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Showing posts with label gillard government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gillard government. Show all posts

Fraud in Australia’s plan to reduce violence against women..



The introduction of the "Violence against Women" programs has been something that feminists have dreamt up in order to introduce anti-male laws around the world. As usual, feminists and their enablers will use falsified information and any other method they can find in order to convince the law makers, if we can refer to them in that fashion, to change existing laws in order to discriminate against man and boy, while at the same time ensuring their own positions, paid for by taxpayers, are protected and guaranteed..
The hypocrisy that feminists have and continue to introduce is demonstrated once again by the author of this article. The researchers, professors and doctors are the radicals who produced the misandric  material are the same women who attended the SCUM Manifesto Conference in Perth, Western Australia in 2011. Those same women who were scheming and planning about removing half of the earth's population, blowing up the Men's Sheds and throwing little male toddlers thru windows while they are closed should indicate their inhumane nature..
They are the "NEW" breed of fanatical feminists that control that hegemony and decide future policies  and actions. They are also mostly lesbians, which does not come as any surprise considering their vitriol and malice towards all males..
Behind all this and included in their sullied actions and behaviour, we have the Gillard Government who have turned a blind eye to the recommendations these radicals want to introduce into parliament and make law. The Gillard Government demonstrates again what their intentions are for half of the Australian Population. More bigotry, discrimination and bias..

Fraud in Australia’s plan to reduce violence against women



stop-violence-against-women-but-not-menThe 2009 Australian project a ‘Time for Action: The National Council’s Plan for Australia to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, 2009-2021′, was approved for implementation by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). The Plan, which is split into several parts, puts forth recommendations for new legislation, changes to judicial processes, requests for funding and ideas for domestic programs targeted at reducing domestic and sexual violence against women. The advisory council has some powers to implement programs through the Office of Women among other agencies, but much of what the government funded program calls for requires approval by Parliament.
The entire premise of the National Plan was underpinned by the belief in this statement:“While a small proportion of men are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, the majority of people who experience this kind of violence are women in a home, at the hands of men they know.”[27-pg1] But a quick examination of the statistics and data shows a much different picture to the rather sweeping indictment of Australian men the National Council paints.
Indeed, The Plan never addresses the topic of violence that women commit towards men or towards children, nor does it accurately state the facts as they are in Australia.
The Data and Statistics
The National Council’s plan is put forth as a direct response to several academic papers and various activists around Australia, which purport data and statistics that claim to show an epidemic of men’s violence against women. However, the National Council readily admits its data on actual incidences of domestic violence and sexual assault is poor, sporadic and in some cases inaccurate. Nevertheless, the council makes most of their recommendations based on the conclusions of  several academic papers and studies, and rarely address any comprehensive analysis of their own. Indeed, The Plan never addresses the topic of violence that women commit towards men or towards children, nor does it accurately state the facts as they are in Australia.

