Narrative Structures and the Nature of News. Circa 2010.

These are some of the original notes for one of many attempts to write a book about journalism.

It eventually morphed into Hunting the Famous, a disorganised tome which is in the process of being rewritten and reissued. 

These notes are placed here for the record, that's all. 





UNDER CONSTRUCTION 

FROM REDFERN TO THE APOCALYPSE

NARRATIVE STRUCTURES AND THE NATURE OF NEWS

WILLIAM JOHN STAPLETON

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE:

EARLY IMPULSES AND THE FREELANCE YEARS.

CHAPTER TWO:

A NOVICE IN THE LAND OF THE FAMOUS AND INFAMOUS.

CHAPTER THREE:

COUNTRY EPISODES, CITY DESTITUTES: THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD:

CHAPTER FOUR:

PERSONAL STORIES

CHAPTER FIVE:

REDFERN

THEMES:

DRUGS AND DRUG REHABILITATION

ISLAM IN AUSTRALIA

DEATH AND DISASTER

CHAPTER SIX:

FROM THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD TO THE AUSTRALIAN.

CHAPTER SEVEN:

THE COMPUTER AGE

INTRODUCTION

His first day as a full time staff member at the Sydney Morning Herald was one of the momentous days of his life. He was so proud, so relieved, to have finally walked across the threshold into a mainstream newspaper after years of struggling as a freelancer.

Even though he was late to make it as a staff member, being over 30 before he crawled from what had already been a very colorful life, full of dissolution and travel, several unpublished books, various articles published in various magazines and some other successes; accompanied by an equally large folder of unpublished articles before he finally got the swing of things.

The world of journalism he entered in the 1980s was still a place full of characters and misfits. Rather than being regarded as the technical and specialized profession that it is today; newspapers were places where people with a compulsion to write, many of them with distinct alcoholic tendencies, came to rest; or found their talents appreciated by editors and their company appreciated by collaagues on bar stools after work. They drank themselves to death through and beyond daily deadlines; every story, every nuance passionately discussed.

Like most young journalists he came to the profession with an array of hopes and dreams; a desire to make the world a better place.

On his first proud day at the office the older journalists took him aside and imparted him the one cardinal rule of journalism: never ever give a single cent of your expenses back or you will make us all look bad.  

Nothing to do with getting names or facts right. Nothing with to do with the exposure of the truth or telling people's stories in a compassionate and compelling way.

As journalism has never been a highly paid profession perhaps getting as much money out of a company the size of Fairfax was a forgiveable sentiment. Fairfax had grown bloated over the decades with the “rivers of gold” that the classified advertisements provided in each Saturday’s thck edition.

The level of cynicism and money grubbing was low in contrast to what went on at the higher managerial hierarchies, where the debauchery of the Greed Is Good 1980s were in full swing.

He remembered one day when the Editor in Chief had the sole news car available for the day circling the block for three hours while he lunched with his colleagues and the city's power brokers. Finally he took the car for himself to do a news job out in the western suburbs, getting both himself and the driver into trouble.

The eighties was an era when lunches were a tax deduction; and there were many three or even more hour drunken escapades in the center of the day in the city's most fashionable restaurants, the appropriately named Machiaevellian being one of he favorites in downtown Darlinghurst.

To be seen there marked you as a player among the editorial and business hierarchies of the country's movers and shakers.

Certainly lowly general journalists were rarely if ever seen there.

Except, once, to his knowledge, the day, dressed in a rare suit, when he was hired by the national paper having become victim of one of Fairfax's endless managerial rearrangements.

Once again people who had no idea of the true nature of journalism, had never worked a day on a news floor or had to file a story to a deadline and had astonishingly inflated opinions of themselves were running around destroying talent and the historical memory that was such an asset to any newspaper and determined its personality.. They reaped with ruthless abandon before heading off to a satisfying lunch.

It was power, probably the only power they would ever have, and they made sure they used it.

With the kids still very young, only two or three, he saw the writing on the wall and jumped newspapers.

The national paper The Australian was more prestigious in some senses, but locally lacked the kudos of The Sydney Morning Herald, which had been such a venerated institution in the city for more than 150 years and They were cocky little bastards, that he knew.

.

Journalism is a career for young people; when he arrived in the early to mid 1980s predominately men; by the time he left 70 per cent of the nation's newsrooms were occpiied by women.

He personally believed in a 50/60 split. Both genders had different gifts, writing styles and ways of relating to pleople which they brought to their craft.

There's an old saying: journalism is a young man's sand pit and and old man's quick sand. There could be no truer aphorism. 

His hopeful idealism was quickly brought to heel. On his first proud day as a full time staff journalist the old timers took him aside and gave him the one cardinal rule of journalism as they saw it: "Do not under any circumstances give a single cent of your expenses back. Otherwise you will make us all look bad."'

As journalism is not a well paid profession in contrast to many others which require equal levels of professionalism, dedication and qualifications these attitudes were perhaps understandable.

He would observe many of his contemporaries, or as he grew older people considerably younger people than himself ensconced while still in their twenties in comfortable offices with spectacular views down the harbor, and equally attractive salaries to match the size of their desks and the neatness of their in trays.

Journalism on the other hand tends to be a long up hill climb with few rewards, unless you count getting your name in the paper as a reward.

Having your name on  the front page may make you well known and your mother proud, but it does not necessarily make you rich.

As he was later to discover, the relatively generous in those days one hundred dollars a day expenses on away jobs was in fact difficult to spend, particularly if, as was often the case, you were in the middle of nowhere. There were no shops, no pubs, and apart from a carton of beer for the bloke and a bottle of champers for the wife there was little one could do to spend a hundred dollars.

The photographers were masters at the art; and had filled their houses with brand new refrigerators and washing machines and the like through what were known as "away" jobs, that is outside of Sydney.

They had stamps and receipt books already in hand, with "Thank you call again" looking perfectly legitimate across some spurious claim.

He on the other hand was neither good at deceit or administration and would show up at the accountants office with a bundle of receipts and pathetic explanations for how all the money was spent. Fortunately for him the accountant was a motherly type and she would pat him on the head and say: it's all right dear, you're good at other things.

Almost anything can fall into the definition of general news. You are in a sense a specialist generalist. General is more often seen as a dumping ground than a genuine vocation within itself. It is rarely held in high esteem by editors further up the hierarchy. David king, the national chief of staff at the Australian and David Armstrong, former editor in chief of The Australian and later to become publisher and editor in chief of the Bangkok Post, along with Max Purdie, former editor of the SMH in the late 1980s were amongst the very few senior newspaper figures of their day who genuinely appreciated the rare range of talents  required to be a good general news reporter.

Depending on the job and the location in a sense general reporters are professional empaths, able to paint the griefs and dramas of others with a moving, almost poetic resonance while keeping themselves entirely out of the picture..

There is one simple definition of news: something that is new. 

Rather than being held in high esteem, general news is more likely to consist of a changing cast of characters, of the briefly unallocated, a testing ground for cadets or a learning experience for the grade ones as those higher up the pole evaluated their talents and determined their destiny. Unlike almost everybody else, he stayed on what was sometimes regarded as the lowest rung of journalism.the ability to write about almost anything at a moment’s notice to tight deadlines is a rare one, but little valued. These days most ambitious young journalists who make it through the many barriers to actually get on staff, and the barriers are many indeed, pass though general news at an almost meteoric rate, onto bigger and better things as political journalists in the nation’s capital, as rounds people or as bureau chiefs. 

Very few journalists stay on general news for extended periods of time. His only contemporary in Sydney of similar duration was Malcolm Brown at the Sydney Morning Herald, one of the very few genuine geniuses of australian journalism. This book includes pieces written between 1985 and 2009.

While some were not published, most appeared in various newspapers or journals. The  articles are collected together thematically with a narrative thread to help flesh out or explain the story behind the story explain. While there is sometimes no logical explanation whatsoever as to why one story gets a run and another is ignored; in other cases the public has little understanding of how newspapers operate and the decision making that goes on to determine why newspapers are the way they are.

These factors are all changing with advancements in technology.

This technique is designed to make From Redferm to the Apocalypse more enjoyable for the general reader as well as more useful as a textbook for those studying journalism and communications in Australia.

The themes vary from the many controversies over islam in Australia and the difficulties in covering it post sept 11; including of course many a day spent outside Lakemba mosque, one of the city’s more radical and certainly most controversial of mosques, to trendier issues of the modern day. Bypassing the science writer the well liked   the editors would get him as a straight reporter to do climate change stories including quotes from those who believed it to be an urban myth, something. Daring to question what was a kind of modern day religion generated more hate mail than he had ever received for any story; despite the fact he was merely reporting somebody else's findings and went out of his way to represent both sides of the argument. The fact that some highly reputable scientists disagreed with the whole climate change hysteria which peaked around 2007 was rarely reported, and the australian confirmed its right wing reputation for daring to present varying views.

Most individuals arrive on a newspaper with a set of interests or stories which they feel should be told; whether they circle around social justice issues or financial scandals.the author was no different, with a range of what he felt at the time were burning social issues which needed to be exposed. They invariably involved the exposure of the plight of the disadvantaged. He was spurred on by his solidly left girlfriend of the time cara, a bustling ball of energy whose dedication and energy as a housing officer made her an unstoppable rescuer of those in difficulty.

Cara's personal, discretely held squattocracy derived fortune gave her the confidence to brook no opposition when it came to assisting those less fortunate than herself. For a while, having after years of working as a freelance journalist, a financially insecure vocation at best, it was partly cara's pushing and encouragement that helped him front what was then the biggest and most esteemed of all the city’s publications, the Sydney Morning Herald.

From this distance in time, with so many other forms of media now available and its emphasis on its increasing emphasis on entertainment and lifestyle features having decreased its reputation as a serious newspaper, it is  hard to imagine the esteem the Sydney Morning Herald was held.

Joining the paper was a little like joining the New York Times. There could be no higher goal for a journalist.

It was in some way a kind of holy citadel and was routinely listed as among the top best 20 newspapers in the world. To cross that barrier and become an insider, a staff member, was one of the most major and transformative crossings of his life.the instant he became a journalist on the SMH, as it was known, he suddenly found himself also with a considerable amount of social kudos; which had never occurred to him as either a goal or a consequence.

Once you are inside a major newspaper it is much like working on any suburban paper; you show up for work, you do your job. Your mom might be bursting with pride that her son's byline is on the front page, ringing her old girlfriends just to casually let them know, but it would be entirely unseemly to display such attitudes on the news floor or to one's colleagues. If your story was on the front page it was much better to shrug it off casually.

Anything else would have been seen as boastful. It took him a while to realize that he was suddenly working amongst a group of people who were used to seeing their work on the front page, or at least published, and their attention was already focused on the next day's story.

The pride or appropriateness of being on the front page, usually couched in terms of the utter idiocy of the editors choices, had already been thrashed out in the pub the night before.

For many of that era the heavy drinking that constituted their lunchtime, or even much of the middle of the day, supposedly talking to contacts but more likely talking crap to their mates, often blended into extended evenings of equally heavy drinking.

He was thrilled, in a sense, to be home at last.

To not just be living and working among the many bylines he had followed over the years, but to be in a profession where getting drunk was an expected part of the job. How else was one going to relate to anyone?

How different the world is 30 years on, how different the younger generations, even his own children, who frowned on such behavior as unhealthy for body, soul and intellect.

Many of that era were legends in their own lunchtime, a hard drinking crew when very heavy drinking was seen as an essential part of the profession. Robert Haupt increased his legendary status after being posted to Moscow and dropping dead in Red Square at the age of 48 after consuming a bottle of vodka while celebrating the completion of his book Last Boat to Astrakhan

He would watch with a kind of grotesque fascination Peter Smark, famous for the size of his expense accounts, as he wandered across the news floor to chat with the paper's high and mighty, people he humbly avoided.

The local beer garden was named after the Environment writer L........ Glassock...assop.. ..... Earnest young greens would show up at the office with their latest speils on soil or water conservation, preserving native animals, cleaning pollution, and he would with a wry smile send them over to the smoke filled den of the since demolished Australian hotel opposite, where the senior staff spent extended hours smoking and drinking, often only wandering back to the office at about four, drunk as lords, to file their copy. Their years of experience meant they generally sense made, enough to pass on to the page in any case.

He first arrived at the Sydney Morning Herald during a time of change; when the pioneering Eric Beecher had been given the heave hoh and The Sun was still one of Sydney's liveliest tabloids.

Tracy Aubin, who he held in awe as a supremely gifted and tough as nuts journalist, dropped dead of alcoholism related illnesses.

Being new and low on the rung he would be put on the morning shifts; and when he arrived the subs were still finishing off The Sun,

Newspapers eat stories on a daily basis, and within a remarkably short period of time many early arrives find their burning desires or fields of interest have been depleted. Much the same happened to the author  - and soon enough one finds oneself writing about the events of the day without any particular personal agenda. The strangest things happen before your eyes; and the logistics of reporting them and the overwhelming importance of meeting the deadline – production values – takes over any other issue.

Having had what some might label various personal problems throughout his life he had no desire to insert himself into the story, which is one reason why he became over the years, with some degree of modesty, such a good reporter. He didn’t intrude himself into the story. He just wrote about what happened, straight.

Many contemporary reporters, and without wanting to enter a gender war he found women in particular found it difficult to write a news story without inserting their own opinions into the piece or making it lean one way or the other through their selection of emphasis and selection of experts.

He did not like opinionated journalism. but the changing nature of the medium has also meant that there was less room for the insertion of personal views. Once upon a time the order of the day was to write 600 words on the opening of an envelope, or whatever the event happened to be, and it was up to the editors and the subs to determine its news value and select what they found worthy within the text.

Decades later, with electronic media having overtaken the printed form, short sharp and sweet was the order of the day. What once would have demanded several hundred words now only demanded a few paragraphs.

The once venerated traditions and customs of detailed newspaper readership changed during entirely during the quarter of a century he spent as a staff journalist.

When he arrived in the mid 1980s, while people thought they were in a fast moving modern greed is good world, there were considerable changes yet to come.

In fact many of the lingering traditions of loyalty to a particular newspaper and the thorough of their pages still remained.    

Most young reporters only last a few years on what is known as general news, moving on either to specialise in a particular area or more often to move out into more lucrative arenas such as public relations, government press secretaries or corporate image makers.

However the author came to journalism later in life than most, he was more than 30 before he finally landed a staff position after years of freelancing or pursuing other forms of writing; and was content to be at the heart of mainstream news gathering after having lived a rather colourful life since his early teenage years. When he finally managed to get through the doors of the then highly esteemed doors of fairfax in the mid-1980s, whose publications included that bible of the chattering classes the sydney morning herald, the look feel and nature of newspapers was very different to what it was when he left a quarter of a century later.

The venerated publications with their loyal readership had changed to an audience brought up on television and used to consuming their news in short sound bites.

CHAPTER FOUR:

EVOLVING INTERESTS: DRUG REHABILITATION POLICIES, WELFARE DEPENDENCY, THE TRANSFORMATION OF PERSONAL DISASTER INTO BEAUTIFUL WRITING, THE AUTHOR'S OBSESSION IN LATER YEARS WITH THE RAMPANT DYSFUNCTION AND AS FAR AS HE WAS CONCERNED CORRUPTION OF THE FAMILY COURT, A LEFT WING ICON ATTACKING WHICH DID NOTHING BUT DAMAGE TO HIS CAREER IN A LEFT LEANING PROFESSION SUCH AS JOURNALISM.

THE SHIFT FROM THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD TO THE AUSTRALIAN IN THE EARLY 1990s, FOLLOWED SHORTLY AFTERWARDS BY A TRIP THROUGH THE SPECTACULAR RIFT VALLEY OF ERITREA IN NORTH AFRICA ON A TOUR SPONSORED BY THE FRED HOLLOWS FOUNDATION, LED HIM TO BE REGARDED MUCH TO HIS SURPRISE AS PRETENTIOUS.

HE HAD THE OH SHUCKS IT'S JUST ANOTHER JOB ROUTINE PAT OVER AT FAIRFAX, AND WAS ENTIRELY ACCUSTOMED TO CASUALLY SHRUGGING OFF THE PERSONAL ATTENTION THE JOB BROUGHT WITH IT, ALTHOUGH HE WAS NO DOUBT SECRETLY CHUFFED. BUT AT NEWS ANYONE FROM THE OTHER SIDE WAS REGARDED WITH SUSPICION, AS OVERPAID WANKERS.

THE IMMEDIATE AND HAPPY ACCEPTANCE HE EXPECTED TOOK A GOOD YEAR OR MORE TO FINALLY ARRIVE ANDND FOR HIS REPUTATION AS A WANKER FROM FAIRFAX TO DISAPPEAR.

EVERYONE AT FAIRFAX HAS A PRETTY GOOD IDEA WHAT THEIR COLLEAGUES ARE EARNING. AT NEWS LIMITED ONE'S SALARY IS A CLOSELY GUARDED SECRET.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE, HAVING COME FROM THE SMH, THE BIBLE OF THE CHATTERING CLASSES, SLAM DUNKED.

ISLAM IN AUSTRALIA

CHANGING TECHNOLOGY AND ITS IMPACT ON THE NATURE OF NEWS

THE PROFOUND INSPIRATION PROVIDED BY THE $100 ALLOWANCE A DAY TO BE OUT OF THE OFFICE SENT MY BRAIN INTO OVERDRIVE, THE MYRIAD OF STORIES AND SPECTACULAR PHOTOGRAPHS WE PRODUCED WHILE ON THE ROAD AROUND NSW, WHICH STRETCHES FROM ITS RENOWNED BEACHES AND STRIKING CLIFFS TO THE BARREN BEAUTY OF THE INLAND, FROM THE FASHIONABLE CAFES OF LATTE SIPPING INNER-CITY TRENDIES TO THE ROUGH AS GUTS MAKESHIFT ILLEGAL PUBS OF LIGHTNING RIDGE.

I WORKED ON THE COUNTRY STORIES MOST PARTICULARLY DURING THE YEARS AT THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD WITH A MULTI-AWARD WINNING PHOTOGRAPHER GREG WHITE. WE BECAME VERY CLOSE FROM SPENDING SO MANY HOURS TRAVELLING THROUGH THE MANY VARIED LANDSCAPES OF THE STATE AND FROM THE COMBINED INVENTIVENESS WE NEEDED TO SATISFY THE INSATIABLE DEMANDS OF A DAILY NEWSPAPER. WE ACCUMULATED SO MANY BEAUTIFUL PHOTOGRAPHS AND ACCOMPANYING STORIES THAT AT ONE TIME THERE WERE PLANS FOR A BOOK ON COUNTRY AUSTRALIA, ANOTHER OF LIFE'S UNFULFILLED AMBITIONS.

