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Transcript (Forum)
HELEN DALLEY: Welcome and thanks to you all for coming to take part in our forum and sharing your stories and your views with us. Separation and what happens to children after separation is one of the most emotionally charged and really a high stakes issue for us all. Now the big push is for 50/50 joint custody and parenting. Now Barrie Williams, men's groups like yours have started this push, but how realistic and practical is it to achieve for most families?

BARRIE WILLIAMS, LONE FATHERS ASSOCIATION: We've just heard a retired judge and we heard a woman speak about shared care. In all my time in 30 years and dealing with 30,000 men a year which we're dealing with, we would only hear a handful say that they could not cope with 50/50.

HELEN DALLEY: So you want to impose it on all families? You want the Government to legislate?

BARRIE WILLIAMS: Well, it's a moral obligation and it's time this country entrenched into law, forget about all these people with self-interests, their own self-interests, time to entrench in law and entrench that women and men are equal in the family law today, men are not equal as women. And by 83 per cent of contested cases out of the 6 per cent that go to court will always go to the mother, whether a father is proven a better parent. The mother can be on drugs, heroin, anything, but the child, the court will always give the custody to the mother.

HELEN DALLEY: Peter Dutton, now you are a Liberal MP and you are on the committee. You've got to stick up for the committee's report. Just for those viewers at home who may not be up to speed completely, can you give us a brief outline of what you recommended?

PETER DUTTON: Sure, well just briefly, the main recommendation of the committee was the institution of a family's tribunal which is a non-adversarial process, taking the lawyers out of the process and trying to resolve matters between parents in a way that is in the best interests of the child. That was one of the key recommendations that we made. We made other recommendations in relation to an overhaul of the child support system, the way in which it operates in Australia. We recognise right at the start that there are 1 million children in Australia who are affected by family breakdown and that no one system could provide a solution to every one of those children.

HELEN DALLEY: It's a radical overhaul, isn't it?

PETER DUTTON: Well, it's a radical overhaul but we're at the situation, I think, at this point in time where we need to face the fact that we do have a serious problem, and that having people engaged in an adversarial system where mums and dads are pitched against each other and using the children in many cases to clobber the ex-partner over the head, that is unsustainable and that is why the committee has been so wide ranging, I suppose, in their recommendations.

WAYNE SWAN, SHADOW MINISTER FAMILY AND COMMUNITY SERVICES: There are no winners in this debate. Everybody in one way or another tends to be a loser and if we can make this system more cooperative, if we can make it more harmonious, then we ought to do that.

HELEN DALLEY: Do you support, for instance, lawyers being dealt out of the picture?

WAYNE SWAN: If we can deal lawyers out of the picture absolutely we should. That's my personal view. I can't speak for the parliamentary Labor Party. I'm very attracted to moving to a much more cooperative approach. But, of course, I recognise that in many cases cooperation is not possible and it will get down to the hard end which will involve lawyers. But if we can short circuit that and move earlier, be more preventative in everything we do, then that will be a good thing for everybody.

BARRIE WILLIAMS: I'd go to court with a lot of people and I sit there and listen to the evidence given and that, and the judge doesn't seem to even read half the affidavits that the male person gives and he just � he's made his decision before they even get to court. It's a very biased system.

ELSBETH MCINNES, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF SINGLE MOTHERS AND THEIR CHILDREN: Well, only 6 per cent of cases actually go - of all applications to the court go to a final decision by a trial judge. And that's only as we're told on the data, 50 per cent of separations. So 50 per cent of people are like the parents that we've seen who share care, who sort out something that suits their family.

HELEN DALLEY: No lawyers, nowhere near the Family Court they do their own thing.

ELSBETH MCINNES: They just do their own thing.

