Write to your local MP

Step One:

Find your local member, by clicking on the button below. To find out who your local member is, click here.

Step Two

Send your local member a letter, by clicking on the button below. Simply fill in your name, your local members name and your postal details on the prepared letter.

Email Your Politician Politician's email: Your email: Subject: I am a constituent in your electorate and live in [insert suburb]. My child is currently at risk because of the Shared Parental Responsibility laws and I would like to raise my concerns with you. You may not be aware that the Chief Justice of the Family Court herself, has recently written to the Federal Attorney General asking that urgent changes need to be made to the Family Law Act. The primary reason is that parents are discouraged from reporting abuse in FCA matters because they risk losing custody of the child and/or having to pay both costs if abuse cannot be proven. You are probably are aware that there is currently a review by the Attorney General’s Department. This is due to be handed down in December. It involves many submissions and research being undertaken by the Australian Institute of Family Studies. I hope you will read this report and encourage the implementation of its findings. I would like to bring to your attention certain information which you may not be aware of, in the hope that you can work within parliamentary processes to assist the changing of these laws. If a parent raises abuse allegations, they are often seen by the Court as not promoting a healthy relationship with the father. It is this that puts their own custody of the child in jeopardy. According to the Family Court’s own statistics released in March this year, 267 parents were given access to their children despite proven abuse and violence in 2007-8. These statistics can be seen at: http://www.familycourt.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/FCOA/home/about/Business/Statistics/FCOA_stats_SPR This means, taking the previous five years into account and including the statistics from the Federal Magistrates Court, more than 15,000 Australian children are having access with parents the court has deemed abusive and violent. In some cases, tax payers are funding supervised access at $180/hr when this money could be more usefully used to for treatment of the victims of this abuse. Instead, as one of the mother’s in our group has said “it is akin to being locked in a cage with a tiger for an hour a week”. A grandmother has said: “My grandchildren told the court psychologist how they had to watch their father bash their mother, spit on her, drag her around by the hair and kick her -and then the court said go sit at the court-appointed contact office and have a meaningful access visit.” Then there are all the cases where the abuse has not been proven beyond reasonable doubt and we all know how hard it is to prove child abuse and domestic violence. Many men’s rights groups lobbied politicians with claims, unsupported by research, that mothers raised allegations of abuse to prevent their children having contact with their former partners. This was swallowed unquestioned by the media and politicians. This resulted in recent research showing that 49% of the public believed abuse allegations in custody cases were false and 25% were not sure. And yet there is vast research showing that 90-99% of abuse allegations in custody cases are true, including research by Monash University. The Family Courts, public and politicians have been infected with this because those making the claims have not been asked to produce peer-reviewed research that ‘most abuse claims are false’. The Shared Parental Responsibility laws presume contact with both parents is beneficial to the child even if one parent is violent and abusive when there is much research showing that contact with such parents has long-term harmful effects. The Safer Family Law Campaign and the National Council for Children Post-Separation is asking for a list of changes which can be viewed at http://www.saferfamilylaw.org.au/misc/goals.html . You are probably aware that there is currently a review by the Attorney General’s Department. This is due to be handed down in December. It involves many submissions and research being undertaken by the Australian Institute of Family Studies. I hope you will read this report and support the implementation of its findings. I look forward to hearing from you. Kind regards [insert your name] [insert your contact details]