Augusto Zimmermann
3 hrs ·
The Australian Labor Party has voted against the establishment of a parliamentary inquiry into the notorious family court system.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the inquiry into the system will examine a slew of issues, including custody disputes and exorbitant legal costs.
Morrison said that the inquiry will assess whether the current system, which is intended to support parents and children during the end of a relationship, “is fit for purpose”.
As the Prime Minister told Channel Seven: “This isn’t about picking sides, it’s about listening to Australians. The lawyers have had their say through the Law Reform Commission and that’s a process, which has been important. But as we consider that, I think it’s very important that we go and hear from people directly”.
Morrison also said: “This inquiry will allow the parliament to hear directly from families and listen to them as they give their accounts of how the family law system has been impacting them and how it interacts with the child support system”.
Our Prime Minister is absolutely correct. I commend him on this important initiative.
In support of this inquiry, politician Pauline Hanson reminds that there have been cases of parents using false domestic violence claims to gain access to their children after separation.
“I’m hearing of too many cases where parents are using domestic violence to stop the other parent from seeing their children, Hanson said on ABC Radio Breakfast Show yesterday. “Perjury is in our system, but they’re no charged with perjury”, she said.
She is, of course, absolutely correct. Surveys indicate that the general public knows that false accusations of domestic violence are regularly made, but such false accusers are virtually never punished when the claim is disproved.
In a survey with over 12,500 Australian respondents, more than half agreed with the assumption that “women going through custody battles often make up or exaggerate claims of domestic violence in order to improve their case, and only 28 per cent disagreed.”
This is confirmed by a survey of 68 Australian families by Dr Sotirious Sarantakos, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Charles Sturt University. His survey discovered that a substantial number of allegations of domestic violence are completely false.
In such cases, ‘the initial allegations of DV were modified considerably by them during the course of the study, particularly when they were faced with the accounts of their children and mothers, admitting in the end that they were neither victims of violence nor acting in self-defence’.
The overwhelming majority of magistrates also agree that false accusations are sought for collateral reasons pertaining family law and child custody issues.
For example, a survey of 38 magistrates in Queensland revealed that 74 per cent of them agreed with the statement that domestic violence orders are often used for tactical purposes.
And yet, the family law inquiry is fiercely criticised by the Labor Party.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese has criticised Hanson for daring to remind that some parents make false accusations of domestic violence to stop other parents having access to their children.
Albanese notoriously stated that Hanson’s comments were a “real concern”.
Of course, of great concern is the appalling behaviour of the leader of the Opposition.
As Corrine Barraclough writes in The Spectator Australia, ‘anyone claiming that false allegations don’t exist may like to look at the actual evidence rather be blinded by this ridiculous religion of feminist ideology’.
By voting against the important inquiry, Labor (and the Greens) reveal their true colours.
Such party has no regard for the well-being of the Australian people and their families, and quite to the contrary.
Prof Augusto Zimmermann