Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697642512717.pdf (Australia)
Dear Chair, Deputy Chair and other committee members, I am the author of Submission 817 (Justice for Broken Families).

I am writing to you hoping that the committee is still open to receiving “critical evidence” to assist it with its deliberations.
For over two years and continuing, I have been actively researching topics spurring the discontent around the current Family Law Act (FLA), during that time the I accumulated a library of over 500 research papers and many books written by experts from a variety of social sciences disciplines.

I found it most frustrating that very little research on the inner workings of our FLA system can be found.

Either none was done so it doesn't exist or it is simply not available to the general public.
I posit that this could possibly be as a result of the confidentiality restrictions enacted by section 121 of the Family Law Act.

My intention in writing to you is to put the following observations before the committee for consideration, and in reply to the recently published interim report, including; 1.

New evidence that shows how and why our FLA system has failed to protect children from psychological maltreatment and why our courts continue to produce inconsistent deliberations.
Child protection from ALL forms of abuse is a distinct requirement under Australia’s signed obligation to comply with the United Nations Charter for the protection of children.

2.

How a select group of feminist law academics, have over the last few decades, used a gendered pastoral power imbalance, to influence family law legislation, supporting their ideological beliefs and resulting in the disenfranchisement of men and a failure to protect children.

3.
3.

That this enquiry, like most before it, has its focus on solving ‘effect’ when solving ‘cause’ is what is needed.

Only by researching and addressing causes are we likely to reduce parental custody disputation and create a better FLA. 4.

Why an established link between mental health and parental custody disputation may be part of the cause.
Therefore I was quite elated when by pure chance I came across a Thesis (copy attached) written by a student, in 2017, as part of her degree as a Doctor of Philosophy (Laws).
The Amanda Brown Thesis; PROTECTION FROM CHILD EMOTIONAL ABUSE IN FAMILY LAW PARENTING MATTERS OVER TWO REGIMES OF THE FAMILY LAW ACT 1975 (CTH): POLICY, LEGISLATION AND JUDICIAL REASONING The Author: Amanda Brown BA (Une); LLB(Hons) (QUT) To write her thesis, Amanda conducted extensive research into our FLA, in particular concerning the impact of the FLA frameworks in their 2006 and 2011 reforms on child emotional abuse, research that she claims has never been done before.
It opens the door to an inside view of court deliberation in custody cases and challenges much of the evidence that has been presented to the committee.

“Therefore, there are important questions about the nature and effectiveness of Australian family law in its treatment of child emotional abuse which need to be answered, especially in the critical context of making parenting orders in parental separation disputes.
This is particularly so considering that little scholarly research has been conducted into the nature of the two major Joint Select Committee on Australia's Family Law SystemSubmission 817 - Supplementary Submission 1 recent legislative frameworks in their 2006 and 2011 forms, and how these have dealt with child emotional abuse.” “Additionally, this Part of Chapter 3 is the first time that research has been conducted into how the court categorised parental behaviours as child emotional abuse in the context of the 2006 legislative framework.” "Chapter 4 presents, for the first time, an investigation of how pt VII of the 2011 regime operated in the context of child emotional abuse."
Even though Amanda’s research focus was predominantly on the deficiency of our FLA to protect children from Psychological Maltreatment, many of her findings resonate with topics that the committee must be grappling with.

These include; 1.

Parental Alienation.

Amanda’s research would indicate that Parental Alienation is, in fact, very real and is dealt with by the courts regularly.

Further, Amanda posits that parental alienation is a form of psychological child abuse.
“Under the 2006 regime, another key thematic categorisation of child emotional abuse was parental alienation.” “I also find that, under both regimes of the FLA, there was little consideration of direct emotional abuse, such as verbal abuse, in the case law.
The main manifestations of emotional abuse discussed by the Court were the alienation of a child from a parent and chronic, entrenched and unresolved parental conflict.” “This chapter finds that the Court isolated key types of behaviour as integral to a determination that emotional abuse had occurred.
In particular, it finds that two indirect forms of emotional abuse, chronic, unresolved and entrenched conflict and the alienation of the child were critical elements in the Court’s characterisation of emotional abuse.” “If a parent was not facilitating a child's relationship with the other parent, this was often viewed as alienation and, to some members of the court, also as emotional abuse.

