Family Law, Marriage and Men

With special guests:

• Sue Price
• Ian Purdie and
• Warwick Marsh. 

This week we present an extensive discussion with Sue Price of the Men’s Rights Agency, on the topic of the proposed roll back of Australian Shared Parenting laws. These laws which are only three years old and which presented a tiny glimmer of hope for the nations’ children to continue to maintain regular contact with both parents, following their parents’ separation, are now again under threat by a Labor Government.

Next our own Ian Purdie from Ian Purdie dot com, speaks about his recent trip to Las Vegas, where he was best man at his mates’ wedding. While some would regard this type of wedding as somewhat bizarre and plastic, Ian enjoyed every minute of it and speaks about being driven to the wedding in a stretch limousine, seeing the names of the bride and groom in neon lights and watching the wedding ceremony being performed by Elvis.

The final guest this week is Warwick Marsh from the Fatherhood Foundation. Warwick speaks about the upcoming International Men’s Day celebrations planned for the 19th November, and of his work to bring this event to the attention of our Parliamentarians and the community. This International event will also be the main feature of our program next week, when we will speak with International organizers of this event from India, Australia, Trinidad and the USA.

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Indigenous Men's Health

With special guests:

• Ashley Gordon and

• Craig Hammond.   
  

This week we’re broadcasting to you from the opening of the week long National Men’s Health Gathering in Newcastle, which is about 2 hours north of Sydney. This national event occurs every alternate year and the whole week is dedicated to the health issues facing men today and how we can best deal with those issues.

The state of health of Australian men has been ignored and neglected for many decades by successive governments, while at the same time, the cultural landscape for men, has in recent times come under severe attack from many sources, causing a further deterioration in the well being of the nations’ men and boys.  

We are dedicating the whole of this weeks’ program to the opening day at this year’s National Men’s Health Gathering, which starts the week with the 5th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Male Health Convention.

We also speak with former rugby league star Ashley Gordon, “Aboriginal people and gambling” a dedicated Aboriginal leader and one of the organisers of the convention. Ashley is joined by fellow convention organiser and Aboriginal leader Craig Hammond, “The Brothers Inside Project” who is also committed to improving the physical and mental health of the nations’ Indigenous men.

If we want to see what is in store for our men and our culture, we need look no further then the enormous task faced by our Indigenous community to restore the health, dignity and well being of their men and boys. To their great credit and our national shame these communities are working hard to re-engage their once proud Men and have their cultural landscape restored.

The deplorable state of mens’ health in Australia,  is in no small part due to the fact that it has by and large been ignored by Australian governments and the media. Despite the fact that we are proud to be able to claim that Dads On The Air were the only media organisation to cover this important national week long event, it is an absolute disgrace that the nations’ media completely ignored reporting on this event and the dire state of our mens’ health.

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Men's Business

With special guest:

• Ian Watson.    
  

A leader in the field of mentoring his fellow man, Ian Watson is a shining light of hope and encouragement to those suffering at the hands of agenda driven zealots, who are hell bent on destroying the resilience and natural inner strength of men and boys. 

He runs popular monthly men’s gatherings where men talk men’s business. Ian’s well attended “Transit Lounge” gatherings, provide a welcome sanctuary from the many real life experiences men suffer at the hands of government sponsored agencies and the media, whilst many of their kids are forced to live in fatherless households.

While the gender war against men and boys rages unabated around the globe, we see an apathetic and ignorant community laughing at all the demeaning anti male advertising propaganda, that sees them easily drawn into joining the “all men are perpetrators ” domestic violence hysteria. 

However, there are encouraging signs that men have just about had enough, and are collectively starting to show their enthusiasm for more pro-active engagement with one another. Mentoring is fast becoming the accepted new communication tool to support those that have fallen victim to some of the worse excesses of male bashing persecution, the world has ever witnessed.
 
We also broadcast a recording made at the National Men’s Health Convention recently, of the presentation made by psychologist Drew Cowen who works in the Family Court in Newcastle, and who’s theme was “Giving Kids the Best Dad they can have: Helping Fathers and Kids to have strong healthy relationships when they don’t live in the same home”.
 
Now on the face of it, such a caring sounding title would indicate an understanding of what fathers and their kids are forced to endure , as they desperately try to keep their parent/child relationships intact following separation. But to many dads in the audience it appeared that the one preaching to them, was part of the problem and not the solution.

