0:02 When I look at what is parental
0:04 alienation, I think it's simply what it
0:06 says it is. It's a deliberate attempt by
0:08 one parent to alienate the children from
0:10 the other parent, poisoning or
0:13 attempting to destroy that relationship.
0:15 I mean, I it's a waste of time to fuss
0:17 over definitions. The community knows
0:19 exactly what we're talking about if we
0:23 use this common sense term. Um, so going
0:25 on to I'm going to actually just
0:28 incorporate the questions JD into Yeah,
0:32 here. So, as to my my position on
0:35 parental alienation and what do I base
0:38 that on, I actually had experience of
0:40 parental alienation an awfully long time
0:42 ago, nearly half a century ago when I
0:47 was in my first marriage. My um and
0:51 became a stepmother and watched my
0:53 husband going through the absolute agony
0:56 of dealing with being alienated from his
0:58 children, being not allowed to see them.
1:02 Um, I hear this him crying in the night,
1:05 calling out for them. The misery of not
1:07 being able to even see them at Christmas
1:10 when he was able to deliver the presents
1:13 at night, including this train set he'd
1:16 worked on for months for his little boy.
1:20 Uh, I was out of anguish for him and and
1:22 also just living with with him through
1:25 all that. We were really lucky. Things
1:27 moved on. We ended up with joint
1:29 custody. So that was a long time ago.
1:32 But since then, probably for the last 40
1:34 years, I've spent most of my time
1:37 talking to men and talked to so many
1:39 men, hundreds of men who've got gone
1:41 through all of this. And I now receive
1:44 dozens of letters every week from men
1:47 who are desparing at the whole
1:49 experience of being cut off from their
1:52 children. And as Glenn said, I mean,
1:55 we've got this this very clear link now,
1:57 data showing this clear link between
2:01 suicide rates and relationship breakup.
2:04 Um, you know, and and it's an issue that
2:06 unfortunately hasn't received nearly as
2:09 much attention as it should have. Of
2:11 course, as everybody's saying, women
2:14 suffer ventilation, too. There are men
2:16 who actively seek to punish their
2:18 partners by destroying their
2:20 relationships with their children. And
2:21 you know, women in that situation, the
2:26 anguish is just as real. Um, but what
2:28 really concerns me is the broader
2:30 societal aspect of this absolutely
2:33 dreadful issue. The fact that we have
2:36 state sanctioned alienation of children
2:38 and that's a consequence of the
2:40 weaponization of our justice system
2:43 against men. We have
2:47 a children growing up with their fathers
2:50 and with all the proven risks of kids of
2:52 growing up in fatherless families. And
2:55 that's the result in my view of this
2:58 distinct and increasing bias in our
3:00 justice system against
3:03 men. As you said, a few months ago, I
3:06 made a uh I was very lucky. I was able
3:08 to do an interview with a former family
3:11 court judge Stuart Lindsay uh for
3:14 YouTube and he was very outspoken about
3:15 what's going on here saying that the
3:17 family court system is in enormous
3:20 trouble because of promotion of feminist
3:23 ideology in the family law act and at
3:24 the heart of this issue is domestic
3:28 violence namely this feminist claim that
3:30 all other considerations regarding the
3:33 best interests of children must be slept
3:36 swept aside by the need to protect
3:39 youngsters from dangerous dads. And of
3:40 course, what this does is it
3:43 incentivizes false allegations of
3:45 violence because it gives women immense
3:48 power throughout the family law process.