 John stapleton five years ago the separated fathers of australia would have died in the ditch for john howard. Now they want to lynch him. The prime minister took this nation to war on the flimsiest of evidence - far flimsier than the overwhelming evidence that the family court of australia and the child support agency, along with their handmaidens in legal aid and centrelink, are in urgent need of reform. It was five years ago that john howard announced that he was attracted to the idea of joint custody or shared parenting and that he would initiate an inquiry on the matter. This was a vote changing issue and howard won himself a new legion of fans amongst separated dads, second families and grandparents. Five years on, after endless multi-million dollar enquiries committee meetings, the bureaucrats, the lawyers, the social engineers and the liars have won the day. The government is likely to introduce this year the new family lawamendment bill promoting so-called "joint responsibility" amongstseparated parents. This is an idiotically vague notion that will give the lawyers a field day and means nothing on the ground. Intact couples don't agree on many subjects. Joint responsibility to do what? Choose the schools, what church the kids are going to go to? This was the bill that was going to introduce shared parenting as the desired outcome post separation. The bill does nothing of the kind, and will perpetuate the abuses now occurring in the family law and child support arena. A gutless howard government should have legislated for shared care andresponsibility of children as the norm post-separation. The proposal that equal parenting should be "considered" by the family court will make no difference to its current practice whatsoever. The court will continue to perpetuate the discredited sole-mother custody model, with all the pain and harm it creates to parents and children alike. In august the standing committee on legal and constitutional affairs tabled its report entitled exposure draft of the family law amendment (shared parental responsibility) bill 2005. This shameful report followed two major inquiries into family law by the howard government, including the house of representatives family and community services committee, led by national party mp kay hull, which produced the poorly written and poorly argued report against joint custody known as every picture tells a story.the nation wide positive media attention that howard attracted for hissupport of shared parenting has gone. At the time, even that soft left bible of the chattering classes the sydney morning herald ran articles promoting the common sense idea that children have a right to a good relationship with both their parents. Some of the toughest women journalists in australia wrote opinion pieces in support of sharing the care of children after divorce. The nation's media had finally woken up to the disaster in their midst. The family court, now one of the despised institutions in australian history, was begun as a supposedly progressive reform by gough whitlam in the 1970s aimed at advantaging women. Draconian secrecy legislation made the court difficult to cover for journalists. But as well, for many years the country's media was reluctant to cover the court because they did not want to be seen as conservative or anti-feminist. Separated fathers groups, unfunded and politically incorrect, were bulldozed into oblivion by the countless reports from well funded feminist lobby groups, feminist academics and feminist bureaucrats. The media black out has finally dissipated, with, predictably, the government run abc about the last bastion of media support for thecourt. All the positive coverage john howard received when he announced his government wanted to reform child custody in this country has gone. At our expense, the attorney general philip ruddock recently toured the country promoting the government's proposed new 65 "relationship centres", centres which will now add another layer for separating parents before they hit the family court. Attorney general of australia philip ruddock recently toured australia peddling the bureaucratic lie that his government is implementing the most sweeping reforms to family law in 30 years. The government is doing nothing of the kind. In his tour of sydney, melbourne, brisbane, perth, darwin and adelaide ruddock was confronted with furious fathers wherever he goes.what was meant to be a triumphal tour to champion reforms to family law turned rapidly into a fiasco. He looked exactly like what he is: an old lawyer, poorly briefed, defending the indefensible. By his sneering and contemptuous attitude to separated fathers, he made a whole new set of enemies. One father exiting the meeting at cranebrook, an obscure public housing enclave in far western sydney where the government chose to make the announcement in order to minimise demonstrations and objections, summed it up thus: "he was a prick as immigration minister and he's a prick as attorney general". Excuse the language, but that's about as positive as it got. By telling fathers that they are second class parents who do not deserve to be granted joint custody of their children after separation ruddock delivered an insult not just to fathers but hundreds ofthousands of women as well, to grandparents, second partners, secondwives, siblings and everyone who cares about dads, their children and the disaster that is being visited upon them by the extremist anti-male anti-father bias of the current system. The government chose to take heed of the so-called experts and bureaucrats and ignore the voices of parents. They are now paying the price. What was meant to be an electoral plus has simply provoked more resentment. Media coverage has been lukewarm at best. Make no mistake; the relationship centres the government isestablishing as a so-called first port of call after separation will operate under the draconian secrecy provisions of the family law act and will perpetuate the same anti-father bias and the same discrimination as the family court itself. No father can expect to be treated fairly in these relationship centres. Those tendering for the running of these centres, including relationships australia, have all put in submissions opposing shared parenting; and have therefore declared their bias up front. No father who wants to share the care of their children will be given a civil ear or encouraged to do so. In the process of touring the country ruddock has made nonsensical claims that the family court is not biased against men. It is outrageous to make these claims in front of an audience of fathers andtheir families who know it to be a nonsense; and who's own children have been so savagely impacted by the serial bastardry of the family court. The evidence that children need and benefit from having a father in their lives is overwhelming. As the man ultimately responsible for the operations of the family court, and the man therefore ultimately responsible for ripping hundreds of kids off their dads each week and destroying any potential for them to have a good relationship with their dads, ruddock has in effect become the nation's chief child abuser. Numerous individuals and groups have made the point that the family law amendment bill is a duplicitous piece of rubbish which will do the nation's children yet more harm. Why is a conservative government promoting a far left marxist feminist institution like the family court? I think there are two major reasons. The first is that lawyers back lawyers. Both ruddock and howard are old lawyers who, as they have demonstrated, are prepared to put theinterests of lawyers and their mates in private practice, many of whomhave grown fat from the misery of the divorce industry, well in front of the interests of the public. The second is that the government cannot admit that the family court is a biased and extremist organisation for fear of class actions from hundreds of thousands of disgruntled fathers. While there have been various attempts at such class actions, they have so far been unsuccessful. A government admission of what is already commonknowledge, that the court is an antiquated institution perpetuating anoutdated style of feminism which portrays all fathers as oppressive and abusive members of the patriarchy would make such class actions far simpler. In effect it is the same reason the government was so reluctant topublish an official apology to indigenous australia: money. While the howard government is using the rhetoric that it supports the right of children to a good relationship with both parents, not one kid will see their dad for one extra day as a result of the new family law reform bill. Not only that; the howard government is encouraging an even further rash of false allegations of domestic violence by including domestic violence provisions in the family law act. The government has pandered to the propaganda of the taxpayer funded domestic violence industry. It has deliberately promoted public hysteria over domestic violence and deliberately misrepresented its prevalence. Including domestic violence provisions in the family law act will not protect children. It simply means that the ideologically driven family court, which has no rules of evidence that translate to the real world, will be ripping kids off their dads with even further gay abandon. The family court must be delighted their power over separating families is being even further expanded. The howard government has arbitrarily and contemptuously dismissed thevoices of fathers and father's groups and has dismissed the exceptionally strong arguments for joint custody or shared parenting. The recommendations that a judge or advisers consider equal parenting,contained in the latest committee recommendations, means nothing when you get into the legal cesspit that is the family court. There is enormous community support for shared parenting not just from men, but from second wives, grandparents and from young women who, used to the notion of being treated equally, cannot understand why separated men and their children are treated so badly. The upper classes in this country or already affecting a cultural change in favour of shared parenting, failing to see why they should waste time, money and angst on a pack of lawyers and why their kids shouldn't be able to move freely between both their parents houses. It is the people without substantial incomes, those who are more likely to turn to welfare for support, who will be most badly affected by the government's failures. The howard government has blown an historic opportunity to make the shared care of children the norm post-separation. As such they are visiting the ravages of the family court and the child support agency on whole new generations of working class fathers, their extended families and their children. -- edit following contributions: april 2007 hunting in packs john stapleton during the last year, in the not so cool depths of the media currents, a giant shoal of fish changed direction all at once, to the right, or was it the left, they veered sharply, as if controlled by one mind. It's hard to believe that only a year ago to be green was entirely passe, painting the protagnoist as a deep scrub hippy who should have stayed on in nimbin. But last year, in this sped up world of high-speed multi-media communication and sweeping intellectual fads lasting barely nano-seconds, was an eternity ago. Way back then, in the dark ages of 2006, there was no surer way to turn off a news editor than to label your issues environmental, yourself a greenie and to prattle on about the future of the planet. Press releases from greenpeace, wwf, landcare, the greens and all the other worthy groups large and small were barely, or rarely, even glanced at as they made their way from the fax machine to the garbage bin; of even less interest than most of the dross that makes up the snow storm of press releases passing through the nation's news rooms on a daily basis. How times have changed. Now it's a crime to leave your kitchen light on by accident, for to do so it to burn up fossil fuels unnecessarily and threaten the very future of the planet. Think of the lives, the species, the shorelines you could have personally protected, if only you hadn't left that light on when you went to work. From the start global warming, or climate change,has been a gift to politicians. It made them look and sound important. You knew when the prime minister john howard, always one to sniff the political wind, started to talk about global warming that the tide had reached vote gathering proportions. Remember him declaring, as he went off to vietnam a few months back, that in his meeting there with us president george bush he would be discussing amongst other things serious issues such as climate change? Oh really? All a galaxy of politicians have had to do was to utter the words "climate change" or "global warming" to appear to be doing something about the single most vital issue facing the planet. Form a committee to discuss how best your government, department, association or kindergarten can best address climate change and by golly, you're a hero. For the media, too, it has been a gift; giving what were once boring environmental stories a ring of importance which guarantee them a run. Just as in the late 1980s, when every second story led with a green angle, driving voiceless farmers to despair, so, too, in 2007. The followers of global warming have been showing serious signs of religious fervour. Indeed it is the perfect religion for the modern age. To be a good guy, to capture the high moral ground, to convert and become at one with a large and growing body of initiates, all you have to do is declare belief. It requires no commitment, training, major sacrifice or discomfort. A simple statement of belief; an expression of concern about the fate of the planet; and you can feel good about yourself, amongst the enlightened. Just as the reverend al gore can touch god by turning a few of the lights off around his mansion; so practitioners of the new faith can serve penitence by turning their television off at the wall or by getting a different brand of petrol. It is easy, perfect for the age. It was in this atmosphere of heightened hysteria that australia's opposition leader kevin rudd could slam the prime minister john howard as a climate change sceptic, and be treated seriously, as if being a sceptic was in itself an evil. Does anyone really think any politician in this country could care less what was happening in 50 or a 100 years time? They care about their own survival, they care about feathering their own nest, they care about furthering their own ideological positions. If climate change can serve all those purposes and make them appear busy, important, capable of tackling the big issues in a spirit of self-sacrifice, it is a very convenient vehicle indeed. It is hardly the first time the vicious self-interest that has come to rule our society has been paraded as a worthy issue. In reality, what possible real difference to the future of the planet can a remote and sparsely populated country like australia really make? The arrival of climate change as the new state religion came at just the right time for those seeking a secular belief system. The previous state sponsored religion of multi-culturalism was falling apart under the weight of its own contradictions and hypocricies and the government of the day was moving to change the core tenets of the over-arching belief system, away from m-m-m-multiplicity to unity. Few commentators, and even fewer journalists, have struggled to point out the complexity of the debate over climate change. Sceptics in the scientific community also found themselves swimming against an overwhelming tide. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse, when it was impossible to becme more cloakingly, cloyingly converted to global warming, the sydney morning herald published a green newspaper, literally, aimed at promoting the wwf's earth hour, an event where we could all feel good about saving the planet by turning our lights off for an hour. In the history of austrlaian journalism, the publication of a green edition by the smh, once regularly listed as one of the top 20 broadsheets in the world, was a milestone in the abandonment of perspective. Whle campaigning journalism is all very well and good, running such propaganda ensured that objectivity was impossible, as the rosy, optimisitic coverage of earth hour demonstrated. Perhaps david salter described it all best, when he called it "a burst of vacuous symbolism designed to flatter the moral vanities of the smh readership while turning a fast buck behind their backs." but don't worry. For those feeling a winter bout of existential angst or spiritual yearning, no need to worry. Big brother is back on.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++hunting in packs may 2007 in case you missed the news i'll repeat it here: australia has been ranked 35th and 39th in the world in terms of press freedom by two international journalist organisations, reporters without borders and freedom house respectively. That puts us down there with el salvador and bosnia. Australians love to pride themselves on being open-minded and tolerant. Our academics spout endlessly about "diversity" and "multiplicity" while cheerfully condemning the media. The truth is another country. Australia is little better than a communist country with a capitalist gloss. Any independent minded reporter is confronted with a bewildering variety of restrictions on what they can and cannot cover. If you don't believe me, try a few politically incorrect experiments. Try and find out how many acts of vandalism have been perpetrated against christian churches in 2007. You won't get very far. Try and find out what the travel budgets are for the country's most seniorjudicial figures. The travel budgets of the supreme court or the family court are reputed to be an open scandal. But just try and get a breakdown of their travel budgets. Or to quote an example which has been making the news, try and get a breakdown of the hundreds of thousands of dollars of your money being spent on the prime minister's wine cellar. You won't get anywhere. Under our now frequently abused freedom of information laws police have refused to release a list of the pubs with the highest numbers ofalcohol-related incidents, including assault and robbery. Think you have the right to know which schools in this state have the most violent incidents - perhaps so you can avoid sending your child into a dangerous schoolyard? Forget it. A major newspaper has spent more than $40,000 on legal fees so far in an attempt to get a report from the nsw department of education on violent incidents, but after repeated attempts still can't get the full report. The extent to which this secrecy in our public life has developed simply defies belief. A newspaper has even been denied a list of the names of nsw restaurants fined by councils for breaching health foodregulations. One simple but effective tool government's have used to rort foi laws has been to make them too expensive for the average citizen. Don't believe me? Try and get your own health, tax or police records; tryand find out what information the government has on you personally, and you'll be immediately hit with extensive delays and massive costs.recently a major newspaper was refused an auditor'[s report on suspected rorts of commonwealth mps' travel expenses. The paper appealed to a tribunal and won, but then the government tried to charge $1 million in fees to hand over the report. The paper could not afford it. Under much duress the federal government has finally agreed to release its 18-month-old polls into what the public think of the workchoices legislation - but not until after the forthcoming election. Funny about that. A newspaper recently lost its high court appeal to get the government to release figures on how much extra tax workers have to pay when they get a pay rise. The case cost the paper half a million dollars. Also recently, the federal government claimed it was "not in the public interest" to release information on the first home owners scheme, including the number of wealthy people fraudulently claiming the $7,000 grants under the scheme. A newspaper took the case to the high court and lost. Australian laws now contain more than 500 separate prohibitions and restrictions on what the public is allowed to know. Some vary from state to state, creating huge barriers to accurate and full reporting. Courts are routinely suppressing information, often on spurious grounds. A decade ago, there were fewer than 100 court suppression orders on the media. Now there are more than 1,000 at any one time. Federal prosecutors have a policy of tracking down and prosecuting any public servant found to have leaked official information, even when it is demonstrably and dramatically in the public interest that the information be in the public domain. One of the  most disgusting sights in recent times has been the sight of a judge declaring that he was seriously considering a jail term for the whistle blower convicted for exposing the shocking state of security at our airports and revealing that a number of employees at sydney airport had serious criminal histories or potential links to radical islamic groups. This whistle blower's common decency in exposing the systemic flaws at our airport facilities led to a $22 million upgrade of security and the travelling public is now much safer as a result. He himself is likely to spend years sitting in a jail cell. We are paying taxes so yet another arrogant and out of touch member of the legal caste can jail someone for following their conscience and doing the right thing by the country. Go figure. We are all of us, from those in the media to your average punter, fools for having allowed this to happen. We are all complicit in our own oppression. Both labor and the coalition are guilty of abusing australian democracy by with-holding information that should be in the public domain. But there is no doubt the howard government has been particularly evil in this regard.it was prime minister john howard, to quote just instance, who decided it was more important to play lapdog to the americans and participate in the immoral disaster known as the iraq war, in the face of extensive public opposition. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being poured into utterly dubious foreign adventures with virtually no public support; but just try and find out any information at all on what our troops are really up to. It as become almost impossible to get balanced reports from war zones, as it has been in the past. Our military will cooperate only with embedded journalists to ensure the official line is reported. To combat the mantle of secrecy which has enveloped the operation of governments at all levels in this country australia's largest media organisations, traditionally fierce competitors, have united to form a new coalition to run a public campaign australia's right to know. The group includes news limited, fairfax media, the abc, the commercial television industry body freetv, its radio equivalent commercial radio australia, sbs, wire service aap and broadcaster sky news. At a press conference in may the group outlined plans for a major reappraisal of laws and regulations t hat censor free speech and undermine the right of all australians to get information that is relevant and important to their lives. The industry coalition willcommission a national audit on the state of free speech in australia. This report will form the basis of a campaign of public consultation and discussion with government and opposition parties and the judiciary. A joint statement by the group urged all australian governments to embrace urgent reform to redress the erosion of free speech. The statement read in part: "we have joined together because we are deeply troubled by the state of free speech in australia. Freedom of speech is one of the fundamental pillars of a free and open society. It is as important as parliamentary democracy and the rule of law in guaranteeing the freedom and rights of all australians. Our freedom to express an opinion, honestly and openly, is under threat. Equally, our ability to report to australians facts about how they are governed and how our courts are administering justice is being severely hampered. Australia now lags well behind most major democracies. Australians deserve to be trusted with information in the same way as citizens of other democracies."++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++august 2007. Trevor, i can't get the nick cohen thing right so here's this one and i'll do cohen next. I think you'll find this alright. It has a spray at both sides in equal measure; but more at howard because he's been the one in a position to do something. Believe it or not, these issues concern a large number of people. If it's a bit long cut to size i can't do word counts on this thing. Hunting in packs august 2007 john stapleton have howard's family law and child support reforms been a success? The answer is a resounding no. Absolutely not. To understand why an air of decay and deceit has adhered to a dying howard government, you need look no further than the howard government's treatment of separated dads and their families. It is a case study of how this government has dealt with social issues, with the electorate; and yes, with their once staunchsupporters. And why they are now on the nose from coast to coast. By flirting with the separated father vote and then discarding it, by holding in front of grieving and distressed men who have had their children arbitrarily ripped off them the possibility that they could get to see their kids again, by promising and promoting family law reform and then failing to deliver, john howard and his government have committed emotional abuse on a massive scale. Flirting with the separated dad vote - and don't forget this includes aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfathers and second wives - was one of the worst things the howard government has ever done.despite all the evidence from both australian and international sources justifying the desperately overdue need for reform of family law and child support and the introduction of equal and shared parenting as the most sensible solution to the morass howard failed to act; instead he blinded people with smoke and mirrors. Instead of listening to the people, to the massive support for joint custody aka shared parenting as the norm post divorce, instead of listening to the massive support in the media for ending the rotten debacle of family law and remedying the massive harm being done to this country's children, the howard government chose instead to listen to the elite opinion of the so-called experts. He blew an historicopportunity to fix this problem once and for all. Elite so-called "liberal" opinion in this country, including the mandarins responsible for the family court and the child support agency, have long regarded the father as an unnecessary element in the modern family. The family court's maladministration, its arbitrary judgements and overwhelming ideological bias against fathers, had become a major embarrassment to the howard government. It is regarded with contempt by lawyers in all other jurisdictions. But instead of fixing the outrageous conduct of this lunar left the court, howard has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars setting up so-called relationship centres. They will operate under the same draconian secrecy laws that protect the family court from proper journalistic exposure and will perpetuate the same anti-father bias and the same discrimination as the family court itself. No father can expect to be treated fairly in these relationship centres. Those tendering for the running of these centres, including relationships australia, have all put in submissions opposing shared parenting; and have therefore declared their bias up front. Predictably these centres have instantly turned into yet another bureaucratic layer that separated parents have to negotiate. For every single mother there's a desperate dad who would love to be able to care for his kids. The howard government has assisted in the perpetration of the myth of the single mother as somehow an heroic figure. In reality the bloody minded and selfish refusal of many solo mothers to let their children have a proper relationship with their dad, often purely for financial reasons, has been re-entrenched by howard's so called reforms.although no proper study has ever been done on the subject, it is often estimated there are about a million votes in the separated dad lobby. With the polls indicating the government faces annihilation at the coming election, i bet howard wishes he had a million votes in his pocket. I bet about now he's wishing he hadn't double crossed the dads; their kids, their grandparents and all those people in separated and blended families who's views, experiences and presentations to government he has ignored. Dads would have died in the ditch for johnnie howard in september 2003; when he publicly stated he was drawn to shared parenting as the norm, post-divorce and would be initiating a wide ranging inquiry into child custody. He brought great hope to hundreds of thousands of desperately sad separated parents who thought that for the first time ever we had aprime minister in power who understood their heart ache and was going to do something about the country's most despised, dysfunctional,discredited and destructive institutions, the family court and the child support agency. To illustrate just how far the howard government has fallen in moral stature and in public standing, it's worth remembering back to the immediate aftermath of that 2003 announcement. There were positive front page headlines around the country and talk back radio ran hot in support, with call after call detailing the devastation being felt byseparated parents. In short, howard won astonishingly strong support from within the nation's media; widespread and excellent coverage and kudos for his government and praise for having the gumption to take on the entrenched interests of the judiciary and the bureaucracy. It's a long time now since howard has seen wall to wall positive front page headlines.meanwhile he thrashes around trying to re-ignite that sense of coherence and excitement, desperately trying to find something that will work. What did work, but is working no longer; was the government's flirtation with shared parenting or joint custody of children. Which makes the government's actions even more puzzling: why did they backtrack; why did they double cross the dads when there was so much community and media support for change?? Most people have now lost all faith in a system that is not about achieving a fair and just outcome for them and their children, but about how much money can be extracted from separating couples at the most vulnerable time of their lives. That parasitic lawyers,psychologists and social workers making money out of these sad conflicts can so casually parrot the phrase "the best interests of the child" is just sickening. So will the government be revisiting the legislation?  Unfortunately, it's all too late. The government is likely to be thrashed in the polls, and a rudd labour government is highly unlikely to ever confront its ideological anti-nuclear family cronies in the bureaucracy and the judiciary. An unholy alliance of elite opinion; of bureaucrats, lawyers, politicians and so-called "experts", with the complicity of the liberal national party coalition and  full co-operation of the labor party, took thefamily law reform process hostage. Much of this was done under the guise of that great motherhood issue, domestic violence. Instead of listening to the people, the schedulers of the public inquiry jammed it full of taxpayer funded advocates; all of whom were keen to paint men as violent patriarchal brutes and women as their hapless, defenceless victims in urgent need of protection by the state. The government, thinking it was on to a motherhood issue which would make it look good as a protector of women, ignored all the warnings that writing domestic violence into family law was inappropriate and would escalate the volume of false allegations - anecdotally reported to have jumped by some 50%.  Violence is a crime; it's a matter for the police. It's not a matter for ideologues in a secretive and unaccountable tribunal like the family court to use as an excuse for the perpetration of anti-father policies. Howard missed a once in a generation opportunity to fix this poisonous system and blew it. Millions of parents, and millions of children, now and into the future, will suffer as a consequence. The howard government's alleged reforms of family law and child support have been little more than an elaborate fraud perpetrated on a particularly vulnerable section of the community. The reforms were not genuine but created the illusion of change while reinforcing the myriad horrors of the status quo. Nothing is more important to a parent than their children; and the howard governments conduct was a cruel, cynical and political. If the polls are right, we are about to be blessed with kevin rudd as prime minister. While he talks cosily of being with his family on the porch in "brissie" with his wife, his kids, the dog and the cat, the anti-father, anti-nuclear family, so-called "progressive" ideologues in his party are entrenched in key social policy positions. While howard's duplicitous double crossing of fathers has been shameful to behold, don't think for one minute rudd will be any better.the howard government's perfidy over family law and child support hasbeen enormously sad to watch play out, but separated families are naive if they expect rudd will treat them any better.  One of the worst things that has happened in australia, and evident for all to see during this last family law reform charade, has been the pretence by the "liberal" elite that the nuclear family does not matter, that it is an old fashioned construct which imprisons women and stifles children. We can see the results of these trendy, so-called "progressive" theories in the crowded chaotic scenes in the suburban courts of this nation. But astonishingly few public intellectuals have stepped outside the pack and drawn the dots. Historian john hirst's excellent monograph kangaroo court was one of the few exceptions. Our likely future prime minister kevin rudd talks cosily of his family on the veranda in "brissie", with the dogs, the cats, the children. But the special interests which have swarmed over labour since the 1970s, since whitlam's days, do not hold the family dear in anyway. The left wing of his party is firmly entrenched in the social policy areas; and like their forebears will no doubt do untold harm in the name of social justice. While their traditional working class supporters have been ravaged by the impacts of the family court and the child support agency, there has been not one whisper of concern or discontent with the outrageous conduct of these institutions from the labour party itself. Equality is equality. It means treating people equally. You don't get progress and you don't get social justice by advancing the interests of one gender over the other or by ignoring the views of ordinary people. When you do, all you get is backlash from the great unwashed who have been ignored. That, in the end, is what this country will face as a result of this government's manifest failure to do the right thing by mothers, fathers and children in equal measure.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++15/2/2008. South sydney herald. John williams forget about the centre of the country, the ``intervention'' in indigenous affairs should start in the centre of the city, according to public housing residents of waterloo in sydney, who daily are confronted with drug dealing and public drunkenness. Elderly residents in the 30-storey public housing blocks known as ``the towers of despair'' look down on waterloo green at scenes of children and their parents involved in activities every bit as bad as what is happening in australia's remote communities. Many of the elderly are afraid to go out for fear of being robbed or assaulted; and finishing their life in a nursing home as a result. Years of attempts to get the authorities to act have come to naught. ``because it involves indigenous children, it's a hot potato game and everyone we approached has passed the spud, from the premier down through the ministers to local agencies,'' community activist ross smith said. ``everyone is afraid to act. This isn't just a case ofpublic drunkenness, the elderly in the area are seriously frightened and distressed.'' a safety audit conducted by police found the area was so rundown and crime ridden, with lights not working and amenities in disrepair, that legitimate users were afraid to go near the park. Acting superintendent bradley monk said police patrols were tasked to waterloo green on every shift, often to attend to assaults and alcohol related crime. However making it an alcohol free zone was impossible because it was departmental property. ``it is difficult to tell people they cannot drink in what is effectively their own front yard,'' he said. Head of local aboriginal training company tribal warrior, shane phillips, who was born and bred in waterloo, said the people taking their children along to a day of drinking and drugging at waterloo green had little idea what they were doing was wrong. He said addiction was like waking up with a light bulb in your face, you could see little else; and struggling people needed innovative programs rather than their children removed. ``taking kids creates resentment and anger,'' he said. ``i've been to many corporate functions where people are going on as crazy as the people on waterloo green, but they are behind closed doors. We either toss aside the people who are struggling, or we start helping them break the cycle - and breaking cycles is where we all have to go.'' a spokesman for nsw minister for community services kevin greene said the government funded a large range of services for children in the waterloo area. A spokesman for the nsw department of housing said an action plan involving child welfare and numerous other agencies had been developed to reduce anti-social behaviour associated with the excessive public drinking on waterloo green. New year's eve 2008: redfern style published the south sydney herald. There was absolutely no explanation for what had happened. Colin is back in hospital; on his last legs. More than a hundred miles away, he was helpless to help. The wild thoughts that had ballooned out across the dank, over-heated suburb, the fetid air, all their thought bubbles coalesced together in a marching charade. He had wanted out, it was true. The profound depression he had brought upon himself lifted;inspired by the network of dysfunctional, caring people. Oh how much he wanted them to go. Was it true he had been planted here; and then his own coding wiped to hide the trace. Those balloons were almost impossible to describe; flushing out across the cars; rising over the terrace roofs, enveloping the rats which still ran up and down the tree outside his bedroom window. Four a.m. On the first day of the year; and everything he had ever worked for had vanished and he was cosseted in a ball of laughter;watching the police banked across the top of the block. They were two,sometimes three deep. Opposite, the police cars were stacked along theroad edge, outside redfern police station. He was shattered inside; soshattered he knew he could never recover, not now, not this time, notever. The music was fantastic, these master musicians playing for the tiny audience of stragglers who had shown up for brigette's party. Bridge, as we all called her, was skinny from the alcohol, bubbling from ecstasy, marked at the frontier. We sat on her balcony and smoked cigarettes. Not many people had come; and she was disappointed. All dressed up and nowhere to go. We didn't point it out. Where is everybody? The little band of three or four, organised especially for the party, played well enough to have caught the rapt attention of hundreds, packed in country halls, applauding, purposeful, part of this glorious life, glorious nation, glorious city. Except  there was nothing glorious about this place, not any more. The public order and riot squad police were there, as were the tactical response group. We could see everything, too frightened to go and check it out in person. He could hear shouts, the sounds of smashing bottles. Every now and then the police would go in a wave down to the block,, down and back, advance retreat. This very spot had been the scene of some of the city's worst rioting, and the police were taking no chances, not this time, not on the first day of the year. It was good to write again. He had so wanted to record everything, to create something beautiful, to make a difference. Even here, on this balcony, as the minutes clicked towards five a.m. And the police readied themselves for another foray into the block, the words cascaded through his head, urgent, lyrical, driven with desire. Alongside the police party goers gathered in drunken little knots outside the station, waiting for the trains to start up. They were young, full of excitement, sweaty from their party drugs, make up and hair falling every which way, flushed with expectation they would finally get their rocks off when their trains arrived and, droppped at their destinations in the barely dawn, fell through their doors and embraced; fulfilling the pornographic movies which ran in all their heads. Far off the world was splintering. Terrorism and the flavour of the middle east was in all their living rooms, flickering on screens. Everything was open to us now. He couldn't breathe deep enough, sigh long enough. He couldn't find someone to love, not enough to wipe away all that had happened, the final gasps of pain as he was beaten once again. Now an old man, homeless at the base of giant billboards, hecouldn't even protest at their indifference. It was new year's eve. They had a right to party. That his own life had fallen apart was not their concern. He was laughing at bridge, who was chasing gersch down the steps. Gersch was one of the princes of dysfunction, intoxicating, intoxicated, as she recovered from mick telling her to bugger off and get a younger man, have babies, be happy, go live in the burbs. Instead she found gersch, and completely adored him, could run her hands across his flat working stomach and kiss every sweaty, lovely little hair as she wound up higher and kissed him on the lips; and now chased him down the stairs in a barely mock attempt at capture. There was a shrill whistle. The police were gathering again. There are left wing governments at local, state and federal level. All of the talk is of tolerance and diversity, compassion towards those who are different. On the streets the police raise their truncheons and tower over the hopeless gang of beggars and street alcoholics who are the public face of the block. They don white gloves as they search theirbelongings, for fear of contamination. The sniffer dogs spread fear. The sky lightens. They daren't go near. At work next day; amidst the general round of press conferences, the feeding of the pack, the manipulation of reality, the creation of an entirely false public discourse, the city officials crowed about the wonderful success of the night; new year's eve and the fireworksdisplay on the sydney harbour bridge, world famous not just for visualspectacle itself, millions of dollars burning as colours cascaded down from the bridge and the bobbing boats on the harbour were lit with the reflected glow of the fireworks, the red, the white and the blue, the crowds gasping in awe and appreciation. But its geographical location; as one of the first major cities to begin celebrating the new year, made it world famous, picked up and relayed in packages around the globe. The mayor, clover moore, batty left, always politically correct, hands off ignorant of the brutality of the police, the oppression of the dispossessed. On her watch, under her nose. We live in the greatest city in the world, she declared. Only 70 people had been arrested for public disorder, resisting arrest, affray, hundreds of tonnes of garbage had already been cleared from the streets by the 10am press conference, the opera house glowed in too bright colours and the harbour was more glistening, more depth in its colouring, than ever. But these things were minor. She praised the public for their good behaviour, the police for putting their lives on the line, garnering considerable overtime as they went. She applauded the handiwork of the event manager, the handsomely paid artistic designers, expressed the city's gratitude for their success. What was happening in redfern between four and five a.m., he asked. Well i live in redfern, and nothing was happening that i am aware of. I have not been briefed on any major disturbance. It was as if the riot police, those battle lines foraying down into the block, the drunken shouts, the broken bottles, the aboriginesrunning for cover in the network of broken streets, it was as if none of it had ever happened. Later, at a police press conference held at the headquarters of the roads and traffic authority, he asked the same question; what was happening in redfern between four and five a.m.? The acting commissioner, her future well assured and well promoted, looked him directly in the eye, surprised by the question in the midst of all of the talk of the event's success. There was a minor altercation between two people, she said. He raised an eyebrow. It took dozens of police for that, the riot squad, the vans. She repeated her answer, said that it was a standard response, the police responded in groups for their own safety. There had been no major incidents. The gap between the official versions and the scenes on the street could hardly be more stark. Where were we heading, communist russia? A minor altercation between two people? The commissioner clearly did not want to dwell on the subject; nothing must mar the official success story, the seamless event, the happy city. She pointed to the next journalist; and answered their harmless question in full. He knew not to persist, to let the official version ride. And so the newspapers, the radio, the television, all reported on the glowing success of the event. He wasn't going to fight this one. He wasn't going to single handedly tear away the veil of secrecy. He thanked the lord for the creation of such a beautiful world. A new life, a new day, he had survived. Deeply dysfunctional, deeply inspired, he retreated back into the comforting network of crazies, he shrugged off the depression which had eaten at him throughout 2008; and he shuddered, deep down, at the gaps in reality, the increasing government control, the layers of fascism, the soviet style world being brought to their door, in this glittering place, this glittering harbour, the multiple reflections on the shiny water, amidst thewealthy yachts and bobbing dinghies. All was not well. All was turning into a lie.

