Sir Owen Glenn's $2-million inquiry into family violence that suggests considering alleged perpetrators guilty unless they can prove they are innocent is a 163-page waffle that tends to blame the police, courts, booze, and all of us, while absolving poor choice of partners and poor life skills.
This first report of The Glenn Inquiry (1), issued on Monday, has found 500 people, mostly Caucasian women aged between 41 and 60, who had experienced domestic violence and child abuse, to blame New Zealand's court system’s structure and processes, and the people working within it for re-victimising and re-traumatising victims.
How widespread is family violence? While the report would have you believe that it is everywhere, in fact 20,000 women and children needed the help of Women’s Refuge last year.
This 20,000 is within a context of 1,430,379 married couples in NZ last year and 409,380 de facto marriages, according to Statistics New Zealand. In short, family violence involves a little over one percent of the total relationships in the country.
Section 1 provides detailed victim testimonies, like social worker porn. Broken relationships and custody tangles meant abuse victims were neglected as children and often abused mentally, physically and sexually. Partners faced financial abuse. Victims cited apathy and looking away from violence as well as the prevalence of alcohol and drug abuse.
The system failed victims by not believing victims, poor record keeping, lack of intervention, violence programmes not working. Child abuse and domestic violence continues having an impact after the relationship ends. Poor choice of men can mean a violent ex can continue harassment for years.
Those who broke the cycle of abuse did so by determined effort over years such as by not entering into a further relationship, returning to school and gaining qualifications, and becoming self-reliant. A 12-week course is not enough.
Section 2 presents victims accounts of what’s working well. In short, genuine people in families, the community and all parts of the system made a difference. What was not working well was detailed in Section 3.
I’m almost embarrassed to admit I spent so much time reading this twaddle. It all started with a 30-minute wait on the phone to an electricity provider. However, having read much of it I can say that I did not notice the part that blamed colonisation, and assumed Radio New Zealand went with that angle based on an interview with the inquiry's chief panellist, Marama Davidson. (2)
The politically correct personnel charged with peddling this pap made sure that a nod to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi is present, with report chair Bill Wilson a former Supreme Court jurist and Waitangi Tribunal member.
Odd to think that such an eminent jurist would happily reverse the burden of proof so that an aggrieved party could make an allegation of abuse and in the absence of any evidence whatsoever, the alleged perpetrator would be unable to prove his or her innocence.
The report was released on the day a bashed child died, (3) contributing to the illusion that child abuse is everywhere when it is not. One could think that the report blames the cycle of abuse, police, and dysfunctional courts, but the only dysfunction was in the person who did the bashing, who had neither conscience nor a shred of moral fibre that told him that bashing a defenceless eight-month-old was wrong.
The report did provoke comment, especially the utter tosh blaming the wicked white colonizer for Maori misbehaviour, even though family misbehaviour is not limited to Maori.
Part of post-report comment included the reminder that women are safer when married and children safer when living with their married biological parents simply because, for girls, marriage provides a measure of stability and commitment to the adults’ relationship, and because married biological fathers are more likely to be attentive and engaged with their children because they expect the relationship to be enduring. (4)
Meanwhile, an interesting Australian initiative involving a $200 voucher to enroll newlyweds in four or six hour courses to give couples coping and communication skills to deal with lifelong partnerships. The marriage education sessions seek to ensure that relationships do not suffer when dirty nappies, colicky babies and sleep deprivation consume parents’ lives. (5)
The Glenn report limited itself to tinkering with the system, with police, the Family Court, WINZ, CYPFS, and so on. Most of the 1.8-million couples in New Zealand keep as far away as possible from police, courts, and social workers, and those already blighted to having to deal with the system know that absolutely no good will come out of it.
Sources
1. The Glenn Inquiry. https://glenninquiry.org.nz/the-peoples-report
2. Colonisation a 'factor' in abuse report. http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/247379/colonisation-a-'factor'-in-abuse-report
3. Man denied bail after baby boy dies. https://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/24251724/man-denied-bail-after-baby-boy-dies/
4. One way to end violence against women? Married dads. http://bobmccoskrie.com/?p=11243#sthash.lbrVnVxT.7e8BJFf7.dpufhttp://bobmccoskrie.com/?p=11243#sthash.lbrVnVxT.dpuf
5. Australian Govt offers newlyweds $200 vouchers for counselling. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/social-services-minister-kevin-andrews-says-taxpayers-could-provide-parents-with-marriage-education/story-e6frg6n6-1226955102792
8 comments:
The Owen Report.
