Home Australia A Royal Commission into Family Law? Too Late For Some Kids

A Royal Commission into Family Law? Too Late For Some Kids

7
Silent Vigil in Brisbane (ABC, Liz Pickering)

by Dee McLachlan

It was about two weeks ago that I met “Darlene” in Adelaide, and heard her shocking story about the malice of the Family Court and the misconduct by the various organisations relating to the well being of her daughter.

After writing an article, I was then flooded by other desperate parents — hoping to be heard. I wrote a strong letter to the Attorney-Generals (State and Federal) and to the Shadow AG. It was warning of a crisis within the Family Court. Not a single reply.

Today, at the National Family Law Conference in Brisbane family law, the outgoing Chief Justice John Pascoe was reported to have said:

“In my view, if legislation and the ALRC report do not assuage public concerns about the family law system, it must surely be time to consider a royal commission into family law,”

Judge Pascoe, a RC into the Family Court should be done — but it will be TOO LATE for many children presently in the system.

What I heard on radio was “failings”, “under funding”, and a system “stressed”. What I did not hear, was any mention of the Family Court’s wrongdoing.

Outside the Conference many parents were there to protest — with a silent vigil. Parents are sharing awareness that privacy provisions of the Family Law Act (Section 121) are silencing child victims and the parents who try to protect them. On one placard was “Hear the child, Believe the child, Protect the child.”

The protesters also taped their mouths and wore (plastic) handcuffs to draw attention to failures in the Family Law system.

One mother that was to attend has said her daughter had disclosed sexual abuse and was terrified after her father threatened to kill her if she spoke out. The Family Court has ordered the child to live with the father. A father has pleaded with the Family Court to protect his child from spinal injuries. However his fears were disregarded and the child still remains in an unsafe situation.

I spoke to a father tonight. He outlined a clear case of how his ex-wife’s lawyers manipulated the family law to cause him distress. It seems family courts do not have capacity to differentiate between genuine cases of pedophilia and injury, and the much smaller percentage that are vexatiously alienating their children from the other parent.

I hope that AG Vicki Chapman will agree to meet with “Darlene.”

SHARE

7 COMMENTS

  1. Dee, I like the hats! Does this mean they have formed a club and the hat is part of the uniform? If so, who needs a stupid Royal Commission? They have already formed a Loyal Commission.

    Let them take over the nation. All for the price of a hat.

    You go, Parents! You go, Children!

    • Hats are good but the t-shirts even better!!! We travelled to Sydney to film for The Project a few years ago organised by the National Children’s Protection Alliance. We had to cover our heads with a veil so as not to be identified. I’m glad these protective mothers were brave enough to show their faces! How dare they try to silence us!!!

  3. Just had a thought about the Loyal Commission. If someone in Brisbane is willing to coordinate such a thing, they could imitate the Sex-abuse RC by assigning everyone a three-letter code name.

    I don’t know how they did it. Maybe all the A thru C’s would be for Queensland cases, with the first client being AAA and the next one ABA. Then D thru F for Victoria clients.

    Or maybe they did it by “folder” so that all cases complaining about a particular thing (such as Permanent Guardianship) would begin with S and all emergency medical stuff would be T. Hence Darlene would be TAA.

    Didn’t we used to have an airline called TAA?

  4. Ido Kedar (age 22) for US Attorney General! Yay!!

    Ido can’t speak but who cares. He can think and write. This reading of the first chapter of his novel “In Two Worlds” is faaaaabulous.
    .

  5. Any inquiry with such narrow parameters is doomed to failure.

    A RC of I must also address:

    Ideological interference in Court decisions; including feminist, homosexual, or women’s lobbies;
    Be answerable to the entire national electorate;
    Excise lawyers from the entire process;
    Force judges, magistrates, and parole boards to comply with overriding victim protection clauses in judicial decisions;
    Ensure judicial decisions comply with measured and recorded community values.

C'mon Leave a Reply, Debate and Add to the Discussion

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.