Chief Justice Diana Bryant said the under-resourcing of the Family Court of Australia is leading to the deaths of children in an interview she gave on the 29th March 2016. At the same time Independent Senator John Madigan has said the liberals are “continuing to ignore repeated requests for a root-and-branch reform of the Family Court” after a senate vote in February supporting it.
While the Family Court of Australia crumbles the only family dispute matter the Australian media and Australian politicians have focused on is the jailing of Channel 9’s 60 Minutes crew in Lebanon for their role in abducting children.
If you read below what Chief Justice Diana Bryant and Senator John Madigan say in regards to the Family Court it becomes very clear that the Australian media and Australian politicians have their priorities and focus badly wrong.
Chief Justice Diana Bryant’s dire warning – Interview 29/3/16
Family Court Chief Justice Diana Bryant says her court does not have the resources it needs to protect parents and children from violence and admits it may be failing some families.
She has urged the government to set aside more funding to help the court triage serious allegations of family violence to ensure safety of children. “What I’m trying to do is … say to the government as a whole: if you are really serious about deaths of children, because that’s what this is about, and having a proper, viable system, we really do need to look at funding the courts properly,” she said.
“With a modest amount … you could make a really big difference to the system.”
Chief Justice Bryant said judges in the Family Court and Federal Circuit Court were getting at most two hours — and often less — to put in place interim parenting arrangements for children, which held for up to three years until a final hearing could take place. (Click here to read more)
I am no fan of Chief Justice Bryant as a lot of the problems with the Family Court have continued under her management but that is a massive statement by her and dictates a full and proper response, if not an inquiry, by the government. The fact that the government or opposition parties haven’t responded, to my knowledge, is disturbing.
Independent Senator for Victoria John Madigan – Press release – April 19, 2016
It is pretty sad when a whole country is reliant on one Independent Senator to drive such an important issue. Below is a media release from Victorian Senator John Madigan. (He has his own political party called the “Manufacturing and Farming Party“)
Curious, George stays silent on family law chaos
Independent Senator for Victoria John Madigan says the lack of action by Attorney General George Brandis on the chaos in the Family Court shows the government is asleep at the wheel.
Senator Madigan said Senator Brandis was continuing to ignore repeated requests for a root-and-branch reform of the Family Court, including a Senate motion in February for the government to act.
On March 10 Senator Madigan wrote to the Attorney-General requesting a response to the motion.
And two weeks ago Senator Madigan contacted the office of the Attorney General via a second letter. Senator Madigan has yet to receive a response, or even acknowledgement of his correspondence.
“This is unacceptable behaviour from the highest legal advisor in the country,” Senator Madigan said.
“The Family Court system is in turmoil. Australian families are suffering. Australian children are suffering – and this government wallows in self obsession. It is consumed with its own election chances and is asleep at the wheel on this important issue.
“The motion was supported by the Senate back in early February of this year. What has the government been doing for over two months? The Attorney-General needs to get on with it and put Family Court at the top of his agenda.
“We, as politicians, need to use our power to give a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves on this most important issue. The government is sitting on the fence while so many Australians continue to suffer due to family law proceedings.”
Senator Madigan said he would continue to apply the pressure on the Attorney-General and would personally seek an explanation. (Click here to read more)
Children’s Commissioner Megan Mitchell has also questioned the ability of the Family Court of Australia to do its job.
“Children’s Commissioner Megan Mitchell has questioned whether family courts can properly deal with the damage family violence does to children at the centre of custody battles.” (Click here to read more)
Sixty minutes and their misguided focus
At any time, the shortcomings of the Family Court should be big news but even more so given that it is a federal election year and what the major parties will and won’t do to fix the Family Court’s problems should be given widespread media coverage.
