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76. Changes in UK family law: What Australia must learn (and face) · The Post-Separation Abuse Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, welcome to another episode of the Post Separation Abuse Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Danielle Black.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: In the United Kingdom, family law is changing, and it's changing in ways that Australia should be paying very close attention to.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Recent reports show that domestic abuse features in nine out of ten family court cases in the UK.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Nine out of ten.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a niche issue.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's the system.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: The UK has finally begun recognising in law what many of us working in this space have known for years that domestic abuse, family violence, including coercive control, is not just a quote adult relationship issue.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's also a parenting issue, and children who are exposed to it are also victims.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So today we're asking, what can Australia learn from the UK's reforms and what as a community, as a society, are we still refusing to acknowledge and face?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with what's actually changing in the UK.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: New proposed laws mean that domestic abuse is now being formally recognised as a core child welfare issue, with the courts being required to consider it when making parenting and contact decisions.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Domestic abuse protection orders are being introduced to replace older, weaker protection systems.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: These orders can include electronic tagging, enforceable boundaries and longer term restrictions on abusive parents.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Most significantly, the long-standing presumption that a child benefits from contact with both parents is being challenged with a view to being limited, particularly in cases involving abuse or risk of harm.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, the UK is finally moving away from the dangerous ideology that contact between a child and a parent is automatically good.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: This shift matters because it acknowledges a truth that systems and frankly communities as a whole have avoided for far too long, that some parents are simply unsafe, will always be unsafe, and that any level of shared care is simply not appropriate.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Here in Australia, we actually made similar legislative changes.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: The 2024 reforms to the Family Law Act removed the presumption of equal shared parental responsibility and its links with parenting time.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: The law now says clearly that children's best interests and safety must come first.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Exposure to family violence is recognised as being harmful.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Any presumption of equal shared anything has been scrapped.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's a massive step forward on paper.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the problem.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: The legislation for us is no longer the issue.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: The issue is the ideology.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's society, the community and even professional opinion that unfortunately stops us moving forward and in many cases keeps dragging us backwards.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because despite the law changing, many lawyers, mediators, report writers, and even judges still operate under the old thinking.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: The idea that children quote need both parents, regardless of how unsafe or harmful one of those parents might be in reality.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So the law has evolved, but the mindset, the bias, the ideology hasn't.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And until it does, the law can't work the way that it's meant to.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where we need to get really honest with ourselves.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Family violence is not rare.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is not limited to intimate partner relationships.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And perpetrators of family violence are not good parents.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: They are not safe parents.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Children have a right to be protected from them.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Family violence doesn't stop being relevant once a couple separates.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: The behaviors that existed during the relationship control, manipulation, intimidation, any form of abuse, those things often continue after separation, especially through parenting arrangements and to and in front of children.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: A parent who controls or abuses their partner is often using the same or similar tactics on their kids.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Coercive control is not about conflict, it's about power and domination.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And anyone who dominates, controls or harms the other parent of their children cannot be trusted to parent safely.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is not anti non primary caregiver, this is not anti father.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is pro child.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: The reality is that most perpetrators of family violence are male, and that's exactly what the data tells us.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if we're serious about protecting children, then statistically we should be seeing a much higher number of fathers post separation with limited or in some cases even zero contact with children.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a gender bias, that is evidence based child protection.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know that all of this can be confronting.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And what I'm about to say next is no different.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: It goes against what so many of us were taught to believe, and that is that children need both parents.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: The phrase that children need both parents sounds on the surface to be really child-focused, but it's not.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's adult focused.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's built on guilt, fear, and the discomfort of facing the truth about family violence.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's about prioritizing the perceived rights of adults over and above the rights and the safety of our children.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something that I'm often talking with my clients about in our one-on-one coaching sessions, reminding them that their former partner has no rights to access the kids.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, the children are the ones with the rights.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And primarily, they have a right to be safe.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: When we prioritize fairness for adults, trying to ensure that both parents feel equally involved over and above child safety, we are actively putting children in harm's way.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: We need to stop saying children need both parents and start saying that children need safe parents.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not only do they need safe parents, they have a right to safe parents.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Australia's legislation has evolved, but our system, our culture has not caught up.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Professionals still talk about quote high conflict parents as though both parties share responsibility for the tension when in many cases one is a victim of abuse and the other is a perpetrator.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Mediators and lawyers still push for compromise even when safety risks are clear.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Family reports still often recommend contact with unsafe parents in the name of balance.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: As a community, we still celebrate fathers for simply showing up while mothers are judged for whether or not they're protecting their children.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: We have a cultural problem, not a legal one.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Until society accepts that a parent who abuses the other parent is not a good parent, any law reform will never reach its full potential.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: So what can we actually learn from the changes in the UK?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: First, that laws can be changed, they can be rewritten.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: But if the people applying them don't believe in their intent or understand the intent, nothing changes.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Second, systems must be trauma informed, professionals must understand coercive control, child development, child safety, child attachment.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Not to mention the evidence that exists regarding post separation parenting arrangements.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And third, child safety must always outweigh adult expectations, demands, desires or perceived rights.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, it must be recognized not only by the system, by the professionals in the system, but by society as a whole, that contact with a child is not a parent's right.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: A child has a right to safe parenting.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: If we really mean it when we say that we want to protect our children, then we must be willing to accept that sometimes that means limited or no contact with one parent.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: We should err on the side of caution, not the side of fairness or convenience.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a protective parent listening to this, you're not wrong if you're feeling frustrated, disillusioned, angry, all the things.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you're not crazy for believing that your child's safety should come before adult perceived rights or concepts of fairness.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're not alienating your child from the other parent by setting appropriate boundaries with an unsafe co-parent.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: The UK's reforms should be a wake-up call for every country, including ours.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: They show us that systems can and should change when truth is finally acknowledged.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Australia's family law in many ways has already caught up, but now it's time for our culture, our community, our society to catch up to.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot keep pretending that family violence is an intimate partner problem or an adult relationship problem.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's also a parenting problem.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's a child safety problem.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Until we're willing to face all that, no amount of reform will protect the children who need protecting most.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Protecting children isn't about fairness, it's about courage.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And courage starts with being prepared to acknowledge and tell the truth even when it's uncomfortable.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for being here with me today on the Post Separation Abuse Podcast.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: I look forward to chatting with you again soon.