The australian, edition 1 - all-round country

Fri 03 jul 2009, page 005

Block's rebirth only $60m away - bridging the gap

By: john stapleton click here to search for full page image in pdf formatclick here for image(library terminal only) sydney's derelict block, the centre of aboriginal activism in australia after it was established in the whitlam era, may finally get the makeover its owners have been seeking for the past decade. The nsw government yesterday announced approval for a $60million redevelopment of the inner-city site -- but the head of the organisation behind the plan admitted he did not know where the money to finance the project would come from. The long-decaying ghetto, rife with drug dealing and crime, sits on some of sydney's most valuable real estate, due to its location near the cbd. The block has been in limbo for much of the past decade as the aboriginal housing company, which owns it, has been locked in a spirited dispute with the state government over its redevelopment proposal, known as the pemulwuy project. The sticking point has been the desire by the ahc to build 62 homes on the site, replacing the largely derelict or boarded-up homes built in the 1970s and since trashed. Previous planning minister frank sartor refused to countenance the rebuilding of the homes, claiming that concentrating large numbers of socially disadvantaged and troubled people in one area would simply repeat the mistakes of the past. The nsw government yesterday announced the pemulwuy project would go ahead and claimed it could deliver 300 jobs and more than 9000 square metres of commercial uses, shops and community and cultural space -- as well as the much-disputed 62 homes. Nsw planning minister kristina keneally, joined by deputy premier carmel tebbutt and local federal mp and housing minister tanya plibersek, said the concept's approval provided an opportunity to rejuvenate the area. ``this $60m project will deliver a boost to employment in the redfern area through the creation of around 200 construction jobs and 100 ongoing positions once complete,'' ms keneally said. She said the ahc was the owner of the land and had put forward the proposal just like any other private developer. ``they now have the certainty to go ahead and organise finance,'' she said. ``the ahc have pointed out they are not looking for handouts. They wanted approval so they could go forward with this visionary project and organise the finances. It is up to them. ``they have not entirely ruled out approaching state and federal governments, but they have said they want to look at private finance first.'' ahc head mick mundine said he did not yet know where the money would come from and estimated the completion of the project was probably five years away. ``the dream will come true; we will get the money,'' mr mundine said. ``the block was degraded, it was down in the gutter. If we can do what we can do here we'd be a good role model for a lot of black organisations out there.'' john stapleton like many an australian story, the future of the beloved steam train 3801 is all about money, real estate, bureaucratic intransigence and political manoeuvering. The 3801, greeted by thousands of sightseers and enthusiasts wherever it goes, is regarded as the best working example of a steam locomotive in australia. But after being cared for by volunteers and enthusiasts for the past 20 years, its future as a working locomotive is now in doubt. Its many supporters claim the nsw government is determined to rid itself of the train because it  wants the valuable inner-city land onwhich it is housed. Plans are already on display for a 12-storey apartment development on the site of the 1890s heritage listed rail shed in which it is housed. The 3801 steam locomotive, built by clyde engineering in westernsydney, came into service in 1943. Regarded as an engineering triumph, it remained in service until 1967. It was a rusting heap at the nsw rail transport museum at thirlmere south of sydney until 1983, when it was restored by apprentices in the hunter valley. In 1986 it came back to service with a specially formed volunteer heritage company called 3801 ltd., which was given a 20 year lease. That lease ends in november. Since 1986 the 3801 has carried more than half a million passengers. The company has more than 130 active volunteers. Chairman of 3801 ltd., former dean of engineering at sydney university john glastonbury, said the trains operations were now at risk because the nsw government refused to renegotiate their lease. ``we are one of the most successful rail heritage operators in australia, yet the nsw government is trying to break up a group of devoted volunteers for bureaucratic convenience and real estate money,'' glastonbury said. ``look at episodes of yes minister and itceases to be funny. All we are asking is for the government to let uscontinue to do what we have done well.'' typical of the enthusiasts grouped around the 3801, former tours operator for the railway historical society ken butt said the loss of the train would be terrible. ``it is the only one of its kind left, it is in top order and people just love it,'' he said. As those with any direct experience of the steam age die out, the company has trained up a younger generation. Fireman and maintenance expert creagh maywald, 30, said they had to draw on the skills of the men who originally drove the train. ``just look at her,'' he said. ``it is a beautiful machine, absolutely beautiful. Railways, wool, wheat and coal, that was what australia was built on.'' glastonbury said the nsw government could step in and resolve the issue with a stroke of the pen. But nsw transport minister john watkins has refused to intervene. Last friday railcorp chief executive vince graham issued a statement which horrified 3801s supporters; claiming the operating future of the locomotive would be guaranteed but refusing to clarify the ownership dispute. He said he would offer 3801 ltd an extention of time at its current location subject to thecompany meeting building maintenance responsibilities and undergoing afinancial audit. Peter berriman, president of the nsw rail transport museum at thirlmere, 3801's likely future home, expects to take possession on 27 november. He said the train was returning to its natural home. He acknowledged it was unlikely to run as often. ``we would argue that as a single product business 3801 have operated it without any real regard for conservation considerations,'' mr berriman said. ``they don't have a conservation policy, they don't have guidelines or protocols for operating heritage equipment. We think we can provide a more sustainable future for the locomotive.''  the story of joyce: joyce feels betrayed after voting for pm john stapleton and simon kearney | march 08, 2008 the $500 senior's bonus from john howard was not enough to change joyce kable's vote. She has been a staunch labor voter all her life and a few hundred dollars was not about to change that. But like many of her contemporaries, as a pensioner, ms kable, 83, was grateful for the extra money. Last year she used it to make repairs around her house, particularly on the back deck, which was rotting and had become dangerous. This year she was going to get her water heater replaced and hire a plumber to fix some taps. "when the government started the payment i thought it was very good and it would help a lot, it was a nice thing to have happened," she said. "it could have been john howavale trevor davies – funeral 23 june 2011 the funeral service for trevor davies will be held at 10am on thursday june 23, 2011 at pitt street uniting church, 264 pitt st, sydney (near to corner of pitt & park streets and a block from town hall station). The service will be followed by refreshments until 1pm. In lieu of flowers the family requests donations to the south sydney herald. By mail: po box 3288 redfern nsw 2016. By eft: bsb 062 231; account no. 1021 8391. Trevor was a member and elder of south sydney uniting church, the founding editor of the south sydney herald and long-time secretary of the darlington alp branch. Trevor was one of the foundation members of redwatch, had served as a committee member in almost every community organisation in the area at one time or another over the last 30 years. At the time of his death his committee responsibilities included being vice president of the st vincent de paul branch that covered the redfern area. Trevor had a wide circle of friends from his various involvements and the people he met along the way; be that as a street sweeper, working in the darlington newsagency, at politics in the pub, as part of redfern residents for reconciliation, at political meetings or delivering leaflets for a meeting, or his beloved local newspapers (the south sydney herald only being the most recent incarnation). Trevor’s death was sudden although he had not been well for some time. He was due to have an angiogram on the day he died but was taken to hospital the evening before where he had a heart attack and was operated on for several hours before he died on tuesday 14 june 2011. His death came as a particular shock to those who had spoken to him around the darlington coffee shops over the long weekend or had talked to him in one of his various activities in the week before. Trevor had only recently celebrated his 55<sup>th</sup> birthday and was brother to susan, annie and ivor. Susan has recently started work at the big issue office in redfern. His family would welcome assistance with the funeral costs and if you are able to contribute please contact his sister susan leith-miller onleithsu@bigpond.com and / or make a contribution to account name: susan leith-miller bsb: 062 231 account number: 1037 0246. Any surplus funds will be donated to the south sydney herald. The south sydney herald will publish tributes to trevor in their july issue. You can email your story or message to editor@ssh.com.aubefore the weekend. Trevor played an important role in the south sydney herald and they are currently looking at how they rearrange responsibilities to cover a trevor sized hole. If you have skills that may be of assistance to the paper, even in the short term, please contact andrew at editor@ssh.com.au. It has also been suggested by gai smith, who is helping with other family archives to be deposited with the mitchell library, that the mitchell library would also be interested in receiving people’s stories. She says “it's very important to use the occasion of the great gathering of people who come to honour trevor on thursday to get people to commit to contributing their memories of trevor, and what they know of all he did in their area of interest, in writing - so we can gather the materials that will be needed to document the life of a great man.  We'll never get that chance again, to have in one place so many people who knew the different facets of trevor's life”. Trevor will be missed greatly by the community that he served and stirred for so many years. Farewell political comrade, church brother and personal friend.lifestyle new life in a distant land first published on the features page of the australian on 8 november 2005. Narrative: i first met the author alan gills while working as a general news reporter at the sydney morning herald, a job which essentially spanned the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. For many years alan was the paper’s religious affairs writer. Gill was one of those journalists who was already well established when i arrived on the paper and who i regarded with little concealed awe and fascination. It was a time when the term “journalistic principles” was not just a joke. He was always helpful to the new comer. Gill was always a fundamentally decent and considerate person; helpful to young journalists such as myself scholarly rather than journalistic air. Even when i met him he was considered old fashioned by that obnoxious breed of high speed overly ambitious fashionably ruthless suited-up managerial types who filled the upper echelons in those days when the mantra “greed is good” was the order of the day. In contrast alan was pedantic, slow, careful with his facts, attentive to detail. But also concerned with the the detail of stories and with the people he was working with and writing about. If you had to describe him in one word it would be “kindly”. Through a story he had written for the paper gill acquired a long term interest in the experiences of the early particularly british immigrants to australia. Their harsh, often cruel treatment was a virtually unknown and unrecorded part of australian history until gill applied his talents to the arena. It was a passion he was to continue into retirement, as like so many of the journalists i got to know and admire became the victims of management coups and changing fashions. I ran into him in the sydney streets or at some function or other, i can’t at this point quite recall which, but in any case he suggested that i might be interested in doing a feature on his of new book; he had no idea who to approach on the often inhospitable national broadsheet the australian where i was then working. I approached the features editor of the day who rather to my surprise was interested in the idea and the following article was the result. Understanding and having worked in journalism for so many decades, alan gill was one of those who realised how few were the rewards; and he was one of the very few people ever to ring up after the publication of a story and thank me for my efforts. With a number of photographs on the page, it was also one of those features that actually looked good on the page and not just in the mind’s eye. New life in a distant land strap: thousands of british teenagers responded to an australian immigration drive in the early 20th century. Article: noel fidler will never forget the day he landed in australia from england almost 80 years ago. Fidler had been lured to the great south land by an ambitious campaign that promised 50,000 unaccompanied british youths a new life in a faraway country. ``i was 17, i was doing my cambridge university entrance exams,'' fidler recalls. ``it was already the depression in england and universities weren't taking any new students. Instead of going to university i came to australia. When we went ashore there was a drunk standing on the dock. The first words i heard were his: `bloody pommy bastards.''' fidler, who turns 97 on christmas day, worked on farms for a couple of years before going into business. His biggest regret is that he never went to university, but he proudly points out there are now eight university degrees in his family, five of them earned by his grandsons. ``i have had a good life,'' he declares. ``we were young boys from england, ireland and scotland. We were all on our own, we had to make friends among ourselves. Until we got girlfriends. We're getting pretty scarce now.'' fidler is one of the surviving dreadnought boys: a group of 7456 unaccompanied british youths who were brought to australia in the early 20th century to work the land, populate the nation and defend its borders. The first batch of 12 left london back in 1911. When they arrived in sydney seven weeks later, they were described in the press as ``fine, strapping young english fellows''. They were the beginning of a wave of 50,000 unaccompanied british teens, mostly aged about 15 or 16, who migrated to australia during the next few decades under a range of different programs. The dreadnought scheme got its name after a group of patriotic australians, concerned at german naval expansion in the build-up to world war i, decided to raise money to buy a battleship. When the government rebuffed their offer, they decided to defend australia by importing british youths to work on rural properties with the then fashionable intention of boosting australia's white population. When bill allport arrived in sydney as a teenage migrant almost 70 years ago, he was sent to derriwong in far west nsw and spent his first australian christmas sleeping in a shed with rats. Allport, now 93, decided to migrate to sydney after his parents died. Zthe australian states combined resources to advertise widely in britain for boys to work on farms. One poster, showing a happy young man raising his cap on the back of a dray horse, reads: ``australia for the british boy.'' another one says: ``help the child, the farmer, the nation. Young british empire builders for australia.'' similar to many other british youths, allport didn't enjoy being used as cheap farm labour and ended up in the city, where in the 1930s he took a catering job with the railways and met the woman he would marry. He still lives in the sydney house they bought for pound stg. 400 in 1937 and says he does not regret the decision to come to australia. ``i have had a good life,'' says allport, who has four great-grandchildren. British youth migration was later expanded to include the better-known big brother movement, under which adult australians acted as guardians for the migrant youths. There are now about 30 dreadnought boys left in australia. All are in their 90s. The survivors gathered in sydney yesterday for a reunion and to launch likely lads and lasses: youth migration to australia 1911-1983, a book about their adventures and experiences, published by the big brother movement. About one in five of the unaccompanied teenage migrants were girls. In 1925 the cover of australia's heritage magazine boldly declared: ``australia invites the british domestic girl''. A cartoon from the period shows first a nervous young girl dusting a country house, then a not-so-nervous girl accompanying her mistress to the local shops and finally a triumphant young woman walking down the aisle with her employer's son. Teenage girls by law had to go into domestic service, with church organisations, state governments and patriotic bodies all working to bring them out. In 1928, for example, australia recruited more than 3000 domestics. They were released from their obligations by 21 or earlier if they married, as many did. They often went on to rear large families. Although most of them were filled with hope and excitement as they disembarked from the boats, some soon found themselves homesick and isolated on remote farms. But their efforts and those of their many descendants profoundly influenced australia's development. Walter roberts, who arrived from london in 1924 aged 16, went on to buy a farm and became one of the first farmers to plant ginger near the nsw-queensland border. ``i stayed on the land pretty well for the rest of my working life,'' roberts said as he looked across the other elderly faces at yesterday's reunion. ``i was apprenticed to my first boss for three years and i wasn't allowed to go anywhere else for a job.'' when he could leave, roberts moved about the nsw north coast and bought a small farm near the queensland border. ``i was instrumental in the first efforts at growing ginger in the area,'' the 98-year-old says. The youth migration schemes were unabashedly aimed at increasing the white population and improving the young nation's ability to defend itself. The need to boost white migration became unfashionable in subsequent decades and the schemes were killed off in the '80s by then prime minister bob hawke. At the time, john howard and then liberal party leader andrew peacock promised that the british youth migration movement would be revived when they came to power. They never delivered on the promises and the big brother movement changed its focus to providing scholarships for young australians to train in britain. Likely lads and lasses is the third in a series of books about child and youth migration by alan gill. His first book, orphans of the empire, revealed the often harrowing history of children aged from three to 11 who were transplanted from british orphanages and institutions to australia, where they were incarcerated until old enough to be sent into the work force. It caused a stir when it was published in 1997 because it detailed their sexual exploitation and brutal circumstances. Gill's second book, interrupted journeys, told the story of jewish child refugees. The english-born gill's interest in the subject sprang from his early journalistic experiences in australia. One of his first assignments was to interview two elderly men who said they were dreadnought boys. ``i thought they meant they were sea cadets or something,'' gill says. ``they thought it an affront i had not heard of them.'' the second man he interviewed, norman monsen, gave him the book's title. ``he showed me a bit of paper that he had carried around all his life,'' gill says. ``it was a letter of reference from his church minister which described him as a `likely lad' who should do well in australia. ``these were amazing numbers: 50,000 young people whose story had never been told and who not many people knew anything about. It was a story [that] needed to be told.'' gill says what impressed him most about the dreadnought boys and those who followed them was how uncomplaining they were. ``they had a different value system to now,'' he says. ``they were really tough. They had the equivalent of the anzac spirit. One lad, on his third day on a farm training course, cut off two fingers while using a saw. He was sent off to doctor, 100 miles [160km] away, to be patched up and was back on the job a week later. His mates held a mock burial for his two fingers. ``pre-war arrivals, in particular, have a shared experience of loneliness, courage, humour and adversity bravely borne. ``driving the youth migration schemes was a clear motive to populate the country, preferably with white anglo-saxons. That wouldn't be acceptable today, but they played a very strong part in building the australia we know. The training farms of both the dreadnoughts and later the big brother movement are etched in our collective memories, recalled for the tough working conditions [that] startled the pale english boys who, thanks to the poster campaigns, all thought they were migrating to paradise. ``the dreadnoughts won't be with us much longer; the youngest is about 90. Most of them became damned good citizens, many of them very successful. ``it was imperative that their memories be recorded before it was too late. The odds are all the dreadnoughts will be dead within five years, but they will leave behind hundreds of thousands of descendants.'' accompanying poem: the land was wild, the country rough the wages low, conditions tough at milking cows, we found employmost cockies had a pommy boy as years went by, for many reasons, and just as varied as the seasons by change of job and change of station we played our part to build this nation we love this land of our adoption to leave, we know, there is no option she gave us joy, she gave us toil, god give us peace, beneath her soil. A poem by tony kibblewhite, one of the first dreadnought boys, now dead. Every australia summer brings panic to australia’s paper’s, because while the rest of the country goes to the beach they still have to produce a broadsheet which looks pompous, vital and as if something of import was actually happening. It rarely is; and there is only a certain number of ways you can describe fire works. I remember one evening being told five minutes before the world famous fireworks display on sydney harbour being told to file my copy immediately. Fireworks are hard to write about, even harder when you haven’t actually seen them. But of course, there is no choice, file you must. With the rare exception of the martin bryant shooting spree in normally quiet tasmania, which left 35 dead and bryant in a psychiatric cell for th the rest of his life; there is almost always a hunt for news during those quiet months when parliament is not sitting and the daily mayhems of the suburb are, lets face it, pretty ho-hum. As a result of this quiet period a good deal of planning goes into the summer supplements, which are meant to keep readers loyal to your product while giving them something light to read on the beach. Pleading missives issue from editors. And thus it was that i came to write about tambar springs and a small property i had just acquired there. The story was called “escape to the country” and was published on the day after christmas, 26 december2008. While i received manyh compliments for the story, this is due primarily to the excellent editorial work of graham liddle, who turned an inchoate 6,000 word romantic pean about ghosts in old houses and the lingering impacts of the depression years on isolated rural towns into a readable piece of prose. It went like this: all my life i've wanted somewhere to escape: somewhere i would not be bashed, bullied, harassed, intimidated, ridiculed, somewhere i could be safe. Finally i've found it. In a funny little village in the middle of nowhere called tambarsprings. The most common question anybody asks about tambar is: where is it? Half way between gunnedah and coonabarabran, i reply, which usually leaves them looking just as blank as before they asked. Two hours north of mudgee, i try again. How corny to have become a tree change person; to fit in to a recognisable demographic, baby boomers searching for sanctuary half a century after they were young. Tambar springs is a little town that time forgot. The population sign: 103, is regarded as an exaggeration. ``this could be the beginning of a very happy life'', said the real estate blurb. Clever. My teenage children shriek in horror at the mere thought i might force them to go there - into a dark, primitive land without computers, parties, movies or mobile phones. I usually go alone. The last time there was any real money in tambar was sometime last century during the wool boom. Now, everything is in flux; much of it in decay, white paint peeling off the walls. Only a few of the workers cottages have been renovated. The bowling club, with views across the liverpool plains, one of australia's richest agricultural areas, is long abandoned. Equally, the whack of balls on the crumbling tennis court next to my house is nothing but long vanished whispers in the wind.in tambar springs, more than anywhere, are the ghosts of the great depression, that crucible of hard times and self reliance which forged so much of the modern australian character, where pride is taken over local varieties of tomatoes, chooks scratch in the yard. The depression generation who's ghosts still haunt the village counted every penny, wasted nothing, saw no point in useless frivolities, couldn't imagine the groaning malls of the modern era. Everywhere now there is the unstated fear of another great depression. Share markets continue to drop. Pundits and politicians attempt to reassure a troubled population. But all of us are wondering: is it possible? Will we see soup kitchens in the cities and swagmen tramping country roads? Again. Both my grandmothers brought up six kids each during the depression and never expected much from life, certainly not the casual luxuries of today. My family, like so many others, was always full of stories from the 1930s, of rejoicing over finding a single needle to do the sewing, the prize of finding a single match. As kids, my father would complain if we used too much soap in the shower. My maternal grandmother sarah audrey was prized for always being able to ``make something out of nothing'', as the family tree proudly records. And it was true. She could always rustle up something to feed her tribe. Be humble, work hard, cut your garment according to your cloth, these sayings could hardly seem less appropriate amidst sydney's queues of silver and black audis, the gleaming four wheel drives lining up to escape suburban carparks. Having an active imagination, i sometimes think there's a ghost in in my house, herself very much a product of the great depression. Her name's marge. She's a little like my paternal grandmother, short, bustling. In her bodily form she was never happier than when she was cooking, pulling scones and cakes out of the oven, loading up the dray to visit relatives on outlying farms, her basket laden down with produce from the garden. She, like my own grandmothers, is a product of her times, decent, hard working, proud of her garden and her independence. The generation who were children in the late 1920s and 1930s are all now approaching their eighties; soon their stories will be lost. The habits of frugality learnt in that era had already dissipated by the time my children came along; a generation dismissive of their grandparents and great grandparents tales of extreme poverty. My kids are used to the casual consumer luxuries of this age. They argue over which is the best of the half a dozen thai restaurants in walking-distance of our home and pester constantly for chocolate gelato from bar italia in leichhardt, which they maintain is the best in sydney. They ought to know, having dedicated a childhood to the quest. To them the idea that their grandparents might not have worn shoes to school is nothing but a rustic fantasy. But in tambar springs, echoes of tougher times are everywhere, in humble houses and sensible vegetable gardens; in simple tastes and low expectations. Sometimes, in the sparse few streets that constitute the village, people just stand in their front yards, beers firmly planted in their stubbie holders, staring at the distant hills, listening as if there was a message in the wind. If you ask what they're looking at, they reply truthfully enough: ``nothing''. With a certain reputation in the surrounding area for being a bit feral, outside the range where centrelink pesters you to get a job, the centre of all life in tambar is its legendary pub. Certainly the town has its share of heavy drinkers. It is something of a ritual to gather on the veranda and watch the sunset; the ribbons of pastel orange, pink and mauve across the liverpool plains and the distant hills. I love it there. In sydney, more than 10,000 people walk past inner-city home every day and the street outside is packed with cars. Like many other sydneysiders, i have begun to wonder if it's worth the while. The population is defeated, defenseless, preyed upon by parasites, politicians and parking cops, their daily working lives nothing but an unending grind.sometimes i fantasise that one day the whole city will stop; that the government will impose one more toll, tax or impost and everyone, sitting in their idling cars in those endless traffic jams, will step out of their cars, throw up their hands in unison and yell: ``it's not worth it anymore''. And then the exodus begins. And they all go to find their own tambarsprings, their own piece of the world where deranged street alcoholics driven mad on ice don't shout as you walk past. Where you can leave your front door open and think nothing of it. As i have grown older i have grown more and more disgusted with the blithering incompetence and ridiculous over regulation that has strangled the life of this country. My taxes are spent on numerous things i simply don't agree with: the war in iraq, bumbling state governments, dysfunctional and ineffective multi-layered bureaucracies, farcical courts, lazy politicians, the most pointless of paper shuffling mountains. My taxes enable other people to have private health, to send their kids to private schools, to buy their first home, to be welfare dependent. Our cultural custodians talk about diversity and ridicule anyone who doesn't accept their view of the world. The evil lies in the gaps, the sneering arrogance of men in black suits. I have become the opposite of a true believer. I don't believe any of them anymore. The country has gone to the dogs, as my peers are apt to say, escape is the only solution. Find a place of your own far away; and stay there. The world, this government, these pointless bureaucracies staffed with marx's ``useful fools'', they have betrayed us one and all. And so it was, in this curmudgeonly state of mind, that i came totambar springs, a place on the planet where my efforts are rewarded, my achievements my own. In tambar springs, i climb up on the roof, painting, and looked at the humble four acres around me. It's mine; i couldn't be more pleased. For years, sometimes desolate years, i had almost instinctively been looking for somewhere to escape to in the country. My life had gone off the rails and i only had limited funds. Frequently, in the down times at work, i would surf the net, setting the parameters for under $100,000. Even now you can buy curious bits of australia in that price range. I don't know why everyone doesn't do it. There are always little houses in the middle of nowhere, shacks on lonely stretches near ivanhoe, timbered acres in the snowy mountains, ``ideal for that getaway that you have always desired''.but every time i settled on a place something went wrong. I gave up the dream as just another failed project. There would be no peace in my life, not now, not ever. But one day at work, bored, i decided to have one more roll of the dice, and set the search parameters once again. And there it was.tambar springs - ``the beginning of a very happy life''. And thus began my slow oddysey to fix the house, to make a place where people would be happy to come. When i first arrived, it was in the middle of the drought. The ground was parched and bare, and i looked across the desolate scene and thought: ``what have i done now?'' but as time has passed, there's been no buyer regret. The rains have come; the grass is thick and green. I've finished painting the interior; and am now working on the outside. Next comes floor sanding. Although she died more than 50 years ago, my ghost marge is pleased i've started work on the place. She wants to get back her status of having the best house in the village. I've just planted 15 climbing roses around the place. She particularly likes roses. The only surprise about my ghost is her vanities in the physical world, her desire to bring her long neglected house back up to scratch. Sometimes i write about her: ``there had been no children, after frank had left for the war and never come home, and although she longed for them sadly all her life, instead she had become the village's most popular aunt, and children were always clambering around her house looking for a biscuit. ``what made her most proud was the way some of the young men would visit her after moving into town, the way they would sit on her veranda and drink cold cordial, sweat prickling on their handsome faces, and they would tell her their hopes and dreams. ``oh how they reminded her of frank, although they mustn't know that. She made a natural grandmotherly figure, and she didn't disillusion them. It would never occur to any of these young men to think of her in any other way, as they poured out their stories.'' marge was happy to see out her days in tambar springs, this eccentric, isolated little place on the remote western slopes of the liverpool plains, a place where no one is ever going to find you. The dreams of the locals are not grand; a convulsion, a settling tide, a hope to be far away from trouble, that is all, the smell of lavender, roses in bloom, chokos growing in profusion over the water tank. Each time i come back to the city from tambar i shudder at the pressure of it all, our stressful lives, the snail trails we make through the urban jungle. Once again, near work, i spot the dismal ice addicts with their smashed in faces skulking despairingly around the doctor's surgery.once again i watch the chained office workers, those modern slaves, heading for the overcrowded trains. Why do people do it to themselves? No wonder so many are leaving sydney, going bush and staying there; living out their days amidst the sleepy drone of bees and insects adrift on the summer air, in their own secret bolt hole, their own piece of heaven.islam in australia many an australian news reporter finds themselves writing about islam in australia; an often colourful source of news which demonstrates what its critics call the zenophobic nature of australia while apologists paint the problems as the teething problems of multi-culturalism, an immigration policy promoted by the chattering left in a deliberate attempt to undermine the prevailing culture and which is unique in public policy terms to the self-loathing of the west. Multiculturalism has both added character. Colour. Style and money. Not to mention a wide variety of cuisines, to a previously homogametic culture, and caused friction at a local level in many neighbourhoods. I finally woke up to the depth of hatred between the islamic community and the west in australia by being sent on assignment to cover a hizb ut tahrir meeting. There was some controversy over whether it should be held in a publicly funded town hall, auburn if i remember.rightly. The hizb responded to the article by posting it to  their website with the editorial note that they would like to correct an error in the article: aka the hizb were not just centred in london, as the article claimed, but throughout the entire islamic world. Have it your way, i thought. The article was published in the australian on the features page on 19 november 2002. There would be considerable more tumult between the islamic and mainstream communities to follow. It was titled: “zealots' quest for purity“ and bean: hizb ut-tahrir, which operates legally in australia and elsewhere in the west, sees proselytism as the path to a world of islam, reports john stapleton there's a simple reason governments of all stripes are alarmed by hizb ut-tahrir. The radical islamic transnational political party stridently advocates their overthrow. In the place of corrupt muslim regimes and decadent capitalist governments will rise the caliphate, named for the alliance of states forged after the death of the prophet mohammed and revered as the purest manifestation of an islamic state.hizb ut-tahrir, otherwise known as the party of islamic liberation, ismaking headlines around the world. In the past 10 days, german police have conducted raids against the group in frankfurt, berlin and hamburg under new anti-terrorist laws, and in denmark authorities are considering banning the party after the high-profile conviction of its danish leader for inciting violence against jews. Uzbekistan, one of the central asian republics faced with an upsurge of support for extremism among their impoverished populations, called on britain to label it a terrorist organisation. In england, where hizb ut-tahrir has its headquarters, its rallies and pronouncements have overshadowed activities traditionally associated with the holy month of ramadan. In australia, there has been a call for the group be placed at the top of the federal government's list oforganisations under surveillance. Some international analysts regard hizb ut-tahrir as a post-taliban fifth column and say its sophisticated and well-funded propagandising and appeal across national and ethnic barriers make it a far more potent international force than most other radical islamic groups, which have a purely regional focus.since the mid 1990s, tens of thousands of recruits have flocked to the once obscure splinter movement of the muslim brotherhood, whose appeal was originally restricted mainly to diaspora palestinians in jordan and lebanon. Popular among muslim youth from the universities of britain to the slums of tashkent and the suburbs of western sydney, hizb ut-tahrir'sembrace of the internet, promotion of higher learning for both sexes,extensive body of literature, support for women politicised by theimprisonment of their husbands or drawn by its social justice rhetoric, all go to make it a particularly powerful movement. The group, which advocates the non-violent overthrow of governments and the introduction of the caliphate, shares many goals with the taliban, al-qa'ida, the islamic movement of uzbekistan, jemaah islamiah and many other utopian islamic groups. A militant breakaway group from hizb ut-tahrir, al-muhajiroun, prominently displays osama bin laden's latest pronouncements on its website and has been closely linked by intelligence organisations with al-qa'ida. But hizb ut-tahrir disagrees with the guerilla tactics of other militants, arguing that the ground for an islamic state must be prepared by mass conversions of the populace. Mohammed had predicted the muslim nation would be divided into 73 sects before the coming of the caliphate, but only one would be the right one. Hizb ut-tahrir believes it is that one. The group, which was founded in 1953 and defines itself as a political party based on islamic ideology, is banned throughout the middle east, including egypt, jordan and tunisia, where supporters attempted a coup d'etat in 1988. In central asia, where repression has intensified since the bombing of afghanistan, large numbers of its members are in jail. Its founder, sheikh taqiuddin an-nabhani, a palestinian, believed in establishing a single state across the muslim world, a political structure in which a caliph -- a civil and religious ruler -- would be elected by an islamic council. He believed the defence minister in such a structure would then prepare the people for jihad against the non-muslim world. In sydney there are reports of members of hizb ut-tahrir causing disquiet by pamphleteering outside mosques on fridays. At a meeting earlier this month in the western suburb of auburn, an audience of about 400 heard the government attacked for supporting the us on iraq and for wasting its resources after the bali bombing. In a mixture of english and arabic, the attentive audience was warned of the dangers of integration and multiculturalism, and western plots to erode the purity of their belief. They were told to see themselves above all as muslims and to ``dispute the borders we find ourselves living in, and dispute the borders we find ourselves born in''. They were told that capitalist countries gain through the oppression of muslims. ``capitalism is a system with no humility, no humanity, no compassion,'' said one speaker. ``comprehensive peace is mere illusion. Brothers and sisters in islam, there are two different civilisations, two different ideologies ... Which will inevitably clash. ``this is the final type of conflict we have seen over and over again in history, a military struggle with islam. Crusades continue until today. The truth will prevail over all other ideologies.''another speaker said: ``we are muslims first and we live in australia. We must teach our children to live ... So that when the state is re-established, their loyalty is to the islamic state.'' the meeting in auburn was in many ways an echo of a much larger conference held in london last september, which was titled after september 11: muslims in the west. With about 9000 people in attendance to hear leaders of the group from around the world, it was one of the largest gatherings of muslims in the west since the terrorist attacks in the us. An oddity at the conference illustrating the group's broad appeal was the appearance of a convert to islam from sydney. Claiming to be a vietnam veteran and a former boxing champion in the australian army, abdullah michael vivash gave a speech on the topic of ``misery or tranquillity''. Vietnam, he said, had taught him that ``life is very short''. He told the london conference that tranquillity had evaded him until he embraced islam. ``trying to live this capitalist dream was not bringing me any peace of mind,'' he said. ``the actions of thedisbelievers bear no fruit in this life or [in] the next.'' ahmed rashid, a leading expert on militant islamic groups and the author of jihad: the rise of militant islam in central asia, describes the aims of hizb ut-tahrir as ``probably the most esoteric and anachronistic of all the radical islamic movements in the world today''. Rashid says the most striking fact about the secretive group is the phenomenal growth in its popularity since the mid 1990s. He says its effective use of technology, from the internet to modern printing presses, may partly explain the successes of what was previously a secretive underground movement. Hizb ut-tahrir, says rashid, has used its legal status in britain to make london a leading organisational centre for the movement, raising money and training recruits. Rashid says the movement's leaders, who have declared peaceful jihad in central asia and regard it as ripe for takeover, envisage bringingone or more muslim countries under their control, after which it will be able to win over the rest of the islamic world -- and from there the west.although its members believe they have been brought to australia byallah to help establish a worldwide islamic state, a spokesman forimmigration minister philip ruddock says that as the group is not illegal, membership of hizb ut-tahrir does not preclude an individual from migrating to australia. The government last week listed four more organisations under its new counter-terrorism laws, but hizb ut-tahrir was not among them. Despite an intense debate that goes back to the clinton presidency, it has not been designated a terrorist organisation by the un security council or the us state department. Opinion in australia is divided. The australia/israel & jewish affairs council's executive director colin rubenstein calls hizb ut-tahrir inflammatory and extreme and says it should be placed on the top of the government's list of organisations under surveillance. But supreme islamic council of nsw spokesman jaber el-gafi says the group preaches non-violence and could not be called extremist. He says skinheads and many other groups in australia all in their own way advocate the overthrow of the government.hizb ut-tahrir spokesmen have rejected previous claims that it is partly funded by bin laden. In recent days their websites have been oddly silent on the subject of bin laden's warnings to australia and the world. The only commentary suggests: ``one day soon, this undemocratic war will start. Don't be surprised.'' the australian's previous coverage of hizb ut-tahrir provoked an attack last week by the washington-based muslim public affairs council, which issued an ``action alert''. The council says it is known for combating hizb ut-tahrir and no other group has taken on the organisation more directly. ``its call that muslims must not participate in western politics is a real danger if it gains currency and mpac has challenged this without compromise,'' the alert says. ``however mpac is founded on the islamic principle [that] your brother, for all his failings, is still your brother.'' it then condemns the australian as zionist, racist and islamophobic. As the hizb sees it the bali bombing ``local security should deal with these problems. It is a great shame of the indonesian government to allow any sovereignty other than allah. There is no co-operation between kafirs (non-believers) and muslims.'' war with iraq ``the warmongering towards iraq, the continued subjugation of the islamic world in the name of `fighting terror' and the acceptance ofariel sharon's policies are all carried out by the capitalist states in order to dominate over the world and its resources.'' muslim nations ``all of the rulers of the islamic world, without exception, are willing and subservient servants to the capitalist nations of the west, with america at its head. The source of corruption, backwardness and weakness of the islamic world are these rulers and the western systems that exist in our land.'' capitalism``western capitalism is a shameful and licentious civilisation for which there is no precedent known in history. Abnormal behaviour, mutilation and nudity can be found among human beings. But in capitalism these acts are protected by law. And this is unprecedented.'' women ``the westerners and those infatuated by the west feel no embarrassment in saying that islam deprived women of their rights, or that it suppresses and oppresses them. How astonishing. Will it be people who consider the woman a well-kept jewel or someone who degrades her and considers her a commodity? The one who wants her like a dairy cow working like a slave girl or as a mother and housewife?'' multiculturalism ``there remains a dangerous plot of the west which remains hidden from the non-alert muslim. You will hear some muslims defending integration. This is to say that jews, christians, hindus, homosexuals, capitalists, communists and muslims should be in a free and equal association and each of them constitutes part of the whole. Muslims living in the west must realise that we are not a minority which can easily melt into the anglo-capitalist way of life, abandoning the perfection and mercy of islam.'' indonesia's president ``she [megawati sukarnoputri, pictured above] is one of the agents of america, and she will try to be more active than [abdurrahman] wahid in serving america ... She is a woman and the islamic sharia does not allow a woman to assume the affairs of ruling.'' aeroplane hijacking ``it is not allowed for muslims to hijack aeroplanes or to terrorise, attack or kill people on board, whether muslims or unbelievers, except if they are unbelievers at war with muslims.'' quotes are from hizb ut-tahrir sources including websites, pamphlets and speeches.family law first published the australian 24/12/1999 more than a million australian children will spend christmas in a broken home. As the government tries to improve family justice, 'mrx' tells of his personal voyage of despair `don't cry, you will lose your children for sure,'' your barrister says sternly; and inside all you can feel are waves of distress. For you are vulnerable through what you love the most -- your children.welcome to the family court of australia. Behind the imposing facadesof the courts lies the deepest hurt. Close to a million children now live away from their fathers. I was in the middle of an excruciating three days of being cross-examined in the family court of australia, an experience that cost taxpayers many thousands of dollars. It had been an intensely difficult two-year journey getting here. I had done everything i could to protect the children, and recently everything i could to settle the matter. I had represented myself almost all the way through. I didn't have money to pay people thousands of dollars a day to argue over my family situation. While i could not get legal representation, my ex was being funded through legal aid. She had an aggressive barrister, solicitor and legal assistant who used every destabilising tactic they could think of. None had met the children. In all those days of cross-examination i was never asked about my relationship with the children or attitudes to parenting. Past relationships were referred to snidely as ``sexual difficulties'', things that happened 20 years ago flung in my face. I can't pretend to have been the cleanest of skins throughout my life, but as i said in thecourt: ``i might have a history, but i also have a present. I get up, i go to work, i pay my taxes and i have every right to expect that the mechanisms in this society which are supposed to protect children will also protect my children.'' i work as a journalist but had never been a court reporter. I naively expected the system to work. It does not. I expected consistent honesty, accuracy and decency when it came to children. I found nothing of the kind. My former partner had never been the children' primary carer. Those children grew up either with me, in care or at school. It was logical they should live with their dad. After a period when relations in the household deteriorated into shouting abuse, she finally left on fathers day, 1997. On the advice ofthe police i approached the family court. It was a terrible time. The children were so distressed, their world was caving in. I got a pile of bewildering forms from the court and set to, calling on all the help i could. Finally the ex conceded, but then the mother-in-law got into the act, paying for a lawyer and making things a damn sight worse. The first order i sought was for the children to have a separate legal representative through legal aid -- mistake number one. I had no idea of the scandal attached to the legal representation of children. The initial orders, made by a female judge, had the children with me five days, four nights. These orders suited the children. They got to see their mum but had a stable place to live. Most of the people who have been helpful to me through all this have been women. Women, you see, know what other women can be like. Mistake number two: at the insistence of the separate representative i agreed to a family report by a court-appointed psychiatrist. I found it biased and inaccurate. It is in the family reports that the alchemy oftruth characteristic of the court occurs: where black can be turned into white, junkie mums into sober paragons of maternal virtue and men into violent sub-neanderthals. It is here where the accusationsof women, no matter how implausible, can be