Parliament votes for more fatherless children

The only true hero in this whole sorry saga was Pauline Hanson who tried again and again to raise the real issues at the heart of this dreadful bill, including those all- important false allegations. She also introduced an amendment to reinstate the presumption of equal shared parental responsibility, which failed. Watch Hanson's mighty efforts in the Senate this week… and weep.

Only three people voted against the bill: Hanson and her One Nation colleague, Malcolm Roberts, along with United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet, who apparently decided to take a stand against it after reading my blog! So that's something…. Many from Labor as well as most of the Opposition abstained – apparently because Labor knew they had the numbers, with Pocock and Lambie's group joining this sorry attack on fathers.

The Opposition is deluding themselves that if they keep their heads down and avoid attracting feminist wrath, they'll be able to stand up and be counted when they get back in power. Stand up for fathers. Do the right thing and reinstate the critical parenting sections of the family law bill.

Why would we trust them? We watched as Malcolm Turnbull and then Scott Morrison sold men out at every possible opportunity. Pandered to the women's vote, pouring more money into the domestic violence rivers of gold, denouncing toxic masculinity, failing to defend men against false allegations, apologising to Brittany Higgins. The list goes on.

It's been such an exhausting week, but I take heart from last weekend's vote on The Voice referendum. Whatever your view on this complex issue, it showed ordinary Australians are prepared to stick a finger up at the powerful political, cultural and business elites who gave their near-unanimous backing to this controversial referendum. "Collectively, we didn't just say 'No' – we shouted, 'No bloody way! Bugger off Albo… Tell 'im he's dreamin'!" wrote John Mikkelsen on Spectator Australia online.

Don't you reckon that even more ordinary Aussies would stand up and be counted if they knew about this appallingly damaging new Family Law bill, rammed through parliament this week with no proper scrutiny and no mandate?