3:50 Oh, to have dad removed from the home,
3:52 denied contact with the children,
3:54 sometimes for years before the matter is
3:57 resolved in the family court. And what
3:58 Lindsay told me is that judges are
4:01 enormous under enormous pressure to bend
4:03 the knee to the notion that there is
4:06 this huge risk to children from their
4:09 fathers. And there's simply no good
4:11 evidence to support the idea that this
4:13 is the case for the majority of
4:16 Australian families. We have a the best
4:19 survey on domestic violence in this
4:21 country comes from the Bureau of
4:23 Statistics personal safety survey and which
4:24 which finds
4:27 finds
4:30 only.7% of women say they've had been
4:32 physically assaulted had physical
4:34 violence from their partner exartner in
4:37 the last year but it means 99% of
4:40 Australian men aren't violent aren't
4:42 physically violent towards their partner
4:45 and what we see in our community. In the
4:47 public narrative is this greatly
4:50 inflated figures which are based on the
4:53 notion of the epidemic of violence using
4:56 definitions of violence that endlessly
4:58 expanded to include emotional abuse,
5:01 psychological abuse, financial abuse,
5:03 spiritual abuse, and of course now coercive
5:04 coercive
5:08 control. And it's really it's obvious
5:11 that our justice system protects must
5:15 protect women from uh dangerous men,
5:17 women and children from dangerous men.
5:19 Most cases involving violence protection
5:22 orders are now based on these much less
5:24 serious behaviors that I've just
5:27 mentioned or on false
5:30 allegations. All the evidence shows that
5:32 women are just as likely to be
5:34 perpetrators of this behavior as men
5:37 are. We've had 50 years now of
5:39 international research showing this.
5:42 There was a major meta analysis. This
5:44 was the partners of use state of
5:47 knowledge project based on 1700
5:50 peer-reviewed studies and that showed
5:53 most physical violence is two-way. The
5:55 women just as likely to instigate it as
5:57 the men. Of course, when physical
5:59 violence does occur, there's no question
6:01 that women are more likely to be harmed
6:05 due to men's greater strength. But this
6:08 two-way violence is what our police are
6:10 seeing when they go into violent homes.
6:13 And they're now under enormous pressure
6:15 to ignore the female violence and only
6:18 charge men or to issue violence
6:21 protection orders to women even when the
6:22 evidence is suggesting that they might
6:25 be exaggerating or making things up.
6:27 I've done an bunch of interviews
6:29 recently with police with police
6:32 prosecutors talking about how unhappy
6:34 they are to be put into a situation
6:36 where they're forced to ignore the truth
6:39 that they see before them and only
6:42 believe women. And what Stuart Lindsy
6:43 told me was that when these cases are
6:46 properly examined in court, most of the
6:49 allegations are either withdrawn or fall
6:52 apart. But the real point is that these
6:54 allegations have been really
6:57 successfully used to deny men contact
7:02 with their children often for years. Um
7:03 which means that children that the
7:07 fathers are unbelievably disadvantaged
7:09 when it comes to arguing before the
7:12 family court about meaningful share of
7:14 the children. You know the status quo
7:16 argument is what we hear all the time
7:19 and that car carries huge weight. The
7:20 children barely know that. They haven't
7:22 seen him for years. Oh, of course he
7:23 must the children must now stay with
7:26 mom. Must mom must have most of the
7:28 care. I mean, it's a very effective
7:30 means of driving men out of children's
7:34 lives. This is state sponsored parental
7:37 alienation and it's a really easy route
7:40 to shut men out. If men are really
7:43 lucky, they are allowed to pay for
7:46 supervised contact with their children
7:49 where every interaction is monitored and
7:51 can be used against them in court. I
7:52 mean, I've talked to men about this
7:55 system. I mean, utterly outrageous
7:58 system and most men don't last the
8:00 distance. It pushes most men further out
8:02 of the children's lives and they give up.
8:04 up.
