With special guests:
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Barry Maley
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Dr Elizabeth Celi and
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Sue Price.
We start the program interviewing Barry Maley, who is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney. Barry has released a report Family on the Edge – Stability and Fertility in Prosperity and Recession in which there are surprising findings leading to some major recommendations. Birth rates have been studied between a low point of 2001 and a recent high point of 1.93 per woman in 2008. The increase is strongly associated with the rising prosperity of that period. With the financial threats and the continuing prevalence of children bei ng born to single mothers Barry argues for a change in family law and policies to encourage family stability. This would be a major factor in being able to sustain the buoyant birth rate.
Our second interview is with Dr Elizabeth Celi, well known Psychologist and social commentator who in the course of her work in mental health has encountered examples of domestic abuse which are sometimes too subtle to affect our sensibility. Elizabeth discusses recent television advertisements that would cause immediate offence if a female character were to be substituted for the male character in the script. We also talk about communication strategies and ways that can improve relationships and mental health.
Our final interview is with Sue Price from the Men’s Rights Agency. Sue has been conducting a survey on the Family Relationship Centres and we discuss progress with the survey. One of the problems that has been identified so far is with regard to a particular psychological theory that may be imposed by the Centres. We might have expected that the Centres would use the Government money to mediate and listen to the parties rather than impose a particular theoretical approach on the parties in dispute.
In coming weeks we will be presenting interviews obtained at the National Men’s Health Gathering held in Newcastle last week, at which Dads on the Air was represented by Peter van de Voorde and Greg Andresen.