Wife Beaters Paradise..

As I walk down the hallways of the family court

I take a look at liberty and realize there’s nothing left

Cause they’ve been blastin and lying so long that

Even judges think that women’s minds are gone

But they don’t put away the men that deserve it

They treat mothers like trash and claim it’s unheard of

You better watch how you talkin, and what things you say

Or your children will be taken away

I really hate this, but I gotta lob

As they screech I see my family in pistol smoke, fool.

I’m the kind of guy they wanna kill

Helped a woman get away

And see a new day

Been spending most our lives 

Living in wife-beater’s paradise. 

Been spending most our lives 

Living in wife-beater’s paradise. 

Keep spending most our lives 

Living in wife-beater’s paradise. 

Keep spending most our lives 

Living in wife-beater’s paradise. 

Look at the situation they got ladies facin

Damned if they’re leaving, damned if they’re staying

So they gotta remain and silence their screams

Pretending they’re living the family dream

If she’s educated and with money on her mind

She gets knocked in the head and given a black eye

And a locked out gangsta, set-trippin banger

With his homies will come, so don’t arouse his anger, fool.

Death ain’t nothin but a heart-beat away

Living this way, what can I say?

She is twenty-seven now, but will she see twenty-eight?

The way things is going I dunno

Tell me why are you so blind to know

It’s your daughters’ lives you ruin so?

Tell me why are you so blind to know

It’s your daughters’ rights you ruin so?

Been spending most our lives 

Living in wife-beater’s paradise. 

Been spending most our lives 

Living in wife-beater’s paradise. 

Keep spending most our lives 

Living in wife-beater’s paradise. 

Keep spending most our lives 

Living in wife-beater’s paradise. 

We keep spending most our lives

Living in wife beater’s paradise

Lying and the beating, beating and the lying

Women live in daily hell, and many dying

It only happens when nobody is looking

It’s going on in the kitchen, but they don’t care what’s cookin

g

They say they have to leave, but nobody’s there to help them

I guess they can’t – I guess they won’t –

I guess they front; that’s why this place is out of luck, fool

Been spending most our lives 

Living in wife-beater’s paradise. 

Been spending most our lives 

Living in wife-beater’s paradise. 

Keep spending most our lives 

Living in wife-beater’s paradise. 

Keep spending most our lives 

Living in wife-beater’s paradise. 

Tell me why are you so blind to know

It’s your daughters’ lives you ruin so?

Tell me why are you so blind to know

It’s your daughters’ rights you ruin so?

Tell me why are you so blind to know

It’s your daughters’ lives you ruin so?

Tell me why are you so blind to know

It’s your daughters’ rights you ruin so?

By a Step Father

Stop the Erosion of Women’s and Children’s rights

Stop the Erosion of Women’s and Children’s rights

Stop the Erosion of Women’s and Children’s rights

86 Signatures

Published by Suzana Zuzek on Oct 10, 2008

Category: Human Rights

Region: Australia

Target: Federal Government

Web site: http://www.csmc.org.au/

Description/History:

Single mothers and their children have been seriously disadvantaged by legislation and reforms implemented by the previous Howard Government and continued (validated) by the Rudd Government.

Sole parent families experience higher rates of poverty and social isolation then two parent families and are among the poorest in this country.

These families struggle to survive on welfare payments which do not reflect the real costs of living while being threatened by unreasonable “welfare to work” obligations to maintain their welfare payment or face losing their entitlements.

Motherwork, volunteer work, study, disability, caring for children and family with disability are not being taken into consideration and mother’s are still obligated to look for work, often that is low paid, demeaning and inflexible.

Motherhood is undervalued in Society in general but current legislation further undermines the work and responsibilities of single mother’s whilst caring for their children. Single mother’s receiving Parenting payment are forced onto Newstart allowance which undermines their role and work as mother’s and primary carers of their children who should have the same right to their mother’s care and time as any other child in Australia.
Many single mothers don’t have family or other social support so are suffering in silence whilst living in poverty doing their best to care and provide for their children.

The harsh obligations and scrutiny of Welfare to work is pushing single mother’s to breaking point and this is surely not a good outcome for women and their children. Welfare to work needs to be repealed for single mother’s, primary carer sole parents and/or primary carer sole parents of children with special needs and/or too young to be left unsupervised. 