8:06 What we've seen over the last few
8:08 decades is governments, particularly our
8:11 Labor government, as Stuart Lindsay
8:14 pointed out, very actively promoting
8:17 this process. Last year, we saw an
8:20 outrageous assault on our family law
8:22 act, which removed almost all the
8:25 provisions that have made Australia a
8:27 world leader in supporting children's
8:29 rights to have two parents involved in
8:32 their care after divorce. I mean I I
8:34 remember for years we'd see people come
8:37 to Australia to look at our system which
8:40 enshrined that right for children and it
8:42 all was pushed out the door when they
8:45 removed almost all mention of fathers
8:48 from the family law act and what have
8:50 they done since then they've decided to
8:54 give more assets to to victims of
8:56 domestic violence and Lindsay talked to
8:59 me at length about that that this sets
9:02 the judges an impossible task, he said,
9:04 trying to find evidence of the impact of
9:06 domestic violence often over decades of
9:08 a marriage. Only result of all of this,
9:10 he says, is going to be not trials
9:13 needlessly extended, more billable hours
9:16 for expensive lawyers and more pain the
9:18 family's concerned. And all of this
9:21 amounts to massive state enforced
9:24 parental alienation on an enormous scale.
9:25 scale.
9:28 What really scares me is no one is
9:31 allowed to talk about this and if you do
9:33 talk about this you get into a hell of a
9:37 lot of trouble as our found. Um the last
9:40 few years there was a few years ago you
9:43 survey showing Australia has the second
9:46 highest rate of false allegations in the
9:48 world mainly relating to custody
9:51 matters. We have an utterly
9:54 dysfunctional family law system which
9:57 has always refused to enforce parenting
10:00 orders. Every mother knows that she can
10:03 blatantly flaunt a parenting order. Dad
10:05 can drive halfway across Australia, turn
10:07 up on her door to see the kids, you can
10:09 say, "Sorry, you're not seeing them."
10:12 And nothing will happen to him. uh
10:14 Stuart Lindsay described actually
10:16 deciding to send a woman in that
10:18 situation who flawed orders again and
10:20 again and again. She decided he decided
10:24 to send her to prison and in fact did
10:26 this in a Twitter because no one had
10:28 ever done it before and they didn't know
10:30 quite what the procedure would be which
10:33 says a great deal to me. Uh the other
10:35 issue that he raised with me is the
10:37 issue of the failure of the court to
10:40 give penalties for for false allegations
10:43 for proven cases of perjury. And there
10:46 is a system in place. These cases can be
10:48 referred to the attorney general's
10:50 department and what happens the attorney
10:54 general's partner refuses to act. I just
10:56 want to mention of course along with the
10:59 domest the the uh domestic violence
11:01 accusations we've also got
11:04 sexual and there was a classic case of
11:07 this I talked about recently uh a man
11:10 called Adrien Granger that's the the
11:12 name the family court gave it to him
11:15 really interesting story his wife
11:19 accused him of sexual sexual assault on
11:22 their young daughter and she the
11:25 daughter was immediately awarded a
11:28 $10,000 uh victim's compensation. And
11:31 even though there were three subsequent
11:33 family court cases where three judges
11:36 determined that those claims are
11:39 fabricated, Granger is unable to get our
11:43 state to remove that decision to give
11:46 this woman to give the child when she
11:49 turns 18 this $10,000. as Graes said and
11:51 that means the state is telling the
11:54 daughter that he's an abuser
11:58 uh and the system is supporting this.
12:00 It's just crazy. What what was
12:02 fascinating about that particular case
12:07 is the mother relocated to the UK during
12:09 CO with the daughter and even though
12:12 there was a hate convention case and
12:14 ordered to return to the with the child
12:18 to Australia which an order she defied a
12:21 number of times. Um what what happened
12:23 instead is the the family court has
12:26 ruled that she can actually relocate now
12:28 permanently to the UK with a child. And
12:31 so the mother has been rewarded for
12:35 actively engaging in in alienation of
12:36 that father from the child particularly
12:38 with those false
12:40 allegations. I mean it drives me crazy.
12:43 We have a system which is totally out of
12:45 control. Queensland police are
12:48 responding to a domestic violence order
12:51 now. domestic violence call every three
12:55 minutes. Up to 90% of police time
12:57 according to the police union union is
12:59 spent on domestic
13:02 violence. And what they're doing now is
13:05 seeking orders which will enable them to
13:07 not even need to go near a court. They
13:09 can just hand out domestic violence
13:13 protection orders like parking tickets.
