tell you why it is illegal in New Zealand.
It has zero to do with morals.
It has everything to do with finacial contracts.
If a man marries a woman and she sleeps around. The wife can leave him and take more than half of what he has and more than a quarter what he earns in the future.
If a man marries a woman and she sleeps around. Then the wife divorces him and claims half of all he has, but she discovers that her husband is also married to someone else then woman #1 has a conflict of cliam with woman #2. The more money woman #1 takes the less that woman #2 can take.
The whole reason bigamy is illegal is because it creates a conflict over who can take than man’s assests and future income.

An Auckland man has claimed Bigamy:
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/bigamist-claims-family-pressure-led-confession-4695674

His first wife seperated from him and moved to Australia with their kids. (no obligations under marriage for her). Rather than wait 2 years he got married again. (up to 7 years jail for him).

In books about Human Experimentation, the point is made that when experimenting on humans, it should be done with informed consent.

If we don’t have a good idea of what outcomes are expected, then we are experimenting.
(more…)

2012 INTERNATIONAL MEN’S DAY: HELPING MEN AND BOYS LIVE LONGER, HAPPIER, more satisfied, HEALTHIER LIVES

In the run up to International Men’s Day 2012 (Monday 19th November) we’re (Men’s Health Australia and Greg Andresen) asking supporters of the day to focus on five key challenges that will help us improve the health and wellbeing of men and boys all over the world.

Some of the universal health issues that men and boys in all countries around the globe face include lower life expectancy, difficulty accessing mental health services, educational disadvantages, lack of male role models and tolerance of violence against men and boys.
(more…)

NZ Herald: Women’s group fears upsurge of ‘sexist’ beer ads
The director of the Women’s Health Action Trust said the Advertising Standards Authority had cut guidelines which prevented alcohol adverts from depicting “unduly masculine themes or portray unrealistic behaviour”.

blah, blah, and more blah….., then this pearl “But Ms Pierce said it was important that the “shall not depict unduly masculine” requirement was reinstated because it was mostly beer advertisements which idealised masculinity.”

Nope; we cannot be idealizing masculinity; that would just send the wrong message to the community. It is not ideal to be a male at all; we have to deny a couple of million years of genetic engineering in an effort to conform to the ideals of yet another womens group. Yeah Right!