This year is the 50th anniversary of Australia’s Family Court. That’s hardly cause for celebration. Over the last half century, what was originally designed as a ‘helping court’ became the frontline of feminism’s gender wars and thus one of the country’s most hated institutions.
This led to dozens of Government inquiries and attempts at reform which were all utterly scuttled. An excellent new book – Failure: Family Law Reform Australia – is a 600-page exposé of this shameful history of obstruction.
The author, John Stapleton, was one of the founders of Dads on the Air, a community radio programme where he spent over a decade exposing stories of a court which denied children contact with their fathers “on the flimsiest of excuses or most ludicrous accusations”.
Now, Stapleton concludes, the situation for fathers, children and society as a whole is worse than ever. He points out that the Family Court of Australia “ostensibly protects women but actually destroys the lives of many mothers, grandmothers and daughters, just as it does their male counterparts”. He strongly asserts that the resulting personal anguish and social chaos have “poisoned the social fabric”.
It does Australian society no good to have such a large body of impoverished and disenfranchised men; devastated by the loss of their children, their assets and in all too many cases, their social status and standing in the broader community. No one can go near this jurisdiction and retain a modicum of respect for lawyers, or for the politicians from both sides of the aisle who have allowed this malfeasance to flourish.
It’s a powerful combination – the passionate journalist’s searing commentary and the vast collection of revealing stories he has pulled together from dozens of inquiries, submission, and articles documenting this important social history.
Perhaps most important of all, he exposes the scurrilous role of the feminists’ domestic violence industry in weaponising the family court system against men. He’s documented it all – their manufactured statistics, their misrepresentation of official statistical data and decades of international research, their manipulation of lapdog politicians, their use of our corrupt media. And the eagerness of Left-wing political parties, most particularly the Labour Party currently in power, “to play the violence card”, destroying children’s relationships with their fathers by piling on fresh incentives for false allegations.
Stapleton explains: “The violence card has been played and it won the game. A Royal Flush. … The liars, the lawyers, the bureaucrats have won the day.”
A YouGov survey in 2023, involving 9,432 people across eight countries, found Australia came out as the second-worst country, after India, when people were asked if they had been falsely accused of abuse. The survey showed false accusations in Australia are more likely to be made as part of a child custody dispute than anywhere else in the world.
And Australia’s children are the losers. Over one million Australian children are currently living without their fathers. The family court system is widely acknowledged as a key factor contributing to this dire situation.
One telling example. Stapleton mentions the day a mate begged him to come to the Family Court to watch how a hostile judge was dealing with his case. The friend’s teenage son had attempted suicide, and the dad was desperate for contact to give the boy some support. The judge wasn’t convinced that was the reason.
“You wanted to be there to watch, didn’t you? Didn’t you? Didn’t you?” accused the judge, pointing his finger at the horrified dad.
Stapleton was astonished at this disgraceful, bullying behaviour. But such treatment of men is commonplace, not only from the judiciary but also from family court counsellors, psychiatrists and psychologists. The entire family court system is full of people with a bias against men.
As Stapleton comments, whenever he tells a story about the horrific treatment of a dad in the court there’s always someone who’ll say, “That’s nothing. Wait until you hear what happened to me.” You quickly realise the depths of this swamp.
There’s the story of the man who slit his wrists when he received 32 letters in one day from the Child Support Agency, the institution which John jokingly describes as the “evil sister” of the Family Court.
Or the case of the magistrate who sent a mother to prison for four months – after 22 Family Court hearings over her denial of access to the children. The Family Court promptly arranged an appeal which not only immediately let the mother out of prison but reduced the father’s access to the children to six hours a week.
Stapleton’s book features heroes. Like Richard Cruikshank, Director of a property investment research firm, who, incensed by the conduct of the Child Support Agency, paid for research which demolished the claim that by squeezing dads for money the Government saved on welfare funding. Cruickshank calculated that for every dollar transferred between parents it cost $2.80 in public money.