reported as fact. The children settled in the months following the initial orders. All the time i was preparing for a full hearing, getting to work, looking after two children. The matter was in and out of court, each staging post a nightmare. The case passed through the pre-trial conference, legal complexities never explained. ``get yourself a lawyer.'' i negotiated all the complexities of the court, financial statements, affidavits, compliance checks. Like many men, i became somethingof a bush lawyer, read everything on what is now the country's most controversial jurisdiction. In the surreal world of the court administration there is no appreciation that single parents must both work and look after children. Issuing a subpoena, for instance, can only be done with the approval of a court registrar, and in the major jurisdictions in a narrow window when you can spend all morning or afternoon waiting to be seen. The only reason i managed was because i work 10 minutes away in a job with some flexibility. The average lone litigant now spends 42 days preparing for trial. Thefamily matters basket on my computer has 273 files in it; submissions, affidavits, solicitors' letters, complaints. There are plenty of men who have spent more than $100,000 fighting for their children. The process is like climbing mount everest a dozen times in a state of emotional distress. During this time i was being harassed; ``you will never see those children again.'' the police finally helped get an apprehended violence order against her. I remember her screaming in the continued -- page 18 from page 15 police station foyer, the children with their fingers in their ears crying, the old cops smirking. It was the young women constables who were the best, who said it doesn't matter who you are, you can't behave like that. Though the academic research shows that when it comes to domestic violence both genders are equally guilty, try as a man ringing up a government-funded domestic violence help line. The specialist report was released on the working day before the initial trial date. I couldn't believe the spin. I wrote saying while i objected to a $3000 report that didn't get basic things like ages correct, mirrored the negative experiences of others, misquoted me and was delivered at the last minute, i could agree to shared parenting as recommended. Without legal advice, i was stitched up. The children were split almost exactly 50/50 in an alternating pattern that was difficult for two children barely six and seven. Orders that were working well for the children were disrupted. I had no idea signing the orders would open me up to financial claims. The ex was ordered to take drug tests. Three months later i took her back to court. She hadn't done a single test and was keeping the children in an industrial warehouse. Thecourt repeatedly overruled the children' solicitor, who said she would have serious concerns if the children were to stay with their mother at this time. Three months later i asked for an expedited review by the ``specialist''. Although the mother's compliance with court orders to do drug tests peaked at 50 per cent, the specialist complimented her on her recovery and repeated her accusations as if they were fact. She claimed, for example, that i was writing four letters a week calling her a ``using junkie prostitute''. The specialist condemned this behaviour, yet no such letters existed. The specialist decreed that because i had called the police over her harassment i was threatening her parenting ability, and if i continued to report her to the authorities that my time with the children should be further reduced.although i work as a journalist the report decreed i was unable to express myself. I complained about this behaviour to the attorney-general, which got me nowhere. To my horror i discovered that i could not back out, that she had the right to run her response. Attempts to settle failed. Armed with a totally dishonest report the ex was determined to take the case all the way to judgment. Although at the compliance check the court ordered the separate representative to be maintained, days before trial representation ofthe children ceased and legal aid began funding the mother, at a likely cost of $50,000. In other words, the government saw fit to spend this sort of money on someone who had never complied with a single court order, but not on the children. And certainly not on me. Day after upset day i was sent home from work in tears. I took time off, issued 26 subpoenas, pulled all the evidence together -- hours oftaped abuse, diary entries, photographs from the day the children were born. It was a well-documented case, i was a journalist after all. I filed this mountain of material with minutes to spare. Photocopying alone cost hundreds of dollars. His honour was elaborately courteous throughout the hearing. All my witnesses were professional, told the truth, acted with decency. I found hers were a dishonest shemozzle. In the end all my efforts were to no avail. Three months later, immediately after fathers day, the judgment was handed down; two years to the day from when she left. My time with the children was to be progressively decreased over the next three years. I went home to a house still full of banners from the children: ``we love you dad'', ``you're the best dad''. The judgment did not get my age or the hearing date correct, falsely claimed that i had an avo against me and that the mother was the primary carer. The judgment ignored four days of evidence and regurgitated the reportof a ``specialist'' who had never been cross-examined because i didn't have $1500 to pay for his court appearance. It was as if the trial had never happened. I had seen the specialist with the children for perhaps six minutes. The judge went out of his way to say how helpful the reports were. But i knew they were patently biased and inaccurate. My children are being progressively displaced from a house in a suburban street into a flat on a busy road near a methadone clinic and needle exchange. This is one man's story, but i am aware now of too many cases to think mine was unique. I hear every day of courts ordering children back into the hands of violent, abusive, drunken, drug-addicted mothers when there's a perfectly good home for them with their fathers, of men being stitched up by biased and inaccurate reports. I hear the grief of men falsely accused of sexually abusing children, ofbeing violent and neglectful fathers when nothing of the sort is true;of their outrage at an industry thriving on false claims, of a system which leaves them impoverished and their children's lives wrecked.despite almost two decades as a journalist and a comparatively colourful life, i have never met a more dishonest group of people than some of those i encountered. After two years in the family courti have formed the view, as they would say, that almost any alternative would be better than the present disastrous, damaging system. I have formed the view that shared parenting agreements should be mandatory except in exceptional circumstances, that the familycourt should be abolished and its useful functions transferred back to local or district courts where proper rules of evidence apply. Or that the tribunal system touted by a number of groups should be examined. I have formed the view that no one could pass through the familycourt of australia and retain any respect for the legal profession or our country's institutions; that funding of custody battles is an abuse ofpublic funds; that the legal representation of children is a national disgrace; that a coterie of psychiatrists, psychologists and counsellors relied on by the family court and social welfare departments are deliberately providing false accusations and misinformation against men. I have formed the view that like any institution neither transparent nor accountable, the culture of the family court is corrupt; that ideology has replaced decency and the ones suffering the most are children, mine and many others. In the family court * the average lone litigant spends 42 days preparing for trial. * the costs in a contested action can range from $10,000 to $100,000 plus for each party. * the median annual income of people in the court is $25,000 to $30,000. Some spend two to three times their annual income on legal fees. Costs of family breakdown * about $1.3 billion in private maintenance payments are channelled through the child support agency annually. About 91 per cent ofpayers are men. * government parenting payments for single parents total $3.3 billion. * in 49 per cent of one-parent families, the parent is jobless.reaction jude hines 11 clark street wayville sa 5034 telephone 82729042 letter to the editor post gpo box 4162 sydney nsw 2001 i am writing to reassure the author of the poignant and moving article " court out " that the inconsistent and insensitive treatment that he received at the hands of the family court of australia is not reserved just for men.some 10 years ago, i began a long, frustrating and seemingly endless battle fought out in the arena of the family court. Certainly i was nave, believing that having committed no crime, i would be treated with decency and sensitivity. But i liken my experiences to being in a "piggy in the middle" game, seeing the ball flying past, never able to touch it or be an active player in the game. Being separated from a lawyer, who was in the "club" or"fraternity", did not help. He sent "employees" to hearings, never bothering to turn up, consistently pardoned if he was appearing "in court" elsewhere and treated the whole affair as a chance to cost me lots of money. It did. In fact in 18 months it cost me $12.000 in legal fees alone. The total is now in the many thousands. This would not have been so bad if the orders had meant anything. The court seems frankly disinterested in what can only be described as vexatious litigation. Time after time pathetic, insignificant issues were trumped up. No costs were ever awarded against my husband and what became alarmingly obvious and reinforced in discussions with my lawyer, was that the thousands of dollars spent on affidavits was a complete waste of money. Registrars, magistrates andjudges are not compelled to and usually; (due to the pressure of work i'm told) ever read them. When i wrote to the court re this i was told it was at the registrars etc discretion and not to dare to bother them again by complaining at the unfairness of this. Repeatedly i was warned not to upset registrars, not to behave like an emotional woman or to query the authority of the court. When counseling was ordered, my husband initially refused to attend. No consequences. Eventually, we limpedthrough a series of farcical sessions with a different counsellor each time who never knew issues details or us. Thus half of each session was spent re explaining the case. On more than one occasion, counselors failed to attend, leaving me and my estranged husband glowering at each other across a small waiting room. Orders having been made, you would assume they mean something. No. If orders are not complied with there is nosimple redress, no support or care. You start the hideous circus of anxiety, huge cost and frustration all over again. My now ex husband is now refusing to comply with orders once again, so i'm about to have to face the family court again. I feel sick in anticipation and angry. Why? Because like your author, i am a decent hard working parent whom istrying to do the best for my child and am not a criminal. I cannot believe that the most sensitive area of our law can be handled so ruthlessly, without justice, compassion or honesty. The most sensitive issues are now being dealt with by people with training as scant as a legal clerk. Why am i bothering? Because there is no better choice and as an australian, i deserve to be treated fairly and appropriately. Sincerely yours jl hines.the weekend australian, edition 1       sat 08 apr 2000, page 026`problem' parents doing time by: john stapleton click here to search for full page image in pdf format <http://c3pdocwebsvr01/docwhouse> click here for image(library terminal only) <!--textlib/cgi/-->imglink.pl?%5baus%2d20000408%2d1%5d+026+0+0+027+0+0> attorney-general daryl williams wants to jail more mums and dads who defy family law. But as john stapleton reports, critics say it is thesystem that is at fault once upon a time, frank played professional sport and was married with two young sons. In 1987, his marriage broke down. He lost his children, his house, his furniture, all of which he left with his former wife because he thought it the best thing to do. ``i walked out with my bags,'' he recalls.orders for maintenance were made by the family court at separation and these were collected through the child support agency. Partially disabled by two accidents and unable to work since, frank's only source of income is a parenting payment for his stepdaughter. This month frank (not his real name) lost his family court case to be excused from maintenance and back debt. ``i couldn't understand why,'' he says. ``it is not as if she never got anything out of me. She got everything. They have no compassion.''frank, if found guilty of ``wilfully'' refusing to pay, is one ofthousands of parents who could face up to 12 months in jail if legislationbefore the federal parliament is passed. The precise definition of ``wilful'' will be left up to the discretion of a family court judge or judicial officer.the government's push to jail parents who defy court orders includesprovisions to jail those who refuse to comply with parenting orders (givingthe parent without custody access to the child) on a ``three strikes andyou're in'' basis. The maintenance provisions will mostly affect men whilethe penalties for parenting orders will mostly affect women. The new legislation, by increasing punitive powers, is an attempt toovercome the biggest problem with family court orders -- they are virtually unenforceable. But both men's and women's lobby groups and some family law observers argue the proposals will be dangerously counterproductive, to the point of increasing the already high suicide rate among separated parents. Critics say the proposed laws are a draconian way of avoiding the real problem, which they say lies in the nature of family law in australia and the institutions that administer it. They say the csa, in making ``quasi-judicial'' decisions that are virtually impossible to appeal, often has the effect of putting parents in debt unfairly. Many of those who could be jailed would be placed in this predicament not because they did not want to pay but because they have been made unable to pay through agency maladministration. The debate over jailing parents could have some interesting parliamentary twists. The australian democrats do not support imprisonment as a primary enforcement option. The labor party supports the jailingof those who fail to pay maintenance but not those who refuse to comply withparenting orders. The family court already has provisions for jailing and imposition of fines, and the csa can seize assets, impose penalties, sweep bank accounts and initiate prosecutions with a six-month jail penalty. Thenew legislation adds to the arsenal by providing a more direct avenue to jail parents who disobey court orders, and stiffer penalties. A re-evaluation of child support is happening around the world. Like many men, frank, facing mounting debts, has found himself in a surreal worldpost-separation. The csa is not bound by rules of evidence. If he ischarged, tried and jailed, secrecy clauses mean his case cannot be reported. A family court ruling cannot be appealed on an error of fact.attorney-general daryl williams, in introducing the family lawamendment bill 1999, has reopened a broader debate. Thedysfunctions offamily law highlighted by the jailing initiatives have reignited calls for anon-adversarial tribunal system to replace the family court and focusedattention on the csa, six years on from an exhaustive joint select committee report that made history for the number of submissions to its drafting. The report said there were many complaints about the csa, including ``inconsistent advice, administrative errors and refusal to verify data ... The inaction or lack of service is inexcusable ... The end result is an often appalling client service delivery.'' many of the report's 163 recommendations -- including an external review of the csa ``as a matter of priority'', close study of its social impacts, its impacts on subsequent families, disincentives to working and a re-assessment of the child support formula -- have not been carried out.commentator on public sector ethics at central queensland universityrobert kelso says jailing could exacerbate the high suicide rates amongparents separated from their children. He says the csa is a self-containedbureaucracy whose clients have ``no way out to the normal legal system''. He says the 1994 inquiry into the csa, read in conjunction with thehansard of the time, clearly identifies systemic corruption by public servants whose objective was to minimise the cost to the commonwealth ofsupporting single parents by welfare, by maximising revenue from their non-custodial spouses.``neither the labor government nor its liberal successor have beeninterested in examining the behaviour of these public servants,'' he says.kelso says there is ample evidence the csa is acting against the public interest, creating false debt by exaggerating incomes offathers andignoring social security and taxation fraud when it favours thecustodialparent, usually the mother. He says it is thereby failing in its duty tothecrimes act and, in its complicity in fraud, is breaching the public serviceact. ``it is in this context we are talking about sending parents to jail,'' he says. ``the government is exacerbating an already poisoned environment by introducing jailing penalties. Government agencies and welfare industries have studiously avoided any wide-ranging research intothe failure of the scheme. What is needed is a royal commission withthewidest possible powers. In this climate, in the hands of the csa and thefamily court, the last thing we need to be doing is introducing jailingpenalties.'' the jailing furore casts a shadow over the attorney-general'swell-intentioned attempts to reform family law. The federal government has already encouraged separating couples to avoid, where possible, thefamily court in favour of mediation and counselling, and discouraged litigation by cutting legal aid. The attorney-general's overall idea was simple: create a streamlined federal magistracy service, with a hefty start-up budget of$30million, to begin operations midyear, to partially sideline the family court; then make court orders enforceable so children would not be denied either money or a relationship with their non-custodial parent, the two biggest beefs on either side of the custodial divide. Designed to appease everyone, the proposed new laws have appeased no one. Williams has said the new enforcement regime is ``to better protect the interests of children''. ``the threat of imprisonment will be reserved for the most serious cases ... It is entirely appropriate that the court should have available to it, alongside the range of sanctions that already exists, the sanction of imprisonment,'' he says. The attorney-general has refused to answer questions on the legality or constitutionality of the legislation. He also declined to say how children will be ensured a continued relationship with their jailed parent and why he is handing more power to the judges of the family court. Williams also declines to say whether jailed parents would be placed on suicide watch. If, as research from leading suicide expert pierre baume and others suggests, 70 per cent of suicides of adult males aged 20 to 60 are related to relationship breakdown, based on the latest australian bureau of statistics figures at least 20 men a week are killing themselves after separation. This is five times the rate of youth and female suicides. Griffith university research psychologist susie sweeper, an expert on separation, says there are high levels of stress associated with the family court and the csa.``the accumulation of stress from not seeing children, low finances,litigation and low levels of social support can lead to psychopathology such as suicide,'' she says. ``some [parents] are very angry ... That iscertainly expressed. ``by putting these people in jail you would increase their stress levels further. This would not assist children.'' with paying parents unable to specify how their payments are spent, csa research suggests half of all payers do not believe their money is benefiting their children. Csa policy director sheila bird says australians have much to beproud of, with 90 per cent of all liabilities paid since the agency's inception. She claims this is the world's best. She disputes doubts raised by men's groups over the honesty of the agency's review officers and disputes claims made by many paying parents that the formulas used by the csa are inflexible and fail to take into account individual circumstance. Bird says that where a parent refuses to pay, it is appropriate for the csa to take court action. ``if parliament gives the court theauthority to jail a person for an offence, then the court determines whether that isappropriate,'' she says. Bird says she does not know the suicide rate among paying parents. The chairman of the 1994 joint select committee on the child support scheme, roger price says no one should think the csa was set up to benefit children. He says its sole rationale is to save taxpayer money by clawing back social security payments, as each dollar paid by a parent reduces the amount of social security paid to the recipient. ``it is not about thebest interests of children and never has been,'' he says. He is angry the effort that went into the 1994 inquiry has been wasted, with the government ``cherry picking'' the punitive measures suggested in the report to further enforce money collection. Price, one of the most high-profile advocates of a non-adversarial tribunal to replace the family court, says there has to be a better method than jailing people. ``we have to find a less battering and bruising and financiallycrippling system,'' he says. ``the family court and child support are anightmare legal maze. Jailing is most definitely the wrong way to go.``what frightened me while doing the report was the level of frustration i found. People had spent all their money on legal cases, borrowed from credit cards, borrowed from parents, and were seething with anger. I was frightened to see that level of frustration and anger. This continues to this day, absolutely. ``back in 1994, when i said people were committing suicide in major part because of family law matters, people were disbelieving. No one disbelieves it anymore.'' the greatest paradox of the jailing debate is that both men's and women's groups are united in their opposition; although theattorney-general might not see any humour in this historic rapprochement. Sole parents union president kathleen swinbourne says: ``children do not benefit from seeing either of their parents dragged off by thepolice and put in jail.'' sarah maddison from the women's electoral lobby says the general response across women's groups has been one of horror at thesuggestions that parents could be jailed for failing to comply with family courtordersof any description. ``child support is not working for either parent at the end of the day,'' she says. ``both sides feel ripped off.'' the men's groups, who will be most affected by the jailing provisions, have been vociferous in their opposition. Barry williamsof lone fathers says: ``i do not trust the family court to make fair decisions.'' malcolm mathias of fathers for family equity describes the proposals to jail parents as ``extreme, unwarranted, ill-conceived and draconian''. ``many non-custodial men are forced to live in cheap accommodation, are compelled to leave paid employment, forced into bankruptcy, lose contactwith their children, lose any prospect of a comfortable retirement and agrowing number ultimately commit suicide.'' sue price of the men's rights agency says the jailing furore highlights the need to look at the financial and social cost of the style of custodial orders made by the family court since its formation a quarter of a century ago. ``it is a harsh regime when people are having more than a third of their income garnisheed, yet have no say on where the money goes and are not sharing in the joys of raising their children,'' she says. The child support agency * although it affects the lives of millions of australians, studies show only half the population has heard of the csa. What many do not realise when they separate is that after the property and children are divided, it is just the start of their dramas. Non-custodial parents can lose as much asone-third of their gross income on a weekly basis until their children leaveuniversity. The body that calculates the payments, administers thetransfers, and takes punitive action against non-payers is the csa. * founded in 1988 with bipartisan support, the csa has more than 1 million clients catering for about 1 million children. Including grandparents, but excluding siblings, it affects 6.5 million people. There are 5000 to 6000 new cases a month. The cost of operation is $190million and the saving in social security payments is estimated at $419million; $1.324billion is transferred each year. * many groups argue that the agency costs more than it saves because of its disincentives to work for both payers and payees. Depending onthe method of calculation, unemployment among payers is 22 per cent to 32 per cent. About 192,000 payers earn less than $10,000 a year. * the total child support debt is $455million, and the csa estimates 62 per cent of parents are in arrears. * after tax, superannuation, medicare, earning expenses, child support, access costs, rent and food, a non-custodial parent earningthe average wage has $15 a week to meet all other expenses, including gas and electricity. * the formula is one of the most contentious aspects of the csa. The percentages are calculated on gross income but taken out of net income. There is, however, a safety-net minimum that must be left to theparent: an amount equal to the single unemployment benefit. * the payment formula works out as follows: one child: 18 per cent of gross income after the single unemployment benefit has been deducted. Two children: 27 per cent.three: 32 per cent. Four: 34 per cent. Five or more: 36 per cent.* the commonwealth ombudsman has consistently criticised thecsa forcomplexity. There are 7500 formal complaints made each year, including 2282 via the minister's office or parliament last year. Only five out of every1000 complaints are upheld. Although the family court is the relevantcourt of appeal, only 0.28 per cent of child support cases have been ordered by the court, with the remaining cases being governed by csa rulings. * there are 1200 cases before the csa litigation unit. The csa intercepts $47million in tax returns each year. * 92.2 per cent of payers are men and the rest women, an increasing number of whom are in default. * although there are concerns that the csa is contributing to high suicide rates among separated men, the agency claims not to know how many of its paying parents are affected. * case study: death by poison katherine always cries when she talks about her brother joseph (not their real names), who committed suicide at the age of 34 after a call from the child support agency. He had four children aged between three and 12, who were living with his ex-wife.``he was a very naive person, gentle, kind, caring person, never pushy,'' katherine says. ``he had been depressed because he had no money, he had absolutely nothing. Mum fed him, his sisters bought clothes. ``that day, he went to the doctor. The doctor said he was happier than he had normally been. ``we left the house to pick up a daughter; i said, `joseph, your dinner is in the fridge.''' the coroner's report records how the agency phoned joseph on the evening of his suicide attempt, telling him that because he had overpaid by $800, he had to write a letter so his former partner could get themoney -- otherwise it would go in administrative costs. He was told he could not have it back. Joseph drank a poison known as lethabarb. It took him 19 days to die. The coroner's report records that an attempt was made to identify the relevant agency officer ``for the purposes of this inquest and to have him or her called as a witness''. However, the coroner records that ``secrecy provisions'' meant the agency was not required to disclose any information. Agency representatives did not attend the inquest. ``eight hundred dollars, that money would have eased things so much, made such a difference to his life,'' his sister says. ``the next monththe csa wrote wanting to know why he wasn't paying his child support. ``how are we supposed to teach our children not to run people into the ground, humiliate and degrade them, just for your own benefit?'' * case study: swamped by debt james has four children aged 10 to 15 whom he sees more than 40 per cent of the time. ``i have done the right thing by the children,'' he says. ``when my wife left me, she said i was too much of a family man. ``the impact the csa has had on my children's lives has been pathetic. It has to be held accountable. I believe the time will come when children will take the csa to court.''james (not his real name) has a back debt of $40,000. About $27,000 is penalty for late payment. He says this is a false debt because it accruedwhen he had lost an $80,000-a-year job but a review from the agency kept him on that salary. Last year it took his $4500 tax refund. On christmas eve he received a letter informing him that his bank accounts had been swept, themoney seized. One of the accounts was money in trust for the children -- $2000 -- which james says took the children five years to save. He was so outraged, it became a mini cause celebre in the local media. ``i told the child support agency i want that money to go into asimilar account with similar objectives,'' he says. ``the csa's response was they didn't know where the money went but that it probably went to the custodial parent. The kids have asked about it and she denies knowing anything about it. ``what really gets under my skin is the injustice.'' * case study: beaten by bureaucracy leandra's (not her real name) two youngest children, four and seven, live with her; she is bringing them up in the most expensive city in the country. Her former husband lives on a pension in a queensland coastal town. Her eldest son, 10, lives with his father. ``because i am working, i have to pay him $150 a week. He is not working and is on a full sole parent pension, although he does work for cash in a boat yard. ``even though i have made this fact quite clear, no one wishes to look into it. They say until he lodges a tax return, it is on their records that his only income is a pension. ``he is getting $700 a fortnight, $300 from me, plus his cash income, plus the child is living with his grandparents at least four nightsout of the seven. ``i doubt very much if my child sees that $600 a month, or the grandparents. There are lots of extras i could buy my children for $600 a month. And the only time i get to see my son is when i fly up or i pay to fly him down. ``the csa is bound by ridiculous policies, it is definitely encouraging welfare dependency. If you get a pay rise, you have to pay more. You hesitate to take a promotion.'' the weekend australian, edition 1       sat 03 jun 2000, page 028 battered by the system by: john stapleton nobody believed `frank' when he tried to protect his son from bureaucratic bungling. John stapleton reports that, nearly 20 years on, frank has been proved right, even though he has lost in court the boy was eight weeks old when his father called welfare authorities and pleaded with them to take his son into foster care. He alleged that the mother was being violent towards the child, throwing him against walls and trying to smother him. The authorities ignored him, as they did for years to come, but the father persevered. Twenty years, 550 days in court and tens of millions of dollars of public funds later, the matter, which has run across civil, criminal and family law jurisdictions, reached its final chapter this week. Last year the office of the director of public prosecutions, satisfied there was a prima-facie case, laid charges against the mother for tying her son in a cot with a rope, striking him in the face, throwing him against a wall and ``causing him actual bodily harm'', events alleged to have occurred in 1981-82. But earlier this week, in a judgment highly critical of earlier police inaction, sydney's downing centre local court issued a permanent stay on proceedings, primarily due to the time that has elapsed since the alleged offences occurred. Magistrate hugh dillon said the disappearance of police records raised the suspicion of a cover-up. But he said the ``appalling'' treatment the police service meted out to the father did not detract from the issue of the mother facing possible abuse of process because of the 20-year delay. One of the sad ironies of the case is that, although the father does not see it this way, in many ways his claims of judicial, police and political inaction as well as inappropriate behaviour by the nsw department of community services have been vindicated in a series of court judgments. But nobody has been found guilty, no compensation has been paid. The long history of the case means it offers a time-tunnel view of the behaviour of bureaucracies in the face of an outraged and persistent litigant. Its resolution comes as sex and family issues are attracting worldwide media attention, with focus on the high suicide rates of separated men and the behaviour of family courts, child protection authorities and court-appointed psychiatrists. An expert on female abuse of children, drmalcolm george of st bartholomew's hospital in london, says it is ``par for the course'', where the mother is the alleged abuser, for institutions to spend large amounts of money defending their decisions, based on an ideology that ``denies that women can be violent and abusive''. It was nine years ago that the weekend australian broke the story of ``james'' and his father ``frank'' on its front page, illustrating one of the most under-reported and under-discussed crimes in australia today: physical and sexual abuse of children by women. Although australian and international research clearly indicates that children are most at risk from their mother, followed by their stepfather and live-in boyfriends, almost a decade on crimes of this type remain significantly under-reported and under-researched. During his early years, frank -- the family's real names have been suppressed by the courts -- made hundreds of calls and applications to police, welfare organisations, the nsw department of community services, parliamentarians and the family court. But it was not until 1984, when the child was four years old, that at least some members of the department appear to have begun taking the accusations seriously. A report by an independent clinical psychologist gave a graphic account of james attempting to have oral sex with her -- behaviour considered to have been acquired from a woman. A departmental psychologist and a child protection worker then interviewed the mother and the child. They concluded that james was an ``emotionally deprived little boy who has been sexually abused and has been exposed to adult sexual behaviour''. For almost two years from this date, the father was prevented from seeing his son through family court orders, actions by departmental officers and recommendations by sydney psychiatrist dr brent waters, who has been a favourite of docs, the family court and legal aid over many years. Waters recommended custody be with the mother and that the father be denied access. The citizens commission on human rights, which campaigned for the chelmsford deep sleep inquiry in the 1980s, has helped prepare a number of complaints against waters in the past year. Waters has declined to comment. The journal psychiatry, psychology and the law's editor-in-chief dr ian freckelton says there is a long and disappointing history of bureaucracies responsible for the welfare of children not acknowledging errors. ``a particular difficulty exists in relation to the independence of the advice,'' he says. ``welfare departments often utilise services offered by mental health professionals who interlink with the departments in a complex of advisory, consultant and expert roles, all of which can be well paid and career-enhancing.'' repeated attempts by frank in the early 80s to gain custody failed. In 1986, james was bashed with a cricket bat. Frank alleges the boy's mother's then de facto husband was responsible. The man was never questioned. A children's hospital report from the time reports evidence of a recent severe beating ``suggesting he had been held on the face and struck''. The report noted ``extensive bruising ... Blue-black in colour'' and records the six-year-old's long association with the hospital for similar problems. In desperation, the father finally gained full custody of his son by locating the home of then federal attorney-general lionel bowen. Braving dogs, he knocked on the door. Bowen was not at home but his wife answered the door and listened to frank's story. James has not seen his mother since. The ten network's footage of the child when he was 11 shows a quiet, well-mannered boy asking: ``why was it me, why was it me that got hurt?'' he said his mother ``should be put in jail for life, i just hate her''. James, now 20, is on medication and rarely leaves the house. He has consistently maintained for several years that he remembers psychiatrist waters saying: ``don't tell anyone about the naughty things mummy's doing.'' ``i was so young,'' james recalls. ``the main things that come across now -- i get flashbacks: a smell, an idea can trigger them. It is more a sense of fear. I used to dream a lot, nightmares ... About my mother. I was extremely scared of her. I remember certain episodes and events ... When her husband beat me with a cricket bat ... I felt anger, but more than anything, now i feel pity.'' the obsessive campaign for justice by frank has touched many of the australia's best known people and been mentioned in parliament 14 times. Among the judges who ruled against the father was elizabeth evatt, a former chief justice of the family court and now a member of the un human rights committee. Justice john ellis, now a senior family court judge, also ruled against frank. The dozens of politicians whom the father approached -- unsuccessfully -- for help include paul keating, gareth evans, neville wran, nsw minister for women faye lo po' and nsw police minister paul whelan. Docs officers in the early 1980s accused the father of being violent and threatening a number of solicitors. None of these accusations was proved. After press coverage his local member, the then shadow minister for industrial relations john howard, called for an independent inquiry. In 1992 he told parliament: ``i have satisfied myself, from very lengthy interviews with my constituent and from an exhaustive examination of a huge file, that the complaints that he has brought to me about the conduct of officers of the then youth and community services commission in nsw are justified''. Independent ted mack also claimed welfare officers showed ``prejudice and bias ... Against the father when he made efforts to protect his child''. The weekend australian concluded in the early 90s that documents unearthed under freedom-of-information legislation showed government officers had made false claims that the father was an arsonist.the ethnic affairs commission also expressed concerns. During the past eight years, frank has sought compensation via the nsw supreme court. Last year, after 64 days in court and a transcript stretching to 3000 pages and 330 exhibits, the court handed down a judgment absolving a string of docs officers of bias and negligence. However, the court did find the department ``in breach of its duty of care owed to the plaintiff'' in failing to fully investigate affidavits that alleged abuse of the child, filed by women who had lived at the refuge where james and his mother were staying. The court also found the department failed to attend promptly on notification of a child at risk to provide material and give clear written instructions to waters. Psychiatric reports link the son's present problems with his early sexual abuse. However, in a subsequent ruling last april, the nsw supreme court found there was ``absent an essential link in the chain of causation'' between breaches of duty of care by docs and conditions now suffered by the son. Justice timothy studdert was unable to conclude that due investigation ``would have led in the exercise of reasonable care to the avoidance of ... Exposure to sexual abuse''. Frank believes his son needs treatment and the ruling leaves him without vital help. His main focus now is his outrage at the way the nsw supreme court dealt with the case.he originally acted as ``tutor'', or guardian, for his son, the plaintiff. Well known sydney silk alec shand qc took on the case. In the end, the father was removed from the case after allegations that his emotional involvement went against his son's best interests. Frank may well not have helped his case through the years by calling everyone who would not help him, including judges, politicians and police, ``evil, disgusting, protectors of paedophilia'' and so on. Transcripts from the supreme court show much legal huffing and puffing over the man's ``scurrilous'' attacks. Frank alleged in a complaint to the legal services commission that shand, once granted legal aid, ``hijacked'' the case. He alleges that shand deliberately concealed evidence from the court and failed to cross-examine witnesses. The commission found no wrongdoing on the part of shand. Frank believes that the system, including the judiciary and politicians generally, has acted to protect the interconnecting webs of legal aid, docs and the family court. He says that his case is not just a failure of the system: ``i am saying the whole system is immoral, inhuman. ``the abuse of my son was known to the authorities from when my son was weeks old to when he was 6 1/2. Instead of the system protecting my son from horror abuse, they left my son in a dangerous situation and then proceeded to protect the people who were abusing him. ``i believe one thing: every child should be given every right to live without abuse and pain and suffering.'' although frank has been dismissed by members of the legal profession as ``paranoid'' and ``unpleasant'', his is not that uncommon a view. Whistleblowers australia's national president dr jean lennane says docs, legal aid and the family court ``have very close connections -- incestuous, you might say''. ``what tends to happen is that the aggrieved party, the whistleblower or litigant early on gets labelled as a troublemaker and mentally unbalanced, unofficially or with the help of a hired-gun psychiatrist or psychologist,'' says lennane. ``once that has happened, nobody in any part of the bureaucracy is usually willing to examine the facts of the original complaint. You find it constantly. The main point is the waste of public money.'' the scars of what happened to the family in the early 80s are still visible. James, after struggling to concentrate at school, is at a turning point, not sure where his life will lead.his mother has remarried and has two other children. Frank, a pensioner, is fearful that he will be hit with a cost order for millions of dollars for his supreme court action. His hope that his case would help stop other children being abused and provide a comfortable future for his beloved son is in ashes. He believes there are other fathers doing, as he did, everything they can to protect their children and being frustrated in the process. ``there is no doubt it is still happening today,'' he says. End of the road the following are excerpts from this week's judgment in the local court of nsw by magistrate hugh dillon, who granted a permanent stay on the case against the mother of ``james'', which alleged she bashed and tied up her son in 1981-82. The real names of those involved in the case have been suppressed by the court. ``there is no explanation before the court as to why or how the investigation stopped once the father had set it in train. No one has ever explained to the father what happened during the investigation or what decisions, if any, were made by those originally in charge of it. The fact that police records, which would, presumably, explain these things, have disappeared raises a suspicion that police officers have been involved in covering up their own negligence or the negligence of colleagues. Beyond this, we can merely speculate. ``i feel considerable sympathy for the father ... It is appalling that it has taken him almost 20 years to get the police service to take action on evidence [that] it has had for most of that time. ``a reasonable and right-minded person might have his or her confidence in the justice system undermined because the father has been treated so badly. ``yet is it now just ... To continue the proceedings because the father was unjustly or unreasonably treated ... For many years? This is ... One of those rare or exceptional cases where the delay in proceedings has been so excessive that the proceedings constitute an abuse of process. ``these proceedings are permanently stayed.'' two decades of discord 1978: ``frank'' and his wife marry in syria, arrive in australia. 1979: wife is pregnant, admitted to psychiatric hospital. 1980: ``james'' is born underweight. Eight weeks later, frank makes his first calls to welfare officers and police. 1980-82: frank alleges neglect and abuse by his wife, including hitting, burning and throwing the child against a wall. Makes hundreds of phone calls and visits to authorities. 1982: wife moves to marrickville women's refuge. Residents also allege abuse, including the boy being tied to a cot. Alleged sexual abuse begins. 1983: child is living with his mother and another alleged female perpetrator. Frank makes repeated applications to what was then the department of youth and community services, the family court, churches and other organisations for the child to be removed. 1984: child protection workers and psychologists confirm sexual abuse and neglect. The child provides detailed statements of alleged oral sex. The department, sydney child psychiatrist dr brent waters and the child's legal aid solicitor recommend the child remains with his mother. In may, frank refuses to return the child. Police on instruction from family court return the child to his mother. Frank does not see the child for two years.1985: frank constantly makes requests to authorities to remove the child to safety; he approaches the home of then federal attorney-general lionel bowen after 68 trips to canberra seeking help from politicians. 1986: the child is badly bashed with cricket bat and becomes a ward of the state.july: frank gains full custody. 1991-1992: the weekend australian breaks the story of the child abuse bungle. John howard calls for inquiry. 1993: 5000 people sign a petition to parliament demanding an inquiry. The independent commission against corruption decides not to investigate. Frank begins proceedings in the nsw supreme court. 1997: the trial for damages begins in nsw supreme court. After three weeks, frank attempts to sack alec shand qc from the case. Instead, frank is removed as ``tutor''.1999: judgment absolves a string of officers from what is now the department of community services and waters of wrongdoing, but finds the department in breach of duty of care. The nsw department of public prosecutions charges the mother with physical abuse of the child. 