“Data relating to violence against women and their children in Australia is poor. Data on services sought by, and provided to, victims is not readily available, and the way in which information is reported is generally inconsistent and does not allow for a comprehensive understanding of violence against women. Variations in data estimates across Australia are affected by differences in what is captured, counted and reported across States and Territories.
There are also personal and institutional barriers in decision making within and across systems that reduce the extent to which sexual assault and domestic and family violence is disclosed and reported. This affects the capacity of data to accurately reflect the real numbers of women and children who experience this violence. The difficulty [is] in measuring the true extent of sexual assault and domestic [violence].”[1-pg47]
 What The Plan lacks in substantial comparative statistical data, it makes up for with hyperbolic references to various academic publications which they imply contain extremely compelling data. However, when direct statistical data is mentioned, it is at best an out-of-context use of very some basic data; and at worst a deliberate obfuscation of the full picture of domestic violence. Here is an example of one statistic The Plan mentions over and over again in several of its various publications: 
Violence in relationships remains high in our communities, and most would agree that unless the unequal power relations between women and men are more meaningfully addressed, the incidence will not change. Around one in three Australian women experience physical violence, and almost one in five experiences sexual violence over their lifetime.“[1-pg59]
What they don’t mention is this “1 in 3″ (or 29%) stat isn’t just domestic violence, or even violence men perpetrate against women – it’s all forms of violence women experience. Furthermore, it’s only violence that occurs after the age of 15, which we will examine in a later article, is yet another obfuscation of statistical data. The exact same data set from which the National Council used, shows that over 41% of Australian men experience violence in their lifetime’,(12% more than women)as men are much more likely to be the victims of violence than women.
This conduct, citing research as though it supports claims it does not, was identified and coined with the term, Creating “Evidence” by Citation by internationally recognized expert on domestic violence research Dr. Murray Straus, in his paper entitled “Processes Explaining the Concealment and Distortion of Evidence on Gender Symmetry in Partner Violence, 2007,” which identifies various methods employed by unscrupulous activists and academicians to further assertions that are not supported by valid research.
Here is the complete data from the same Australian Bureau of Statistics(ABS)  source, which shows a larger picture of data on violence for both women and men.[7]
Violence experienced since the age of 15:
  • 29% (2,243,600) of women experienced physical assault
  • 41% (3,031,800) of men experienced physical assault
  • 17% (1,293,100) of women experienced sexual assault
  • 4.8% (362,400) of men experienced sexual assault
In the 12 month data prior to the ABS survey:
  • 4.7% (363,000) of women experienced physical violence
  • 10% (779,800) of men experienced physical violence
  • 1.6% (126,100) of women experienced sexual violence
  • 0.6% (46,700) of men experienced sexual violence
Of these numbers:
  • 79,500 men experienced physical assault by a female perpetrator
  • 195,300 women experienced physical assault by a male perpetrator
What does The Plan have to say about violence against men?
“While a small proportion of men are victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, the majority of people who experience this kind of violence are women in a home, at the hands of men they know. Men are more likely to be the victims of violence from strangers and in public, so different strategies are required to address these different types of violence.”[3-pg1]
        77% of men (60,900) who experienced physical assault by a female which occurred in a home
        64% of women (125,100) who experienced physical assault by a male which occurred in a home
Even if the ABS data is correct, which does not include abuse to children under the age of 15, who are abused at much higher rates by their mother than their father, men constituting one-third of all domestic abuse victims is not a “small proportion” in any sense of the meaning. In the prior 12 months to the survey for sexual assault, men experienced 27% of the incidents of sexual violence; again, not a “small proportion.” The question must be asked why a well funded government study on domestic violence doesn’t even begin to address the victimization of men when they do account for significant portion of domestic violence victims? According to the council:
“Enhanced community awareness and education programs are needed to change violence-supportive attitudes. These initiatives must be always based on the notion of gender equality and the need to shift men’s consciousness from one of privilege to one of mutuality. They need to make men question their own economic, social, and political power over women.“[1-pg47]

Does the National Council believe that the violence men endure is not as important as the violence women endure?
“Attitudes and beliefs about gender are learned, and society often teaches deeply held sexist views.  
Evidence shows that communities increase the risk of violence against women when they allow norms that support men’s controlling attitudes and behaviour over women, or attitudes that support the notion of male privilege. 

These norms include:”“macho” constructions of masculinityideas that “a woman’s place is in the home”notions that men should “wear the pants” as heads of the household and wage-earnersstandards that segregate male drinking and encourage excessive orbinge drinkingstandards that create peer pressure to conform to these ideas of masculinity and male behaviour[1-pg39]
These definitions of what it means to be a man are from Professor Michael Flood, a person who posed as a member of the father’s rights group Fathers4Equality, and used the groups resources unethically and fraudulently.  He sent distasteful and offensive letters to every member of the Australian federal parliament, in an effort to discredit and undermine the group’s efforts and reputation.[24][25][26] But more to the point, these stereotypes which Flood lists as the underlying cause of male violence are shallow and arguably paint an extremely biased and inaccurate picture of the vast variations of masculinity definitions that vary greatly from person to person. But let’s look at the basic statistics of men in Australia in terms of health, education and welfare when compared to women, to see the statistical evidence of “male privilege. 


