Don't mention the war!

Now the war was on, with magistrates' courts overwhelmed with false violence accusations which most magistrates have acknowledged are being used to gain strategic advantage in child custody matters. A survey of 38 magistrates in Queensland found 74% agreed restraining orders are often used for tactical purposes. Similarly, 90% of 68 NSW magistrates agreed restraining orders are often sought as tactical devices in family law disputes, "serving to deprive former partners of contact with their children."

In a national survey of over 2,500 respondents, more than half agreed that "women going through custody battles often make up or exaggerate claims of domestic violence in order to improve their case."

People know this is happening – including police who are starting to speak out about the enormous amount of their time consumed by false allegations. Two years ago the Queensland Police Union made a submission to a family law inquiry pointing out that false allegations of domestic violence are regularly used to gain advantage in family law disputes, with members of the police force sometimes finding themselves on the receiving end.

In some areas of Queensland, domestic violence takes up to 80% of police time. Note that in NSW, domestic violence assaults make up only 4.8% of major crimes but take up 50-70% of police time. Many of you will have seen the YouTube video I made some years ago with the retired NSW police chief voicing his frustration that the domestic violence racket requires police to administer unjust laws.

That's the current reality. But now, without any mandate from the electorate and ignoring recommendations from a series of inquiries, this Labor government is taking matters a huge leap further. They are wiping out any mention in the law of children's rights to two parents in their lives, removing the joint presumption of shared parental responsibility and ditching the requirement to consider shared or substantial care in parenting plans – the key elements which promote the sharing of parenting.

(Note that the 2006 Act didn't promote shared equal care – as was sometimes assumed – but did result in many more dads having substantial care of their children. The real impact was outside the courts where sensible parents made decisions about post separation parenting, by themselves, or with a lawyer or mediator. Many bought the message in the Act that children needed their dads.)

But under the new Act shared care is only to be considered "when it is safe to do so." There's an expanded list of excuses for mothers to contravene contact orders, it will be easier to brand a man a "vexatious litigant" which effectively bans him from returning to court. And so it goes on.

(Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has even announced a new bill next year promising a greater share of the marital assets to victims of violence. How's that for a powerful financial incentive to add to the massive handouts already available to alleged victims, which I described in my blog last year on the domestic violence gravy train? Dreyfus has proved himself a lying weasel, having falsely claimed that previous inquiries had recommended his proposed changes, which he describes as "minor" and in the best interests of children.)

What's absolutely shocking is that these momentous changes sailed through the lower house of parliament, with barely a whimper of protest. The Opposition voted against the bill but didn't even have the gumption to move an amendment to try to get joint parental responsibility reinstated. Yes, it wouldn't have got through with Labor and the Greens, the anti-male Teals and Jacquie Lambie's group all lined up to pretend the whole thing was just about keeping children safe. But surely their constituents would have liked to see them put up a fight.

AND NO ONE DARED MENTION THE WAR. Not a single word was spoken in parliament about false allegations – yet most parliamentarians are all too aware of this elephant in the room. But they didn't dare name it, knowing our feminist-led media would destroy anyone who told the truth about what is going on here. The domestic violence card worked brilliantly to silence all proper debate about the Bill.

Not one of our wimpish representatives had the guts to point out what every judge, magistrate, lawyer and police officer knows to be the case – that these changes to the law will bring poorer outcomes for children, a fresh flood of new accusations against fathers, more conflict between divorced parents, a huge surge in litigation as men pay out to try to see their children, and more suicides for men as they realise that their chances of a fair hearing in an already biased court system will now be further reduced.

In the third week of October comes the final debate in the Senate – presumably the government is counting on the media being distracted by The Voice referendum that previous weekend to ensure it passes largely unnoticed. At least we can count on brave Pauline Hanson to speak out. Four years ago, she was the only person prepared to call out the false allegation racket, demanding this should be part of the Morrison government Family Law inquiry, where she was the co-chair. She was slammed by our mainstream media for daring to raise the issue and ultimately snowed, when the inquiry was stacked by ideologues who refused to properly address the key questions.