2000: the nsw supreme court finds that, though docs was negligent, the link between negligence and damage to the child cannot be established, therefore compensation is not paid. May 30: local court magistrate hugh dillon finds the nsw police service performance in the case was ``appalling'', but grants permanent stay of the case against the mother because of the passage of time. Statistical risks although there has been little australian research, international studies indicate that children are most at risk of abuse from their mothers. Us the us government's 1997 report child maltreatment found 62.3 per cent of perpetrators were women. The heritage foundation study, the child abuse crisis, found that of the approximately 2000 children killed each year, 55 per cent were killed by mothers, 25.7 per cent by live-in boyfriends, 12.5 per cent by stepfathers and 6.8 per cent by biological fathers. The 1995 report us national incidence of child abuse and neglect found that where maltreatment led to death, 78 per cent of perpetrators were female. Boys were four times more likely to be fatally abused and 24 per cent more likely to be seriously abused than girls. Uk the book broken homes and battered children reports that the child of a biological mother cohabiting with a man other than the natural father is 33 times more likely to suffer serious abuse than a child with married, natural parents. Australiaalthough there is contention over what constitutes a substantiation, the latest statistics from the australian institute of health and welfare, based on an amalgam of data from some states, suggest 31 per cent of child abuse cases occur in natural families, 20 per cent in step or blended families, 40 per cent in single-mother households and 5 per cent in single-father households. The australian, edition 1       tue 25 jun 2002, page 009 not mine? Won't pay! By: john stapleton dna testing is popular with men who suspect they've been wrongly lumbered with child support payments, john stapleton reports men have been cuckolded since the beginning of the human species. Many have proved, knowingly or unknowingly, to be good fathers to children not biologically their own. As many a stepfather has shown, fatherhood extends well beyond the biological. But technology, institutions, moralities and family structures are all changing. High-profile paternity fraud cases resulting from dna tests are now working their way through the us, british and australian courts, and those who have most to gain or lose from the status quo are all speaking out. These gateway cases could ultimately cost governments millions ofdollars as aggrieved -- and sometimes deceived -- men attempt to sue child support and other government agencies. Data from the american association of blood banks suggests that 28.2 per cent of men suspicious enough to ask for the test turn out not to be the biological father. In australia, a leading commercial laboratory, dna solutions, suggests the figure is more likely to be between 15 and 20 per cent. There are about 3000 tests carried out each year in australia, and in the us the number has risen during the 1990s to about 300,000 a year. Fathers in the us have won a string of legislative victories this year. In may, georgia enacted legislation allowing a man to stop payingcourt-ordered child support after dna tests. A similar bill has reached the californian senate, and measures have been introduced in vermont, massachusetts and michigan. Even hollywood has risen to the occasion, with elderly billionaire and mgm studios owner kirk kerkorian, this year facing the world's most expensive child support case. He questioned the paternity ofhis four-year-old child, producing dental floss containing dna from film producer steve bing -- of elizabeth hurley fame. Bing is reportedly now suing kerkorian for invasion of privacy. Last week, the separate paternity court case involving bing and actor hurley was resolved when dna tests proved that bing was the biological father ofhurley's baby son. You might have thought this was all a little tasteless, but us daytime television hosts such as ricki lake find that whenever they feature dna test results on air, their ratings go up. ``it's the most life-altering thing you can do on television,'' says lake. With dna testing now a multimillion-dollar growth industry, the legal, moral and political furore has well and truly hit australia. Children and youth affairs minister larry anthony is considering legislation on paternity fraud in consultation with the child support agency, the attorney-general and departmental lawyers, following a number of complex cases and calls for clarification of the law. In one dna case this month before the west australian family court, a man, who cannot be named by law, had been incorrectly named as the father of a child after a one-night stand. He will be refunded child support payments following a convoluted battle with authorities. He says he intends suing the mother for emotional distress. Parties on all sides of the dna paternity debate -- fathers, mothers, commercial laboratories and the judiciary -- claim they are acting in the best interests of the child. Many fathers embroiled in such a conflict say every child has the right to know who their real father is, adding that fraud is fraud; some women's groups believe men are trying to wriggle out of paying child support; and the commercial laboratories say discreet testing assists both parents and children. Family court chief justice alastair nicholson has reportedly suggested that fathers seeking paternity tests are clinging to a 19th-century biological view of fatherhood and ignoring the impact on the child. Although he accepts there is a place for court-sanctioned dna testing, he says criminal sanctions should apply against fathers who use ``secret'' dna tests and that they should not be admissible incourt. ``i agree with the view it should be made an offence,'' says nicholson. ``i think it's an invasion of the rights of the child to do it.''the australian law reform commission, in conjunction with the australian health ethics commission, is releasing a discussion paper in august. The hitherto buried issue of paternity testing is turning out to be one of the most contentious aspects of the commission's attempts to bring genetic regulations into the 21st century. A spokeswoman for the alrc says paternity testing has emerged as an unexpected flashpoint. The commission is urging parents' groups to make submissions. Alrc head david weisbrot has suggested the commission may make recommendations similar to those of a british commission on human genetics, which has recommended prosecution of fathers conducting secret tests. It proposes that removal of a child's hair or saliva without applying to the courts, or without the approval of the mother, become a criminal offence. The british commission's chairwoman says there could be serious repercussions for women, children and siblings, who could ``suddenly find all the things that they understood about their familybecoming different''. Surprisingly, dna tests are popular with women. The recently launched melbourne company gene-e says women account for nearly two-thirds of inquiries. Many of them may only be wishing to make sure that they have been right all along. But this is not the case for the men involved in paternity cases before the australian courts. These outraged men are a small sample ofthousands of fathers who may be paying child support for children not biologically theirs. In many cases the men have not had a strong ongoing relationship with the child, or any sort of relationship, because of the unstable family unit. They argue that payments for non-biological children can imperil the financial welfare ofbiological children in subsequent families. While dna and paternity fraud is a hot issue worldwide, an australian complexity is that single mothers are legally required to nominate the father, so that the government can seek recompense for child welfare payments. Sue price of the men's rights agency says blocking dna testing is morally repugnant. ``you are denying the child the right to know his or her real father,'' she says. ``extracting payments from non-biological fathers is fraud and seriously imperils that man's future ability to provide for his own family. On the other hand, those shown to be the biological father are far more likely to provide financial and emotional support.''dads australia president rod hardwick says government failure to properly investigate the paternity allegations of women, or making paternity impossible to disprove, leaves the system open to abuse. He says women who deliberately nominate the wrong man as the father of their child should be prosecuted. ``the chief justice of the family court wants to prosecute men for not paying child support but refuses to prosecute women who deliberately lie to the court, to the man, to the biological father and to the children,'' he says. This is one issue where there is no common ground between fathers' groups and mothers' groups. The women's electoral lobby's former victorian convener lisa solomon says fathers are seeking dna testing simply to get out oftheir legal obligations to pay child support. ``they are using the hoary old argument of the rights of the child to shore up their financial security, and that is disgusting,'' she says. ``sow the seed, reap the consequences. If there is a question about parentage, it should be determined by a court-sanctioned process. It should be regulated. ``it is a violation of the rights of the child to take a dna test without their full knowledge.'' solomon says there is little likelihood of women abusing the welfare system by falsely naming fathers. ``women are moral, reasonable, rational beings. It would be a very rare instance where a woman would name someone who wasn't the father of the child.'' dna solutions director vern muir says the shock of discovering non-paternity gets worse with age and the trend is towards testing younger children. He believes the public is behind discreet, non-court-regulated testing to clear up doubts over paternity, so thatcourt cases, which are often traumatising and expensive, can be avoided. Links www.alrc.gov.au www.mensnewsdaily.com case one in one victorian case, a former policeman is seeking to be repaid $30,000 he paid over 14 years. The man, who no longer sees the now 16-year-old boy, says he conducted the dna paternity test partly because the boy had become concerned about who his real father might be. He says he is suing not for the money but as a matter of principle. ``i think making dna testing illegal is totally against all human rights," he says. "every person has the right to know who their biological parent is, whether it is a person who was adopted or who is conceived as a result of deception. I felt extremely betrayed." the case has been in and out of court all year. The man says he is on antidepressants as a result of the conflict. "there are a load of fathers, thousands of fathers, in the same situation," he says. ``there is nothing in the system to help us." case two many men discover children are not biologically theirs only as a result ofconflict during a custody dispute. In a case working its way through the system, a melbourne man discovered that two of the three children he had watched being born were not his. He found this out after he separated from his wife.he is seeking $400,000 damages for pain and suffering, and will be seeking compensation for child support payments, loss of earnings and legal costs.the case has been bouncing in and out of court for the past 18 months. The federal and state governments fund the victorian women's legal service, which is representing the mother. The man and his new partner are angered that taxpayer funds are being used to support what they perceive as paternity fraud. They say they have had to sell virtually everything they own to fund the case. The man paid child support for eight years and says he lost one-thirdof his gross income. At one stage, after paying child support, he was living on $132 a week. Christmas day published at www.dadsontheair.net in 2006. Christmas day. A police station car park. Malcolm has not seen his nine year old son and six year old daughter for more than a month. The children don't get out of the car. Their father pushes presents at them through the car window, tries to talk to them. After five minutes, the children are driven off. Malcolm has only seen his son in sessions with a family court appointed psychologist since. Malcolm is one of an estimated 326 australians, primarily fathers, accused of sexually abusing their children each week - the atomic bomb of custody disputes. Like thousands of other fathers; his life has imploded into an expensive nightmare of litigation and conflicting experts. A senior public servant with special security clearance, he can be trusted with the country's secrets, but not with his own children. While a female child protection worker found no evidence of abuse and condemned the mother's behaviour; it is the crucial family report by the court appointed psychologist, who recommended the father have minimum contact, that malcolm will have most difficulty overcoming. Despite their notoriety amongst father's groups for their bias, innacuracy and unchanging nature over a quarter of a century the federal government has refused to acknowledge any community concern over their veracity. These reports, the evidentiary bedrock of australian family law, are written by court counsellors or court appointed psychiatrists and psychologists, who normally interview each of the parties for an hour each. Research shows judges rely almost totally on them to make their judgements. Many of these "experts" spend longer in the witness box than they ever do interviewing the families involved, yet there is no scientific evidence to suggest that interviewing people is the best way to determine a custody issue. The widespread hopes held by many community groups that the liberal government would move promptly to reform family law, and the family reports on which it is based, have been dashed. The divorce industry is now worth an estimated $5 billion a year, an industry as big as beef, sheep or horse racing. That the present attorney general has no intention of seriously tackling this cash cow for his fellow lawyers is evidenced by his choosing personnel from deep within the industry for his new federal magistracy and for the so-called family pathways advisory group. The dirty little secret, the secret that these lawyers have no intention of blowing the whistle on, is that this industry rests on spurious, often blatantly dishonest reports from family court counsellors, psychiatrists and psychologists. This is perjury on a grand scale - and the legal profession is entirely complicit in it. The newly created $26 million federal magistrates service, up and running around the country since july, has shown no signs of differentiating itself from the family court. It has turned for magistrates to people who have a long professional association with the much reviled family reports and who's biases are for the main part well known. The government has refused to deny that the magistrates have all received the approval of the family court. One newly appointed magistrate, judith ryan, former head of the family law unit of legal aid, was responsible for the repeated use of sydney's "big three" drs peter champion, brent waters and rikard-bell, all favourites of docs as well as the family court. Ms ryan took it upon herself to seek the silencing of national president of dads peter vlug after he appeared on a radio show life matters on radio national. She requested one of her employees listen to a tape of radio national in which national president of dads against discrimination peter vlug highlighted the issue of false sexual abuse allegations in the family court. That legal aid employee was then requested to write an affidavit claiming she recognised the voice of mr vlug. He regards the actions taken against him by legal aid as blatant abuse of public funds. "i was asked to go on the program," he said. "false allegations occupy a considerable amount of the court's time and therefore taxpayers money. It was a matter of public interest." the liberal government's move to consult "key stakeholders", the family pathways advisory group, submissions for which close this month, has become the royal commission that never was. The group does not have a single father's group on it despite ample representation from heftily funded feminist advocacy groups, academics and institutional heavyweights. The "group", set up in the wake of an australian law reform commission report which found overwhelming disquiet with the family court and its processes, comes at a time when there are mounting questions over the level of public confidence in the court. One of its founders, gogh whitlam, has declined the opportunity to defend the contemporary court. Yet virtually no one on the group is even remotely critical of the family court; one of its members, cathy argall, has been publicly denying the child support agency's role in the 20 suicides a week committed by men after separation and another academic, john dewar, who's faculty has just received $500,000 in funding, has suggested the broad push to shared parenting is detrimental to women's interests. Despite their importance and the millions of dollars of funding flowing to groups such as the australian institute of family studies and the family law council, there has never been an audit or academic study of family reports. Both the government and the aifs have refused to offer an explanation. National president of whistle blowers australia dr jean lennane says the same misuse of psychiatry occurs in the family court as other courts, but its secrecys mean it is less well documented and it leads to "some very bad miscarriages of justice towards children who are deprived of access to one or other parent on the basis of ... Very dubious psychiatric evidence. They are relying on spurious reports and misinformation. The secrecy has allowed enormous abuses ofp rocess to develop." president of lone father's barry williams says the failure to include fathers on the family pathways group is blatant discrimination. "if this government was listening to the people who are hurting they would abolish the family court," he said. "it hasn't changed in a quarter of a century, it seems to be a protected species. It has to be replaced by a tribunal. "the court is bringing the entire legal profession into disrepute. We get 22,000 calls a year. People are committing suicide as a result of court decisions." mr williams said father's can lose any relationship with their children based on "very biased" reports by court counsellors made up of "inuendo or make believe" which they may not even be permitted to see. "when a man wants to see his children they say he is trying to control the woman. It is not true at all. They want to see their kids because they are part of their life." "the reports are ill written, foolish and irresponsible." malcolm's case comes at a time when there is scathing media attention on family courts throughout the english speaking world. Prominent feminists in the us have come out recently supporting father's groups position that shared parenting liberates everyone involved, adding a twist to the ideologically driven vortex. The quarter of a century since the establishment of the family court of australia has been characterised by a potent mix of feminism, psychology, psychiatry and the law, but it may well be money and the law which ultimately unravel the system. The european human rights court recently awarded a father $40,000 in compensation for breach of his human rights after the father was denied access to his child in the german courts. Equally in australia there are signs of an impending wave of litigation. Fathers for family equity have commenced a project to initiate a wide-ranging class action against the government and the family court over bias, discrimination, injustice, abuse of power and damage to children. With more than 20 men a week killing themselves post-separation, simple arithmetic shows such an action could cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. In a landmark case, blue mountains solicitor hal ginges was recently awarded an undisclosed sum and a public apology from the department of community services over false allegations of sexual abuse of his children involving docs officers. Illustrating their close connections, the investigation by docs led to orders in the family court that the father's contact with his children be restricted and supervised. "ultimately the children found their own way back," mr ginges said, who practices in the children's court and the family court. "things haven't changed. Fathers are still being falsely accused and undertrained officers of docs are still taking children away and relying on untested allegations." former president of the nsw family law reform association max king has recently began a $1.4 million dollar compensation test case which in the nsw supreme court, naming chief justice of the family court alistair nicholson as a defendant in his role as administrator of the court. He hopes the case will expose the practices of the family court and the nature of the family reports to public scrutiny. Any discussion of the role of psychiatric evidence in the family court leads straight to the question of false sexual abuse allegations. For malcolm, he is caught up in a maze of conflicting affidavits and legalistic complexities. An affidavit from a baby sitter, who notified the police, reports the mother dropping off the children, claiming they had been sexually abused, and then promptly going out on a date. Malcolm has never been charged or found guilty of anything, but like many many thousands of other fathers, if the matter ever goes to trial the war of contradictory experts, many of whom may spend more time in the witness box than they ever did interviewing the family, may well be enough, despite the lack of medical evidence, for a judge to entertain "lingering doubts" sufficient to deny him any contact at all with his children until they turn 18. Very few of those accused of sexual abuse of children are ever convicted; but the allegations prompt a cascade of events from the child abuse industry, to quote the title of a 1980s american book warning that the self referencing and ideologically driven child protection bureaucracy was out of control. As forensic psychologist yolande lucinde wrote in a recent paper presented to the australian academy of forensic sciences, the child abuse epidemic "has all the characteristics of mass hysteria, now called moral panic...driven by hysterical beliefs, unvalidated and untrue." dr lucire says that in terms of the numbers of people and resources involved we are in the greatest moral panic since the salem witch-hunts. She regards the "so-called substantiation" recorded by welfare departments as nothing more than assertions and notes that in reality child sexual abuse is "very very rare", and only found amongst "very disordered people in disordered families." "it is quite improbable," she says. "the allegations arise in the context of custody battles. Some studies indicate 80% of the accusing parents have massive personality disorders... Probability analysis indicates that any one report is many times more likely to be false than true. "the terror that an innocent person might be found guilty, which has traditionally and rightly been the foundation of our justice system, has been replaced by the terror that a guilty man might go free. "in a moral panic, hysterical beliefs short-circuit reasoning and an illusory paradigm governs perception. Judges, juries, social workers and doctors fear offending against the newly imposed values, and suppress their own common sense." with the most draconian secrecy legislation in the country centred on the family court and closely linked welfare departments, the richest sources of information on the operation of the court and the nature of the reports is coming from whistleblowers. One former family court officer, who worked in the sydney registry for 14 years, bill sheridan, says: "whoever pays the piper calls the tune. Some of these reports are almost in the word processor, it is a matter of changing the names around. "one will describe every parent that comes before them as a 'dysfunctional personality', others will have different quirks. If you went to six different psychiatrists or psychologists you would get six different views. "by the time they get over their lengthy cvs you will probably find the reports are all on the same lines. From my personal experience watching the 'experts' being cross-examined, i did not think these reports were a good method of determining custody issues. "the report writers can't help themselves but to twist things, and they get the information supplied to them wrong. They will misinterpret. "it is verballing. They do it for the money. There are great financial rewards for their behaviour, in the millions of dollars per year. "any false allegation by either parent can be reported as fact. Without any testing at all to gather the truth they will embark on some campaign, such as that the father is oppressive or abusive. "they will twist and manipulate the facts. They embellish the evidence. "the family reports are not expert evidence, simply opinion. They are doing nothing to assist anyone in any shape or form." another retired court officer, so distressed by what he witnessed, wrote a book, "child sexual abuse allegations in australia", which has been placed on an international web site outside australian jurisdictions.he notes the death of the premise of "innocent until proven guilty" to be replaced by "groundless suspicion, ad hoc accusations, arbitrary judgements and premature condemnation". "it is my opinion that, in the past 15 years, the insidious invasion of a child's suggestibility by inept child sexual abuse interviewers has been instrumental in more children becoming victims of manufactured 'sexual abuse' than actual instances of this abuse," he writes. "a witch-hunt mentality emerged in earnest during the mid-80s as australia literally became a little america overnight - a nation of accusers and litigants - adding to the coffers of the legal profession, while depleting the self esteem of thousands of innocent children and adults. Too ready access to legal aid and the lure of victim's compensation further smothed the way for this litigious onslaught, aimed mainly against males, as the spectre of child sexual abuse appeared ad nauseum in the media. The dissemnination of child protection misinformation by misguided child protection zealots resulted in chaos and confusion, as parents started notifying thousands of alleged cases of child sexual abuse in all states. The reluctance of courts to enforce harsher disciplinary action against inept welfare workers is unconscionable..." the former court officer, who spent much of his final months as a court employee at the photocopy machine, in his chapter child sexual abuse and the family court, breaks down in detail the original "m&m" and "b&b" cases which led to the notion of "lingering doubt" and the "capricious" judicial reasoning that went on behind them. Under this tenet, to deny a child any contact with their father after the allegation of sexual abuse has been made, it is not necessary to prove that the child has been sexually abused or that the child may be at risk if access were granted. All that is required is for a trial judge to have "lingering doubts" as to whether access would or would not expose the child to an unacceptable risk. As the author says, in the family reports, many of which sit on the fence such allegations are raised, it can be not what is said so much as what is not said that leaves the father damned and the children without a male parent. Exploring the situation in nsw, he looks at the estimated 35,000 cases of allegedly "confirmed" child sexual abuse in the last decade and asks why not one investigative reporter has asked the obvious question: "why is it that, of the thousands of alleged cases classified ..."actual - confirmed child sexual abuse", less than 3% result in convictions". He says that after many years in the court room he has formed the view that the treatment of sexual abuse allegations has created a "kangaroo-court mentality" that is a blatant denial of natural justice which leaves thousands of children the subject of interrogation and unwarranted sexual abuse therapies. He is left in despair at a system which has degenerated "at the expense of vulnerable children and innocent adults". He notes as proof that most sexual abuse allegations coming before the court are mischievous the fact that the alleged abuse is never claimed as the reason for the breakup of the marriage. Fed up with what they perceive as outrageous behaviour by the family court and family report writers, increasing numbers of men are posting virtually everything to the internet. One senior academic, accused of molesting his children over a decade ago, has already been threatened with jail for publicising his case. Along with other outraged litigants he has been ordered by the family court not to contact the united nations. He recently posted his entire case on the internet. Although denied access to his three children, the academic was never found guilty of anything. Last year's family report criticises the father for becoming obsessed with clearing his name, quoting approvingly another report criticising him for his "lack of appreciation, if not disregard" of his former wife's feelings and the emotional consequence the father's persistent publication of his plight might have on her. As in so many other cases, the counsellor concludes that there is "considerable potential for emotional risk" if the children were to see their father and "regardless of the veracity of the sexual abuse allegations... One questions the benefit to the children of resuming any form of contact with their father..." transcripts of court proceedings also posted to the internet show the father struggling with "her honour", finally pointing out to the judge the irony that if he had actually been found guilty of sexually abusing his children the affect would be the same: denial of any relationship with their father for more than ten years. There is no apology forthcoming from the court. Ordered to stand back from the bench, the father's final words: "it just seems so unfair". Campaigner against the abuse of psychiatry in courts stewart dean recommends that anyone being interviewed by a court appointed expert should take a support person such as himself to act as independent witness. "the biggest use of these reports is when the mother wants custody and she alleges paedophilia against the husband. They got away with it for a long time. The women's groups have been coaching women in the steps to take. In that way they were more or less assured to get custody of their children. The cliches are the same. That has been the biggest misuse in the family court."psychiatrists in general have overplayed their hand and have come in for such criticism they are not carrying the same weight. "lawyers and psychiatrist feed off each other. The lawyers more than anyone know how crook the psychiatrists are, but they use them to win or create cases. Cases should not be judged by psychiatrists, but by evidence. " the close if not incestuous relationship between psychiatrists, psychologists and the legal profession was clearly illustrated by the judgement of the psychologists registration board of victoria which deregistered cocaine addicted psychologist and family court favourite timothy watson-munroe. The board receives more complaints over family court reports than any other matter, and as they are largely prevented from investigation by secrecy provisions, has written to the court over the matter. In a sad forerunner to the 44 page judgement, newspapers reported a man's taking the psychologist to the board after he was denied any contact with his son as a result of orders made by the family court on recommendations by watson-munroe - who was deregistered for being of poor character. Five qcs went as character witnesses for him. He procured his cocaine from a solicitor who gave him briefs. Some of the evidence shows him watching videos of police interviews for the purpose of writing court reports while sniffing cocaine, dealing with drug-dependent clients while under the influence. Police tapes record him, referring to lines of cocaine saying: "there's nothing like the joy of waing up and realising that contrary to...every urge in your body not leave one, you have in fact left a small one for the morning." the lobby group men's rights have called on the government to fund a review of all custody orders made as a result of recommendations by watson-munroe and urged all fathers who lost their children as a result to consider compensation actions. The citizens commission on human rights, which made its name in this country campaigning for the deep-sleep chelmsford inquiry, has just released a guide to dealing with psychiatric and psychological testimony in the family court and social welfare departments. Cchr advise that no one should submit to such an interview without an accompanying witness, without the interview being videotaped and without clear legal advice on their rights. National president lyn cottee said the inaction of professional bodies, medical boards and health care complaints bodies actively protected corrupt psychiatrists and psychologists. The protection of psychiatrists in the family court spills over into other arenas such as docs in nsw, human services in victoria and family services in queensland. "psychiatrists and psychologists are employed in particular jurisdictions because they produce the answers that are desired or that fit into the prevailing ideology of the court. The have become a new power elite. Everything they say is taken as gospel no matter in some cases how preposterous. "in the case of the family court, psychiatrists often become the trier of fact rather than the judge. Character flaws of the preferred parent are often overlooked in favour of magnifying and sometimes even fabricating the flaws in the other parent. These unscientific, biased, opinion-based pronouncements are often sufficient for parents to lose any contact with their children." one of the ironies of the nature of family reports, and the enormous weight placed upon them, is that it is well recognised amongst social scientists that interviewing people is a most unreliable form of evaluation, and that there is no evidence that interviewing people is a good way of determining whether they are a good parent. As former academic tom benjamin says, behavioural science literature has shown interviewing to be an unreliable form of investigation, and there is no evidence to indicate it as an appropriate form of determining the better parent. As sanford braver author of "divorced dads: shattering the myths" says: "there is no evidence that there is a scientific valid way for a custody evaluator to choose the best primary parent. Instead there is convincing evidence that their recommendations merely follow the evaluator's own gender biases." there has been scathing worldwide media attention focussing on family courts throughout this year. The observer newspaper in london just completed a three month expose into the british family court, concluding that the custody evaluation procedures were utterly flawed. They found "a shocking culture producing routine misery on a vast scale for both children and parents". The paper continued: "we have found wide ranging inadequacies in the legal system, ill-trained professionals, badly prepared judges and decision making which is often a lottery." one recently retired family report writer declared the service he left as haphazard and "a hell of a mess". In the us, margaret hagan, author of whores of the court: the fraud of psychiatric testimony, has embarked on a new book on custody litigation. In her chapter "in the best interests of the child" she notes the shock that psychoexperts' contributions often provide to parents; and notes that a psychological professional who has never met you the children or the parent can hold their future in his her hands. One mother lost custody of because she shirked her duty to have her parently fitness assessed by a psychologist. "it is no step at all to turn...personal value judgements into professional opinions to support the case of a parent making claims..." ms hagan writes. The spectator, in a cover story the rape of justice, describes the "spurious" if not "incomprehensible" reasons for father's losing contact with their children: "...there was the father whose overnight contact with his five-year-old was stopped because 'the child had many mile-stones ahead of him'; another who was denied contact because he 'had to prove his commitment'; another because 'this is the mother's first child'; another because he was 'over-enthusiastic'; yet another because 'the child fell asleep in his car on the way home'....and so on and so, appallingly, on." a similar litany of disaster and denial of relationships with fathers or less commonly mothers is true of australia. A father's close relationship with a son is described as "unhealthy"; another parent is described as having a psychiatric condition of unknown name immutable to treatment, another as having a controlling and intensive intelligence, another as being too involved with his children's schooling.in one report a famous sydney docs/family court psychiatrist brent waters states that the most disturbing thing is that the parents can't see that there is anything wrong them. They lost all four of their children. In another the mother, who hated the welfare authorities was and admittedly no saint, is described by peter champion, another favourite of docs and the family court, as being arrogant and unable to admit that she was wrong. She lost her two children. One father, who consulted a string of psychiatrists and psychologists in his battle to rescue his kid from an allegedly abusive situation, only got one good report: from the disbarred watson-munroe. Another father lost any chance of custody when watson-munroe misinterpreted the father's plans for accommodation of his young son. There was no retraction, no apology. One father lost any contact with his child after a report from a women's health centre, gunedoo in the blue moutnains, suggested that the son had no worthwhile relationship with the father. He was never interviewed. Another accused the father of harrassing his son at school without any evidence at all. Another suggested the father should not be granted shared parenting because it might give him hope of reconciling with the mother. Another psychiatric report states he can't understand why the father is putting the mother through the stress of a trial he cannot win. "psychiatrists and psychologists are employed in particular jurisdictions because they produce the answers that are desired or that fit into the prevailing ideology of the court. The have become a new power elite. Everything they say is taken as gospel no matter in some cases how preposterous. "in the case of the family court, psychiatrists often become the trier of fact rather than the judge. Character flaws of the preferred parent are often overlooked in favour of magnifying and sometimes even fabricating the flaws in the other parent. These unscientific, biased, opinion-based pronouncements are often sufficient for parents to lose any contact with their children."one of the ironies of the nature of family reports, and the enormous weight placed upon them, is that it is well recognised amongst social scientists that interviewing people is a most unreliable form of evaluation, and that there is no evidence that interviewing people is a good way of determining whether they are a good parent. As former academic tom benjamin says, behavioural science literature has shown interviewing to be an unreliable form of investigation, and there is no evidence to indicate it as an appropriate form of determining the better parent. As sanford braver author of "divorced dads: shattering the myths" says: "there is no evidence that there is a scientific valid way for a custody evaluator to choose the best primary parent. Instead there is convincing evidence that their recommendations merely follow the evaluator's own gender biases."there has been scathing worldwide media attention focussing on family courts throughout this year. The observer newspaper in london just completed a three month expose into the british family court, concluding that the custody evaluation procedures were utterly flawed. They found "a shocking culture producing routine misery on a vast scale for both children and parents". The paper continued: "we have found wide ranging inadequacies in the legal system, ill-trained professionals, badly prepared judges and decision making which is often a lottery." one recently retired family report writer declared the service he left as haphazard and "a hell of a mess". In the us, margaret hagan, author of whores of the court: the fraud of psychiatric testimony, has embarked on a new book on custody litigation. In her chapter "in the best interests of the child" she notes the shock that psychoexperts' contributions often provide to parents; and notes that a psychological professional who has never met you the children or the parent can hold their future in his her hands. One mother lost custody of because she shirked her duty to have her parently fitness assessed by a psychologist. "it is no step at all to turn...personal value judgements into professional opinions to support the case of a parent making claims..." ms hagan writes. The spectator, in a cover story the rape of justice, describes the "spurious" if not "incomprehensible" reasons for father's losing contact with their children: "...there was the father whose overnight contact with his five-year-old was stopped because 'the child had many mile-stones ahead of him'; another who was denied contact because he 'had to prove his commitment'; another because 'this is the mother's first child'; another because he was 'over-enthusiastic'; yet another because 'the child fell asleep in his car on the way home'....and so on and so, appallingly, on." a similar litany of disaster and denial of relationships with fathers or less commonly mothers is true of australia. A father's close relationship with a son is described as "unhealthy"; another parent is described as having a psychiatric condition of unknown name immutable to treatment, another as having a controlling and intensive intelligence, another as being too involved with his children's schooling.in one report a famous sydney docs/family court psychiatrist brent waters states that the most disturbing thing is that the parents can't see that there is anything wrong them. They lost all four of their children. In another the mother, who hated the welfare authorities was and admittedly no saint, is described by peter champion, another favourite of docs and the family court, as being arrogant and unable to admit that she was wrong. She lost her two children. One father, who consulted a string of psychiatrists and psychologists in his battle to rescue his kid from an allegedly abusive situation, only got one good report: from the disbarred watson-munroe. Another father lost any chance of custody when watson-munroe misinterpreted the father's plans for accommodation of his young son. There was no retraction, no apology. One father lost any contact with his child after a report from a women's health centre, gunedoo in the blue moutnains, suggested that the son had no worthwhile relationship with the father. He was never interviewed. Another accused the father of harrassing his son at school without any evidence at all. Another suggested the father should not be granted shared parenting because it might give him hope of reconciling with the mother. Another psychiatric report states he can't understand why the father is putting the mother through the stress of a trial he cannot win. Along with the contradicting experts, malcolm and his ex-wife's affidavits also contradict each other. Amidst the sad horrific battle of contradictory experts, one of the father's affidavits reports the child saying: "mummy said that you touched my fanny, but you didn't, did you daddy?" for him and for his children, as for hundreds of thousands of others, the agony of australian family law will never be over. Family law but from the hunting in packs columns 2007 august. Hunting in packs august 2007 john stapleton have howard's family law and child support reforms been a success? The answer is a resounding no. Absolutely not. To understand why an air of decay and deceit has adhered to a dying howard government, you need look no further than the howard government's treatment of separated dads and their families. It is a case study of how this government has dealt with social issues, with the electorate; and yes, with their once staunch supporters. And why they are now on the nose from coast to coast.by flirting with the separated father vote and then discarding it, by holding in front of grieving and distressed men who have had their children arbitrarily ripped off them the possibility that they could get to see their kids again, by promising and promoting family law reform and then failing to deliver, john howard and his government have committed emotional abuse on a massive scale. Flirting with the separated dad vote - and don't forget this includes aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfathers and second wives - was one of the worst things the howard government has ever done.despite all the evidence from both australian and international sources justifying the desperately overdue need for reform of family law and child support and the introduction of equal and shared parenting as the most sensible solution to the morass howard failed to act; instead he blinded people with smoke and mirrors. Instead of listening to the people, to the massive support for joint custody aka shared parenting as the norm post divorce, instead of listening to the massive support in the media for ending the rotten debacle of family law and remedying the massive harm being done to this country's children, the howard government chose instead to listen to the elite opinion of the so-called experts. He blew an historicopportunity to fix this problem once and for all. Elite so-called "liberal" opinion in this country, including the mandarins responsible for the family court and the child support agency, have long regarded the father as an unnecessary element in the modern family. The family court's maladministration, its arbitrary judgements and overwhelming ideological bias against fathers, had become a major embarrassment to the howard government. It is regarded with contempt by lawyers in all other jurisdictions. But instead of fixing the outrageous conduct of this lunar left the court, howard has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars setting up so-called relationship centres. They will operate under the same draconian secrecy laws that protect the family court from proper journalistic exposure and will perpetuate the same anti-father bias and the same discrimination as the family court itself. No father can expect to be treated fairly in these relationship centres. Those tendering for the running of these centres, including relationships australia, have all put in submissions opposing shared parenting; and have therefore declared their bias up front. Predictably these centres have instantly turned into yet another bureaucratic layer that separated parents have to negotiate. For every single mother there's a desperate dad who would love to be able to care for his kids. The howard government has assisted in the perpetration of the myth of the single mother as somehow an heroic figure. In reality the bloody minded and selfish refusal of many solo mothers to let their children have a proper relationship with their dad, often purely for financial reasons, has been re-entrenched by howard's so called reforms.although no proper study has ever been done on the subject, it is often estimated there are about a million votes in the separated dad lobby. With the polls indicating the government faces annihilation at the coming election, i bet howard wishes he had a million votes in his pocket. I bet about now he's wishing he hadn't double crossed the dads; their kids, their grandparents and all those people in separated and blended families who's views, experiences and presentations to government he has ignored. Dads would have died in the ditch for johnnie howard in september 2003; when he publicly stated he was drawn to shared parenting as the norm, post-divorce and would be initiating a wide ranging inquiry into child custody. He brought great hope to hundreds of thousands of desperately sad separated parents who thought that for the first time ever we had aprime minister in power who understood their heart ache and was going to do something about the country's most despised, dysfunctional,discredited and destructive institutions, the family court and the child support agency. To illustrate just how far the howard government has fallen in moral stature and in public standing, it's worth remembering back to the immediate aftermath of that 2003 announcement. There were positive front page headlines around the country and talk back radio ran hot in support, with call after call detailing the devastation being felt byseparated parents. In short, howard won astonishingly strong support from within the nation's media; widespread and excellent coverage and kudos for his government and praise for having the gumption to take on the entrenched interests of the judiciary and the bureaucracy. It's a long time now since howard has seen wall to wall positive front page headlines.meanwhile he thrashes around trying to re-ignite that sense of coherence and excitement, desperately trying to find something that will work. What did work, but is working no longer; was the government's flirtation with shared parenting or joint custody of children. Which makes the government's actions even more puzzling: why did they backtrack; why did they double cross the dads when there was so much community and media support for change?? Most people have now lost all faith in a system that is not about achieving a fair and just outcome for them and their children, but about how much money can be extracted from separating couples at the most vulnerable time of their lives. That parasitic lawyers,psychologists and social workers making money out of these sad conflicts can so casually parrot the phrase "the best interests of the child" is just sickening. So will the government be revisiting the legislation?  Unfortunately, it's all too late. The government is likely to be thrashed in the polls, and a rudd labour government is highly unlikely to ever confront its ideological anti-nuclear family cronies in the bureaucracy and the judiciary. An unholy alliance of elite opinion; of bureaucrats, lawyers, politicians and so-called "experts", with the complicity of the liberal national party coalition and  full co-operation of the labor party, took thefamily law reform process hostage. Much of this was done under the guise of that great motherhood issue, domestic violence. Instead of listening to the people, the schedulers of the public inquiry jammed it full of taxpayer funded advocates; all of whom were keen to paint men as violent patriarchal brutes and women as their hapless, defenceless victims in urgent need of protection by the state. The government, thinking it was on to a motherhood issue which would make it look good as a protector of women, ignored all the warnings that writing domestic violence into family law was inappropriate and would escalate the volume of false allegations - anecdotally reported to have jumped by some 50%.  Violence is a crime; it's a matter for the police. It's not a matter for ideologues in a secretive and unaccountable tribunal like the family court to use as an excuse for the perpetration of anti-father policies. Howard missed a once in a generation opportunity to fix this poisonous system and blew it. Millions of parents, and millions of children, now and into the future, will suffer as a consequence. The howard government's alleged reforms of family law and child support have been little more than an elaborate fraud perpetrated on a particularly vulnerable section of the community. The reforms were not genuine but created the illusion of change while reinforcing the myriad horrors of the status quo. Nothing is more important to a parent than their children; and the howard governments conduct was a cruel, cynical and political. If the polls are right, we are about to be blessed with kevin rudd as prime minister. While he talks cosily of being with his family on the porch in "brissie" with his wife, his kids, the dog and the cat, the anti-father, anti-nuclear family, so-called "progressive" ideologues in his party are entrenched in key social policy positions. While howard's duplicitous double crossing of fathers has been shameful to behold, don't think for one minute rudd will be any better.the howard government's perfidy over family law and child support hasbeen enormously sad to watch play out, but separated families are naive if they expect rudd will treat them any better.  One of the worst things that has happened in australia, and evident for all to see during this last family law reform charade, has been the pretence by the "liberal" elite that the nuclear family does not matter, that it is an old fashioned construct which imprisons women and stifles children. We can see the results of these trendy, so-called "progressive" theories in the crowded chaotic scenes in the suburban courts of this nation. But astonishingly few public intellectuals have stepped outside the pack and drawn the dots. Historian john hirst's excellent monograph kangaroo court was one of the few exceptions. Our likely future prime minister kevin rudd talks cosily of his family on the veranda in "brissie", with the dogs, the cats, the children. But the special interests which have swarmed over labour since the 1970s, since whitlam's days, do not hold the family dear in anyway. The left wing of his party is firmly entrenched in the social policy areas; and like their forebears will no doubt do untold harm in the name of social justice. While their traditional working class supporters have been ravaged by the impacts of the family court and the child support agency, there has been not one whisper of concern or discontent with the outrageous conduct of these institutions from the labour party itself. Equality is equality. It means treating people equally. You don't get progress and you don't get social justice by advancing the interests of one gender over the other or by ignoring the views of ordinary people. When you do, all you get is backlash from the great unwashed who have been ignored. That, in the end, is what this country will face as a result of this government's manifest failure to do the right thing by mothers, fathers and children in equal measure. The culminations of years of work on the the subject of family law in australia, including the establishment of the world’s longest running father’s show dads on the air, came with the publication of the book chaos at the crossroads: family law reform in australia in december 2010. Because of the continualy evolving nature of the story, and our role as the closest observer and therefore closest and in the position to provide the most detailed “first draft of history”, dads on the air has determined to attempt to put out a new edition and hard copy each year. The story has evolved considerably in the months since it was published in december 2010. However here is the article i wrote celebrating the books publication and the triumphs it represented not just by myself but by the many others involved. It was published in the prestigious intellectual forum www.onlineopinion.com.au the book chaos at the crossroads: family law reform in australia is launched today and fulfils a long held dream ofdads on the air to include publishing alongside its weekly broadcasts. The book marks another step forward for the community radio program that began in western sydney in 2000 with a small group of disgruntled separated men who had no experience of radio and no resources. The book tells the story of the last decade of struggle for family law reform in australia, not just by separated fathers, their supporters and their lobby groups, but by grandparents and other family members cut out of children's lives by the discriminatory and destructive sole-custody model purveyed by the court. Chaos also tells the story of how, from the humble beginnings of that disheveled little group, dads on the air became the world's longest running and most famous fathers radio program, regularly interviewing national and international activists, advocates, academics and authors. Dads on the air, broadcast on liverpool's community radio station 2glf each tuesday morning, went on to attract a talented team of people with legal, journalistic, managerial, entertainment, academic and counseling backgrounds. This was achieved with no more motivation than a sense of outrage over institutional corruption, social injustice and the fate of our children.