Although I admit that I have NOT read this report fully, the length and subject matter covered is a disturbing feature also is the fact that this highly promoted report has been absent except for scanty details in our media. If this report is so important, according to its authors and to our Politicians?
Why then the lack of a full publication in the media enabling a public judgement to be made; even if this might mean the expenditure of a little public money to cover the costs etc?
Why the suggestion to alter a long established traditional legal concept that the accused is innocent until proved guilty in a court of law. Instead this report seems to recommend that the Napoleonic system of justice be implemented as a means of getting the right verdict.
That raises the question of whether the accused has any rights by being adjudged guilty (unproven) under law, when faced with the dilemma and charge of Family violence.
The Media would have a field day of such in our Newspapers, on the T.V. and radio and that in itself would raise the ugly head of trial & conviction by media.
This then questions whether any jury could be seen to be impartial or unaffected by such sensationalism.
One can but surmise that this report has been hijacked as a vehicle for the prevention of detailing this report down into the constituent parts of family violence that can be attributed to the various ethnic communities as a national percentage.
Furthermore the statement on Maori that implies that
“Doing things differently for Māori involves addressing child abuse and domestic violence from a kaupapa Māori perspective”.
Yet it blames colonisation as being the principle reason for child abuse among Maori, who adopted it from the Europeans.
Why are the race percentages of family violence being kept from the public view is it due to some racial slant? Or is it more likely, to be somewhat embarrassing if published due to the impending Election and/or a prospective seat on the United Nations Security Council?
Also that a former Supreme Court jurist and Waitangi Tribunal member could further his own personnel views and engage in this review on the basis of the principals of the Treaty of Waitangi is highly suspect. Perhaps as Chairman, Mr Bill Wilson might go a step further and reassure everyone that all ethnic groups will be governed by the same law and no exceptions will be made.
Especially, as this particular law was imported by the much blamed colonists, and their so-called social effects on an indigenous population.
Summary.
This is far from being an Independent document upon family and child abuse, it is a prelude to another claim of Maori against the European, for ills and transgressions of the early and present descendants of the New Zealand Europeans.
It is another version of apartheid and should be judged as such.
Brian
THE POLITICS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE I
The views of many tertiary-educated males on “domestic violence” owe little or nothing to reasoned intellectual analysis. Self-hating, self-flagellating male academics who have internalised the feminist critique of masculinity are sadly all too common in the Western academy. There are considerably more men with a similar mind-set in influential policymaking and media positions.
These are men (and I use the term loosely) who started out parroting feminist cant at university because it got them laid, then over time this became a form of learned helplessness leading to severe psychological emasculation.
The feminist movement’s use of the term “domestic violence” rather than the more gender-neutral “relationship violence” is based on the Marxist analysis of gender relations penned by Marx’s collaborator Friedrich Engels which presupposes a male 'oppressor' ("Within the family, man is the bourgeoisie, woman and children the proletariat") and a female ‘victim.’
Feminists with a strong emotional investment in the presumption of an oppressive patriarchy base their assessment of men as “the violent sex” on police, court, hospital and refuge data while waving away numerous academic studies implicating both sexes equally in relationship violence. Police blotter statistics and other official data are instead advanced to falsely conclude that relationship violence is a male problem ("That’s just part of how 'they' treat 'us' as women").
There are many compelling reasons why a man might be reluctant to lay a police complaint that his wife assaulted him. These include fear of ridicule or being disbelieved; threats that if police are called his wife will level a counter-accusation and he'll be the one getting arrested; a reluctance to walk away from the home he probably paid for; the likelihood a gender-biased Family Court will block his access to his children should he leave to escape the violence; and fears for the children's physical safety if he's no longer around to protect them from a violent mother.
One of the saddest accounts of male victimisation by a violent female I’ve read was that of a US Army drill sergeant, who placed his gun in his mouth at the dinner table and blew his brains out in front of his family, after the contrast between his macho parade ground persona and the reality of his miserable home life became too much to bear.
This was a man who, like most of us, had been socialised not to hurt women, irrespective of provocation. I’ve spoken to numerous women (even dated some) who find it perfectly acceptable to punch, kick, hit or slap their male partner if hurt or offended by his behaviour. Yet men have no recourse to this excuse. They’re expected to control themselves no matter what.
What do we call someone who feels entitled to lose her temper with a big, strong man, slap him around because she “can’t do much damage anyway,” then expects a free pass? We call that person a child. If men are expected to be responsible adults, we should have the same expectation of women.
