Children will be put at the centre of proposed law reforms to make court processes for separating families simpler and safer. Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the current parenting framework in the Family Law Act was complex, confusing and, in some cases, led to unsafe parenting arrangements. Dreyfus introduced the reforms to parliament’s lower house on Wednesday,…

Commentary Last week, a television crew from the Japanese public broadcaster came to Sydney to interview family law specialist Justin Dowd, former president of the New South Wales (NSW) Law Society. Japan is considering moving away from mum-custody towards “joint parental authority”,—which recognizes that it’s in the children’s best interests to have both mum and…

Commentary Over 20 years ago, Australian federal Member of Parliament Greg Wilton took his own life. The tragedy culminated in a series of events that highlight how poorly we deal with vulnerable men. Three weeks earlier, Wilton had been found “in a distressed state” with his children in a car in the national park, apparently…

Commentary In March, West Virginia passed legislation entrenching a “rebuttable presumption” that, following separation, parents will enjoy equal time with their child(ren). That is, in the absence of reasonably suspected child jeopardy, judges will no longer award “custody” to either parent. Equal shared “parenting” (ESP) will be the norm. West Virginia joins Arizona (2013), Kentucky…

Commentary There’s a thriving multi-million-dollar business at the heart of our family law system, which provides a classic example of how women’s advocacy groups have sewn up our justice system and are making life hell for many men. The children’s contact services were designed to provide supervised access between kids and risky parents and for…

After going through an onerous and expensive court battle seeking to prevent his children from being moved far away, only to fail in the end, Winnipeg father Frank Mane describes his experience with Canada’s family law system as “absolute hell.” Mane and his wife split up following 14 years of marriage after his wife had…

The B.C. judge who recently declared that a woman in a polyamorous family relationship be named as a legal parent, alongside the child’s birth parents, said the ruling will bridge “a gap in the legislation,” but some say definitions of parent should be settled by elected officials, not judges. Conservative MP Arnold Viersen says he would…

Family breakdown is the single greatest threat to American society, argues Greg Ellis in his new book, “The Respondent: Exposing the Cartel of Family Law.” Ellis says that every day, 4,000 children are separated from one of their parents in the family court system, which is biased against men and does not afford them due…

Attorney-General Christian Porter has panned critics of the now-successful Family Court merger, saying those opposing the move have a “vested interest” in maintaining the status quo. The Family Court’s merger with the Federal Court of Australia has received the Senate’s final tick of approval with support from crossbenchers Independent Senator Rex Patrick and One Nation…