Currently many fathers are taking advantage of Family law acts “Shared parental responsibility” and “a child’s right to know both parents” etc…only to continue abuse and control (especially emotional and psychological), over their ex-partners. Primary carers are finding themselves unable to protect vulnerable children because of fear of contravening orders.

It is very apparent that the best interest of the child comes secondary to “a meaningful relationship with both parents” as experienced by many concerned single mother’s. Judges and mediators (Family dispute resolution practitioner’s) bare no accountability to decisions that place women and children at risk of harm. Relationship centres and Family dispute resolution practitioner’s are failing to put children and women’s safety and well being first and are insensitive to the needs and service of women and their children and the hardship women and their children endure as a sole parent family especially when there is conflict between parents or in cases of Domestic Violence, child abuse/neglect.
Family law needs to be made safe, fair, dignified, just and inclusive of all women and their children.

Family Law and other concerning legislation needs to be urgently reviewed and reformed in regards to the negative impacts on children and women. Judges and Family dispute resolution practitioner’s need to be held accountable if their decisions place children and women at risk of harm. The best interest and safety of the child MUST be considered before “their right to know both parents”.

The new child support reforms have put less money into the hands of those who actually feed and care for their children while putting more money into the pockets of those who rarely have contact with their children and are already financially better off.

Changes are needed to provide a safe, fair, just and dignified existence for single mothers and their children, to empower and support women to care for and protect their children and to assist them out of the poverty trap not force them into one.

Petition:

We, the undersigned, call on the Federal Government to end all discriminative legislation that negatively impacts against single mothers and their children.

Repeal Welfare to work obligations entirely for Single mother’s, primary carer sole parents esp. primary carer sole parents of children with special needs, and/or too young to be left unsupervised. Reinstate PPS to all supporting single mothers and increase this payment to reflect the true cost of living.

Make Family law safe, fair, just and inclusive of all women and their children. To review and reform current legislation and Family Law Act (esp.”child’s right to know both parents” and “Shared parental responsibility/Shared Parenting Time”) and it’s negative impact on women and their children.

Review and reform both Compulsory Roundtable Dispute Management mediation (RDM) and Relationship Centres and it’s negative impact on women and children as a result of it’s process and outcome.

Make child support reflect the true cost of raising children. Review and reform current CSA legislation and it’s negative impact on women and their children.

Sign the petition

The Stop the Erosion of Women’s and Children’s rights petition to Federal Government was written by Suzana Zuzek and is hosted free of charge at GoPetition.

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Australia government embroiled in homophobia row

Thu Nov 27, 2008 3:10am GMT

 

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By Rob Taylor

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Australia’s centre-left government was accused of homophobia Thursday after two men appointed as high-profile ambassadors for men’s health were linked to a newsletter containing anti-gay views.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon was forced to sack one of the ambassadors, appointed only two days before, and said she should have been more diligent about background checks for the men.

“These comments particularly about homosexuality are quite abhorrent,” Roxon told state radio after sacking one of the two men.

The two were among six men named earlier in the week as role-models for Australian men on health matters.

Both were later found to have been listed as co-authors and contributors to a newsletter calling homosexuality a mental illness and blaming “radical feminist-led attempts to enforce social androgyny” for harm of boys and young men.

“Gender disorientation pathology is a symptom of family dysfunction, personality disorder, father absence, health malfunction or sexual abuse,” said the document, published by the Fatherhood Foundation.

Openly gay Australian Greens leader and senator Bob Brown said Roxon had for years prodded the former conservative government to tighten laws discriminating against single-sex couples, before Roxon’s Labour was elected last year.

“Nicola was the Labour shadow minister who told a cheering throng in this building in 2004 that Labour would lead the charge to ban gay marriage,” Brown said.

Roxon sacked one man, who refused to repudiate the newsletter and said he was being vilified because he believed every child was better off with a mother and a father.

“There’s a harm caused when you go outside the natural order,” Fatherhood Foundation president Warwick Marsh told the Australian newspaper.

Roxon said the government was working to reverse discriminatory laws for same-sex couples and said she hoped the influential gay and lesbian community, estimated to number around 400,000 people, would see the appointments as a simple mistake.

