Family Law Exacerbates Fatherlessness.

Dr Muriel Newman MP

Speech to a Whangarei (New Zealand) public meeting on Family Law Reform, June 1, 2001

Fatherlessness, described as the major cause of many of society's ills - child abuse, crime, drug addiction, suicide, educational failure, unemployment - is being exacerbated by our present family laws. Yet rather than tackling the problem, the government has paid lip service to it and swept it under the carpet.

In response to my calls for law changes to shared parenting that would help to turn around the problem of fatherlessness, the government instigated another review. In fact, during their term of office they have spent literally millions and millions of dollars on reviews, commissions of enquiry, advisory panels, official's committees, discussion papers, and so on, often simply to give the appearance that they are taking an issue seriously.

The Guardianship Act Review now languishes on the Minister's desk. As I understand it there are no specific plans to fundamentally change family law, although I suspect that there will eventually be some window dressing word-changes to make the Act 'sound' more child friendly. Meanwhile, in spite of the irrefutable evidence that our present family laws are damaging children as well as the social fabric of society, the government will sit on its hands.

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