Men Live on average 5 years less than women - (in 2007-2009 men had a 40.9% chance of surviving to age 85 years compared with women’s 57.3% chance)[20] 

Men accounted for 93% of workplace fatalities in Australia in 2009-2010[21] 

Men die of suicide at 3 times the rate of women ( 2008 Men 16 and women 5 per 100,000 population)[19] 

At least 1 in 3 victims of family or domestic violence is a Man[7] 

Men are more frequently victims of violent assault (3.9 %  man compared to 2.4 %  women)[7] 

Men are more frequently threatened with violent assault ( 5.0 %  men compared to 3.5% women)[7] 

Men’s enrollment in post secondary education for 2010 is 43.8%, women’s enrollment is at 56.2% [18] 

Men are more than twice as likely to be victims of homicide (1.8 victims per 100,000 population) than women (0.8 victims per 100,000 population)[22] 

The imprisonment rate for men in June 2009 was 13 times the rate for women(329 prisoners per 100,000 male adults versus 25 prisoners per 100,000 female adults)[23]

Men seem to be on the disadvantaged side of many basic areas of concern for any Australian citizen. It’s no secret that in the Western world, men have been falling behind for sometime now, which many would argue is due in large part to the emphasis on placing the needs of women above men. Moreover, the entire premise of this National Council’s Plan is predicated on the belief that men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of domestic violence. Their own data refutes that claim, and furthermore, several significant studies have been done that show domestic violence is perpetrated equally between men and women. [15][16][17] The statistics of domestic violence from the United States, Canada and United Kingdom shows domestic violence is perpetrated equally between men and women. 

(There is additional information that has not been released yet, which will show an attempt by several employees of the AIWH and ABS to change, hide or ignore data relating to domestic violence towards men and children.) 

Since the main underlying argument for such an enormous government undertaking is faulty, misleading and in many cases dishonest, what are the real motivations for the study and its findings? After close examination of the National Council’s drastic recommendations of  judicial and legislative changes, which call for ‘gendered civil and criminal laws’ meant to enact a type of gender profiling against men, holding them to a lower standard of proof for incidents of domestic violence and sexual assault, one can only wonder how such a biased and bigoted study made it past the desks of some of Australia’s most prominent politicians without any protest.

I think many Australian men may be curious to ask if Prime Minister Julia Gillard knows the real facts about domestic violence and sexual assault, and if she is aware of the horrendous amounts of civil rights violations, against half their population, that the National Council’s plan so adamantly call for.  Sadly, it now appears that hatred and bigotry are becoming government policy in Australia 

References

(1)The Planhttp://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/pubs/violence/np_time_for_action/national_plan/Pages/default.aspx
    (8) Angus G & Hall G (1996). Child Abuse and Neglect Australia 1994-1995. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Series; no 16)
    (9) Tomison A (1996). “Protecting Children: Updating The National Picture” in Child Abuse and Neglect Australia 1994-1995, Child Welfare Series No.16, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, AGPS, Canberra
    (10) Broadbent A & Bentley R (1997). Child Abuse and Neglect Australia 1995-1996. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Catalogue No CWS 1. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (Child Welfare Series No 17)
    (12) Fitzroy 2003 – ‘The violence of women: Making sense of child abuse perpetrated by mothers’ Australian Institute of Family Studies
    (15) Headey, B., Scott, D., & de Vaus, D. (1999). Domestic violence in Australia: Are Women and Men Equally Violent? Australian Social Monitor 2:57-62
    (16) Dutton D. G. (2007). Female Intimate Partner Violence and Developmental Trajectories of Abusive Families. International Journal of Men’s Health, 6, 54-71
    (17) Archer J (2000). Sex Differences in Physically Aggressive Acts between Heterosexual Partners: A Meta-Analytic Review. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 651-680
    (24)  Flood, M. (1998) ‘Mens’ Movements’, Community Quaterly, 46.
    (25)  Flood, M. and Pease, B. (2006) The Factors Influencing Community Attitudes in Relation to Violence Against Women: A Critical Review of the Literature, Melbourne: Victorian Health Promotion Foundation.
    Written by Kyle Lovett
    Kyle Lovett has been studying, practicing and blogging about Zen Buddhism for the last 5 years, and has just started to write about Men’s Rights issues. He works in technology field in Washington DC and has a wonderful 10 year old son. He is also the blog master of The Reformed Buddhist.