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Behind The Black Robes

With special guests:

• Barbara C. Johnson and    

• Paul Stolz.

We commence this weeks’ program speaking with American lawyer and author Barbara C. Johnson who’s latest book “Behind the Black Robes: Failed Justice” which has just become available. This book addresses a serious problem, the need for court reform and the abolishment of judicial and quasi-judicial immunity. Marinated with the makings of sizzle, the book is filled with the courts’ tricks and traps for the unwary. It sets out to alert the readers both why their law cases failed and what must be done to effect court reform.

Barbara C. Johnson is an unconventional 74 year-old, who has long been a fierce advocate for fathers’ rights in family courts. She is an outspoken critic of the Massachusetts court system, which she says is rife with corruption.

Secondly we speak with Paul Stolz, who is the CEO of Victorian support group “Evolve” which provides a supportive environment for disadvantaged young people to evolve into strong, caring and purposeful individuals.

Young men in today’s society face many challenges – they are struggling educationally, emotionally and socially. Without early intervention and on-going support, many are at risk of tragic futures involving broken relationships, crime, substance abuse and even suicide.

Evolve’s Young Men’s Program is an early-intervention option for young blokes who want to work through their challenges and build a more positive future for themselves.

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Threats To The Family

With special guests:

• Barry Maley   
  

• Dr Elizabeth Celi and

• 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.

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Action On Men's Health

With special guests:

• Greg Andresen 
  

• Ray Kelly and

• Geoffrey Greene. 

We start the program by doing a live cross to the National Men’s Health Gathering 2009, being held in the city of Newcastle. Greg Andresen reports on the planned activities for the four day event. While a significant national event, which only takes place every alternate year, it sees Dads on the Air as the only member of the national news media to attend this important National Convention on Men’s Health issues, for the full week.

Greg Andresen and Peter van de Voorde, who are representing Dads on the air at the conference, will be recording a number of presentations and have planned a series of interviews with leading participants that will be aired in coming weeks on our program.

Our second interview is with Indigenous leader Ray Kelly, an academic based at Newcastle University, who gave the opening presentation at the 5th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Male Health Convention. This Convention was the forerunner to the National Men’s Health Conference and the National Family and Relationships Forum, and was devoted to Indigenous issues where men’s health issues are even more predominant than in the general community.

We also speak with Geoffrey Greene the President of the Shared Parenting Council of Australia, about the three separate inquiries into Family Law being conducted by the Rudd Government. He argued that despite the concerted push to wind back the Family Law reforms introduced by the Howard government, the Trade Union movement would be a force within the ALP to block these changes. The Union movement wants to avoid a return to the dark ages when fathers only saw their children intermittently, if at all, following separation.

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Men Caring For Men

With special guests:

• Paul Elam and

• Prof. Robert McLachlan.  

First up we speak with Paul Elam, who is the Editor–in-Chief of the world’s leading men’s website  Mens News Daily and the publisher of A Voice for Men.

Paul worked as a men’s rights advocate for two decades in the mental health field, advocating on behalf of men that were affected by misandry and feminist doctrine in clinical treatment settings. Paul focuses his efforts now on exposing the mendacities of modern feminism, especially in their impact on the daily lives of men.

Our second interview is with Professor Robert McLachlan who is a Principal Research Fellow at Prince Henry’s Institute and is Deputy Director of Endocrinology at the Monash Medical Centre as well as being the secretary of the International Society of Andrology.

He specialises in the area of male reproductive medicine and has made significant contributions to the research in endocrinology, infertility and andrology.  He combines his academic career with active clinical practice as a consultant in these fields.

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Iron John

With special guest:

• “Athol”.  

This weeks show deals with American author, Robert Bly’s insightful interpretation of the Grimms brothers fairy tale “Iron John”.  “Iron John” tells the story of a boy who is mentored by a wild man thru various trials and tribulations to emerge a hero and eventually marry the King’s daughter.  

Iron John is also the name of a men’s group based in Sydney that meets regularly and deals with issues arising in its member’s lives. We are privileged to interview one of the members of this group who identifies himself as Athol. 

In his book, ‘Iron John; a story about men’ Bly interprets the original tale, explaining its relevance to the development of the pre-industrial male psyche whilst lamenting the failures of modern society to correctly initiate boys into manhood and the subsequent disastrous impacts upon the lives of modern men and women.

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The Emasculated Vikings

With special guest:

• Joakim Ramstedt.  