Eva Cox, from the Women’s Electoral Lobby, said the government had “stuffed it” with the appointments, but said she had probably been a victim of bad advice.

(Editing by Bill Tarant )

New laws mean more arrests in domestic violence calls

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November 27, 2008

Article from: Australian Associated Press

VICTIMS of domestic violence in New South Wales will be protected by streamlined laws giving police extra powers to arrest suspects, the State Government says.

Police Minister Tony Kelly said new procedures aimed to hold perpetrators of domestic violence to account, while providing better protection for victims and children.

“From now on if the police go to a domestic violence incident … it is the duty of the police officer now to arrest the offender,” he said.

“In the past it has been up to the victim to lay charges, so no longer does the victim have to lay charges. Police will automatically lay those charges themselves.”

Domestic violence-related incidents accounted for up to 35 per cent of police work across NSW, Superintendent Rodney Smith said.

With the new legislation comes domestic violence kits, including a still and video camera, which will be standard equipment in every police vehicle.

“There is a fear factor where a number of victims are not game to lay charges, not game to make that process (happen) themselves and initiate that process because they are concerned with further domestic violence,” Mr Kelly said.

“Now it’s taken out of their hands. If police believe there has been a domestic violence incident they will arrest the culprit.”

“They will also automatically … even though the children may not have been involved, take the names of any children in the family and they will be automatically given to DoCS (the Department of Community Services).”

The changes come into effect today.

STORY TOOLS

Kidman speaks out against abuse

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/kidman-speaks-out-against-abuse/2008/11/26/1227491609606.html

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November 26, 2008

Nicole Kidman takes part in a symposium during the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Photo: AP

Latest related coverage

Dying to be heard
Audio slideshow: The Herald spent weeks with women in domestic violence refuges. Here are their stories.

• Deadly game of cat and mouse for women at risk
• New tool to fight domestic violence
• Editorial: The warning signs of family violence

Other related coverage

• Kidman makes move from silver screen to big picture

Advertisement

Nicole Kidman stepped off the red carpet and on to the world diplomatic stage at the United Nations to continue her “Say NO to Violence Against Women” campaign.

Kidman, a UN Goodwill Ambassador, announced more than five million world leaders and citizens across the globe signed a petition promoting the issue, more than five times as many signatures expected.

“The reason I chose the subject of women is because I was raised by a mother who was very passionate about having her daughters educated, and wanted her daughters to have an equal opportunity,” Kidman said at the UN headquarters in New York.

“I was the product of that, and now I’m out there hoping to pass on to the next generation and work in a greater capacity then just as an actress.”

One in three women and girls are victims of abuse and the campaign calls for greater protection for women, the prosecution of abusers and increased efforts to end “attitudes and behaviour that condone, tolerate, excuse or ignore violence committed against women”.

The 5,066,549 signatures included the names of 29 world leaders, 188 ministers and over 600 parliamentarians from more than 70 countries. Celebrities also signed on, including Bob Geldof, Catherine Deneuve and Hillary Swank.

Kidman, who gave birth to daughter Sunday Rose five months ago, said it was essential mothers discuss abuse with their daughters.

“This conversation that we are having helps families to then discuss,” Kidman said.

“It helps mothers to be able to discuss it with daughters.

“It helps it to become not a subject that has a stigma attached to it, and therefore not discussed in schools.

“It needs to be discussed in schools, and young girls and young boys need to be educated.”

Kidman has been busy in the US promoting her new Baz Luhrmann directed epic, Australia.

AAP

Kidman speaks out against abuse

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• Printer friendly version
• Normal font
• Large font

November 26, 2008

Nicole Kidman takes part in a symposium during the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
Photo: AP

Latest related coverage

Dying to be heard
Audio slideshow: The Herald spent weeks with women in domestic violence refuges. Here are their stories.

• Deadly game of cat and mouse for women at risk
• New tool to fight domestic violence
• Editorial: The warning signs of family violence

Other related coverage

• Kidman makes move from silver screen to big picture

Advertisement

Nicole Kidman stepped off the red carpet and on to the world diplomatic stage at the United Nations to continue her “Say NO to Violence Against Women” campaign.