    The Zeitgeist of Radical Feminists in AUS. Law


    Oz Brick Wall
    December 30, 2011FEMINISM, FEMINIST GOVERNANCE

    A path to Australian apartheid

    (The first part of this series on Australia can be found here)
    Tanya Plibersek, Australian Minister for Housing and Minister for the Status of Women in the Rudd Labor Government, wrote in 2002;
    “At the weekend, the National Party voted against special measures to increase their number of women parliamentarians. The ALP and the Liberals, in contrast, want more women, but can’t agree on the best way to get them. This should be good news for the feminists who fought to make it happen, yet some – like the former federal MP Susan Ryan – ask whether it was worth it. After all, we haven’t defeated patriarchy. Yet.”[1]
    Seven years later, Plibersek played a critical role in championing Australia’s new ‘National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children’. Plibersek, along side Jenny Macklin, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, put together a consortium of academics and domestic violence experts, to spearhead a team which would go on create the national report that became official policy. Since the early 2000′s, Plibersek never made it secret that she strongly supports feminist and even some radical feminist ideals. Indeed, in 2005, when Sheila Jeffreys came to Sydney to make a speech, it was Plibersek that introduced her with warm welcoming remarks.[2]
    In April 1999, Plibersek gave an interview to Peter Lewis, during which she spoke about these ties of the Labor Party to the feminist community:
    “I think that our historical relationships with groups outside the Labor Party like the peace movement, the anti-nuclear movement, the environment, the feminist movement. Our links with community feminist organisations have been about promoting grassroots activism around sexual assault services, domestic violence services; that sort of activism within the community and collective responsibility..”
    She went on to weigh in about giving help to families with disabled children, but also clarified that she felt families are strictly women and children, and that any of their responsibilities should become the state’s responsibility;
    “But it is also fair to say that the State owes a responsibility to those kids and their parents. We don’t want to return to a situation of voluntarism where individual parents may not have the skills or the patience or the time or the financial ability to look after their children in the ways that would benefit them the most. And I don’t know if it’s an ideal situation to necessarily throw the responsibility back on them. I don’t want to go back to a situation where families — and that means women — are being told its their responsibility all over again.”[3]
    Plibersek’s special hand-picked legal advisor to the council was former Tasmanian Attorney-General Judith Jackson. Jackson, who labels herself as a “committed feminist,” has had a career filled with controversy. In the 2004 Tasmania Family Violence Act, [7] she was roundly criticized for her insistence that people accused of domestic violence not be granted bail before trial unless a series of nearly impossible steps were taken by the judge. When Jackson was criticized for attempting to bypass the Justice system, and for violating the human rights of men, she lashed out at her critics;
    “How can anybody say that somebody should be let out on bail, so they can go back and re-offend and commit a crime again, and that’s what you’re saying and I find that disgusting.”[4]
    But despite the fact that the data used as justification for the bill was based on very poor research, which according to many human rights advocates and several of her critics, never examined how often men were battered in similar circumstances, the bill was passed into law. The ramifications of the law went on to see hundreds of Tasmanian men spending weeks, many times months in prison before trial, for being accused of crimes like ‘economic’ or ‘emotional’ abuse. Ms. Jackson, when confronted about what the law was doing in practice, appeared quite amused and replied:
    “We do have some of the best legislation in the world for protecting women and children,”[5]
    The reality of the ‘National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children’ is that it was promoted and shepherded through Australian government by Plibersek, a woman that admittedly was heavily biased towards a hardline feminist perspective that entailed a goal of destroying what she saw as a patriarchy and  associated with radical feminists like Sheila Jeffreys.  Plibersek also believed that women and children are the only parts that constituted a family and felt that the parental responsibly of raising disabled children lies solely with the state. Plibersek hand chosen, as her legal expert to the National Council, Judy Jackson, was a “committed feminist” who has openly disregarded due process of law for men, ignored compelling data or research when drafting radical legislation and has been often accused of “incessant sexism” by her fellow colleagues. [6]
    It is not known exactly how the Rudd Labor Government choose the 11 members of the National Council in May 2008, but their members were: Libby Lloyd AM (Chair),Heather Nancarrow (Deputy Chair), Moira Carmody, Dorinda Cox, Maria Dimopoulos, Melanie Heenan, Rachel Kayrooz, Andrew O’Keefe, Vanessa Swan, Lisa Wilkinson and Pauline Woodbridge. [8][9] The council in conjunction with Plibersek, Jackson and Macklin, sought the help of several other academics, domestic violence experts and other individuals that the report refers to as “critical friends” to complete and finalize what became known as ‘Time for Action: the National Council’s Plan for Australia to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, 2009-2021‘.[19][20][27]
    The Sources of New National Policy
    The sources of data, research and analysis that were gathered and referenced by the national council and used as justification for their plan were formally acknowledged in the Government’s press releases in early 2009. Those sources were:[24][25][26]