Today we speak with well known Swedish musician, human rights activists and political Blogger, Joakim Ramstedt. He and his popular band Tequila Sunrise have released a new album, with many of the songs referring to the various elements that comprise the destructive International family justice system, which is doing so much harm to unsuspecting separating parents and their children around the globe.

Throughout history, people have found ways to separate children either from one or both of their parents and extended families. This phenomenon can be traced right back to medieval times.

Modern man has fine tuned the methods used to accomplish this insidious practice and has even found a way to make it legal to do so, by creating a court of law that hides behind the mantle of “In the best interest of the children”, while it severs many of the world’s children from half of their biological family tree.

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Facts Versus Myths

With special guest:

• Sue Price.  

Once again we continue with the ever present need to put the record straight and expose the truth behind the myths and disinformation generally being presented in the media, regarding the many factors surrounding the family justice system.

Our editorial position is that, unless policies and programs are formulated as a result of sound research which is grounded in verifiable facts about the nature, extend and causes of the problems, we will never achieve a just and equitable outcome and separating families will continue to suffer as a result.

This week our guest is Sue Price of the ‘Mens Rights Agency’. As always Sue points out the urgent need for better reporting and the necessity for correct analysis of the operation of the current system and in particular the success or otherwise of the mediation centers which were set up by the Howard government, as a first point of call for broken families.

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Marriage Matters

With special guests:

• Warwick Marsh  and

• Bill Kable.

First we speak with the founder of the Dads4Kids Fatherhood Foundation, which is now Australia’s largest pro-father, pro-marriage and pro-family charity, Warwick Marsh.

Warwick, together with his wife and daughter, recently attended the Smart Marriages Conference in Florida, USA. During his US tour in July, Warwick met with leaders in the American fatherhood and marriage movement and recorded many interviews for TV and radio. He speaks with us about his recent tour and his passion to promote marriage and the virtues of staying together for better or worse.

Next we introduce the newest member of the Dads on the Air team, Bill Kable. Bill is a Sydney lawyer who is also a professional mediator with a mission to encourage fathers to take an active role in the lives of their children, and to ensure they remain in the lives of their children should parental separation occur.  

Bill speaks candidly about some of his own experiences with the family justice system, and how it fails non custodial parents and their children, especially in the area of non-enforcement of contact orders.  

Also in the studio were two other new members of the Dads on the Air team, Bill’s wife Catherine, a University lecturer and Trevor Miller, a retired ABC TV editor. All of whom have had extensive experience with the family justice system and realize the urgent need to ensure the nation’s children obtain real equal shared parenting time with both of their  parents, following parental separation.  Welcome aboard. 

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Empowering Gender Equality

With special guests:

• Jeffrey Asher and

• Geoffrey Greene.
  

First up we speak with the newly appointed President of the Shared Parenting Council of Australia Geoffrey Greene, who was a key figure in the establishment of the Council 8 years ago and a key figure in pushing through the moderate reforms to family law by the previous Australian government; reforms which now look like they will be wound back by a Labor government and a few key feminist ministers.

Secondly we speak with Canadian academic Jeffrey Asher, formerly of Dawson College, who taught on the statistical merits of sexual politics and in the autumn of 1994, offered students at Dawson College the only course in Canada on ‘Men’s Lives’. Following 6 years of unrelenting pressure from extreme feminists, he was finally forced to resign and abandon the course in 2000. “My father taught me to respect ladies and that human rights were indivisible. In the 1970s, I lectured on sexual equality of opportunity and equality before the law. Like most men, my naivete about feminist politics was sustained by raging hormones”.

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The Menace of Extreme Feminism

With special guests:

• Amfortas.
  

This week we look at the struggle of the community to deal with the outrageous effects of extreme feminist dogma on our daily lives. Much of the discourse centers around myths and rogue statistics which paint a very negative picture of the men and boys in our communities.

This propaganda machine which rolls out a production line of inaccurate information of a misandrist nature, is being used as a template to formulate anti male government policy, and which is proving so detrimental to the health and well-being of the males in our society.

Unfortunately our leaders ignore community calls for them to more aggressively enquire about the accuracy of the anti male information they receive, and on which they base their judgement and ultimately cast their vote.

We recently saw our Australian federal opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, make the mistake of not checking the accuracy of the information presented to him. He did this to his own detriment and is now paying the political price for ignoring the need for scrutiny.