Then there was Senator Pauline Hanson’s ferocious battle to get false allegations included in the terms of reference for one of the more recent Parliamentary inquiries. The press tore her apart, wheeling out Family Court judges and renowned domestic violence activists to claim false allegations didn’t happen and the inquiry wasn’t necessary. The inquiry went ahead but the report was buried.
Yet there are many more villains. Like the current Labour Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who, without any mandate whatsoever, last year removed almost every mention of children’s relationship with fathers from the Family Law Act.
It is vitally important that the story of the corruption and decline of this vital institution is on the public record and John Stapleton has done our society a major service in making this available. He sums up the reason this really matters:
In terms of human suffering, the Australian public has already paid dearly for the failure to fix outdated, badly administered and inappropriate institutions dealing with family breakdown. The country’s failure to reform family law and child support is ultimately a failure of democracy itself.
As one of Australia’s first sex therapists, Bettina Arndt started her career talking about sex on television and teaching doctors and other professionals about sexual counselling at a time when such topics were largely taboo. Her current, even more socially unacceptable passion is exposing Australia’s unfair treatment of men with the relentless weaponisation of laws and policies that see women only as victims. Her decades of advocacy for fair treatment of men in the Family Court included serving on key Government inquiries. Bettina makes YouTube videos and blogs on Substack. This is an edited version of her recent Substack post.
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The Guardian ceased to be a neutral investigative paper about 10 years ago when MI6 paid them a visit after they had released some Snowden Files.
It is now run by Head Girls and read only by teachers.
They are sell about 60,000 copies – mainly to the BBC and other leftie organisations – and so were steadily going bankrupt so Bill Gates stepped in to prop them up.
Having, of course, been founded using Taylor’s profits from trading in US cotton…
With slave connections. Nice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79t_gmfue54
Would The Guardian have quit “X” had Trump not won? I reckon not. This looks more like a fit of pique caused by Musk’s support for Trump than any principled stand against the immoral horrors of “X” which have remained consistent since Musk took it over.
If Trump had not won, it is likely that the US Gov’t would increase their on-going investigations and eventual prosecutions of Musk and all his companies. Goal to destroy his businesses and his life, along with same for so many others. Musk risked everything. All In. His style.
A friend commented about X that if you want to know what is really going on it is the only way to get news.
So much for the Grauniad. Throwing their toys out of the pram but taking their ball away so no one else can play with it and them.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
A fake newspaper if ever I saw one. You cannot get a straight take on anything in the Grauniad so I stopped even looking at it despite being free. After all it is only worth as much as anyone is prepared to pay for it and nowt is my bid.
Nuff said.
Socialists, by their nature, have to be capable of juggling two completely opposite propositions at the same time. Such as their support for gay people, but their support for religious groups who kill gay people. Or, supporting democracy, but not for you, just for their friends. It must be exhausting to live in such a fantasy world where everything matters, but nothing matters..
I have hopes that their heads will explode as a result.
Leftists support democracy – just so long as it comes up with the “correct” result.
A bit like the EU. Remember how they forced countries to re-run the Maastricht referendum if it produced the “wrong result?
Take the Red Pill and the Blue Pill at the same time.
The socialists I know stopped reading The Guardian many years ago when it was taken over by neoliberals.
Socialism is a form of mental illness.
Are your friends(?) receiving appropriate treatment?
As ‘stakeholder’ Blobs … have captured Western government departments and intergovernmental agencies … so ordinary people have been increasingly denied any formal mechanisms for confronting politicians with their grievances.
As the British Left became imbued with Marxism – after the Second world War – it also imbibed the Leninist poison that the working class is comprised of ignorant dolts who should be disenfranchised (and preferably replaced). This is the reason the contemporary marxo-fascists (e.g. The Guardian and its readers) believe that the leadership role in society belongs to “those who know better”. The purpose of this arrangement is to prevent politics from being an arena of public choices.
A fundamental left wing driving force is the march towards some distant Utopia where all social and political and moral aspects are perfect.