    The Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault (ACSSA)
    The Women’s Services Network (WESNET)
    Women, Domestic Violence and Homelessness: A Synthesis Report
    National Association of Services Against Sexual Violence (NASSV)
    The Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) and Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)     were also used, but only as the information they provided was delivered via other research papers and analytical reports

    Another detailed list of the National Plan’s sources can be found here.
    The Greater circle of Australian Radical Feminists
    One little known portion of the website Radfemspeak.net, which is the site that hosts the Radfem forums, is a series of pages that they call ‘The Fury’.[10] The amount of information that is on The Fury is not large, but what is on there is very telling about Australian radical feminism and how the site’s members are connected outside of their small circle. On one of the pages, there is a list of names and short biographies, which the site considers to be radical feminists of note inside Australia. There list includes,Diane Bell, Susan Hawthorne, Sheila Jeffreys, Renate Klein, Jocelynne A. Scutt, Mary Lucille Sullivan, Denise Thompson, Bronwyn Winter and Betty McLellan.[11]
    Several of these names were attendees of the 2011 Perth SCUM conference, including Hawthorne, Jeffreys and McLellan. Bell, Klein, Scutt, Sullivan and Thompson are also part of this close knit group of radical feminist authors, speakers and/or professors, each of whom have been published through Hawthorne’s Spinifex Press.[14] Two of these are of particular interest to this story for the moment; Dr. Bronwyn Winter, an Associate Professor at The University of Sydney,[12] and Dr.Betty Mclellan, who was the principle founder for ‘A Coalition for a Feminist Agenda‘.[13]
    Dr. Winter has been a frequent guest speaker at several feminist and radical feminist gatherings, three of which were hosted or organized by Dr. Betty McLellan. [15][16] Dr. Winter also wrote an article in November of 2006 in support of White Ribbon Dayfor the website Online Opinion. [18] White Ribbon Day is an event that was created from the White Ribbon Foundation, which was founded in 2003 by a woman named Libby Lloyd. Lloyd is the current Chairperson for the National Council’s Violence Against Women Advisory Group. [17] More interesting however, is the end of the article, in which Dr. Winter and Ms. Green list who they feel are other leading voices for women. Most of the names are from the organization known as WESNET, but they also name a few other individual women’s rights advocates in Australia.
    “Written by Bronwyn Winter, University of Sydney, and Betty Green, domestic violence advocate, on behalf of WESNET (Women’s Services Network): peak body grouping 380 women’s domestic and family violence services across Australia); Pauline Woodbridge, Coordinator, North Queensland Domestic Violence Resource Service; Julie Oberin, Manager, Annie North Women’s Refuge and Domestic Violence Service; Marie Hume, National Abuse Free Contact Campaign; Veronica Wensing, Executive Officer, Canberra Rape Crisis Centre; Beth Tinning, Facilitator, Domestic Violence and Family Law Support Action Group, Townsville; and women’s rights advocates Desi Achilleos and Julieanne Le Comte.”
    Many of these names will reappear again, including WESNET and its role in Australia’s ‘National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children’, but what is of primary note here the last name mentioned in the article, a women’s rights advocate named Julieanne Le Comte. I did an extensive search for a women’s rights advocate under that name in Australia, or indeed, anyone connected with a domestic violence or battered shelter group, and found nothing except some links to some very old internet list servs about feminist science fiction.
    According to the AO files, Julieanne Le Comte is the person who is also known under the alias Rain Lewis. Rain is the owner and the main administrator of the Radfem Hub and forum, and she was also a speaker at the 2011 Pert SCUM conference.  [19] Dr. Winter is also public friends on Facebook with Rain Lewis, as well as the organizers of the Perth SCUM conference Allecto and Amazon Mancrusher. Does this mean that Dr. Winter is saying that Le Comte is an Australian women’s rights advocate leader because she runs the Radfem hub and forum, which as we all know, often discusses things like violence against men and infanticide?
    WESNET, Political Action and Patriarchy
