Luke Batty Tragedy: We Need To Look Beyond AVO Laws
RIP Luke … Kids first … education is the only solution
You would be forgiven tonight if you are a separated mother in an unsettled broken relationship with your ex-husband, who may find it hard to sleep if your child is staying with their father.
This is the unfortunate implication of the tragic event yesterday where eleven year old Luke Batty was killed by no less than his own father. But hopefully, reason would quickly prevail, especially when you realise that statistically speaking, 80% of all child killings occur at the hands of the mother (or due to her complicity).
Yes, its still very early on and perhaps we will all universally see this tragic event as a case involving mental health issues, that sadly could not have been foreseen much less prevented.
But I happen to think that much like the way the Arthur Freeman “girl over the bridge” child murder was portrayed by the media, that this case too, no matter what the mitigating circumstances were, will be portrayed as a case of domestic violence, the kind where only men are the perpetrators.
And how will the media suggest we could stop these tragedies from occurring again? Well I fear another case of even more punitive family law amendments, just like the 2011 family law amendments pushed through by Julia Gillard and her Attorney-General , Nicola Roxon, in the aftermath of the Arthur Freeman killing.
The kind of exploitation and abuse that such blanket laws can create, which would be clear to anyone who cares to think such discriminatory laws through, will of course not be challenged, so in the end a tragedy such as this will become nothing more than an opportunity to force through more ineffective laws that further discriminate against men, in the name of saving lives.
I would suggest that a more worthwhile exercise would be to look at why this man exploded, and why did he ended up killing the one human being he loved more than anything else in life.
If we are serious about saving lives, then blanket domestic violence laws that discriminate against people based on gender is not going to do it.
I would suggest that we need understand why this man felt so betrayed, so abandoned, so alone and so angry. This is clearly not a simple problem, and we are not going to solve it by doing more of the same. I would add as a case in point that the 2011 family law amendments did not protect this child, so maybe we have to start from scratch and start to genuinely look at prevention, and not add more fuel to the fire with more punitive laws.
Totally agree with the comments here. I am a separated father and have been paying child support and still do. However the CSA Australia tell me that the laws say that I have to pay and keep paying despite my ex partner refusing to let me see my kids. She laughs and says to take her to court. However to get a court order would mean spending Aus $10,000 to $15,000 which I do not have for my first court order. She has access to legal aid and can keep breaching court orders with impunity. My lawyer has told me that the courts will not take away the kids from her or cut her payments even if she chooses to breach court orders time and time again. My only resort would be to keep going back for more court orders, useless pieces of paper and this from a lawyer who I pay. I have asked and Child Support Australia have also learned from them that they can continue to charge child support even if I am on newstart payments and can access my property and my superannuation if they choose to. Bad for fathers, absolutely. I sometimes feel like killing myself. I hate the world. Don’t love your kids too much because the system will rip your heart out.
We have feminism the thank for the corrupt courts, let us know if you need help, have you tried salvo’s legal ?http://fathersaustralia.com/lawyers/salvos-legal/
Listened to Victorian police commissioner Ken Lay making media comments today and can’t help but feel this man is on a personal vendetta against fathers. Today he used the extremely tragic event of 11 year old Luke’s murder by his father to ask ‘how many fathers must we allow to kill their children……. ‘. Ken Lay knows very well that there are only about 25 children killed in any year by their parents and that 37% of the killings are committed by mothers. The tone of his voice was clear. He blames men for everything and he is going to use this extremely rare and sad event as an excuse for intervention whenever the police or neighbour might overhear a father who might have a verbal disagreement with any mother in Victoria. An other occasions, comments that Ken Lay has made on DV suggest he is biased and obsessed with blaming and punishing men who might stand up for their rights as fathers. It is a worrying observation and maybe Ken Lay needs to be challenged on his impartiality.
Judicial government corruption dishonesty disinformation tyranny, it is a psychological war on families, this is where Australia is going fascist / socialist / feminism, I don’t think we will be able to stop it.
All law and democracy is designed to address dysfunction ‘Anti-Social’ behaviours and events, to allow social civilised society to flourish to its full potential, the hieratical judicial system is easily corrupted and in its self a dysfunctional failure.