Kidman, a UN Goodwill Ambassador, announced more than five million world leaders and citizens across the globe signed a petition promoting the issue, more than five times as many signatures expected.

“The reason I chose the subject of women is because I was raised by a mother who was very passionate about having her daughters educated, and wanted her daughters to have an equal opportunity,” Kidman said at the UN headquarters in New York.

“I was the product of that, and now I’m out there hoping to pass on to the next generation and work in a greater capacity then just as an actress.”

One in three women and girls are victims of abuse and the campaign calls for greater protection for women, the prosecution of abusers and increased efforts to end “attitudes and behaviour that condone, tolerate, excuse or ignore violence committed against women”.

The 5,066,549 signatures included the names of 29 world leaders, 188 ministers and over 600 parliamentarians from more than 70 countries. Celebrities also signed on, including Bob Geldof, Catherine Deneuve and Hillary Swank.

Kidman, who gave birth to daughter Sunday Rose five months ago, said it was essential mothers discuss abuse with their daughters.

“This conversation that we are having helps families to then discuss,” Kidman said.

“It helps mothers to be able to discuss it with daughters.

“It helps it to become not a subject that has a stigma attached to it, and therefore not discussed in schools.

“It needs to be discussed in schools, and young girls and young boys need to be educated.”

Kidman has been busy in the US promoting her new Baz Luhrmann directed epic, Australia.

AAP

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/kidman-speaks-out-against-abuse/2008/11/26/1227491609606.html

Advocates for battered women ask for better court security

Advocates for battered women ask for better court security 
Victims of violence have been threatened, intimidated, even assaulted, lawyer says
By SHERRI BORDEN COLLEY Staff Reporter 
Wed. Nov 26 – 5:27 AM

” border=”0″ style=”border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; “> Pam Rubin, co-ordinator of the Women’s Innovative Justice Initiative, says the organization supports calls for better security at the province’s courthouses. (Ingrid Bulmer / Staff)

The threats and intimidation that abusers sometimes inflict upon victims of domestic violence in Nova Scotia’s family courts can be so subtle that judges and court staff may not even pick up on them.

That’s why the Women’s Innovative Justice Initiative, an umbrella group of women’s organizations that works with abused women, has added their voice to that of this province’s prosecutors in calling for better courthouse security.

“The kind of things we would like to see is automatically added security when there’s a criminal or family court proceeding that’s bringing the victim and the perpetrator into contact where there is a no-contact order, where there is a record of violence,” Pam Rubin, the initiative’s co-ordinator, said in a recent interview.

“It should be just a part of the information that the sheriff’s office gets for the docket for that day, so that it’s not up to the individual woman, it’s not up to the individual lawyer, . . . it’s not up to the sort of ad hoc arrangement to have the extra security in place.”

Assaults in courthouse parking lots is another problem for victims of domestic violence who are entering and exiting courthouses, said Ms. Rubin, a lawyer by profession who also teaches a course called Sex, Gender and Society at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.

Over the years, extra security measures have been put in place when the criminal courts have been alerted of a risk either by a victim, her lawyer or an advocate. And in some of the high-risk cases, victims can ask for a police escort, but this is not always practical for all women.

“It’s a dangerous situation, actually,” Ms. Rubin said. “And in terms of what women have faced, luckily we have not had a murder in a Nova Scotia courtroom. But we’ve certainly had threats and we’ve had assaults in the environments around them.”

A transition house worker who accompanied a woman to court in a criminal case once told Ms. Rubin that when she went to testify the accused man looked at the worker and imitated shooting a gun with his hands.

“Now that time, the judge caught it and he had the sheriff intervene and escort the guy out,” Ms. Rubin said. “We see things that are subtler, that are harder sometimes for the judge to see and then make an intervention.”

In another case, Ms. Rubin recalled, there was one woman who had an abuser who would tap his watch before each beating. So once the two got into the courtroom, the man stared at the woman and tapped his watch.

“And with sheriffs not knowing this as a signal, they couldn’t intervene,” Ms. Rubin said.

The initiative would also like to see a secure and supervised waiting area in all courthouses that is available for women who have been the victims of violence.

For security reasons, Ken Winch, the Justice Department’s director of court services who sits on the court facility security review committee at the Nova Scotia Supreme Court family division, would not give exact details about security at the Halifax family court.