    Dr. Betty McLellan has been on the Australian feminist scene for some twenty years, and has written several books published under Susan Hawthorne’s Spinifex Press. [20] McLellan has also hosted or chaired several conferences and gatherings of mostly radical feminists, including the 2002 Townsville International Women’s Conferenceand the 2007 International Feminist Summit. [15][16] Her Feminist Agenda coalition was also co-founded in 2002 by Dr. Joanne Baker, a Senior Professor at James Cook University, Chantal Oxenham, who works for the Australian Department of Human Services in the Northern Queensland Service Zone as a Regional Manager and Coralie McLean. [21][22][23]
    The 2002 Townsville International Women’s  5 day conference hosted about 50 different feminist speakers from 15 countries. Over a dozen panels and workshops took place as well, several of which took place in women only sessions. From the  Australian speakers, a large portion of them were some of the same radical feminists we’ve seen above; McLellan, Jeffreys, Winter,Scutt, Renate Klein, Hawthorne, Sullivan, Baker and Oxenham.
    What stands out was the large contingent of WESNET board members, who were part of four different panels. Over the past decade, WESNET has had only about two dozen board members, the most prominent two being Pauline Woodbridge and Julie Oberin. WESNET describes itself as:
    “Established in 1992, the Women’s Services Network (WESNET) is a national women’s peak advocacy body which works on behalf of women and children who are experiencing or have experienced domestic or family violence. With almost 400 members across Australia, WESNET represents a range of organisations and individuals including women’s refuges, shelters, safe houses and information/ referral services.”[29]
    While having individual speaking assignments, here are the four panels in which WESNET board members were involved. (WESNET board members in bold)
    • Panel – “Many Pieces Make a Whole – Providers of Anti-violence Education (PAVE)” Members - Jennyne Dillon, Ines Zuchowski, Joanne Baker, John Brown, Catherine Bessant, Jo Stewart, Shirley Slann, Jane Collyer, Pauline Woodbridge
    • Panel -”Joined Up Responses to Violence Against Women – Townsville Women’s Services Collaboration” Members - Lindy Edwards, Morgan King and Pauline Woodbridge
    • Panel – “Domestic and Family Violence Peak Round Table – Reflections, Future Directions/Strategic Directions for Advocacy and Lobbying” Members - Julie Oberin, Pauline Woodbridge, Shirley Slann, Ara Cresswell, Maxene Schulte
    • Panel – “National Strategy for Family Law Act Reform” Members - Julie Oberin, Ara Cresswell, Pauline Woodbridge
    Obviously the focus of much of the conference was on consolidation of feminist groups within Australia,  to lobby and advocate for new laws and new programs on a national level. Indeed, less than two years latter, in March 2004, five members of the 2002 Townsville Feminist conference (under the banner of the Feminist Agenda Coalition)went to the capital Canberra and met with several Labor Party leaders.[30] They discussed their idea for a blueprint of a national plan, which basic concepts were laid out in Townsville. Interestingly enough, many of the same 2002 Townsville plan basics were incorporated into the 2007 Rudd Labor Party platform, which led to the ‘National Plan for Australia to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children’.
    This topic will be addressed further in the next article, but two items are very important from this 2004 Canberra trip:
    • Only one of the five Feminist Agenda delegation that went was a WESNET representative. The other four were into differing degrees of radical feminism and were led by McLellan.
    • The politicians the delegation met with are some of the politicians who were directly involved with the 2009 national plan, including Tanya Plibersek and Jenny Macklin.
    At the 2007 International Feminist Summit, which was a far more radical feminist conference than 2002, saw Woodbridge and Oberin of WESNET take a much larger role individually. They both even gave back to back speeches:
    Pauline Woodbridge – “Challenging Patriarchy in Men’s behaviour Change Programs”
    Julie Oberin – “Perpetrators of domestic violence: Can we? Should we?”
    Less than 6 months after this conference took place Rudd’s Labor party won the election and took power. And less than 10 months after the 2007 conference Pauline Woodbridge would be appointed (from all indications by Plibersek) to the National Council chaired by Libby Lloyd. Woodbridge and Oberin, under the banner of WESNET, would go on to play a crucial role in the analysis and direction of the National Council. In fact, not only is WESNET listed as one of the main sources for information, Woodbridge and Oberin, along with the WESNET organization were recognized and used extensively as references and analysis in the 2008 Flinders University Synthesis Report; another of the Council’s primary sources.
