Each year in Australia thousands of children are being mentally and emotionally abused by the Family Court of Australia by being forced to participate in an investigation of their parents’ competency. This process is called a ‘Family Report’. Many children are severely harmed by the experience.

Family Reports are a massive and unjustified violation of the rights of children and parents. They contribute significantly to the social tragedy of the separation of children from their fathers.

Family Reports are not conducted in the best interests of children. They are produced for the convenience of the Court. In many cases, this unpleasant and stressful intervention into the lives of children and families may be ordered by a deputy registrar, but not required or considered by a judge at the final hearing, because his decision may rely on other issues or on legal technicalities.

Family Reports are conducted by Family Court mediators whose bias and presuppositions colour their interpretations of the responses that children make. Their questioning of children without the parents being present relies on the suggestibility of children, who are cruelly led into beliefs and perspectives that mirror the mediator’s own preconceived ideas. The mediator’s interrogation delivers children into a ‘new reality’, often one that demonises the father.

A classic example of this technique was publicly displayed in the recent disgraceful blackshirt-style attack on fathers and children in Channel 9s ‘A Current Affair’. A beautiful young child had her innocence and her love for her father destroyed in the interests of ‘investigative journalism’ and television ratings.

Having been delivered by Channel 9 into the arena of ‘Child Support Agency created conflict’ between her parents, she was manoeuvred by the questioner into declaring to the camera (and the nation) that on Father’s Day her father was to be punished. He wouldn’t get a Father’s Day present from her. Her mother would get the present instead.

This programme revealed that the grinning Ray Martin is nothing less than an active and mercenary child abuser. This makes him well qualified to work within the Family Court as a mediator or judge. It also exposes his behaviour as being worse than that of the black shirt extremists he once investigated. However it still falls short of the level of abuse perpetrated by the Family Report process. This intervention into a family, authorised and directed by the Family Court, even if a parent objects, terminates parental rights and is used as a tool to prise fathers away from their children.

A Family report is an avoidable traumatic investigation that is, inherently, a breach of parental and family privacy.

I have five children.

I have been ordered to participate in interviews and observations for the preparation of a Family Report. My previous appointment was changed and has been rescheduled for Thursday and Friday 29th & 30th May. For six years my children have been protected from any knowledge of, or involvement in, issues or conflict related to separation, property settlement or contact. They have been taught to honour and obey both parents. They are happy, well-adjusted and secure in the love and care of both parents.

The Family Report intervention will sabotage this achievement. It places the children on the centre stage of conflict. The Family Court counsellors produce a report based on a few hours of interviews and observations in an unfamiliar, formal and structured environment. They then have no further contact with the family.

I believe that if I were to co-operate and participate in the Family Report process, I would be negligent in my duties and responsibilities as a father. If I refuse to co-operate, I may be in contempt of court and risk a prison sentence.

It is not possible for the Family Court of Australia to promote the well-being of children by displacing parental authority.

It is not right for the Family Court of Australia to assess the competency of a father without good reason.

It is irrational and immoral for the government through its agencies to undermine the family unit and create a fatherless society.

These injustices need to be challenged.

[Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash]