In the coming weeks and months, we as mothers, fathers, children, grandparents and families await the Government’s answers to the proposed reforms within Family Law and within the Child Support Scheme.
We have been waiting patiently, even though we have been experiencing the very same thing this grandmother (below) so graciously describes. We as responsible fathers have been supporting our children, and yet are denied the right to have a relationship with them, or them with us. The media often describes us as “Angry Dads”. Well, we have a right to be angry. There is nothing wrong with anger. Anger gets you to your feet to right a wrong, to seek justice within injustice.
We wish to bring to your attention that a big stick is being wielded by this government to ensure fathers pay child support, which any responsible father sees as his duty anyway. And yet when a child or children are denied the right to a relationship with their father, this same government does nothing. We hope you are listening.
Our children are being prostituted with the placing of a $ value on their heads. Whoever has them the most time is rewarded financially. It’s as simple as that. We need to take the $ value away. And we need to say no child support paid if orders are broken. Three strikes and you’re out. Either no child support or reversal of orders.
Now before anyone jumps down our neck, this Government is not backwards in collecting child support. They go after a bloke with huge powers: able to freeze his assets, raid his bank account, garnishee his wages and even send him to jail.
Yet they do nothing when a bloke, a dad, is left to grieve the loss of his children on any given weekend, even though he has been doing the right thing. And believe me, we hear from them EVERY day. Not just dads, but grandparents, families and friends. Not to mention the children being left at the gate, wondering who their dad is.
In every hall, in every town, on any day wherever we have our meetings, the biggest complaint is that of denial of contact regardless of orders in place. Please, please when you are considering your announcements in the coming weeks/months, tell us you have rectified this deplorable age of fatherless children. Tell us that if we have orders they will somehow be enforceable. Tell us that they mean something. Tell us that you are coming up with a fairer system where justice will prevail. No, just tell us that you are giving dads back to their children.
I was on a telephone conference with the Fatherhood Foundation (Dads4Kids) tonight with a number of people working in the field, and one, a woman, was speaking about dads and their kids, and she was just saying how we should love our children and be with them as much as we can while they are little, as they grow up too quickly.
And I commented that I agreed, but maybe her message should be delivered to mums rather than dads, because many dads are denied just that. It’s that special time when your children want to spend time with either mum or dad that we are fighting for. It’s that window of opportunity we are being denied. Tell us you are not only delivering real reform, but delivering dads back to their children.
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Dear Sir,
I have just read the article on HAP (Hostile Aggressive Parenting) and it describes to a T, the behaviour of my son’s ex-wife. She has caused this family so much heartache and distress by her vindictive, aggressive and disgraceful behaviour.
She can’t be a caring mum, or she wouldn’t use or treat her son like she does. She doesn’t deserve the privilege of motherhood. My son is being denied his son’s company as she disregards the court orders regarding his two weekends a month and half the school holidays, desperately inadequate at best.
Despite always being on the doorstep to pick up his son, he is either not home or not allowed to go with his dad. School holidays are no better, as she sends him away to her relatives in Sydney. She has the answering machine on, and so won’t pick up the phone when my son calls. What a disaster for us all.
The last court appearance was for 52 weeks’ denied access; the Magistrate heard only one instance, but warned her to follow the Court orders and this was her final warning. True to form, she thumbs her nose at the Law, and has once again denied access on many occasions since.
She had Legal Aid represent her at all the court appearances, whereas my son, who works and supports his new family, and with the aid and support of family, has had to pay for a barrister to represent him. How just is it, when he has to take her back to court over and over, and all she gets is a slap on the wrist and he has to pay when she’s in breach of the court orders? Well, the money has run out, so where does that leave us now?
My dear grandson is now eight and we, his grandparents, his great-grandparents both in their 90s, his aunties, uncles and cousins, and most of all his loving father and his little half-brother are deprived and greatly saddened by his absence in our lives, and I’m sure he misses us as well. He just wants to go with his dad, but is denied his right.
Does the Hostile Aggressive Parenting article hold any sway with anyone in NSW? How I wish it did, because it is spot on in this case and I’m sure we’re not alone.
Regards,
XXXXXXXX
A distressed Nana
[Photo by Ba Phi from Pexels]