    From Woodbridge and Plibersek  past speeches and remarks, and by the policies outlines in the report,  much of what was recommended  seemed to draw heavily from the feminist theory of Patriarchy. Furthermore, if the 2007 International Feminist Summit was any indication, WESNET’s top two people were increasingly moving in radical feminist circles, including interaction with people like Jeffreys, McLellan, Winter, Bell, Sullivan, Hawthorne, Klein, Catharine MacKinnon, Melinda Tankard-Reist, Ryl Harrison and Beth Tinning.[16] The question is if they did become radicalized, how much? And to what extent did their influence with the National Council’s sources and analysis moved in a radical direction?
    Other question remain, which we will examine in the next article:
    • Who were the other members of the National Council and what is their story? Were any of them less than friendly to Feminist ideology than Plibersek, Jackson or Woodbridge?
    • What exact data and statistics were used? Was the data accurate and factual? Was the information used honestly and in context?
    • What did the 2004 Feminist Agenda delegation to Canberra produce, and how much of McLellan’s agenda did the Labor party buy into?
    • What other feminists and radical feminists were used as sources for the study?
    • What role did the White Ribbon Foundation play?
    • What exactly is the plan, and how does the Australian government intend to enact it?
    • How does this fit into the already extensive Australian governmental agencies dedicated to women?
    • Have any men’s groups or father’s rights groups had a say in the plan?
    • How much more marginalized will men become in Australia because of these actions?
    This subject is complex, but hopefully many of these connections are a little more clear to everyone. I’ve been as detailed and thorough as possible  to avoid any confusion, and to stay away from generalized accusations. The men’s rights movement is, for me,  at its root about equal protection under the law. Much of Feminism has been about changing the way government operates to further their ideology, often with radical feminists leading the way. It’s happened in Sweden and I hope our research here shows how it is happening in Australia.
    [1] http://evatt.org.au/news/womens-suffrage-100-years.html
    [2] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ausnews/message/7160
    [3] http://workers.labor.net.au/9/print_index.html
    [4] http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2004/s1245028.htm
    [5] http://www.abc.net.au/tasmania/news/200411/s1252626.htm
    [6] http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/tas/content/2005/s1517030.htm
    [7]http://www.safeathome.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/27585/Family_Violence_Act_2004.pdf
    [8]http://www.dvirc.org.au/UpdateHub/FACS_37004_Violence_Against_Women.pdf
    [9] http://www.ipu.org/splz-e/newdelhi11/lloyd.pdf
    [10] http://radfemspeak.net/the-fury/
    [11] http://radfemspeak.net/the-fury/aust-radfems.html
    [12] http://sydney.edu.au/arts/french/staff/academic_profiles/winter.shtml
    [13] http://www.feministagenda.org.au/
    [14] http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Authors/
    [15] http://www.feministagenda.org.au/history/tiwc/list_of_abstracts.htm
    [16] http://www.feministagenda.org.au/Summit/detailedProgram.html
    [17]http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/progserv/violence/vawag/Pages/default.aspx
    [18] http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5212&page=0
    [19] http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/the-scum-connection/
    [20] http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Bookstore/author/id=1/
    [21] http://www.rural-leaders.com.au/programs/arlp/course-18-participants/488-chantal-oxenham
    [22] http://www.feministagenda.org.au/aboutUs.htm
    [23] http://www.jcu.edu.au/sass/staff/JCUPRD_016477.html
    [24]http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/pubs/violence/np_time_for_action/national_plan/Pages/acknowledgments.aspx
    [25] http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/progserv/research/Pages/default.aspx
    [26]http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/progserv/violence/nationalplan/Pages/nat_plan_2010_bibliography.aspx
    [27]http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/progserv/violence/vawag/Pages/default.aspx
    [28] http://www.wwda.org.au/natviolplanrept1.pdf
    [29] http://wesnet.org.au/about/
    [30] http://www.feministagenda.org.au/Canberra%20Report1.html
    Other links
    (ADFVC) – http://www.austdvclearinghouse.unsw.edu.au/
    (AIC) – http://www.aic.gov.au/
    (WESNET) - http://wesnet.org.au/
    Synthesis Report –http://fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/pubs/violence/synthesis_report08/Pages/default.aspx
    (NASSV) - http://www.nasasv.org.au/
    The Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS)

