Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I would like to speak about an important conference that I had the honour of addressing yesterday. It was the Lone Fathers Association conference organised by Barry Williams, President of the Lone Fathers Association of Australia. There were many people present from many sections of the community who came together to discuss one of the major issues of our time. Before I do, let me pay tribute to Barry, who has been involved as an advocate for separated and divorced fathers for 37 years. Barry, who started very much as a lone voice in the wilderness, has fought and continues to fight for balance and equity in family law courts in the areas of child support and access for non-custodial parents, who are predominantly fathers. This has not been an easy quest but it is one that he has fought diligently and passionately, and I think the conference yesterday bears testament to the fruits of his labours. In doing so, it again proves the adage of the effect of the power of advocacy, often against the odds, often feeling like a voice in the wilderness. But it is the advocacy of a powerful idea—and like all powerful ideas it has been subjected to intense trials and tribulations, and at times despair—whose time conference members believed had come.

The lone fathers conference dealt with a vital issue which profoundly affects our community and our community’s future—that is, the effect of separation and divorce on our children and the consequences of this on our community. This conference has its foundation, in my mind, in the statement Barry made at the lone fathers conference in June 2005, where he said:

This conference over the next couple of days will be dealing with matters that are as dear to our hearts as anything in our lives. It will be about our children and our relationship with them.

He goes on further:

I ask the following question. Is Australia heading towards a fatherless society, whether we want that type of society, and if we don’t what can we do about it?

I think we all know the terrible cost of fatherlessness to our community. In economic terms, it has been estimated by Dr Bruce Robinson to be in the order of about $13 billion, but as we know this is only a figure. It does not reflect the profound consequences of fatherlessness on families and on our sons and daughters. In my view, the cost to our nation’s future of children who are denied both parents manifests itself in youth suicide rates; high school dropout rates; drug and alcohol abuse; behavioural difficulties; self-esteem issues; lack of trust in relationships; lack of role modelling in relationships, particularly for those children who are subject to a high-conflict environment between parents. These children are the meat in the sandwich, so to speak, who, I am told by psychiatrists and psychologists who work in this area, often believe they are the cause of the conflict. Often that has very devastating effects for the psyche of the children.

There was a profound sentiment expressed by the lone fathers at the conference about the consequences for them and their children of separation and how they felt discriminated against by the Family Law Act and the Family Court. Whilst they acknowledged that progress has been made, they are demanding more—for example, enshrinement in law and practice of equal parenting time and rights, not just shared parental responsibility, because they feel this has not been executed in practice, notwithstanding the intent in the law.

For the dads at the conference, they felt that if they were separated from their children by the law with limited access, how could they be the fathers they wanted to be and needed to be for their children? How do they feel and cope when they have been separated by a law which many separated fathers feel is wrong and see its wrongfulness in the effect it has on their children—that was a consistent point raised by fathers at the conference. How does our community feel about what many people perceive to be unjust in the areas of separation and child support? Do they feel like Martin Luther King—and this was a sentiment that was expressed—when he quoted St Augustine when commenting on racial segregation that an unjust law is no law at all?

I was particularly touched by Barry’s mention of his own difficult circumstances in his national president’s report where he details how he was a victim—an innocent victim of the system. In his words:

I was the victim of the system that stopped me spending time with my Dad when I was a kid, and my dad from spending time with me. I know how all of those kids feel. My dad’s in heaven, the system owes me. The best compensation would be to see it not happen to other kids.

Barry has posed further questions about changes to family law but he sees this conference as being a very important turning point. I wish Barry well for the future because there can be few more important tasks for the health and the wellbeing of our entire community than a father’s deep and ongoing involvement with his children.