But unfortunately, at this point in time at least, the media’s reporting on family dispute matters is focused on Channel 9’s 60 Minutes paying for child snatchers and then allegedly “bribing” their way out of a Lebanese jail. There are so many lies being told at the moment we will probably never find out the entire truth of what Channel 9 did. Although one thing is clear and that is their own internal inquiry which they announced will be a whitewash as they are not going to openly admit to what is fairly obvious and that is they paid for people to commit the crime of kidnapping.
If the Australian media spent the same amount of time reporting on the real issues of the Family Court as the time they have spent reporting the 60 Minutes story then I suspect that all politicians would have genuine policies on the table for the election. Then real change and improvement wouldn’t be too far away.
KCA and reporting on the Family Court of Australia
I don’t write about the Family Court very often as there are legal restrictions on what can and cannot be said in cases which limits what can be reported. Although I have written extensively about the dodgy background of Chief Judge John Pascoe of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia whose court has responsibility for hearing about 85% of Family Court matters.
There is a lot that could be written about this subject but at this point I think everyone should focus on Chief Justice Diana Bryant’s statement “if you are really serious about deaths of children, because that’s what this is about” and the failure of any politician to respond.
I’ll be doing what I can but it is really up to everyone to make Family Court reform an election issue as it clearly should be. If the major parties do not do produce decent policies very soon regarding Family Court reform then I have no doubt that Senator John Madigan will be getting quite a few votes at the federal election which the Prime Minister said is is most likely to be on the 2nd of July.
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Have been saying for many many years the FLC makes horror mistakes – hands children to the wrong parent – children suffer – psychologically and physically for many years after if the child given without any background pursuing to the abusive parent.
We hear much about domestic violence and the propaganda is leveled at men. There are many instances of female physical and verbal violence against their own children and partners. It is always the children who are the victims of violence. We have a license for most things these days – there should be a license for becoming a parent.
Yep. I know first hand about violence against men. The mother of my kids got enraged, pushed me down, threw a couple of things at me and almost broke a window, then ran out to the phone and called 000, crying, saying she was in danger. The Maternal Chinld Health nurse many years ago warned me about the mother, saying she’s seen many cases where they go after your house. She has (fraudulently) planted the seed of a “history of abuse” against her with that call. Funny… the very first question the MCH nurse asked her when we all first met was “Are you taking any medications for your anxiety?” That pretty much sums it up.
As for the license for becoming a parent – definitely not. Are you seriously wanting the same criminals who hijacked the system to have control over your RIGHT to have children? This is already being abused – people wanting to undergo IVF in Victoria need corrupt police/government permission (police criminal report) to have a child. And they justify it by saying this is protection against paedophiles. This is a massive step to complete enslavement.of the human species.
Is there one Government Department, Court or State that is not demanding more taxpayers money to operate efficiently?.
The country is drowning in debt and yet we have every government funded organisation crying poor and demanding additional funding.
When these overpaid, self important individuals going to learn to budget and operate efficiently within their budgets?.
To use the safety of children in an attempt to extract more money from a cash strapped government is scraping the bottom of the barrel.
The Family Court does not need more judges as claimed by the Attorney General and other senior legal figures. If it needs judges at all they should be chosen by a transparent process for their qualities. It has only recently emerged that judges do not have the training and expertise to deal with children. Yet clients wanting to help abused children are being deceived by their lawyers into embarking on useless and financially damaging court action. In the Family Court lawyers often coerce clients into signing so-called Consent Orders which are then rubber-stamped by a magistrate or judge and cannot be reversed.
And then we have FCA Chief Justice Dianna Bryant as “Head Patron” of feminist group Australian Women Layers. AWL do not permit male membership, and their main goal is promoting more females to the bench as Magistrates of FCA. AWL is not a Government entity, it’s a private company. How many Australian businesses would love to have a Chief Justice acting in the interests of their business/industry?
Family Court Chief Justice the Hon Diana Bryant has many roles. As far as I can tell none of them has anything to do with the welfare and safety of children.