Alienation of the child from the other parent was a key issue for the court.
Alienation was a physical and psychological by-product of, often unjustified, parental protection.” “This will be outlined further in this chapter.

See Dale v Dodds [2008] FamCA 1192 (5 December 2008).

The Court made it clear that a mother physically removing the child and not allowing the child to see the father was emotionally abusive as it deprived the child of their right to a relationship with the father.
See also Fargo & Lark [2011] FamCA 238 (8 April 2011) where it was emotionally abusive and manipulative for the mother to make the child aware of her view that if the Court did not order that the child live with her she would withdraw from her parental relationship immediately.
This form of alienation identified by the Court is distinct from Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) as discussed in cases such as McGregor & McGregor [2012] FamCAFC 69 (28 May 2012) and Johnson & Johnson FamCA 32 (7 July 1997).” “While most of the Family Court’s characterisations of emotional abuse ultimately fell under the auspices of alienation, there are examples of parental behaviours deemed emotionally abusive yet were not necessarily alienating.
However, these categorisations were less prevalent in the case law than those dealing with alienation.” Joint Select Committee on Australia's Family Law SystemSubmission 817 - Supplementary Submission 1 “It is clear from the case law that, in the 2011 regime, alienating behaviour remained an integral factor in the characterisation of emotional abuse.1334 As the court noted in Stokes & Stokes:1335” “Although there was disparity amongst judicial officers, regarding whether evidence of harm was required in order to trigger legal intervention, the court uniformly viewed alienation of the child from a parent or the risk of alienation of a child as intrinsically harmful.” “Other members of the court required that the child demonstrate a serious level of harm in a perceptible form.1520 And for many, serious harm came in the form of alienation of the child from a parent.” ( see attachment ‘Further Particulars’ for more detail) 2.
False allegations of abuse.

Again, Amanda’s research would indicate that false allegations of abuse do occur frequently and have psychological consequences for children.

“Using abuse as an excuse to refuse physical time with the child to the other parent was considered a serious form of emotional abuse by the court.
Not only was it alienating behaviour with the potential to inculcate a child in the belief they had been abused by the other parent, but it also indicated a lack of recognition of the child as an individual.” ( see attachment ‘Further Particulars’ for more detail) 3.
How the legislative changes in the frameworks in the 2006 and 2011 FLA reforms impacted on the protection of children and why did the 2011 framework changes, which were extensively championed by our feminist law academics, fail to protect children from psychological maltreatment?

"While the 2006 regime was politically motivated by the legislature’s desire to emphasise the child’s right to a meaningful relationship, the 2011 legislation focused on family violence.
The purpose of both these amendments was not explicitly directed at providing protection for emotionally abused children."

( see attachment ‘Further Particulars’ for more detail) "Exploration of Research Question 1 reveals that emotional abuse was not a major consideration for policy-makers when formulating the 2011 amendments.
While the purported purpose of the legislation was to provide greater protection from all forms of abuse, including emotional abuse, the primary focus was to provide greater protection against family violence."

( see attachment ‘Further Particulars’ for more detail) 4.

The thesis goes some way toward confirming the writer’s opinion that the feminist law academics have created a pastoral power imbalance that impacts the FLA inability to protect children from psychological maltreatment.
Evidenced by their sole focus on family violence over other forms of psychological abuse.

