Mens' Milestones

Warwick Marsh

24th June, 2007

This week has been historic for the men and fathers of Australia.

On Wednesday 20th June 2007 a delegation of over thirty leaders, academics, authors, researchers, counsellors, activists and charity workers spent a day in Federal Parliament, Canberra at the 'Men and Fathers Family Friendly Policy Forum'.

During the course of the day we met with five Labor Shadow Minister, Wayne Swan MP, Shadow Treasurer, Lindsay Tanner MP, Shadow Finance, Jenny Macklin MP Shadow Family and Community, Joe Ludwig MP, Shadow Attorney General, and Tanya Plibersek MP, Shadow Human Services, Housing, Youth & Women. We also connected with other Labor MPs Roger Price, Anthony Byrne, John Murphy, Senator John Hogg and our local member Jennie George.

The response from our friends in the Labor Party was wonderful. Anthony Byrne MP, for Holt, in Melbourne was so inspired he gave a speech on the Forum in Parliament. We reprint this speech in full in our Special Feature section to give you insight into the events of the day from the parliamentary point of view. Anthony Byrne is a great friend and his speech gives an insight into the quality of the presentations and the powerful effect of such a gathering on the parliamentarians who attended.

The response from our friends in the Coalition was equally gracious. We met with Philip Ruddock MP, Attorney General, Tony Abbott MP, Minister for Health, Mal Brough MP, Minister for Family and Community, David Fawcett MP, Kerry Bartlett MP, Luke Hartsuyker MP and Senator Barnaby Joyce. We also had the pleasure of meeting with Senator Steve Fielding from Family First who was also supportive of our policy suggestions.

To give you more of an idea of the time spent with these parliamentarians I enclose an extract of our thank you letter to the delegates who attended the forum.

"Firstly let me explain that the Fatherhood Foundation is a Harm Prevention Charity, not a lobby group. We are happy to organise opportunities for you to present your policy ideas, knowing in good faith that your policies will help reduce harm to our children by bringing back justice, respect, fairness, equality, a caring government with stronger family values, good ethics and better health and educational outcomes for the greater good of all. Many of these policies must now be brought to the attention of our parliamentary friends over the next few months.

The policy matters that we believe need to be raised and promoted are:

1. Boys' Education and Mentoring
2. Fatherhood support, training and encouragement (need for a fatherhood summit)
3. Marriage support and education
4. Fairness in Family Law through Equal Parenting
5. Men's Health National Policy
6. Turning the tide of Men's Suicide (URGENT)

This forum will be remembered as an historic milestone in positive bi-partisan reform which you have contributed to. The sum of the parts is always greater than the whole.

The simple fact that you were there spoke volumes to our parliamentarians. The strategy of having articulate women who are passionate for fairness for the male of the species turned quite a few heads in more ways than one. The fact that we had well researched university lecturers and professors showed our parliamentarian friends that we also had substance to our arguments.

Most of all congratulations!! I was excited that such a large and diverse group could overcome their innate differences and work together.

As Senator Barnaby Joyce pointed out, we are involved in a cultural war, but we must not descend into the tactics of hate, invective, ignorance, manipulation and injustice. We might fight this battle with the power of love and integrity, that is, forgiveness, kindness, words of affirmation, justice and speaking the truth, in love. Truth is a wonderful weapon. Our strategy is to firmly and passionately speak the truth with care and concern.

For me, it is exciting that in spite of each of our passions for our individual causes, we projected a united front. This displayed unity in diversity especially as the truth was also spoken in love.

We list the parliamentarians below who attended so that you can email them a personal thank you for gracing us with their presence. (Note: News & Info contains a list parliamentarians and email addresses. Please send an email of thanks and appreciation for their attendance support.) Many of these leaders are working 14-16 hour days, often in back-to-back meetings. Your words of thanks will mean a lot to them. As convenors of the forum the Fatherhood Foundation will also write to each parliamentarian individually to thank them.

Our battle is for the restoration for the importance of relationships in our society. If we don't practice such niceties as saying thank you we can begin to sound hollow. A simple thank you gives us each our humanity back in more ways than one.

Lovework

Say thank you to those around you. As you do you will change their worlds and your own.

Thanks is something that is given and can never be taken. It enriches those who give it and honours those who receive it and the sum is always greater than the parts.