This part of the law and courts has never done children Justice and for all the children and parents who have been in this court are discussed with it like my self
Thank you for getting onto this issue.
The failure of the Family law courts and their inability to reform for the benefit of the families who need them are only a symptom of a far far far greater evil. The fact that their legal lawyer driven process has destroyed the asset bases of hundreds of thousands of Australian Families for the benefit of the legal profession, whilst at the same time driving these families towards poverty, and a far greater risk for the children involved being subjected towards a life of social dis-functionality through the loss of educational opportunity and the exposure to drugs and crime after being directly exposed to a family breakdown is living proof that our legal system does not acknowledge the fact that families are the core and fundamental component of our society and it is the responsibility of our legal profession and our parliament to implement that fact into our legal culture, because at the moment it does not exist.
Currently there six different lawyer kingdoms within Australia which are our six separate states that are governed through six separate sets of State Laws. These lawyer kingdoms do not acknowledge the consumer rights of their customer base and in Victoria they are not bound by the Victorian Charter of Human Rights. The agencies that have been set up to ensure this industry behaves itself are all run by members of the profession (Lawyers) they are supposed to police. That is The Legal Services Commissioner, Consumer affairs, The State Ombudsman and each relevant attorney generals department.
When we see that the only representative John Madigan in our Parliament who will stand up for families, and the four major political parties that is Liberal, Labor, The Greens and the National Party is a national disgrace.
As a community we all need to ask our politicians what they are going to do about the cancer that is our legal profession and put pressure on our main stream media to bring on this discussion so as we can make our nation the one it is supposed to become instead of the nation of the Shorne Sheep. Note (SS)
I am of the view that the Family Court is responsible for endangering children with it’s consistent pro-mother rulings. Even when the mother is on drugs the family court will rule in her favour against a father. It’s about time that the government swept the family court clean of man hating feminazis.
Another big question surrounding this particular case of International Patental Child Abduction (IPCA) is why the Australian Government continually rejects calls for it to be made a general criminal offence. It is only a criminal offence when parenting matters are before the FCA at the time of the abduction, which is a very small number of cases each year. This is a very big question for the hundreds of parents whose kids are abducted from this country every year who are not before the FCA at the time of the abduction. These parents and their abducted kids receive much less support from the government.
You’re right of course. Funny though isn’t it, if you are an Aussie you cannot even move your children interstate unless the other parent grants their permission even if it is in the child’s best interest.
Family courts of Australia has the Blood of Innocent kid’s on there hands . Focusing Totally on a monetary Policy too Fix any and All issues. Forgetting the none Custodial parent just in forcing pay pay and pay more with Zero Attention too Too the Kid’s real requirements.
I do not believe throwing money at the problem will fix anything. The entire system needs to be analyzed. It has been stated that the courts aren’t equipped to deal with child physical & or sexual abuse. Matters of this nature need to be streamlined & thoroughly dealt with by specialist teams. Children’s lives are at extreme risk. Also penalise parents who make false allegations against the other parent,
Courts in Australia when it comes to domestic violence are joke, if woman are committing the violence. I have experienced this personally , and my question is when do the police , child protection and judges become defendants , to the crime?
This needs a lot more publicity ,the media and current Affair shows need to start getting on board and interviewing people who have experienced these wrong doings so they can tell their story’s of bias and curuption in the courts and of every legal person involved , courts need to be held accountable for their decisions as it is a crime, I hope something happens real soon ,every minute counts. Decisions should be made as if it were their own child instead of turning blind eyes and they need to listen to the children more, slot of them may be young but let’s face it, that where you will find the honesty.
I tried to contact TV reporters and journalists to tell true tragic story about our grandson living with drug addicted parents and step parents, but none program or news paper could tell my story due to privacy policy which protects drug addicts and Child Protection deparment?????…. Unbelievable…. Nobody cares about kids. Everyone is hiding behind privacy law????…. WHO WILL PROTECT OUR KIDS????….