While the writer doubts that this is their intention, the writer opines that the feminist’s paternal oppression ideology prevents them from acknowledging forms of child abuse that could target women as potential abusers.
“The 2011 amendment's focus on family violence rather than all forms of abuse was reflected in the terminology used and a full discussion of the nature of emotional abuse in family court matters was missing.
MP Shayne Neumann, a former family lawyer, was one of the few government ministers who discussed the changing definition of abuse and what he saw as community support for extending the scope of ‘abuse’ to include psychological harm.” Joint Select Committee on Australia's Family Law SystemSubmission 817 - Supplementary Submission 1 “Unacceptable emotionally abusive behaviours were not detailed or explained within the legislation as they were for family violence.
While, with family violence, the scope of acts that might fall under its auspices was unlimited,” It is evident that the drafters of s 4 concentrated to a greater extent on the central issue of reforming provisions dealing with family violence and were not overly concerned with creating a cohesive understanding or explanation of emotional abuse as a form of abuse under the Act.

( see attachment ‘Further Particulars’ for more detail) 5.
The right of a child to live free from violence and abuse, as enshrined by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), has been politically, socially, and legally recognised both in Australia and internationally.

Under these provisions, states have a clear obligation to protect children from all forms of abuse.

The Amand Brown thesis claims that Australia failed to meet those requirements both under the 2006 and the 2011 regime.
“States should take ‘all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child’.3 The Committee on the Rights of the Child strongly emphasised that the term ‘violence’ should not be interpreted in any way which minimises ‘non-physical and/or non-intentional forms of harm (such as, inter alia, neglect and psychological maltreatment)’.” ( see attachment ‘Further Particulars’ for more detail) 6.
The failure to define child psychological maltreatment has led to inconsistency in FLA outcomes.

I posit that this may be the leading cause of much of the dissatisfaction and criticism of our current FLA system and the primary motivation leading to the current and previous FLA inquiries and reviews “The hallmark of the 2011 regime was ambiguous legislative drafting that had the potential to lead to confusing judgments, high thresholds, and a subsequent judicial inconsistency.
While the import of a meaningful relationship was now legislatively placed in a subsidiary position to protection from abuse, thus creating a greater clarity for judicial officers, the coupling of the new s 4 definition of abuse with s 60CC(2)(b) was, to some extent, operationally absurd and ambiguous.” “Three of the additional considerations were utilised by the court to assess the impact of emotionally abusive parental behaviours: s 60CC(3)(c), s 60CC(3)(f), and s 60CC(3)(i).
However, the application of these provisions to emotional abuse and the weight placed on evidence of emotional abuse was prone to inconsistent judicial interpretation.” “I conclude, in Chapter 5, that the legislative inclusion of emotional abuse in the s 4 definition provided a greater legislative accommodation of, and reflected to some extent, social science definitions of emotional abuse.
However, I also conclude that the law diverged from the social sciences by placing thresholds on the levels of harm that were required in order for parental behaviour to be construed as abusive.

The legal definition was, therefore, of a narrower scope than the social science.
As well, unlike the social sciences, the 2011 regime of legislation also failed to provide guidance regarding the types of behaviours that may ostensibly result in serious harm to a child and on Joint Select Committee on Australia's Family Law SystemSubmission 817 - Supplementary Submission 1 whether there must be definitive proof that a child had been psychologically harmed.
This resulted in judicial inconsistency in the interpretation of the law.” “Like the 2006 regime, the 2011 regime cases revealed inconsistency in the legal characterisation of alienation as child emotional abuse.
Indeed, the interpretation of the s 4 definition of emotional abuse produced disparate views regarding how much harm was required to constitute the causing of ‘serious psychological harm’ and, therefore, emotional abuse.” ( see attachment ‘Further Particulars’ for more detail) I have attached a more comprehensive explanation, with supporting evidence, expanding further on the points raised above.
I sincerely request that the committee consider this additional evidence and I would be pleased to receive a reply confirming the committee’s intentions on the matter.

Best Regards, Ingo Bentrup Justice For Broken Families Joint Select Committee on Australia's Family Law SystemSubmission 817 - Supplementary Submission 1