Is there a link between fathers taking their own life and the domestic violence legislation operating in each state in Australia? Undoubtedly there is. We have seen many examples of the devastation fathers experience when the police come knocking on the door and hand out a domestic violence order (DVO)(apprehended violence or intervention order in other states). Along with the DVO the police, usually two of them interview both parties, the mother and the father. If the mother is the complainer, the father will be told to leave the house and not return. In the meantime he will be instructed when to appear in the magistrate’s court to respond to the DV order. As a result of the order he will find he may not have access to his bank account, important papers, prevented from going to his job and most importantly prevented from seeing his children. If the father called the police about the mother’s behaviour his complaint is often rejected and laughed at as if he cannot “handle his wife”. He will still be advised to leave the house and asked does he really want his wife to go to jail. Anything is fair go to prevent the father from having his complaint accepted. Sadly Australians do not seem to realise how easy it is for a women to take out a DV order with the assistance of the police, whereas a man will often be ridiculed and sent on his way. The situation is in crisis. The courts are packed with no spare time to hear a DV application from a man, so men we see have had their application adjourned 15 to 20 times or if trying to defend an application from a woman similar delay tactics are employed. Just last week, a mother called Men’s Rights Agency and spoke to me about her son. He has a young child with an ex partner, but he is having difficulty with contact and her unreasonable behaviour. 60 phone call attempts in a 2 day period is not normal. Her need to control him is obvious. They both have a DV order against each other, preventing contact between them, until she applied to have the segment preventing her contact with him removed. The magistrate granted that without hearing from the father. Sadly, his mother was informed that her son had tried to take his own life hanging himself in his ex partner’s shed. She called for help to fix a household problem. He fixed the problem, returned to the shed and tried to hang himself. He’s still alive on life support, but not expected to recover normal brain function. When sitting in the Queensland hospital, the distraught mother noticed another 4 families also waiting for news from the doctors after the men they loved had taken or attempted to take their life as a result of being subjected to domestic violence legislation. We now have a young child who has effectively lost his father; a mother who has lost her son and grandparents their grandson. What a tragedy! 2455 men took their own lives in 2022. With the overwhelming focus of the government and women’s domestic violence groups attempting to pollute the cesspool of false allegations in order to increase the numbers of men vilified and subjected to control orders, suicides are likely to rise. All for the sake of recouping extra dollars to keep the domestic violence industry flourishing, more children will lose their Dad and more families their loved ones.
Sue Price,
BSocSci, JP Qual
Director
Men’s Rights Agency