THE POLITICS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE II
New Zealand has a network of Women’s Refuges but not a single Man’s Refuge. Professor Adams actually had the thick face to cite Women’s Refuge admissions as “evidence” that relationship violence is a “male problem.”
If you were a man who’d been bashed by his missus, would you go to a Women’s Refuge? And if you did, do you think you’d be admitted? Like police blotter statistics, refuge data clearly has significant limitations in providing an accurate picture of relationship violence in our community.
US researcher, Dr Martin Fiebert examined 155 scholarly investigations, 126 empirical studies and 29 reviews and/or analyses in concluding that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. The aggregate sample size in the reviewed studies exceeds 116,000 and can safely be regarded as statistically robust. Fiebert’s annotated bibliography, first published in Sexuality and Culture Volume 8, Number 3-4, Summer-Fall 2004, can be viewed online at http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm.
Contrary to the demonstrably false feminist picture of relationship violence, men and women are implicated in such violence in approximately equal numbers at all levels of severity as assessed by a standardised "Conflict Tactics Scale.” Both sexes are more or less equally represented in every category from throwing a teaspoon all the way up to murder. In some categories (e.g. “punched, kicked, hit or slapped one's partner”), female involvement slightly outstripped that of males.
Approximately one third of violent incidents were found to be "he assaults her," one third "she assaults him," and one third "they assault each other.” Most of what is categorised as "relationship violence" was found to be occasional, low level, and didn't result in serious injury: shoving, pulling, kicking, slapping, throwing small objects etc.
The most violent individuals, whether male or female, represent a tiny minority of those studied. Severely violent men typically used their fists and feet on spouses or partners. Severely violent women characteristically used weapons to even up the size difference or attacked spouses or partners when they were asleep or otherwise off-guard.
British family care activist, Erin Pizzey, who set up the first Women's Refuge in England in 1971, had a well-publicised falling out with the Sisterhood after she wrote a book claiming that many women presenting at her Chiswick Women's Refuge were "at least as violent as the men they had left behind" and self-admittedly addicted to the adrenalin rush they got from provoking violent reactions in their male partners, though few enjoyed the violence itself. These women were repeatedly and often seriously verbally and physically violent both to their own children and to other women in the shelter.
The foregoing analysis demonstrates that relationship violence is in fact a human problem, not a gender issue as the feminist movement would have us believe. The time is long past for society to acknowledge the female contribution to such violence rather than simply blaming males for something women are, on all the evidence, equally implicated in.
FALSE ALLEGATIONS I
US men’s activist, Warren Farrell, in his book Father and Child Reunion cites statistics which demonstrate that allegations of domestic violence are 1200% more likely to be made by a woman in the context of a custody and access dispute, allegations of child sex abuse 700% more likely to be levelled.
Personal experience and anecdotal evidence suggest that NZ women are gaming the system in much the same manner when relationships break down and they want the kids.
The cause of the problem is legislation allowing a woman to be granted an ex parte protection order based on her unsupported allegations under which the man is presumed guilty until he proves otherwise to a judge. This turns on its head the fundamental assumption of our legal system of “innocent until proven guilty.”
Typically, the first time the man heard about the “domestic violence” was when a process server knocks on his door, protection order in hand.
That was certainly my experience.
I met a guy at the Family Court when I was in there getting the aforementioned bogus protection order struck out in order that I might see my children again.
After splitting with his wife, he’d attended a mediation at which both parties had signed off a custody and access agreement with respect to parenting their son.
Under the agreement, the ex-husband would spend Christmas/Boxing Day with the lad that first year, his ex-wife the following year, and they’d alternate going forward.
FALSE ALLEGATIONS II
When the first Christmas came around, the man had showed up at the agreed time to pick up his son. He’d bought Christmas presents, decorated the tree, prepared all the food, and invited his family around to help celebrate.
The ex-wife told him that she wouldn’t allow him to take the boy, because he was sick. Yet the man could see his four year old son in the window, alternately smiling and frantically waving at him. The lad didn’t appear to be even the slightest bit unwell.
Naturally, the exchange became somewhat heated, and was terminated when the man, infuriated beyond belief at this deliberate obstructiveness he could do nothing about, stormed back down the front path, put his fist through the rear side window of his car, and drove off.
The woman knew full well that since the custody and access agreement was a voluntary one and not sealed by the Family Court, the man couldn’t even call the police to have it enforced.