Yours for more milestones

Warwick Marsh

Single Dads

Below are the recommendations of Dr Pamela Henry and Natalie Gately of the School of Law and Justice, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. These were presented at the Men and Fathers Family Friendly Policy Forum held on Wednesday 20th June 2007, Parliament House, Canberra.

Recommendations

Social policy and Family Law is committed to meeting the best interests of children. However, children do not exist in a vacuum. They are part of a larger family system consisting of mum, dad, grandparents and others. When social policy or Family Law meets the needs of one family member to the exclusion of others, anger and resentment builds, impacting on all family members. Therefore, when the needs of the whole family are met, the best interests of children will be served.

Existing inequities in social policy and Family Law have been identified by pressure groups who have successfully lobbied on behalf of mothers, fathers, children and grandparents. This has facilitated changes to the Family Law system and the Child Support Scheme. However, the focus of these reforms has remained on children, excluding the needs of all family members. On this basis, it is unlikely that the best interests of children will be served.

Men typically re-partner within one to two years post separation, thereby forming a second family.

Given current definitions of family, and the way family types are counted, members of second families remain hidden in a system unable to meet their needs. For example, when determining child residency in Family Law, it is unlikely that the needs of a non-residential stepmother and her own child (a biological sibling to the child of the first relationship) would be considered.

Children of first and second relationships have a right to maintain a meaningful sibling relationship.

Recent changes to the Child Support Scheme have ensured that approximate equality is granted to children of first and second relationships in the calculation of child support. However, the financial needs of second partners have not been considered beyond a slight increase in exempted income when re-partner! ing occurs. This inequity negatively impacts on all relationships within second families and across first and second families.

When conflict is high, the social and emotional well being of children in both family types is threatened. Therefore, social policy and law must meet the needs of all family members in all types of families.

On this basis, we recommend the following :

Reconceptualise current definitions of family to include all family types.

This will require moving away from a nuclear family model to be more inclusive of the diverse range of families that exist in society today.

Change the way families are counted in order to identify hidden parties.

For example, non-residential parents (typically fathers) are not counted as families.

Develop policies and law that meet the needs of all family members.

It must be acknowledged that what impacts on one member of a family will impact on all members of the family. For example, if the needs of mothers, fathers and grandparents are not met, this will impact on children. If the needs of second partners are not met, this will also impact on children. If the needs of children to second relationships are not met, this will also impact on children from first relationships.

Develop policies and law that meet the longer term needs of all family types.

For example, recent changes to the Child Support Scheme only meet the transitional needs of separating families for two to five years. After that time, re-partnering has typically occurred. Second families are then tied to a system based on a nuclear family model that fails to address their needs.

Research must inform the development of social policy, law, support services and educational initiatives.

A research agenda must be carefully constructed to facilitate well informed developments. For example, there is limited research examining the experience of second families. Therefore, the Ministerial Task Force examining the Child Support Scheme was not able to adequately address their needs.

Policies and legislation must be continually evaluated.

Continual evaluation will ensure that the needs of all family members and family types are being adequately addressed.

A commitment to long term family health and wellbeing will lead to long term cost effective benefits.

Dr Pamela Henry
Senior Lecturer / Coordinator Criminology and Justice
pamela.henry@ecu.edu.au

Natalie Gately
Lecturer / DUMA Site Manager
n.gately@ecu.edu.au
School of Law and Justice, Edith Cowan University

Second Families

- First Class An investigation of the nature and intensity of difficulties encountered by second families, how this impacts upon marital relationships and the factors that contribute to keeping second families intact.

Stepfamilies

- Have Your Say Are you an adult in a second or subsequent relationship?

Do you have children or stepchildren that either live, visit or you do not have contact with?

If so, you are invited to participate in a completely confidential project examining the difficulties and strengths experienced by stepfamilies.

It will take approximately 10-15 minutes to fill in an anonymous questionnaire. This is so easy you can do it over the phone, on email, or a hard copy can be posted to you.

Your information will provide a valuable resource and will provide you with a voice regarding your unique family.