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From today chaos at the crossroads will progressively become available throughout the month in most of the world's online ebook retail outlets, beginning with amazon and ending with apple's ibook store. When dads on the air began in 2000 we had no idea we were part of a worldwide trend protesting the treatment of fathers in separated families. Internationally, fathers 4 justice in britain had yet to climb buckingham palace or invade the house of commons. Bob geldoff was yet to speak out. But we were fortunate to find ourselves broadcasting in an era when there was no shortage of stories. As that first small band of dads rapidly discovered, like no other subject, family law cut deep into hearts and lives, a seemingly infinite well of pain. The history of dads on the air coincided closely with the evolution of australian groups such as dads in distress, the non-custodial parents (equal parenting) party and the shared parenting council of australia. Dads on the air was born not just out of a sense of outrage, but frustration with the mainstream media's failure to take men's issues seriously. We were proud to provide a conduit for groups otherwise little heard. At first we felt very much alone. Our bolshie broadcasts put us out on a limb. We would say what we had to say nervously, thinking that at any time the australian federal police would come to silence us. Our fears were not unfounded. The court, which we referred to as the palace of lies, had a long history of attempting to stifle its critics. One man who suggested in a letter that the court belonged on a garbage tip found himself being arrested by three federal police. Criticism of the court as "criminal" and "corrupt" now fly across the internet without consequence. Dads on the air was itself a prime example of the way the information revolution made it possible for a small group in western sydney to cheaply create a 90 minute weekly program that could be downloaded by anyone with a computer in many different parts of the world. The immediate reach the internet provided outside the liverpool radio footprint allowed us to attract some of the nation's and the world's leading political, academic and social commentators simply did not exist a decade before. With the spread of communication technology, the court's arbitrary and cruel judgements were already the stuff of legends by the time we began broadcasting. One indian immigrant was jailed for writing to his parents in english. The court ignored his protestations that his father had two masters' degrees in english. The court has also ordered litigants not to contact the united nations with their concerns, not to publicise the injustices of their cases in any way and not to take their children to a doctor or raise welfare concerns. One father was ordered not to contact his children after he allegedly carried his daughter around on his shoulders, in a crowded park, in a suggestive manner. Another father who expressed a desire to see his adolescent son after the boy's suicide attempt was ridiculed from the bench. Yet another was jailed for sending his child a birthday card.

