LABOR LOSES SUPPORT OF SEPARATED PARENTS

 Australian parents concerned by the threatened Government roll back to shared parenting improvements will not vote for Labor this time around, a survey has found.

 Despite 66 percent voting for Labor in 2007, now 92 percent definitely will not or are highly unlikely to vote for Labor in 2010.

 If the respondents had not been aware of the expected rollback of shared parenting, 61 percent would have still voted for Labor.

 Sue Price, a director of Men’s Rights Agency, said the Attorney General had taken on board complaints from women’s groups – dissatisfied with the moves away from sole residency – and listened to unjustified claims that the Family Court was handing over children to violent fathers.

 “The Federal Attorney General, Rob McClelland, after initiating several inquiries into the 2006 family law changes – which were intended to enable both parents to share more fully in the care of their children after separation – has failed to provide answers or certainty for those families,” Ms Price noted. “Using the tragic death of Darcey Freeman, allegedly at the hands of her father, women’s groups opposed to shared parenting have provided no justification for a roll back, particularly if we question why similar scrutiny was not applied when Gabriella Garcia threw herself and her 22 month old son off the same bridge, (Westgate) less than 12 months previously or the evidence that mothers and mother’s boyfriends present a far greater danger to children.

 “Unfortunately, the Attorney General has given support for research into the affects of interpersonal violence against women and children, without due consideration to the one-in-three victims who are men and children in their care, who are subjected to abuse. The appointed researchers have failed to alert the Attorney General to his biased instructions. Men, women and children should not be subjected to violence of any kind, but the Attorney General has only considered alleged violence against women.”

 Sue Price said she was disappointed by the vehement opposition to shared parenting and the ends to which women’s groups will go, to eliminate fathers from children’s lives.

 The survey has been a genuine attempt to gauge the views of Australian parents to the proposed rollback, but even this was open to sabotage by vested interest groups – led by a noted professor with Adelaide University.

 For further information please contact Sue Price – 0409 269 621