“We do have deputy sheriffs on duty there during the day and they’re fully prepared to (handle) any circumstances that arise,” Mr. Winch said, referring to the Devonshire Avenue building.

“We take the security at Devonshire . . . very seriously. . . . I know the staff and the sheriffs do their best to cope with any situation that can arise and are sensitive to any particular issues that arise because of being in a family environment.”

Every day, staff at each justice centre in the province pay “a great deal of attention” to threat assessments based on information from clients, lawyers and other intelligence, Mr. Winch said.

“On a case-by-case basis, we’ll certainly supplement the deputy sheriffs we have on staff there to meet any need,” he said.

Members of the Women’s Innovative Justice Initiative include the Transition House Association of Nova Scotia, Avalon Sexual Assault Centre, Elizabeth Fry Society, Nova Scotia Association of Women and the Law and Women’s Centres Connect.

Roxon’s ambassadors: homophobic, sexist and totally inappropriate

Roxon’s ambassadors: homophobic, sexist and totally inappropriate

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

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The nauseating views of Warwick Marsh, revealed by Crikey following a reader’s tip yesterday, have cost him his men’s health ambassadorship. Nicola Roxon this morning described his views as abhorrent and, when he declined to repudiate them, sacked him.

Good riddance and the less said about him and his loathsome ilk the better.

However, Barry Williams, head of the Lone Fathers’ Association, has “publicly and unequivocally disowned” the homophobic views pushed by the “Fatherhood Foundation”, and kept his role for now.

Williams blamed yesterday’s revelations on “extreme feminists”. Yikes. I’ve never been called that before, not even in my hilariously SNAG uni days. With all due respect to Mr Williams, you don’t have to be any sort of feminist to find those views about gays and lesbians deeply offensive. A functioning moral compass is all that suffices.

Williams was deliberately selected because the Government wants to target men who are, in Roxon’s words, “disfranchised, disengaged”. There’s merit in that idea and a group like Lone Fathers offers a vehicle for accessing such men. We’re therefore into the difficult area of maximizing the effectiveness of a health policy versus condoning the extreme views of an organization composed of often embittered men angry at ex-partners and the Family Court.

Part of Williams’s brief as head of his Association is to promote the view that men are as much victims of domestic violence as women. This is a persistent theme in his newsletters. All victims of domestic violence deserve support services, regardless of gender, and all perpetrators deserve appropriate handling via the criminal justice system. Anything that encourages male victims of domestic violence to be more open about their experiences is worthwhile and complements the aims of the men’s health ambassadors program.

But Williams goes to extremes in his advocacy for male victims of domestic violence. In 2006, he was a co-signatory of a response to “the anti-male UN report on ‘Violence against women'”, which argued that reporting of domestic violence was biased against men, including several claims that women are greater perpetrators of domestic violence than men — such as “a recent international study of severe violence among dating couples, 55% was mutual violence, 16% was male only, and 29% of violence was female  only.”

Saliently, the response also claimed that domestic violence programs “have been shown to result in widespread violations of due process protections… weaken families, bias divorce proceedings, and deprive children of contact from their fathers.” That statement goes beyond advocating for male domestic violence victims. Way beyond.

These views aren’t unrelated to men’s health, but they’re not quite in the same league as the drivel peddled by Marsh. Even so, no Government should be entirely comfortable with such people as a representative of a taxpayer-funded program.

Not that Williams is entirely the cleanskin about gay and lesbian issues that his comments make him out to be. The Lone Fathers’ Association has given space to Marsh in itsnewsletters to promote his views on “gender disorientation pathology” and criticise attempts to end discrimination against same-s-x couples as “evil”. Williams himself has criticised same-sex couples as unable to provide appropriate “mental and moral development” for children and unequal to heteros-xual couples.

This morning Roxon took responsibility for the appointment of Marsh and said that she wished more background checking had been done. Roxon has been badly let down by either her office or her bureaucrats or both. There are two ways Marsh would have been appointed – either on the recommendation of the Minister’s staff, or on the suggestion of the Department of Health and Ageing. But even in the former case, some background checking should’ve been done by bureaucrats in the relevant program area (presumably the Population Health Division). Perhaps it was and it was provided to Roxon’s office, who ignored it. Either way, it’s an unnecessary and sloppy lapse in judgement.

Unnecessary and sloppy also applies to the appointment of Tim Mathieson. What sort of political tin ear does Roxon have to think this was okay? Mathieson will probably be perfectly serviceable in the role but his lack of qualifications of any kind is fairly glaring. Then again, worse appointments have been made before and will be made again by both sides. Dennis Jensen this morning put out a press release about it, loaded with hair puns. “I don’t want to split hairs on this but I’d urge you all to be asking her some curly questions.” For Jensen, it was impressively close to amusing. And that’s about what it deserves.

---

CANBERRA CALLING

Every Wednesday, Crikey Editor Jonathan Green and Crikey’s Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane will talk the week’s events in the national capital.

Visit the podcast page on our website at 4pm AEST to download or listen.

 

 

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Another sacking demanded over ‘anti-gay’ document

Posted 2 hours 33 minutes ago

Sacking demanded … the Coaltion for Equality says Mr Williams’s views on same-sex couples mean he should not be a men’s health ambassador. (Reuters: Max Rossi, file photo)

• Audio: Health ambassador Williams ‘nothing to do’ with anti-gay material (ABC News)
• Audio: Two men’s health ambassadors under review (AM)
• Related Story: Roxon sacks health ambassador over gay slur

A gay rights group is calling on the Federal Government to sack both of the men’s health ambassadors who have been linked to a document criticising homosexuality.

Barry Williams from the Lone Fathers group and the Fatherhood Foundation’s Warwick Marsh are listed as authors of a publication that says homosexuality is a disorder. The publication was published by Mr Marsh’s organisation.

The Government has dismissed Mr Marsh but has retained Mr Williams, who has distanced himself from the document.

“I don’t even know the words and I had nothing to do with it,” he told ABC Radio’s AM program.

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon says the document’s statements on homosexuality are “quite abhorrent” but she is prepared to accept Mr Williams’s explanation about why his name appeared on the document.

“Look, it is very strong stuff but I think that this is a document that was authored by 34 people. I think that Mr Williams’ sins are not having read and taken care what he put his name to,” she said.

“He has publicly and expressly disassociated himself from any of these comments and I am prepared to accept that explanation.”

But Rodney Croome from the Coalition for Equality says Mr Williams should be sacked too.

“Even though he’s repudiated the anti-gay manifesto he originally signed, Barry Williams has repeatedly lobbied and advocated against the legal recognition and protection for same-sex couples and their families,” he said.

“It’s exactly these kind of discriminatory attitudes which undermine better health outcomes for gay men by stigmatising them as unfit parents.”

’21 Reasons’

The publication, titled 21 Reasons Why Gender Matters, refers to homosexuality as “gender disorientation pathology”, and says it will lead to increased levels of drug abuse and partner violence, will increase the risk of communicable disease and the likelihood of suffering bad health, and is often a “symptom of family dysfunction, personality disorder, father absence, health malfunction or sexual abuse”.

It also says gay people are more likely than straight people to abuse children, saying that homosexuality “encourages the sexual and psychological exploitation of children.

“Homosexual abuse of children is proportionately higher than heterosexual abuse of children. It must be stressed that most homosexuals do not abuse children, and most are not paedophiles, but it seems a significant number do, and are.”

Another section says infidelity “and the like” are more pronounced in homosexual relationships: “Faithfulness within a same-sex relationship is extremely difficult to maintain”, it says.

‘Heterophobia’

Mr Marsh has released a statement saying he has been vilified because he believes every child has the right to a mother and a father.

“If I am attacked it is because I believe that our children matter,” he said in the statement.

“If I am attacked it is because I believe every child has the right to a mother and a father. Children need a mother and a father, not two mummies or two daddies.”

Mr Marsh said certain journalists had claimed he was “homophobic” and he was baffled by “this sort of heterophobia”.

The sacking is the latest snag for the Government’s attempts to advance the men’s health agenda; another of the ambassadorial appointments came under fire earlier this week.

Hairdresser Tim Mathieson, partner of Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, is one of the six men originally selected to help develop Australia’s first men’s health policy.

Mr Mathieson says he is qualified for the role.