Yet when Senator Steve Fielding goes on a search for the truth regarding the global warming climate debate, he is ridiculed by fellow politicians and the media, for doing so. While at the same time government members, like lemmings jumping over a cliff, blindly toe the anti-male line and continue to refuse to question the accuracy of the extreme feminist dogma that permeates our corridors of power, and continue to vote against equality and justice for men.

Amfortas together with other concerned citizens, has put together an excellent series of podcasts on the need for accuracy in reporting, on what can only be described as the human rights abuses of men and boys, and explains how, when and why, this is happening.

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The Canadian Special

With special guests:

• Karen Selick
• Rodger Gallaway and
• Jeffrey Asher.

This week we look at the struggle for family law reform in Canada, the home of some of the world’s most extreme anti-male anti-father legislation. Recently Dads On The Air interviewed Canadian MP Maurice Vellacot, who has introduced shared parenting legislation into the Canadian parliament. This week we follow on from that interview by talking with the highly experienced family lawyer Karen Selick, who has been an outspoken proponent for reform of the system; Roger Gallaway MP, who co-chaired an inquiry into shared parenting in Canada and Jeffrey Asher, a lecturer on men’s studies who taught the last men’s studies course in the country.

With Australia’s left wing government heading in exactly the opposite direction to the rest of the western world and winding back the modest reforms of the previous government promoting cooperative care of children after divorce, now is the perfect time to look at the situation around the world. Canadian society and many tens of thousands of fathers and their children have paid a very high price for the country’s previous embrace of extreme anti-male ideology; and numerous voices are now united in a call for sanity to prevail.

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The Mandarins and the Masses

With special guests:

• Amfortas

Over the past week father’s activists around Australia have been appalled by announcements from the Australian Labor government that it intends winding back the 2006 reforms to family law which promoted more cooperative arrangements after divorce or separation.

The government is conduction three separate inquiries into family law, inappropriately linking the inquiries with domestic violence. Not one of them consults the views of fathers or even the general public. There could be no clearer case of the mandarins regarding the great unwashed with contempt and not trusting their opinions, because after all there is strong public support for shared parenting.

Against this background, this week we play samples from the compelling podcasts compiled by a private practicing psychologist with 25 years experience who is driven by his own experiences and the experiences of many of his clients. He goes by the handle Amfortas, after the keeper of the Holy Grail. “I am a Men’s rights activist who is fighting against the excesses of feminism and the deleterious affects they are having on our public policies, particularly as they affect families and children,” he says. “I am not at all embarrassed by the use of the term Men’s rights, even if its unfashionable. Men’s rights are part of human rights.”

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Democracy At Work

With special guests:

• Neil Humphreys
• Sue Price 
• Michael Woods and
• Benjamin Easton.

This week we range across a wide variety of subjects, talking first up with the ever lively author of a new book on becoming a dad, Be My Baby Neil Humphreys. From the cheery to the rational, we then talk with Sue Price, the founder of the Men’s Rights Agency, arguably the most articulate supporter, of the rights of men in our modern society.

This is followed by a fascinating interview with academic Dr. Michael Woods  UWS, as we take a revealing look at the way the real statistics on Domestic Violence and Child Abuse have been kept from the general public, and how many Government Policies appear to be formulated based on inaccurate information.

We close the show talking with Benjamin Easton a Political Busker, who is participating in a demonstration outside the Bank of New Zealand, protesting their outrageous portrayal of all men as bashers and all women as victims, clearly themselves the victims of domestic violence hysteria. Somewhere along the line they forgot that half their customers are male and most of them object to being portrayed as Neanderthals.

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Healthy Men, Healthy Families, Healthy Nation

With special guests:

• Jeff Kennett and
  
• National Men’s Health Press Conference, Canberra.
  

First up we talk with Jeff Kennett, former Victorian Premier from 1992 to 1999, a man always admired for his outspoken directness. He began the National Depression Initiative Beyond Blue after the death of two of his daughter’s acquaintances. As Premier at that time he was shocked when it was revealed that both the deaths in question were actually as a result of suicidal intent. That started his investigation into what was being done and his involvement in the development of Beyond Blue.

Beyond Blue’s mission is “to provide a national focus and community leadership to increase the capacity of the broader Australian community to prevent depression and respond effectively to it. The aim is to build a society that understands and responds to the personal and social impact of depression, works actively to prevent it and improves the quality of life for everyone affected by it. The steps they have taken are to raise awareness of the problem, to de-stigmatize depression and mental illness in general, to conduct research into the problems of depression and impacts on our society, and to advocate for better government and corporate policies to accommodate and support sufferers of mental illness.”