13:15 Uh, and probably the most frightening
13:17 thing for me is also the fact that it's
13:19 so easy to set up breaches of domestic
13:22 violence orders. Um, you know, if you
13:25 know what if if you know whether your
13:27 husband or ex-husband works or whatever,
13:30 you can just turn up in near to where he
13:33 will be and that can be a breach of the
13:34 order and a couple of those breaches and
13:36 he gets sent to prison.
13:40 42% of prisoners in New South Wales are
13:43 on remand which means they h are locked
13:46 up without a trial and most of them are
13:49 domestic violence cases. I was talking
13:50 to a man the other day who was
13:52 imprisoned over a false allegation. He's
13:56 been let out now and he's his cellmate
13:59 was in prison for sending his daughter a birthday
14:01 birthday
14:04 card. So moving on, what questions are
14:06 required? What changes are required? And
14:10 why um to me what happens in these
14:12 battles over individual couples dealing
14:15 with this really vexed issue aren't
14:18 nearly as important as state what I've
14:19 been talking about tonight state
14:21 sponsored alienation. That's what's
14:23 causing most damage to children in this
14:26 country. And we need start talking about
14:29 this. We need to start exposing what's
14:31 going on here. Most people don't even
14:33 know the sort of facts I've been
14:35 discussing tonight. Our media does a
14:38 terrific job censoring public discussion
14:40 of this issue and promoting the believe
14:41 all women
14:44 narrative. We need to lobby politicians
14:47 and we have to change the laws. But do
14:49 we really want to live in a society
14:51 where police are responding to spending
14:54 90% of their time on what are often
14:56 false allegations or accusations based
15:00 on really minor misbehavior that
15:02 certainly doesn't need police
15:05 intervention? Every week I have lawyers
15:07 come to me wanting to talk about these
15:09 issues who are really concerned about
15:11 what's going on here. And last year we
15:13 had a conference on restoring the
15:15 presumption of innocence.
15:19 We I'm doing my best and my followers I
15:21 have hundreds of people wanting to get
15:24 involved in trying to change what's
15:26 going on here. And so when when the
15:28 question is what what can you do if
15:29 you're interested in this issue that
15:33 concerns me state sponsored parential
15:35 alienation maybe you'd like to help me
15:38 with this process of change to trying to
15:41 change the public narrative and do
15:44 something about this very dangerous
15:46 situation where our justice system have
15:51 been so weaponized against men. I have a
15:53 a new system I call the armed army of
15:55 volunteers working in various areas,
15:57 lawyers working together to try to
16:00 change the con the way that the laws are
16:03 being implemented, police officers
16:05 working together. There's lots you can
16:06 do. So, if you'd like to get involved
16:09 involved, have a look at my I have a
16:11 Substack blog and you can learn all
16:13 about the art army. Thanks very much. Am
16:15 I I was thinking I'm probably one of
16:23 Speaking with passion, Patina, and um
16:26 thank you. I'm an angry actress. I
16:28 didn't used to be. I used to do this
16:30 really carefully. And the older I've
16:33 got, the crankier.
16:35 It's very interesting, Patina, because
16:37 we've got both professionals and parents
16:40 that are joining us online. There's a
16:41 lot of professionals in the room there
16:44 in Perth with Pete and Glenn. And
16:46 there's it I've got a lot of follow-up
16:48 questions in the Q&A for both yourself
16:49 and Glenn that have come from this. But
16:52 what's interesting particularly is a
16:54 couple of moms have actually made
16:56 comments saying it's very hard to hear
16:57 what you've just said. But I can
16:59 actually relate to a lot of what you've
17:01 said, Patina, because I've been through
17:04 some of it, but it hurts to hear how
17:05 much that's being turned against dads
17:07 because I can understand it from what
17:09 I've been through. So I think Glenn
17:12 mentioned that also this happens to to
17:14 moms as well, but it's very interesting
17:15 when we stand in the middle and we
17:18 address what we're seeing. So, thank you
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