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Similar stories of damaged lives circled the child support agency. The agency claimed to be treating fairly a young father who was losing 80 per cent of his income in tax and child support and died with one of their letters in his hand. Another man took more than two weeks to die when he swallowed poison after a call from a csa officer. The csa refused to attend the inquest despite a request from the magistrate. Chaos at the crossroads unabashedly looks at the issue of family law from a father's perspective. Father's voices are often invisible in the public debate and we try to redress the imbalance in our humble way. Dads on the air was strategically placed to cover the push for family law reform in australia. For a period many of the country's leading politicians, including the attorney-general, queued to come on the show; most wanting to demonstrate their support for shared parenting and for fathers. This openness has not been matched by the present government. Despite architect lionel murphy's vision of a "helping" court when he brought no-fault divorce to australia in 1975. Co-operative parenting after divorce was rarely encouraged. Almost from the minute the family court opened its doors it became a law unto itself, imposing sole mother custody on separating families despite the harm it caused. Reforms meant to promote shared parenting in 1995 actually saw the small percentage of such orders drop. Historically, the family court denied fathers contact with their children on the flimsiest of excuses or most ludicrous of accusations. Overly legalistic, enormously bureaucratic, secretive, unaccountable and ideologically based, defying community norms of morality and propriety, it soon became one of the country's most hated institutions. The book relies on many sources already available in the public domain to trace the antecedents of the howard government's 2003 parliamentary inquiry and the story of what has happened since. Despite the deliberate blizzard of women's and domestic violence groups stacking the inquiry, the public hearings around the nation exposed for anyone who cared to look the massive dysfunction of australia's family law and child support systems and the distress they created in the community. It also exposed the divide between the taxpayer-funded mandarins and the general populace. The industry continued to blindly insist their only concern was the best interests of the child. It was little short of a lie. The 2003 inquiry was given added piquancy by virtue of being held during the final days of that aging lion of the left chief justice alastair nicholson. He had dominated family law in australia for more than half of the court's life and took every opportunity he could to attack the howard government for its investigation of shared parenting. The original 2003 announcement from the prime minister that the government would examine the idea of a rebuttable presumption of joint custody provoked a wave of positive media coverage and community support. However the parliamentary inquiry's final report, the poorly written, intellectually sloppy and ridiculously named every picture tells a story, caused many problems. It was condemned by family law reformers as a betrayal of the nation's more than one million children of separated parents and of the sometimes tearful parents who had appeared before the inquiry. Dota described the report as just like a family court judgement, it bore no relationship to the evidence and no relationship to reality. The howard government dithered for years over the issue of family law reform, destroying the public momentum for change. Embarrassed by accusations it was influenced by men's groups, it would not be until 2006, after yet more committees and calls for submissions, that the howard government finally passed what dota condemned as sadly inadequate laws promoting shared parental responsibility. Unconvinced the legislation would make any difference in practice, dota declared with characteristic chutzpah the fight lost: "the liars, the lawyers, the bureaucrats and the social engineers have won the day." not withstanding dota's stance, the lengthy public debate engendered a cultural shift. After 2006 many separating parents expected to share the care of the children. But the court itself was largely hostile towards shared parenting and impatient of parliamentary interference.just as with the name dads on the air, the title chaos at the crossroads popped into my mind one day and stayed. An early draft went up online in 2004. Come 2010 and the title could hardly be more appropriate. The narrowly returned labor government had neither the guts nor the integrity to mention family law during the campaign leading up to the august election. Fearful of losing votes, they did not acknowledge they were winding back the popular shared parenting laws. The rollback came under the guise of protecting women and children from violence. The government ignored the findings of the australian institute of families studies that there was no evidence shared parenting resulted in higher levels of conflict and that the new laws were widely supported. The government's expansion of the definition of domestic violence in the proposed family violence bill was cheered on by shared parenting's greatest opponents former chief justice alastair nicholson and justice richard chisholm. After more than 20 years of ferment, community agitation, government inquiry, thousands of submissions and countless stories of suffering and distress, there now appears less hope than ever for separated dads. As the government fuels moral panic over domestic violence, family law is heading straight back from whence it came, to those dark days when too many fathers entering the court never or rarely ever saw their children again. There has been almost no public input into the shared parenting rollback. The public submission period for the family violence bill runs across christmas and ends at the height of the holiday season. The bill is the result of blatant manipulation of the public inquiry process. The plank of reports being used to justify the changes, commissioned by the attorney-general's department after it became clear the aifs intended to be neutral, almost all fall under the category of feminist advocacy research. One expensive two volume report took their sample from women's services, a naturally self selecting group of disaffected. The appointment of former family court judge richard chisholm, whose hostility to shared parenting was already well known, to produce one of the many reports was simply shameful. Yet the labor government, led by julia gillard and ably assisted by attorney-general robert mcclelland, appears determined to press on with its lunacy. Show me a person who has not been guilty of emotional and financial manipulation and i'll show you christ on earth, but this is just one of the new and greatly expanded definitions of domestic violence being placed into the family law act. There can be only one result from defining domestic or "family" violence so broadly as to include much normal human behaviour, in such a gendered way and couched in such a manner as to target only men as perpetrators - and that is a return to the days when many fathers entering the family court of australia rarely or never saw their children again. The resultant personal pain created a large body of disaffected men as well as grandparents and other extended family members, did the community as a whole great harm, brought the judiciary into disrepute and impacted badly on the children involved. Chaos at the crossroads concludes: "successive governments from both left and right have failed to listen to their constituents and respond to their concerns. Even when enacting legislative reforms, these same governments left their enforcement in the hands of institutions notoriously resistant to change. They allowed or encouraged fashionable ideology, institutional inertia and bureaucracy to triumph over common sense. Common decency was lost long ago. "in terms of human suffering, the australian public has already paid dearly for the failure to reform outdated, badly administered and inappropriate institutions dealing with family breakdown - and for the failure of governments to take seriously the voices of the men and women most directly affected by them. The country's failure to reform family law and child support is ultimately a failure of democracy itself." one of the sickest jokes of the whole fiasco of the government inquiry into child custody, which reported on december 29th 2003, was the sight of the family and community services committee members warning the chief justice of the family court alastair nicholson to accept the report. While fathers and family law reformers were visceral in their contempt, in the end nicholson, the living embodiment to many of everything wrong with family law, was one of the report?s only supporters. And why wouldn?t he embrace the report? It set out, with clear collusion between the major political parties to protect the appalling legacy of the hated family court of australia. It ignored the personal and social consequences of the conduct of family court judges. It ignored the massive bias in the system. It ignored the many moving tales of distress from fathers, second wives, grandparents and non-custodial mothers. It took a few hours, sometimes days, for fathers and family law reform advocates to realise how thoroughly they had been duded. But realise they did. Lone fathers described the rejection of a rebuttable notion of joint custody as silly and said they would appeal directly to the prime minister. Dads australia called it a betrayal of the million australian children of separated parents. The men?s rights agency, which did numerous interviews on the subject right around the country, dismissed it as ?the greatest betrayal by any government ever in australia?. ?The politicians all knew how crucial this issue was to the many fathers who are denied contact with their children,? She said. ?They have raised their hopes, only to see them dashed. They will not forget in a hurry. They have put us so far back in seeking shared parenting that it will take years to recover. They have vetoed a presumption of joint custody with no logical argument whatsoever. They have presumed that any parent with on-going conflict with their partner is a danger to their children. How just is that?? While the committee members originally appeared confident their recommendations would be implemented, it appears to be slowly dawning on the government they would be insane to do so. Particularly in an election year. Every last attack on fathers will be met with a vociferous campaign from the fathers groups. Traditionally fragmented and disorganised, they have been united in their campaign for reform. While there will never be across the board co-operation between the groups, dominated as they are by strong personalities, most are aiming for much the same things. While still lacking in the millions of dollars of public funds that flow to the women?s groups and women?s advocacy organisations, including the domestic violence industry, the fathers and family law reform groups are now better co-ordinated and better organised than ever before. The focus of the inquiry has consolidated the belief that the only way for parents to protect their children?s interests after separation is to remain fully involved in their upbringing in joint custody arrangements. This government committee, by first inviting fathers to be heard and then completely ignoring everything they said, has created its own worst nightmare, inflaming sentiment and outraging reform advocates. The report is clear political insanity on the part of the howard government, which is only eight seats away from losing control. The prime minister john howard raised the hopes of millions of people affected by family law and child support in australia and led them to believe that long over-due reform was on the way. The report essentially spat in the face of the hundreds of thousands of pro-family men and women, many of them more naturally aligned to the labor party than to the conservatives, who had drifted to the coalition in the hope that they would reform family law. The report not only told the hundreds of thousands of people currently adversely affected by family law and child support that it would be inappropriate for them to do anything to improve their situation, it told fathers now and into the future that they are second class parents who do not deserve to be treated equally. The hopes of fathers and family law reformers were brutally dashed by the report, which not only used completely spurious non-arguments to reject the proposal of joint custody, a popular and common sense idea, but made numerous recommendations, such as the taking away of driver?s licences, which would criminalise fathers and clearly make their lives worse. It was open to the committee, on the evidence before it, to adopt shared parenting or joint custody as government policy. Its rejection of joint custody relies on an extremely selective choice of arguments. It would have been much easier to make a cogent argument in favour. There was obviously a deal done between the parties to reject a rebuttable joint 50/50 custody after separation in return for bi-partisan support. As such, the report demonstrates clear collusion between the political parties to protect the corruption in the family law and child support systems. It failed to recommend exposure of the biased and dishonest conduct of family law experts. It failed to recommend a scrapping of the family court as a failed social experiment. The report did not recommend the abolition of the secrecy clauses of the family law act, the notorious section 121, and it failed to even recommend the counting of the death toll of the child support agency, believed to be more than three a day. Without a rebuttable notion of joint custody, which is so clearly supported by the community, the committee?s recommendations for a tribunal to try and take the heat out of the adversarial system of family law, fell more than flat. The idea that they would recommend a tribunal with a child psychologist and family law experts on it, when every man and his dog in the country knows how utterly dreadful the experts infesting family law are, was simply preposterous. Without a rebuttable notion of joint custody such a tribunal would not be helping separating couples to achieve co-operative parenting arrangements after divorce. Instead it would be replicating the same practices that exist now; but making things even less accountable than at present. Does the country really need another secretive, corrupt and ideologically driven tribunal mucking with people?s private lives? While we rarely agree with kathleen swinbourne of the sole parents union, she got it exactly right when she said the recommendations of the report would make little difference in practice and that fathers having their children taken off them would hate a tribunal just as much as they hate the court. One of the more coherent attacks on the committee report came from the eccentric speaker for the sa parliament peter lewis, who slammed the house of representatives' standing committee on family and community affairs, inquiry into shared parenting (horisp), report into child custody arrangements. "of course, the existing 'industry' would say the kind of complimentary things they have said about this report! It's business as usual for them, with a cursory slap on the wrist for the crook, abusive, sexist, racist, biased, criminal things they have been doing, all still permissible under the new regime recommended by horisp," lewis said. "at present, a vindictive parent of a broken marriage can still go into 'the system' and lie their heads off under oath, thereby destroying the reputation of their innocent ex-spouse and get away with it! And worse still these liars (perjurers) will most likely get custody/residency of the children, &/or at least prevent the other parent from reasonable (or any) access," the speaker said."taxpayers will continue to foot the bill for many more years for all the problems which caused the family court's rotten reputation to come under the parliamentary committee's spotlight in the first instance; namely, anti-father bias and false allegations, including perjury, accusing one or other of the parents of violence and abuse." "their no 1 recommendation should have been to make perjury (telling lies under oath) in the family court processes a criminal offence. Such a recommendation would then have allowed an additional criminal charge of criminal defamation to be brought against the liar," peter said. "they don't address this major problem anywhere in the report." "however, in their no 1 recommendation horisp talk about "shared parental responsibility" which is what the current practice in the family court jurisdiction now claims to deliver." "at present, the court awards 'shared responsibility' by giving one parent responsibility' for residency/custody - whilst giving (compelling) the other parent 'responsibility' for the supply of the money, called 'support', without satisfactory (or any) access, i.e. One gets the kids and the other pays the bills under the 'shared responsibility' model at present. Horisp has not recommended any change to the definition of 'shared responsibility'. "yet in recommendation no 2, horisp want "a clear presumption against shared parental responsibility ... (where there are allegations about)... Entrenched conflict, family violence, substance abuse or established child abuse, including sexual abuse"."under current case law this recommendation will aid, abet and encourage liars and cheats to an even worse degree than the current practice of the family court allows. They seem to me to be shamelessly stupid, or insensitive, or ignorant, or all three." "the report fails to recommend an abolition of the family court case law and precedents flowing from it, which it created. This will continue to effect and determine its future deliberations unless it is abolished by statute. Any new system which is going to be built on the foundations of the old, will be destined to failure," the speaker said. "the only people who will view this report as progressive will be those who weren't around at the time of the 1992 and 1995 inquiries, and those who depend on the existing injustices of the system to make their living". "i am angry that this will do nothing to reduce the suicide rate and mental illness which has arisen in consequence of the practices in the family court system, until now". "the family court system and the publicly paid servants in the processes which hang off it are racist, sexist, abusive, biased, crook and often criminal in their impact on too many parents who have to go through it". Horisp has missed the need to recommend changes to the law which would change these things." * "they are racist because too often, they assume anglo saxon cultural mores". * "they are sexist because too often, they assume that a woman will be a better parent than a man". * "they are abusive because too often, they assume that a man should earn the money and support the children, after the former wife has lied about and vilified him and obstructs his lawful access to children". * "they are biased because too often, they assume children don't need their father". * "they are crook because too often, they allow perjury without penalty in their processes and actions". * "finally, the family court system covers up criminal conduct by allowing too many publicly paid servants in the processes associated with its actions to ignore the public duty of the court to uphold the law, including its own orders". "the only significant change has been a recommendation to replace part of the work of the existing family court with a tribunal. Yet the tribunal will not require people appearing before it to tell the truth nor do horisp's recommendations compel the tribunal to try and discover the truth before making its orders. This will make things worse, not better. Moreover, it is probably un-constitutional anyway." "it seems the committee (horisp) has attempted to avoid offending the family court, the publicly paid people who work in the industry and the entrenched structured, leftist views and injustices of the politically correct ninnies who gave evidence to it." "the hon speaker is concerned that legal aid will continue to be used to prop up more litigation against too many fathers, who in most cases will have no access to any fair and comparable representation in court." "the committee has wimped out in its duty. The basic reason for its establishment was to discover the causes and eliminate the injustices of the current family court system. It was told by the prime minister to work out the changes to the family law act to fix the problems with the family court system. It has not done that.""the major parties were represented on this committee and have had their chance to get it right but failed. They have even recommended things which will compound the felony of the system and which are probably un-constitutional. The prime minister must now kick butt and fix the problem himself". John stapleton 19 january 2004 dota. Final version speech parliament house 16 june 2009 just to clarify, in case anyone hasn’t realised, the poster for this event was unfortunately incorrect and i was labelled asthe founder of dads in distress (dids), rather than as one of the founders of dads on the air (dota), by mistake. While it would be an honour, i don’t actually have any connection with dads in distress; but we do have in the audience phil york from dids, who would be happy later to give the coal face view of the issues we have come here to discuss. I would like to thank the organisers forum of the round table and everyone else who has helped to put on this event. For those of you who don’t know, dads on the air is a community radio program run out of 2glf in liverpool in western sydney which by dint of pure perseverance has become the longest running fathers show in the world. Our topic today, “is the man the loser in family law?”, is shorthand for much broader debate on whether the style of custody order most common in the family court, and most family courts around the western world, that is sole-mother custody, is really thebest for our kids. And whether or not the almost universal anti-father bias in our public institutions in child support, child protection and legal aid is producing the best outcomes.there isn’t much doubt family law is biased against men - unless you want to discount the voices of 100,000s of fathers here and around the world.dads on the air would not exist if family law was not biased against fathers. It was the collective outrage of a group of heartbroken men which meant when the opportunity came up back in 2000, we started a dads show. We’ve gone on to attract a talented team with journalistic, entertainment and internet experience. The first few years must have been a bit of a strain on the audience, with long spiels against the impacts of family law and elaborate deconstructions of domestic violence or anti-father ideologies. None of us had any radio experience, but we have been fortunate to find ourselves in an era when there has been plenty of material to broadcast. We have made mistakes. The program today is very different to what it once was. While we continue to follow australian family law and child support issues more closely than any other media outlet we also pursue more broader debates. Dads on the air has been proud to broadcast a range of voices little heard in the mainstream, as well as having politicians, authors and academics who’s voices, at least on these subjects, are often ignored by gender study courses and journalists alike. Dads on the air was born not just out of a sense of injustice, but out of frustration with the mainstream media’s failure to take men’s issues seriously, often confusing social affairs reporting with feminist causes. We have been proud to provide an outlet for a number of groups including the shared parenting council of australia, themen’s rights agency, the fatherhood foundation, fathers4equality, fairness in child support, lone fathers and dads in distress, mostly sad dads who want to see more of their kids. The single most barbaric thing any civilisation can do to its citizenry is the removal of children, yet this happens every day. They’re told it is in their children’s best interests. They often show signs of post traumatic stress disorder, repetitive, obsessive, fragile, fighting injustices they have no hope of solving. We’ve broadcast their voices, taxi drivers, teachers, firemen, policemen. It does the country no good to have a body of such disaffected people. But we’ve also tried to be open to the many complexities of the debate, and guests have included diana bryant of thefamily court, then attorney general phillip ruddock, the head of the family law inquiry kay hull and many others. Overthe years we’ve also broadcast some of the world’s best known father activists, including fathers for justice founder matt o’connor, the brain behind britain’s most sensational stunts, including climbing parliament house, buckingham palace and bridges across england. Author of family court hell mark harris, jailed for waving at his children as they drove past him on the street. Recent guests such as professor stephen baskerville, author of taken into custody, argue the long march through theinstitutions is almost complete and the divorce regime comprises the most totalitarian institutions ever to arise in thewestern democracies. Families have been systematically portrayed as dangerous places for women and children. Men have been systematically propagandised as violent, abusive patriarchs or historical relics. Separated men have been ridiculed as nothing but aggrieved litigants. He argues the divorce industry is a serious perpetrator of human and constitutional rights violations. No political party and no politicians question it. No journalists investigate it in any depth. Other guests have included john hirst, author of kangaroo court: family law in australia, who tracks the public perception as a wonderfully progressive court to become one of the country’s most hated institutions. He said: “i cannot see the way by which the court can be rescued. Until there is fundamental change, it will continue to give offence.” Commentators such as warren farrell, author of several books the myth of male power: why men are the disposable sex and father and child reunion have provided unique deconstructions of the domestic violence, child abuse, child support, family law and social welfare industries predicated on the vilification of men. He claims the traditional image of male-as-oppressor is inaccurate and has hindered both genders, leaving men feeling undervalued and women angry. We’ve also interviewed many women critical of the anti-father bias in family law, including, most fascinatingly, erin pizzey, founder of the first women’s refuge in britain, who has been critical of the way the refuge movement was used to perpetuate a radical anti-male agenda. We’ve also interviewed a number of non-custodial mothers. Recently one mother, diana, who copped all the false allegations and alienating behaviour commonly perpetrated on fathers, brought tears as she spoke of parking opposite a school just in the hope of catching a glimpse of her children. It is telling that amongst academics who have come on the show, the university of western sydney is the only dedicated men’s study unit, the men’s health and information resource centre. John macdonald and michael woods have examined the poor outcomes amongst separated men, while men’s health australia has argued for gender neutral approaches to domestic violence.this is but a small sample of the numerous authors and groups we have interviewed, many focusing on the impacts of family law and its anti-father bias. It is common, perhaps even fashionable in family law circles, to blame the litigants for their own problems. The fact they are silly enough to get bound up in complex and expensive family litigation is sniffed at. But unfortunately separated parents have to have family law orders in order to gain payments through centrelink or that much reviled institution thechild support agency. Nothing sends a shiver up a politicians spine more than the sight of a separated dad clutching a large file of legal documents making a beeline for him or her at a public function. For these things are insoluble. Their grief and their sense of aggrievement cannot be assuaged by a few rote letters to department heads. Family law creates an enormous well of pain. How can this politician helps this poor bastard, who has just been through the worst time of his life, who has lost his children, his home, much of his assets and income, his dignity, his social position, his sense of self worth. The issues which affect men are not being addressed. One simple example: on the dads on the air website we have a counter which estimates the number of clients of the child support agency who die every day. We estimate the figure at around 12 a day, probably an underestimate. Every fathers group in the country has linked family law and child support with the high death rate amongst separated men. Where are the inquiries, the concern? We covered the family law process in australia begun by the previous howard government closer than any other media outlet. There was ample evidence during the family law inquiry, including most powerfully from many grandparents, ofthe pain the present system creates. We interviewed many people who hoped the well of misery would be resolved. It isdeeply unfortunate in our view that the previous howard government baulked at true reform of family law, despite widespread public support, and even those modest reforms keeping father’s in children’s lives could now be wound back. But at least now a detailed record of the hopes and frustrations of so many people is actually on line, documented,undeniable. Available for future researchers. I often wonder how younger generations of fathers, those you now see walking their kids to school or in shopping malls with their children climbing all over them, will deal with all this. Surely there are enough cautionary warnings to suggest further reform is needed so broken hearted dads and children unnecessarily deprived of their fathers becomes a thing ofthe past. All is not lost. But governments are wise to listen to the voices of the people over the those of their own tax payer funded academic, bureaucratic and judicial elites. I hope when the history of all of all this is written dads on the air will be seen as having had a civilising influence on the debate, making available voices and points of view which may otherwise have been ignored. Men are the losers under the present family law regime, but so are we all. Thank you. John stapleton program director dads on the air reflections on the media as if i didn’t have enough to do, for reasons i’m not quite sure of considering the lack of renumeration, i began writing a monthly or sometimes bi-monthly column for the local newspaper the south sydney herald. Perhaps because of its overwhelming left of left political bias i just wanted to be confrontational and try to broaden the scope of its political appeal. Living in the heart of the inner-city, i became friends with trevor davies, whose sister i dated on a number of occasions. Those who hesitate are lost; and that, perhaps sadly, is what happened between us. Although i hear she is happy; and no doubt that chap can make her a damn sight happier than i ever could. But as well as becoming friends i became fiends with her brother, one of the editors, trurbevor davies. Redfern and the surrounding suburbs near sydney university lay claim to making up the most left wing precinct in the country. One day a lady friend, polly, the one blown up in the united nations building in iraq and living happily on a un pension ever since, accompanied me into the polling booth without any house,pretence at not watching who i voted for. Technically illegal maybe, but nothing much got in the way of polly when she set her mind to it. I voted communist in the lower house and the non-custodial parents party in the upper house, just to keep us both happy. Not that my vote would make any difference. Tanya plibersek the labor member romped in on a 70 per cent majority as per usual. I would regularly harangue trevor about broadening the paper’s political appeal to include the home owners and aspiring middle class who were moving into the area, busily.renovating and gentrifying their terraces and moving from the left wing dreams of their youth to the conservative voters of properties and assets. Trevor would have none of it. The good fight was to be fought. The people must rise again; whoever the people were. In his case they were anybody who outraged the establishment. I also got on perfectly well with trevor’s mortal enemy, steve w, who lived in a large white “gone with the wind” style house and was the only “out” conservative voter i ever met. We would happily discuss; sometimes rant, on the many machations of the media and myth making of the media over morning coffee; my attempts to encourage a broader range of views into the paper pretty well fell on deaf ears. Nor did the then editorship understand or sympathize with the notion that running columnists and articles which run counter to the prevailing orthodoxies of your audience promotes a cascade of letters and encourages debate and participation in the media process. Hunting in packs april  john stapleton during the last year, in the not so cool depths of the media currents, a giant shoal of fish changed direction all at once, to the right, or was it the left, they veered sharply, as if controlled by one mind. It's hard to believe that only a year ago to be green was entirely passe, painting the protagonist as a deep scrub hippy who should have stayed on in nimbin. But last year, in this sped up world of high-speed multi-media communication and sweeping intellectual fads lasting barely nano-seconds, was an eternity ago. Way back then, in the dark ages of 2006, there was no surer way to turn off a news editor than to label your issues environmental, yourself a greenie and to prattle on about the future of the planet. Press releases from greenpeace, wwf, landcare, the greens and all the other worthy groups large and small were barely, or rarely, even glanced at as they made their way from the fax machine to the garbage bin; of even less interest than most of the dross that makes up the snow storm of press releases passing through the nation's news rooms on a daily basis. How times have changed. Now it's a crime to leave your kitchen light on by accident, for to do so it to burn up fossil fuels unnecessarily and threaten the very future of the planet. Think of the lives, the species, the shorelines you could have personally protected, if only you hadn't left that light on when you went to work. From the start global warming, or climate change,has been a gift to politicians. It made them look and sound important. You knew when the prime minister john howard, always one to sniff the political wind, started to talk about global warming that the tide had reached vote gathering proportions. Remember him declaring, as he went off to vietnam a few months back, that in his meeting there with us president george bush he would be discussing amongst other things serious issues such as climate change? Oh really? All a galaxy of politicians have had to do was to utter the words "climate change" or "global warming" to appear to be doing something about the single most vital issue facing the planet. Form a committee to discuss how best your government, department, association or kindergarten can best address climate change and by golly, you're a hero. For the media, too, it has been a gift; giving what were once boring environmental stories a ring of importance which guarantee them a run. Just as in the late 1980s, when every second story led with a green angle, driving voiceless farmers to despair, so, too, in 2007. The followers of global warming have been showing serious signs of religious fervour. Indeed it is the perfect religion for the modern age. To be a good guy, to capture the high moral ground, to convert and become at one with a large and growing body of initiates, all you have to do is declare belief. It requires no commitment, training, major sacrifice or discomfort. A simple statement of belief; an expression of concern about the fate of the planet; and you can feel good about yourself, amongst the enlightened.just as the reverend al gore can touch god by turning a few of the lights off around his mansion; so practitioners of the new faith can serve penitence by turning their television off at the wall or by getting a different brand of petrol. It is easy, perfect for the age. It was in this atmosphere of heightened hysteria that australia's opposition leader kevin rudd could slam the prime minister john howard as a climate change sceptic, and be treated seriously, as if being a sceptic was in itself an evil. Does anyone really think any politician in this country could care less what was happening in 50 or a 100 years time? They care about their own survival, they care about feathering their own nest, they care about furthering their own ideological positions. If climate change can serve all those purposes and make them appear busy, important, capable of tackling the big issues in a spirit of self-sacrifice, it is a very convenient vehicle indeed. It is hardly the first time the vicious self-interest that has come to rule our society has been paraded as a worthy issue. In reality, what possible real difference to the future of the planet can a remote and sparsely populated country like australia really make? The arrival of climate change as the new state religion came at just the right time for those seeking a secular belief system. The previous state sponsored religion of multi-culturalism was falling apart under the weight of its own contradictions and hypocricies and the government of the day was moving to change the core tenets of the over-arching belief system, away from m-m-m-multiplicity to unity. Few commentators, and even fewer journalists, have struggled to point out the complexity of the debate over climate change. Sceptics in the scientific community also found themselves swimming against an overwhelming tide. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse, when it was impossible to becme more cloakingly, cloyingly converted to global warming, the sydney morning herald published a green newspaper, literally, aimed at promoting the wwf's earth hour, an event where we could all feel good about saving the planet by turning our lights off for an hour. In the history of australian journalism, the publication of a green edition by the smh, once regularly listed as one of the top 20 broadsheets in the world, was a milestone in the abandonment of perspective. While campaigning journalism is all very well and good, running such propaganda ensured that objectivity was impossible, as the rosy, optimisitic coverage of earth hour demonstrated. Perhaps david salter described it all best, when he called it "a burst of vacuous symbolism designed to flatter the moral vanities of the smh readership while turning a fast buck behind their backs." but don't worry. For those feeling a winter bout of existential angst or spiritual yearning, no need to worry. Big brother is back on. Hunting in packs may 2007 in case you missed the news i'll repeat it here: australia has been ranked 35th and 39th in the world in terms of press freedom by two international journalist organisations, reporters without borders and freedom house respectively. That puts us down there with el salvador and bosnia.australians love to pride themselves on being open-minded and tolerant. Our academics spout endlessly about "diversity" and "multiplicity" while cheerfully condemning the media. The truth is another country. Australia is little better than a communist country with a capitalist gloss. Any independent minded reporter is confronted with a bewildering variety of restrictions on what they can and cannot cover. If you don't believe me, try a few politically incorrect experiments. Try and find out how many acts of vandalism have been perpetrated against christian churches in 2007. You won't get very far. Try and find out what the travel budgets are for the country's most senior judicial figures. The travel budgets of the supreme court or the family court are reputed to be an open scandal. But just try and get a breakdown of their travel budgets. Or to quote an example which has been making the news, try and get a breakdown of the hundreds of thousands of dollars of your money being spent on the prime minister's wine cellar. You won't get anywhere. Under our now frequently abused freedom of information laws police have refused to release a list of the pubs with the highest numbers of alcohol-related incidents, including assault and robbery. Think you have the right to know which schools in this state have the most violent incidents - perhaps so you can avoid sending your child into a dangerous schoolyard? Forget it. A major newspaper has spent more than $40,000 on legal fees so far in an attempt to get a report from the nsw department of education on violent incidents, but after repeated attempts still can't get the full report. The extent to which this secrecy in our public life has developed simply defies belief. A newspaper has even been denied a list of the names of nsw restaurants fined by councils for breaching health food regulations. One simple but effective tool government's have used to rort foi laws has been to make them too expensive for the average citizen. Don't believe me? Try and get your own health, tax or police records; try and find out what information the government has on you personally, and you'll be immediately hit with extensive delays and massive costs. Recently a major newspaper was refused an auditor'[s report on suspected rorts of commonwealth mps' travel expenses. The paper appealed to a tribunal and won, but then the government tried to charge $1 million in fees to hand over the report. The paper could not afford it. Under much dur ess the federal government has finally agreed to release its 18-month-old polls into what the public think of the workchoices legislation - but not until after the forthcoming election. Funny about that. A newspaper recently lost its high court appeal to get the government to release figures on how much extra tax workers have to pay when they get a pay rise. The case cost the paper half a million dollars. Also recently, the federal government claimed it was "not in the public interest" to release information on the first home owners scheme, including the number of wealthy people fraudulently claiming the $7,000 grants under the scheme. A newspaper took the case to the high court and lost. Australian laws now contain more than 500 separate prohibitions and restrictions on what the public is allowed to know. Some vary from state to state, creating huge barriers to accurate and full reporting. Courts are routinely suppressing information, often on spurious grounds. A decade ago, there were fewer than 100 court suppression orders on the media. Now there are more than 1,000 at any one time. Federal prosecutors have a policy of tracking down and prosecuting any public servant found to have leaked official information, even when it is demonstrably and dramatically in the public interest that the information be in the public domain. One of the  most disgusting sights in recent times has been the sight of a judge declaring that he was seriously considering a jail term for the whistle blower convicted for exposing the shocking state of security at our airports and revealing that a number of employees at sydney airport had serious criminal histories or potential links to radical islamic groups. This whistle blower's common decency inexposing the systemic flaws at our airport facilities led to a $22 million upgrade of security and the travelling public is now much safer as a result. He himself is likely to spend years sitting in a jail cell. We are paying taxes so yet another arrogant and out of touch member of the legal caste can jail someone for following their conscience and doing the right thing by the country. Go figure. We are all of us, from those in the media to your average punter, fools for having allowed this to happen. We are all complicit in our own oppression. Both labor and the coalition are guilty of abusing australian democracy by with-holding information that should be in the public domain. But there is no doubt the howard government has been particularly evil in this regard. It was prime minister john howard, to quote just instance, who decided it was more important to play lapdog to the americans and participate in the immoral disaster known as the iraq war, in the face of extensive public opposition. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being poured into utterly dubious foreign adventures with virtually no public support; but just try and find out any information at all on what our troops are really up to. It as become almost impossible to get balanced reports from war zones, as it has been in the past. Our military will cooperate only with embedded journalists to ensure the official line is reported. To combat the mantle of secrecy which has enveloped the operation of governments at all levels in this country australia's largest media organisations, traditionally fierce competitors, have united to form a new coalition to run a public campaign australia's right to know. The group includes news limited, fairfax media, the abc, the commercial television industry body freetv, its radio equivalent commercial radio australia, sbs, wire service aap and broadcaster sky news. At a press conference in may the group outlined plans for a major reappraisal of laws and regulations t hat censor free speech and undermine the right of all australians to get information that is relevant and important to their lives. The industry coalition will commission a national audit on the state of free speech in australia. This report will form the basis of a campaign of public consultation and discussion with government and opposition parties and the judiciary. A joint statement by the group urged all australian governments to embrace urgent reform to redress the erosion of free speech. The statement read in part: "we have joined together because we are deeply troubled by the state of free speech in australia. Freedom ofspeech is one of the fundamental pillars of a free and open society. It is as important as parliamentary democracy and the rule of law in guaranteeing the freedom and rights of all australians. Our freedom to express an opinion, honestly and openly, is under threat. Equally, our ability to report to australians facts about how they are governed and how our courts are administering justice is being severely hampered. Australia now lags well behind most major democracies. Australians deserve to be trusted with information in the same way as citizens of other democracies." sent 24/04/2007 hunting in packs  john stapleton  797 words it's hard to believe that only a year ago to be green was entirely passe, painting the protagnoist as a deep scrub hippy who should have stayed on in nimbin. Way back then, in the dark ages of 2006, there was no surer way to turn off a news editor than to label your issues environmental, yourself a greenie and to prattle on about the future of the planet. Press releases from greenpeace, wwf, landcare, the greens and all the other worthy groups large and small were barely, or rarely, even glanced at as they made their way from the fax machine to the garbage bin.how times have changed. Now it's a crime to leave your kitchen light on by accident, for to do so it to burn up fossil fuels unnecessarily and threaten the very future of the planet. Think of the lives, the species, the shorelines you could have personally protected, if only you hadn't left that light on when you went to work. From the start global warming, or climate change, has been a gift to politicians. It made them look and sound important. You knew when the prime minister john howard, always one to sniff the political wind, started to talk about global warming that the tide had reached vote gathering proportions. All a galaxy of politicians have had to do was to utter the words "climate change" or "global warming" to appear to be doing something about the single most vital issue facing the planet.for the media, too, it has been a gift; giving what were once boring environmental stories a ring of importance which guarantee them a run. Just as in the late 1980s, when every second story led with a green angle, driving voiceless farmers to despair, so, too, in 2007. The followers of global warming have been showing serious signs of religious fervour. Indeed it is the perfect religion for the modern age. To be a good guy, to capture the high moral ground, to convert and become at one with a large and growing body of initiates, all you have to do is declare belief. Just as the reverend al gore can touch god by turning a few of the lights off around his mansion; so practitioners of the new faith can serve penitence by turning their television off at the wall or by getting a different brand of petrol. It is easy, perfect for the age. It was in this atmosphere of heightened hysteria that australia's opposition leader kevin rudd could slam the prime minister john howard as a climate change sceptic, and be treated seriously, as if being a sceptic was in itself an evil. Does anyone really think any politician in this country could care less what was happening in 50 or a 100 years time? They care about their own survival, they care about feathering their own nest, they care about furthering their own ideological positions. If climate change can serve all those purposes and make them appear busy, important, capable of tackling the big issues in a spirit of self-sacrifice, it is a very convenient vehicle indeed. The arrival of climate change as the new state religion came at just the right time for those seeking a secular belief system. The previous state sponsored religion of multi-culturalism was falling apart under the weight of its own contradictions and hypocrisies and the government of the day was moving to change the core tenets of the over-arching belief system, away from m-m-m-multiplicity to unity. Few commentators, and even fewer journalists, have struggled to point out the complexity of the debate over climate change. Sceptics in the scientific community also found themselves swimming against an overwhelming tide. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse, when it was impossible to become more cloakingly, cloyingly converted to global warming, the sydney morning herald published a green newspaper, literally, aimed at promoting the wwf's earth hour, an event where we could all feel good about saving the planet by turning our lights off for an hour. In the history of australian journalism, the publication of a green edition by the smh, once regularly listed as one of the top 20 broadsheets in the world, was a milestone in the abandonment of perspective. While campaigning journalism is all very well and good, running such propaganda ensured that objectivity was impossible, as the rosy, optimistic coverage of earth hour demonstrated.perhaps david salter described it all best, when he called it "a burst of vacuous symbolism designed to flatter the moral vanities of the smh readership while turning a fast buck behind their backs." but don't worry. For those feeling a winter bout of existential angst or spiritual yearning, no need to worry. Big brother is back on. Published after by dota after running into a brick wall with the media section of the australian..