And the more recent development is the polarisation into those who are committed to the march, and those who are not. From which it ‘follows’ that those who don’t support the march to perfection must be social, political, and moral enemies.
Many years ago, The Guardian ran a TV advert video showing a skinhead pushing over a well-dressed man walking on the pavement.
The camera would pan out showing the skinhead was saving the man from being crushed by falling bricks.
Their catch line was “there is always two sides to every story”.
Unfortunately, now, The Guardian only show one side of the story and that is of the establishment corporatists and their Globalist, neoliberal, warmongering propaganda.
I used to buy the paper for 35 years and have witnessed its decline.
I stopped buying it about 15 years ago and now only comment on their page every time they get something wrong, which is quite often.
They are probably the most dangerous media outlet as they have this air of respectability and balance when in fact, they promote phony wars, bogus man-made climate change and dangerous vaccines.
I also remember that ad and thought is was very powerful, in fact it often pops into my head when shouty idiots can’t/won’t acknowledge there may be different interpretations of a situation.
I also bought the Guardian but not for well over 40 years.
Similar to me, I stopped buying it about ten years ago.
However I am no longer allowed to comment because I fell foul of their “Community Rules” about four years ago.
Needless to say they wouldn’t/couldn’t tell me precisely why the ban – but I think it just might have been my anti vaccine/bigpharma/Vallance comments. I had quite a few arguments with “Dave 4567” or similar who professed him/her/itself to be A Scientist, but I suspect he may well have been 77th
Yes, I was “moderated” for below the line comments years ago so I just troll them now on facebook.
I went to offGuardian when it first started but ended up being banned for berating the “viruses do not exist” clowns.
Wow! I just found that old Guardian advert on Youtube, using your description, and it is superb! Thanks for that. Here’s the link for those who haven’t seen it, or want to remember it:
The Guardian 1986 Points of View
It’s only when you get the whole picture, you can fully understand what’s going in
is something the people making the Guardian are still perfectly aware of. The 2024 version of this ad would continue with It’s our job to prevent this from ever happening!
Too true!
Establishment media do actually present “the other side” normally.
But they do so dismissively through ridicule, parody and distortion.
Just like the BBC then!
Yes. The BBC relies on the UK government for its funding by allowing it to tax the population with a license. The license is compulsory, and you will be fined if don’t have one. The UK government appoints the Director General. Ergo the BBC is “state funded”, part of the UK and Western world “establishment” and is a very poor news media outlet and far from “independent”.
I used to read it online and comment (in the years running up to the EU Referendum) and, despite my clear right-wing views, which were expressed very politely, I managed to never be censored/banned.
I reckon I’d last about 24 hours if I did that now. Dissent from their worldview is not tolerated.
And so has La Vanguardia in Spain.
What good news from Ben Pile, and a great photo of the Argentinian President Javier Milei!
His leading the Argentinians out of the CPO29 is astonishing and superb.
Why Google’s first reference to just about every single question asked is the Guardian? Why most public sector recruitment ads appear in the Guardian? Why Whitehall mandarins have limitless airtime in the Guardian? Are the BBC and the Guardian related?
“Focus groups and opinion polls have taken the place of dialogue between the public and politicians, and such forums are invariably controlled by Blobbish wonks whose views are narrowed even further by their funders’ priorities.”
Succinctly put. They ignore the masses and then present themselves as somehow “progressive”. Not an ounce of honesty between them.
Trump by name & his name has Trumped Cop (out)29 Fancy arranging this latest Private Jet Fest just as Trump forms his team of realists ! Starmer & Milipede now look like the dumbest arse lickers at this phoney gathering, glorious
Put the Chainsaw to Net Zero
Keep tweeting … and support / keep supporting the non-conformist alternative media/podcasts …. the keyboard and broadcasting warriors who are fighting back on our behalf. Many of them are free. Some charge a small amount – little more than the price of a coffee a month – so you CAN afford it.