Sue Price, a Director of Men’s Rights Agency engaged in a successful meeting with Senator Michaelia Cash yesterday 6May. I had the opportunity to read out valuable information about the failure of Labor’s proposed legislation and the failure of the newly combined Family Circuit Court and Family Court of Australia. (See hi Sue.docx + Summary of FL reforms J.docx). I know her two advisers were madly trying to take notes until I undertook to send them a copy of my notes.
Senator Cash did express an interest in being able to discuss further with others involved in the family law system to gain more information to use to bring about improvements and halt the proposed changes to the Family Law legislation introduced by the Labor Party.
Please contact the writer if you have a professional or personal contribution to make. She did guarantee that names would remain confidential.
She also mentioned that our case/arguments would have to go to the LP Committee for their approval and that they would have to rely on the Independents to stop the bill in the Senate.
I am hoping to gain a brief meeting with Pauline Hanson on this Saturday when she has a rather expensive function to celebrate 26 years of One Nation’s existence.
One particular issue Senator Cash was concerned about was the public’s interpretation and incorrect belief that the Shared Parental Responsibility provision automatically leads to Shared Parenting Time. Apparently the confusion with the Shared Parental Responsibility and the expectation of Shared Parenting time occurred because journalists, at the time of the release of the proposed 2006 Shared Parenting provisions, interpreted it to mean that Shared Parenting Time was a given. It should not be too difficult to run a media campaign to educate all as to the situation under the current FL act. A few brochures explaining the situation should clarify it for most participants.
These were my closing remarks in my email to the Senator:
Thank you again for spending the time with me. I do hope you will see the inherent value in providing support to oppose these changes. I would suggest a considerable number of fathers, grandparents, siblings, other family members and new partners would be favourably disposed towards the Liberal Party if you could make a clear statement about the need to prevent the further fracturing of the relationship of a child with their father and on some occasions, though rarely, with their mother.
The family law system in Australia is teetering on the edge of disaster, I believe because the Judges will just not ask the questions and make a decision, preferring to rely on the reports written by FRWs after brief interviews with family members that cannot possibly be enough time to gauge the circumstances and the future needs of the children and the parents. See the Cowling comments in our submission to the previous Family Law Inquiry for information about when and why the judiciary stopped doing its job as one would expect them to do.
I’ll forward any other contacts I think will be able to add to the information highway of Family Law. (once I have their permission to do so)
Summary of FL reforms J hi Sue Explanation of FL Reforms
finished version 48 years of family law 2 -JA A Smith re Cowling
Kind regards
Sue Price
Men’s Rights Agency
Mob: 0409 269 621
Please bear in mind that the above or any other information provided by this organisation is not to be regarded as legal advice.
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