The Law Council of Australia has said delays in family law matters are worsening. In a statement, the Council said that if Family Court vacancies are not filled in a timely way, the situation would further deteriorate. It has urged Federal Parliament to maintain the current level of support for the family law courts, pending the proposed restructure of the court system.

Fathers are included in the Federal Government's new paid parental leave scheme; otherwise it would simply be classified as maternity leave, but dad's chances of actually getting paid to take time off work to be with their new child are quite slim. It's all based around the concept of who is classified as the 'primary carer', a phrase which undeniably provides more mums than dads with the financial benefits of the scheme.

Despite record government spending on child welfare services in this country, the child protection system is in crisis most markedly in New South Wales. In NSW 2,100 dysfunctional, repeatedly reported families account for a quarter of the more than 300,000 reports made each year, and 7,500 of those dysfunctional families account for nearly half of all reports. Australian child protection authorities are failing to fulfil their core responsibility of protecting and rescuing...

David L. Levy, Esq., Board President of the Childrens Rights Council (USA), talks about the role of fathers and Government priorities. He states, "Father absence is not caused primarily by fathers, any more than slavery was caused by blacks or second class status for women was caused by women." $4 billion spent on child support collection... $10M spent on parenting education; a disparity of 400 to 1. "When the government spends virtually all of the taxpayers' money on fina...