Less than 24 hours later he was served with an ex parte protection order signed off by the duty Family Court judge, alleging he’d created a scene on his ex-wife’s front doorstep, raised his voice at her, then punched out his car window, and she was scared of him.
Guess who didn’t see his son for more than two months until he could get a hearing date at which his side of events could be aired?
Guess who ended up having to hire an expensive lawyer to present their case?
And guess who was legally aided?
FALSE ALLEGATIONS III
On a Saturday night around two weeks after the ex parte protection order was granted, the man was in the middle of entertaining dinner guests in his home when his ex-wife rang up. She swore at and abused him for several minutes, clearly infuriated by his mildness and restraint in the face of her deliberate attempts to provoke him, until he hung up the phone on her.
About half an hour later, two burly policemen knocked on the door. The man was told he’d called his ex-wife to rant at and abuse her, and that under the mandatory provisions of the Domestic Violence Act 1995, he’d be taken into custody for 24 hours and go before the Court. Despite the attempted intervention of his dinner guests, the man was then arrested. Because it was the weekend, he ended up being held in custody for 36 hours until he could appear before a judge the following Monday. Though exonerated when his dinner guests testified it was actually the ex-wife who’d initiated the phone call and the abuse, his dinner party had been ruined, and it cost both him and his witnesses a day off work.
Her penalty for making this false allegation? Nothing.
She didn’t even have to appear in Court, as the Crown Prosecutor appeared on her behalf.
Her penalty when the false allegation of a breach was aired once the man successfully appealed to protection order? Again, nothing.
Disgusting!
How do we stop women from gaming the system in the manner outlined above?
As a first order of business, unless there’s clear physical evidence of assault or damage to a former partner’s property by one party against the other, all protection order applications should be heard “on notice” with both sides obliged to be heard.
Even this doesn’t fully protect men, because if thus inclined, she could rip her own clothing, smack her own face into something, and bust up her own property. Rest assured, there are women who would do this to “get” an ex-partner.
But at least it goes some way towards making things fairer for men.
And anyone making demonstrably false allegations to get a protection order or to have some arrested under an existing protection order must incur a mandatory fine. Should the behaviour be repeated, a mandatory short term of imprisonment must apply.
False accusers should also lose custody of their children if their former partner wants to enforce that.
Feminists will argue fining or imprisoning the mother is not in the best interests of the child. They would also argue (based on the feminist assumption that the woman is the natural parent, and men are sperm donors and wallets) that it is rarely, if ever, in the best interests of the child to be in the father’s custody.
A sneaky, conniving mother who thinks it’s OK to tell lies if they advance her self-interest then gets away with modelling such behaviour to her offspring is hardly in the best interests of the child.
...Thanks Martin and Brian. A "loud and clear.." analysis of the subject...When will the United Nations make a statement as regards the Rampant APARTHEID existing in New Zealand...????
The marginalizing of fathers by the law system(we can`t call it a justice system) has been going on for many years in marital disputes. The womans movement of the 70`s that came out of the US was evidently sponsored by the Rockerfellers. See doco on Youtube "America from freedom to Fascism" Evidently to get women back in the workforce to pay taxes. As usual this US initiative had negative global impact on families as it was adopted by women over here.Domestic violence is not to be condoned but the law must be fair or a lot of men will adopt not to get involved in long term relationships. I think most men in this country have heard horror stories from other men about the unfairness of domestic disputes before the law in NZ and are now very wary.
As far as the Maori are concerned, I grew up as a child in Gisborne and Napier and half my school class was Maori.I lived in a State housing area with Maori with no problems. They carried on their culture and we hung out at each others houses. We all got the same education and over the years Maori have had better opportunities with housing loans bursaries etc.
I think our racial problems started again from a US influence. The Screening of the TV series ROOTS. It seems after that I was a honky and the Maori was black not brown and some believed they had been dragged to NZ in chains to work in cotton fields. A situation that continues today in Auckland with Maori youth imitating LA blacks in clothing and culture.So much for Maori culture. By the way it is not my job to maintain Maori culture it is up to the Maori.Just as the gGreeks , Italians, Dutch etc in our country maintain theirs
Mike It is about time we brought the existence of the Littlewood document to the fore again and keep shoving it at the electorate along with our 69 Billion dollars overseas dept that costs us 3.2 billion dollars or so in interest payments every year to explode the myth of the fiscal genius John Key. My country has gone completely nuts with political correctness and lack of common sense we used to pride ourselves on. The adult population is being treated like children by the authorities and putting up with it.Time for the worm to turn. Vote Independent.
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