“Being a hairdresser and having the background I’ve got is pretty good to put me in a great position to understand the needs of men and their health issues and I think any sort of controversy is pretty overblown I think,” he said.

But Ms Roxon admits the controversy surrounding the men’s health panel is a setback and says she takes full responsibility for the application process.

Roxon’s ambassadors: homophobic, sexist and totally inappropriate

THURSDAY, 27 NOVEMBER 2008

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

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The nauseating views of Warwick Marsh, revealed by Crikey following a reader’s tip yesterday, have cost him his men’s health ambassadorship. Nicola Roxon this morning described his views as abhorrent and, when he declined to repudiate them, sacked him.

Good riddance and the less said about him and his loathsome ilk the better.

However, Barry Williams, head of the Lone Fathers’ Association, has “publicly and unequivocally disowned” the homophobic views pushed by the “Fatherhood Foundation”, and kept his role for now.

Williams blamed yesterday’s revelations on “extreme feminists”. Yikes. I’ve never been called that before, not even in my hilariously SNAG uni days. With all due respect to Mr Williams, you don’t have to be any sort of feminist to find those views about gays and lesbians deeply offensive. A functioning moral compass is all that suffices.

Williams was deliberately selected because the Government wants to target men who are, in Roxon’s words, “disfranchised, disengaged”. There’s merit in that idea and a group like Lone Fathers offers a vehicle for accessing such men. We’re therefore into the difficult area of maximizing the effectiveness of a health policy versus condoning the extreme views of an organization composed of often embittered men angry at ex-partners and the Family Court.

Part of Williams’s brief as head of his Association is to promote the view that men are as much victims of domestic violence as women. This is a persistent theme in his newsletters. All victims of domestic violence deserve support services, regardless of gender, and all perpetrators deserve appropriate handling via the criminal justice system. Anything that encourages male victims of domestic violence to be more open about their experiences is worthwhile and complements the aims of the men’s health ambassadors program.

But Williams goes to extremes in his advocacy for male victims of domestic violence. In 2006, he was a co-signatory of a response to “the anti-male UN report on ‘Violence against women'”, which argued that reporting of domestic violence was biased against men, including several claims that women are greater perpetrators of domestic violence than men — such as “a recent international study of severe violence among dating couples, 55% was mutual violence, 16% was male only, and 29% of violence was female  only.”

Saliently, the response also claimed that domestic violence programs “have been shown to result in widespread violations of due process protections… weaken families, bias divorce proceedings, and deprive children of contact from their fathers.” That statement goes beyond advocating for male domestic violence victims. Way beyond.

These views aren’t unrelated to men’s health, but they’re not quite in the same league as the drivel peddled by Marsh. Even so, no Government should be entirely comfortable with such people as a representative of a taxpayer-funded program.

Not that Williams is entirely the cleanskin about gay and lesbian issues that his comments make him out to be. The Lone Fathers’ Association has given space to Marsh in itsnewsletters to promote his views on “gender disorientation pathology” and criticise attempts to end discrimination against same-s-x couples as “evil”. Williams himself has criticised same-sex couples as unable to provide appropriate “mental and moral development” for children and unequal to heteros-xual couples.

This morning Roxon took responsibility for the appointment of Marsh and said that she wished more background checking had been done. Roxon has been badly let down by either her office or her bureaucrats or both. There are two ways Marsh would have been appointed – either on the recommendation of the Minister’s staff, or on the suggestion of the Department of Health and Ageing. But even in the former case, some background checking should’ve been done by bureaucrats in the relevant program area (presumably the Population Health Division). Perhaps it was and it was provided to Roxon’s office, who ignored it. Either way, it’s an unnecessary and sloppy lapse in judgement.

Unnecessary and sloppy also applies to the appointment of Tim Mathieson. What sort of political tin ear does Roxon have to think this was okay? Mathieson will probably be perfectly serviceable in the role but his lack of qualifications of any kind is fairly glaring. Then again, worse appointments have been made before and will be made again by both sides. Dennis Jensen this morning put out a press release about it, loaded with hair puns. “I don’t want to split hairs on this but I’d urge you all to be asking her some curly questions.” For Jensen, it was impressively close to amusing. And that’s about what it deserves.