If you are interested please call:

Natalie Gately
08 6304 5930
0419 697 783
n.gately@ecu.edu.au
Edith Cowan University

Special Feature

Men's and Fathers' Family Friendly Policy Forum

Mr BYRNE (Holt) (7.30 pm)-I rise tonight to talk about my impressions of a forum that I actually addressed the Main Committee about this morning. I was so impressed by what I experienced in that forum that I thought I would share with the House my experiences and those of the other members of the opposition who attended. This was the Men's and Fathers' Family Friendly Policy Forum. There were 33 delegates from around Australia: academics, authors and people that provide social services, and the function was under the auspices of the Fatherhood Foundation, whose director is Warwick Marsh. As I said in the Main Committee, the spirit behind the fathers' movement, the men's movement, is expressed in the foreword to the policy forum document, where it talks about the goal of the Fatherhood Foundation:

# to promote excellence in fathering and increase the number of children growing up with an involved, committed, responsible and loving father. For this reason the Fatherhood Foundation is a strong supporter of marriage and the importance of increased pre-marriage education and marriage counselling. It is easier, and more sensible, to build a rail around the top of the cliff to prevent people falling over, than it is to run an ambulance service for those who fall to the bottom of the cliff.

That is the predominant sentiment that powers this organization and powered this forum. I was incredibly impressed by some of the insights that I got from some of the people that addressed the forum. It struck me, in terms of some of the feedback that I got, that if I was looking for a general impression of what this forum was about-because the men's movement sometimes gets characterised in a certain way!. I would quote what a prominent politician said when he participated in the launch of this movement in 2003:

We don't want a men's movement that blames women, we want a men's movement that works with men and women to develop better identity, better relationships, a stronger fathering role in our society and to develop win-win outcomes, where as a society across both genders, we can make advances and make successful change.

I tell you one thing: we in this place should all reflect on the cost of fatherlessness to the community. In fact, as the forum document says:

Dr Bruce Robinson estimates the cost of fatherlessness to Australia to be in the vicinity of 13 billion dollars!

But those are numbers. They are not about what people experience!the conflict or what young males need. They need very positive male role models, male mentors, strong father figures, if you want to use that particular term.

Before I go on to briefly describe what we experienced in the breakout groups, I would like to acknowledge that the members of the federal opposition who attended this incredibly important forum were Lindsay Tanner, the Shadow Minister for Finance; Wayne Swan, the Shadow Treasurer; Jenny Macklin, the Shadow Minister for Family and Community Services; Tanya Plibersek, the Shadow Minister for Human Services, Housing, Youth and Women; Joseph Ludwig, the Shadow Attorney-General; Roger Price, our whip; John Hogg, Deputy President of the Senate; Jennie George; and me.

We were all incredibly impressed with the insights that we gained, particularly those of us in breakout group 1, including Roger Price, Jennie George, John Hogg and me. The issues that we dealt with in that breakout group were education, health, family and community, birth rates, demographics, and general issues concerning boys, men, fathers and grandfathers, all in the context of families. We had four people address this breakout group: Maggie Hamilton, who spoke on 'Boys, men, fathers and grandfathers' and is the author of What Men Don?t Talk About; Judi Geggie, Director of the Family Action Centre at the University of Newcastle; Professor John McDonald, who spoke about men?s health and suicide, and is the Foundation Chair in Primary Health Care and the Co-director of Men's Health Information and Resource Centre at the University of Western Sydney; and Greg Andresen, who spoke! about 'Demographics, birth rates, fathers and families, the marginalisation of men and the need for change', and is the Research Officer for the Dads on the Air radio program in Liverpool.

There were incredibly moving insights that I got out of each of those presenters, and the other members of the opposition present did too. They showed that, as a consequence of activism, of a profound need for change born out of experiences such as colleagues committing suicide because of a marriage break-up, things are moving forward; we have achieved legislative change. But what I gained was great hope for the future in terms of relationship change- for example, teaching young boys who have come out of a conflicted family how to relate to women. I was incredibly impressed with the forum and I wanted to share that with the House. (Time expired)

Thought of the Week

We don't want a men's movement that blames women,

we want a men's movement that works with men and women

to develop better identity, better relationships,

a stronger fathering role in our society

and to develop win-win outcomes,

where as a society across both genders,

we can make advances and make successful change

Quote from a Quote from Anthony Byrne's
speech in Federal Parliament Hansard -
20th June 2007