Misconceptions that are depriving children of their fathers
According to Richard Chisholm, an unacceptable number of children in court-mandated shared care are exposed to unnecessary levels of acrimony and possible violence.
However the legislation is clear that where shared care has been ordered by a court, the presumption of shared care is dependent on there being no violence; putting a child into a possibly violent situation contradicts the law. So what is all this about about?
Shared care and domestic violence are separate issues. Children should not be exposed at any level. But there is definitely a risk of violence to children due to family breakdown and not simply from the father, but from the mother and other males.
None of this bothers those who want the 2006 reforms abolished. For them mothers must have autonomy even at the expense of a child's relationship with its father. They see a way to this amid Labor's ascendancy. Single-mothers' groups such as the National Council for Children Post-Separation, backed by feminists and some journalists, have deliberately muddled the two issues of violence and shared care.
McClelland has said the catalyst for the Chisholm report was the death of little Darcey Freeman last year, allegedly at the hands of her father. According to this newspaper, her mother was intimidated into surrendering her.
Curiously the intimation is that only fathers who intimidate pose a risk. They don't. When Gabriela Garcia jumped off the same Melbourne bridge with her baby later last year, no one began an inquiry.
These deaths are tragedies, the product of despair and madness, not a catalyst for gender wars.
If we want to fix child abuse that is another issue. Mothers are more commonly perpetrators of child deaths than fathers, and boyfriends are six times more likely to be perpetrators of physical and sexual violence than biological fathers.