Men and the media - john stapleton

The Sunday Tasmanian has nowhere near the clout or the distribution of mainland papers like the age, the sydney morning herald, the east coast sunday papers or the australian. Yet it is the only newspaper in the country which has reported that the male suicide rate in australia is now at its highest since the depression. The paper puffed the story on its front page last october under the headline "if men were whales" and a full front page picture of a group of men marooned on a sand bank. It began: "more than 40 australian men commit suicide each week. If men were whales, this would cause community outcry and public mourning." the accompanying inside story, the best compilation of male suicide statistics published in australia so far, showed that more men suicided in the last decade than died in world war ii, and the male suicide rate in a single year is four times that of the total number killed in the vietnam conflict. The entire mainland press was creamed on what is a fundamentally important social story. Why? It's not a lack of interest. Reporter simon bevilacqua says: "we had an amazing amount of feedback from people working in the industry, like nothing else, from left, right and centre, from the federal government to people in the industry. There were a lot of people pleased the issue was raised." managing director of media monitors rehame australia peter maher said there was a distinct increase in the reporting of men's issues and the family court throughout 2000. He said "huggy stories" about men wanting to spend more time with their children ran all year with coverage of family law reform peaking in december after the introduction of new jailing provisions into the family law. The government's big push for men in the last year was the men and relationships conference, organised by the office of the status of women.not one newspaper in the country seemed to think it odd that hundreds of thousands of dollars of public funds was spent flying 300 public servants and domestic violence experts from around the country to a very comfortable hotel in sydney for a two-day male bashing exercise of the "all men are violent" type. Not one newspaper raised the point that numerous reputable domestic violence studies show both men and women are equally guilty of domestic violence. , or that the office of the status of women had been previously caught out making exaggerated claims about domestic violence. Nor did anyone seem to think it odd that there had been no invitations to a men's conference issued to anyone from the broad spectrum of men's groups to speak and which clearly failed to address any issues that actually concern men. Indeed adele horin of the sydney morning herald, told a million or so readers: "hardly a single 'angry dad' could be sighted at the men and relationships conference the federal government put on in sydney this week. It was a civilised, hand-picked gathering. New age men. New age women. About 300 in all hopping from workshops on domestic violence, to workshops on men's post-separation services. It was a festival of enlightenment... Those incendiary words 'family court' and 'child support' were barely uttered." why should the disenfranchisement of men's concerns be such a source of delight? In reality this was a "festival of enlightment" most men would have preferred these people held on their own time and at their own expense. The coalition's major effort to review the troubled family law domain has also ignored half of the population. The family pathways advisory group, chaired by a former head of the nsw dept of community services and consisting almost entirely of feminist advocacy groups, feminist academics or industry insiders, has not a single representative of men's groups. That any findings by such an unrepresentative group will lack legitimacy does not appear to bother the government a jot. Their answer to criticisms of the make-up of the group has been that the attorney general has confidence in its members. He might. Half the population doesn't. No newspaper has commented on this. In haste the federal coalition government, which paints itself as standing for family values and probity in public life, has just passed legislation jailing parents who defy family court orders. Both the sydney morning herald and the australian, without speaking to those involved, incorrectly reported that men's groups supported the legislation. In fact jailing is opposed by most men's and women's groups, neither of whom were consulted. Men's groups in particular are opposed, seeing the jailing of former wives as inappropriate and fearing the laws will be mostly used to jail fathers. There have been a number of appalling stories in the international media over the past year on the consequences of these types of laws: a man in the us jailed for three months for ringing his daughter on monday and not sunday suicided within hours of being released; a bus conductor in britain was jailed for waving at his children out the window of a bus. In australia an indian man was jailed for writing to his parents in english, not hindi. The family court was not satisfied he was attempting to comply with their orders. His efforts to point out that his father had two masters degrees in english fell on deaf ears. The story received extensive coverage in the ethnic press, but not a word in the mainstream. The family court has ordered outraged litigants not to contact the united nations over their concerns about the court's conduct. It all began a long time ago. Most of those now in senior positions within the media and in government were in or around universities in the 1970s. Many have not altered their views much since then. It was at a time when germaine greer and the female eunich was at the cutting edge of social commentary, when shulamith firestone's the dialects of sex was course reading in philosophy 1, 2 and 3; when women's courses were just beginning. It was a time when family courts were being founded throughout the western world. What was once the cutting edge, widely supported by many men, became in its playing out in family courts, social welfare departments, domestic violence shelters and all the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of supporting bureaucries, a shock to many of its original male supporters. Fathers have been consistently demonised for more than 20 yearswith relentless anti-male propaganda which has in classic marxist language painting the family as patriarchal nests of violence and abuse. Studies which have consistently shown children to be better off in all ways in intact families or with their fathers have been studiously ignored. In the universities where it all began, the bias against men both in terms of courses and behaviour continues. At the university of nsw a men's issue of tharunka was squashed by the guild council last year. It condemned "any proposal to produce a men's edition or white heterosexual male edition of tharunka. Accordingly, guild council directs the media directors/tharunka editors not to produce any such editions or publish material which contravenes general guild policy or anti-discrimination legislation or which undermines the purpose of women's, lesbian/gay, indigenous or ethnic students departments." at the same time the guild passed a proposal for a women's only edition. A string of stories from american campusses now attracting media attention make helen garner's the first stone look like a picnic. There has been scathing worldwide media attention focussing on family courts throughout the past year. The observer newspaper in London just completed a three month expose into the british family court, concluding that custody evaluation procedures were utterly flawed. They found "a shocking culture producing routine misery on a vast scale for both children and parents". The paper continued: "we have found wide ranging inadequacies in the legal system, ill-trained professionals, badly prepared judges and decision making which is often a lottery." no such investigation has ever been conducted in this country. For many years and to this day the blurring, if not total lack of separation, between women's affairs rounds and social affairs rounds on newspapers, radio and television has meant that the concerns of womens groups are put forward as newsworthy while the concerns of men and fathers are simply ignored. Many of these reporters are women.

As American author of the myth of male power warren farrell, who has written extensively the media's silence on men's issues and what he calls "the lace curtain" says, gender issues are regularly covered by feminists whose gender reinforces their political ideology... Feminism achieved power informally, by becoming the one party system of gender politics: creating a new arena of study, defining the terms, generating the data and becoming the only acceptable source of interpretation." in many of the opinion pages of australian newspapers the words of the women's electoral lobby or other sympathisers are paraded as the cutting edge of social commentary. The opposite view is virtually never put. The so-called "sinister men's groups", to quote the chief justice of the family court, in reality nothing more than groups of people who want to see more of their kids, have long complained of the media bias against them. Lone fathers, dads, fathers against family equity, men's rights and many other smaller groups have all struggled to get their views across against what they perceived as overwhelming odds. Outfunded more than 1000:1, they are no match for the public relations expertise of the womens groups. The media rarely bothers to consult them in any issues affecting families or single parents. Over the years many family law reform campaigners have viewed the wall of silence arrayed against them as some kind of leftist conspiracy. Indeed, as professional surveys have shown, journalists tend to be left leaning partly by the nature of their work and the impulses which drove them to it. Like most people, they tend to want to leave the world a better place, and for some this has meant making a strike for the disadvantaged. Women's groups have managed to define themselves as victims and to draft the entire debate of divorce and the position of single mothers into a left/right, progressive/conservative dichotomy. They have commandeered the much abused phrase "the best interests of children". The concerns of men and fathers have been dismissed in some bracket where according to them lie the rabid one nation voting gun toting four wheel driving "send them back to kitchen" maniacs. But in the new millenium, when most men support their wives in their career choices, it is by no means clear that separated mothers are more disadvantaged than separated fathers. The media has never seriously tackled the most draconian censorship in the country, clause 121 of the family law act, which prohibits the identification of parties to a family court case. It makes coverage of family law issues almost impossible for television. People expressing their views on radio have taken to court purely on voice recognition. The secrecy laws have effectively shielded the court and its decision making from any detailed public scrutiny. This protection spills over into the operations of children's courts, welfare departments such as docs in nsw and human services in victoria as well as the family law units of legal aid. No investigative journalist has ever questioned why if we are in fact in the midst of an epidemic of child sexual abuse as indicated by the number of "substantiations" by welfare officers, why there are so few convictions. The legislation means that the agencies that intrude most into the private lives of individuals have evolved in secrecy. These agencies impact on the lives of millions of australian adults and children, and will impact on them for generations to come. And yet no one questions or exposes the behaviour of lawyers in any of these jurisdictions, their agendas or their use of psychiatric evidence. It's just not politically correct to do so. Imagine, for fun, how pm john howard would appear in a family report by a family court counsellor on a mission from the goddess! Journalists also rarely question the conduct of the protecting bureaucracies and heftily funded academics circling family law. The dictums of the australian institute of family studies, founded under the same legislation as the family court, are repeated as fact. Academics know better than anyone which side their grants are buttered on. The institute has spent far more money on studies of social capital, an academic discourse devoted almost entirely to attempting to define itself, than it ever has in investigating the position of fathers after divorce. It has never properly investigated the high suicide rates of fathers and the linkages to family law. But there are signs of change. Significantly, the australian has run a number of stories and editorials critical of the family court. These were written by then high court writer bernard lane. Lane relied closely on australia law reform commission's reports, whch found overwhelming disquiet with the court and its processes, as well as the questioning of senate committee member and former barrister senator mason, who asked a string of parliamentary questions on the travel budgets of senior judges and delays in the court. The court refused to answer a number of the questions. But while the family court remains something of a sacred cow for most of the media, the same is not true of the child support agency, which has received more hostile or mixed coverage over the past year than ever before. The exception was the daily telegraph, which ran a series kicking off with a screaming headline "child cheaters" and a photograph of a father with a porsche evading child support. It would have been just as easy to find a woman living high on the hog on income from the government, the ex, the latest rich boyfriend and her own business, but that was not to be. But even the tele felt obliged to run a range of views in its followup stories and extracts of letters. The canberra times has broken a string of excellent stories on child support in the past few months; including running on its front page twice in the same week a story on the inquest into a 28 year old man with three children who suicided with a csa letter in his hand. He was losing 80 per cent of his pay in tax and child support. The agency claimed it was treating him fairly. The brisbane courier mail has just run a three part series on child support throwing up a range of moving stories. The adelaide advertiser has also just run an excellent piece called fathers fighting back. With the government having just thrown jailing into the present toxic mix of family breakdown, media interest is unlikely to die off. The day when we have a national council for single fathers as well as one for mothers, the day when shared parenting is the norm after separation, when destructive custody battles are a thing of the past and family courts are a long forgotten institution, is the day when we will be able to say we have truly made progress towards equality in all areas. 

DRUGS AND DRUG REHABILITATION

I was to write numerous stories on drugs, alcoholism and the changing fashions in drug rehabilitation over the decades spent writing for newspapers and magazines. I had done my sociology thesis on bars, it never occurring to me that my interest might be motivated by my own romance with alcohol; a romance that inevitably ends badly.

In the earlier years they were written from very much a liberal standpoint, as the years passed certainties devolved. For example the Sydney Morning Herald published a week long heavily promoted series on heroin, then a major issue in australia, a scourge of the inner-city which was even beginning to play havoc in the country’s more remote townships. Unlike asia, where it’s use has been virtually eradicated, heroin or an even more addictive reprocessed synthetic form, peaked in the 1990s but continued  to remain in widespread usage through  into the new millennium. Only a heroin drought brought on by increased law enforcement measures and a decline in production during the the height of the afghan wars slowed the inflow; while the influx of vietnamese immigrants following the vietnam war provided a whole new ready source. Visually dramatic and of general interest for its shock value to the middle classes or for those genuinely interested in addiction issues as a symptom of the human condition,  these stories remained of general appeal. Drug use patterns in australia are slightly different to the rest of the word. Alcohol is is both legal and wide spread in its usage, a fundamental part of the culture and for many social occasions. Heroin, once regarded by the lou reed generation as very cool indeed, is now regarded as an unfashionable gutter drug.  Amphetamines continue to be widely used by sub-groups, with bikie gangs notoriously in control of the trade. Ice and yabba, in fairly wide use in parts of asia, are hardly known in australia. Ice is occasionally used by groups such as construction workers doing long hours, but is rarely used as a recreational drug and is viewed as a low class preoccupation of the welfare dependence because of its comparative cheapness. Cocaine, selling at $400 a gram, is considered a luxury virtually unknown except amongst  the very top echelons and amongst high class call girls. Marijuana, frowned upon in some parts of the world, is on the other hand widely used by millions of australians who regard a beer and a bong as a perfectly sensible way to end a day.rehabilitation techniques, which i also wrote about extensively, have changed dramatically over the past quarter of a century. Twelve step programs such as narcotics anonymous and alcoholics anonymous, originally developed against a fundamentalist christian backdrop in america during the 1930s and which have since spread around the world, reached their height of popularity during the 1980s. They were widely used in the nation’s to powdetoxification centers because clinicians found them to be effective in helping to sober up previously incorrigible cases.they are now out of fashion with health departments around the country because of their emphasis on a “higher power” or the discovery of “god” as essential to recovery. There is a new emphasis on personal counseling and a program promoting cognitive behavioral therapy called smart recovery.add more published  in the australian 13 december 2006. Speed a promising treatment for ice addiction: expert the street drug speed could be the best treatment for abusers of the popular party drug ice, a visiting expert claimed yesterday. John grabowski, from the university of texas, will be the keynote speaker at a conference in sydney today on ice use.speed, or dex-amphetamine sulphate, poses a high risk of dependency and abuse. The conference has been called by the nsw government and is being attended by government representatives from around australia and international experts. Dr grabowski said one of the most promising treatments for ice, or meth-amphetamine - associated with intense violent and psychotic episodes among habitual users - was the drug commonly known as speed. He said dex-amphetamine was already widely used for the treatment of attention deficit disorder and research suggested it could stabilise ice users. Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar. End of sidebar.

 Dr grabowksi said that while there were political difficulties in using a legal form of a drug to combat its illegal use, research was showing sufficiently positive results to move forward. Just as methadone, a form of opiate, was used for the treatment of heroin addiction, so the use of speed may become acceptable for the treatment of ice addiction. He said there was probably no other way to deal with some hard-core users creating problems for police and hospitals. "there is a population for which i don't see any good alternative," he said.substituting a legal for an illegal drug "avoids all the problems of uncontrolled usage" and was becoming an acceptable treatment in canada, the us and the uk, he said. Dr grabowski said the "compelling and frightening" behaviour of people in the throws of excessive ice use could be addressed by a stable regime of amphetamine use. "their bodies and brains become normal, there is a real sense of recovery," he said. "i would recommend that this be examined carefully and be further implemented."dr grabowski praised the nsw government for its establishment of a drug injecting room and the creation of specialist treatment services for meth-amphetamine use. He said australia had not reached the epidemic proportions of ice use seen in asia or the us, and it could be reduced by a progressive approach to the problem. 

Dr grabowski said he believed the future of ice treatment lay in the development of a new form of amphetamine which can only be taken orally, rather than smoked or injected. The most promising treatment, currently known as nrp104, would be on the market within two years and would probably be widely adopted because unlike speed it could not be easily abused. Nsw health minister john hatzistergos said his government was determined to find solutions to the ice scourge "to reduce crime, prevent family breakdown and help addicts get their life back together".

CHAPTER SIX:

THE CHANGING WORLD OF NEWSPAPERS

By the time he left The Australian in 2009 there had been years of predictions that newspapers were a dying art form, if you could call them that.

Certainly the internet transformed the way people read and absorbed information; and younger generations barely read newspapers at all.

CONCLUSIONS:

THE 25 YEARS THE AUTHOR WORKED AS A STAFF MEMBER ON NEWSPAPERS SAW PROFOUND CHANGES TO THE NATURE OF NEWS GATHERING, OF JOURNALISM AND ITS PRESENTATION. THE NEXT 25 YEARS IS LIKELY TO PROVE JUST AS UNPREDICTABLE. THE WEBSITES, NOW PROVING AS POPULAR AS THE NEWSPAPERS THEMSELVES, THE TWITTERING, THE PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT VIA THE INSTANT CONTRIBUTION OF PERSONAL OPINION OF OLD, RATHER THAN THE STAID LETTER WRITING OF THE PAST WHEN GETTING A LETTER PUBLISHED IN THE PAPER WAS CONSIDERED A MAJOR ACHIEVEMENT IN  ITSELF,

ALL OF THIS FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND LAISSEZ FAIRE APROACH LAY IN THE FUTURE WHEN HE FIRST BEGAN. THE GLIB REFERENCE TO THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD AS THE CITY'S BIBLE FOR THE CHATTERING CLASSES WAS NOT ALL THAT FAR FROM THE TRUTH; IN FORMER DECADES EVERY SENTENCE WHICH APPEARED ON THE NEWS PAGES WAS REGARDED AS SOMETHING AKIN TO THE GOSPEL.