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Shared Parenting - Why It Works

With special guests:

• Maurice Vellacott
• Michael Green and
• Sue Price.

With moves clearly afoot to wind back the modest reforms of the previous government on shared parenting legislation designed to encourage a relationship between both parents and children after separation, we take a look at the very strong case for shared parenting as the norm post-separation, with advocates arguing it works best for both children and parents - as well as saving the government a great deal of money by encouraging single parents to get off welfare and into work.

Maurice Vellacott is a Canadian Member of Parliament who has just introduced a bill promoting shared parenting into the Canadian legislature. He says a recent poll demonstrated that 78% of Canadians support equal shared parenting, with slightly more women than men supporting co-operative care of children post divorce.

Surveys in Australia have shown similar high levels of support, with the main obstruction to the commonsense notion coming from government bureaucrats and the family law industry itself. Regular guest Sue Price from the unfashionably named Men’s Rights Agency will talk about the devastating impacts on individuals and the broader community of the sole-mother custody model which has done so much harm over recent decades. She dismisses the current spirited campaign by feminist lobby groups outside Family Courts as nothing but hysterical male bashing by people with absolutely no knowledge of family law.

We close the show with an extended interview with Michael Green QC, author of the book Shared Parenting, who is also alarmed at the current moves to unwind shared parenting legislation. He argues that with legislation in many jurisdictions now enshrining shared parental responsibility and parenting time, there is ample research which indicates how important it is for children to continue meaningful relationships after family breakdown.

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The Barbara Biggs Show

With Special Guests:

• Barbara Biggs and
• concerned citizens.

Barbara Biggs has become the new “poster girl” for the anti-shared parenting movement. While many fathers have been disturbed by her comments in the media against shared and co-operative parenting after divorce, this is the first opportunity for many to hear what she has to say directly. Barbara Biggs spoke at a Fellowship of the Roundtable forum at NSW Parliament House with the subject Family Law - Is The Man The Loser? This is the speech she gave followed by her answers to questions from the floor. Family law reformers around the country have been alarmed at the scurillous campaign, including a number of demonstrations outside family courts and other locations, to return family law to the dark ages when more than half of all children entering the Family Court arena rarely if ever saw their fathers again and almost no fathers were ever given any substantial time with their children.

The campaign is being conducted under the guise of preventing domestic violence against women and sexual abuse against children. Biggs claims that the shared parenting laws have forced children to spend time with abusive parents, but her target is clearly fathers. One simple point reformers make: child abuse is committed by both genders, it is a crime, and is a police matter, but Biggs only focuses on sexual abuse of children ignoring child homicide, infanticide, neglect, emotional and physical abuse where women make up the majority of perpetrators. Most sexual abuse of children occurs at the hands of other siblings, step parents, mother’s boyfriends/defactos and other relatives. Fathers are the least likely to sexually abuse their children.

For the vast majority of family law cases, the research is clear: children benefit from a continued relationship with both parents after separation.  Barbara Biggs has made a career out of her colourful life, including alleging she was sold as a sex slave by her grandmother at 14 as well doing stints as a prostitute, mental health patient and property developer. Her books include In Moral Danger, The Journey Home, The Accidental Renovator and Money and Sex: How To Get More. Whether Biggs is a dangerous hysteric promoting irrational hatred against men or a true champion of the nation’s abused children, you can decide for yourself.

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Family Law - Is the Man the Loser?

With special guests:

• Mark Yousseff
• Peter van de Voorde and
• Warwick Marsh.

Dads on the Air was pleased to accept an invitation from the debating group Fellowship of the Round Table. We were asked to contribute to their debate called Family Law: Is the Man The Loser? We argue men, women and children are all losers under the present system. With the current left-wing Labor government preparing to wind back the modest family law reforms of the previous conservative Howard government which encouraged shared and cooperative care of children after divorce or separation, there could hardly be a more controversial subject in Australia today. Prior to the reforms more than half of the country’s dads barely if ever saw their children again after divorce. With the enormous pain this was causing parents, and the enormous damage the destruction of the relationship between children and their fathers was doing to the kids and to society at large, these reforms were long overdue. This week we play a fascinating speech from senior family law lawyer Mark Yousseff as well as speeches from DOTA representative Peter van de Voorde and Warwick Marsh from the Fatherhood Foundation.

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