PETER DUTTON: The 6 per cent people espouse as being those cases which are solved by the Family Court and that is some indicator that not many of these matter need to go to court is rubbish because the main problem that we have at the moment and on the hundreds of submissions that the committee received, was that the barriers to the Family Court are much too high. So that there are cases where people are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars going to the Family Court. There is another barrier - so you've got a financial barrier. The second barrier in going to the Family Court is the time. Some cases take up to two years to be resolved and so by the time that these matters come around, people are either financially or emotionally bankrupt and many fathers and custodial mothers throw their hands up and say well, they've had enough and that is the reason that only 6 per cent go to trial, because you need to be very wealthy to engage a solicitor and barrister to go to trial, you need to have all the resources in the world behind you and the reality is at the moment that many people are settling for a position which is second best and that is why we've suggested that the adversarial system needs to change.

KATHLEEN SWINBOURNE, SOLE PARENTS UNION: There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that judges or Family Court are biased in favour of women and I think it's very interesting what Peter's just said about cases not going to court where people are being forced to settle for second best. Another way of putting that is people are compromising before they get to court and I think this is what the tribunal's about. I would have thought it was very good that people aren't getting to court, that they're actually making their arrangements beforehand because this is what the committee has recommended.

HELEN DALLEY: Isn't that what we want?

KATHLEEN SWINBOURNE: That's what we want, we want people to stay out of court. And I think if we really do want to encourage fathers to take a greater role in their children's lives, we have to start looking at their work patterns from the time their children are babies, not looking at just what happens once they separate. But let's look at where the problem lies and it is in that fathers aren't doing a lot of the fathering, or a lot of the parenting, when their children are very young and when they're still in a two-parent family. Now that's not necessarily because they don't want to, but because they can't, because of work patterns they can't take that time out. Fathers who undertake a shared parenting role after separation have flexible work patterns and that is one of the major contributors to them being able to do that.

PRU GOWARD: Men are discouraged from taking advantage of family friendly practices at work. They're looked down on by their mates and the boss often says they're not really ambitious. So I think we do make it hard for men to be involved parents and that is to the detriment of women in particular because that limits their choices as well but you can't expect there to be 50/50 if he isn't able to actually be an engaged parent for 50 per cent of the time that he wants to have the child with him.

HELEN DALLEY: Jane Pittaway, I'd like to bring you in here, you're a single mum. If you could tell us a bit about your story. Have you sighted your child's father recently?

JANE PITTAWAY: No, not recently.

HELEN DALLEY: So is there any way possible, in your situation, that the child's father could play a 50/50 role? Does he want to parent 50/50?

JANE PITTAWAY: I would say no, because I haven't seen him since he came to the hospital when my son was born. Last time he was sighted was in Europe and blocked by the Child Support Agency from leaving the country - or re-entering the country and he was arrested. He's just foregone all of his responsibilities on every level. So - but when I went to get legal advice to get it put into court order that I was the full - had full residency and whatever, they just told me well clearly if he was to walk back in at any stage he could just have as much access as he requested.

HELEN DALLEY: If Jane has had full residence of the child and the father hasn't been involved, could he come back and use the law to virtually take the child from her?

CATHERINE CARNEY, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY LEGAL CENTERS: A court would never really deny contact unless there was some really serious, serious issue. What they often may do in cases like that is do some sort of reintroduction regime where the child may start to see the parent and then it becomes more and more as it goes on.

HELEN DALLEY: OK, Belinda, I'd like to hear a little bit about your story. Your partner of 10 years left you when your second child was born. Now in your view, is there any way he could handle or would want to do 50/50 parenting?

BELINDA SADIKU: No, I don't think, so nup. I think it would just be too hard the responsibility of two children under two. I've gave him like chances to come and get the children, I've said to come and get them but he like lets them down, says, "I'll come and pick them up" and then when it comes to the time, I get my son ready and then he doesn't come to pick him up. So no, I don't think -

HELEN DALLEY: So he doesn't really even want contact?

BELINDA SADIKU: No, I've gave him so many chances to have like 50/50 chance and he just doesn't want it. Nup.

HELEN DALLEY: Ray, how do you feel about men like that?

RAY LENTON, DADS IN DISTRESS: It's tragic that that happens. But I feel bad about parents like that. It works both sides of the fence. There are women who do that as well. And it's sad for children who don't have that opportunity to grow with their parents. So I feel tragic for the children in that case, tragic.

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