    Written byKyle Lovett


    11 POSTS IN TOTALSee Them »

    Gillard Determined to Make DV a Male Only Activity..

    Just another example of the feminised Gillard Aus. Government is determined to ignore violence by women in DV, even though the stats. clearly demonstrates the opposite is true and continue to malign all men as the only culprits..

    Feminists are totally uninterested in the truth about Domestic Violence and want to keep the status quo the way it is so they can justify the vilification of all men as well as justifying the millions spent on the privileged sex when they are well aware that the results and outcomes clearly demonstrates that it just does not work if blaming just one sex and ignoring the brutality of the other..
    There is a considerable body of evidence on female perpetrated DV and IPV, and enough on DV and IPV in lesbian relationships, to justify questioning the heterosexist assumptions on which the 12-year National Plan is based. Given this research, combined with the anecdotal evidence of victims and an increasing unease amongst commentators and clinicians, is it either legitimate or useful to continue to define DV, IPV and family violence as a gender hate crime, perpetrated overwhelmingly by men against women and children?
    Oh yes, how they lie, how else could they justify their male-hate agenda..


    Domestic violence, intimate partner violence, (IPV) and family violence are defined in Australian federal government policy as gender crimes, committed overwhelmingly by men against "women and their children."
    A gender crime is a category of hate crime.
    Hate crimes (also known as bias-motivated crimes) occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a particular social group, usually defined by race, religion, class, ethnicity, nationality, disability, age, gender, gender identity, social status or political affiliation. In hate crimes people are attacked because of who they are.
    Government policies designed to reduce the incidence of DV and IPV are founded on the feminist analysis of these crimes as gender hate crimes that occur in the overarching context of a patriarchal hegemony constructed of unequal power relations between men and women, and adherence to rigid gender stereotypes that position women and children as the property of men.
    The latest 12-year National Plan to Reduce Violence against women and their children released earlier this year by the Gillard government does not address female perpetrated domestic violence, IPV, and family violence against women and children. It is based on an ideological perspective that either does not allow that women are violent in families, or claims that if they are, their violence is considerably less than that of men, occurs in the patriarchal context and as a consequence of patriarchal values, therefore is not as serious or as frequent as that inflicted by men on women and children.
    The National Plan defines domestic violence solely as "violence against women," that is, a gender-hate crime, as follows:
    1.The term violence against women means any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life. 

2.The National Plan targets two main types of violence: domestic and family violence and sexual assault. These crimes are gendered crimes – that is they have an unequal impact on women.3…the majority of people who experience this kind of violence are women - in a home, at the hands of men they know.The Plan also states that interventions to prevent DV, IPV and family violence "must be undertaken in the context of unequal gendered distribution of power and resources," and that two of its goals are "controlling macho, aggressive and ultimately violent behaviour," and "holding men accountable for their behaviours."
    The Plan's bias is indisputable.
    What the research says A cursory search of the literature will reveal a plethora of international and some domestic research that challenges the feminist paradigm of DV, IPV and family violence. An Australian example is this 2009 paper by UWS lecturer Michael Woods titled "Domestic Violence in Australia." Critiquing government "desktop" research on which DV prevention policy papers are based, Woods notes:
    The basic framework propagated by these papers that will direct legislation, policies and services for years to come is a gender paradigm. Yet gender as a central construct in any explanatory framework of DV has been demonstrated comprehensively as inadequate – it does not accord with the evidence from major international and local studies.Woods concludes:


    This last sentence is inarguable. The gender paradigm we have used to understand and address DV for the last forty years has not resulted in any significant decrease in the crime.
    This 2007 Canadian study on Perceptions of Motives in Intimate Partner Violence (Hamel, Desmarais and Nicholls) concludes: "Results of this study provide empirical support for the existence of a gender bias within the field of domestic violence to minimize intimate partner violence perpetrated by women."
    This US study (Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, Volume 2 Issue 3, July 2010) on what researchers termed "Intimate terrorism" [IT] by women towards men concluded:
    The results of this study indicate that the adherence to the theory that patriarchy is the foundation of IT in Western, developed nations deserves reconsideration. Because IT can be perpetrated by both men and women, against both men and women, it is imperative that researchers, practitioners, and decision/policy-makers reconsider their conception of the causes of both IT and CCV so that all potential victims are addressed and provided with services.
    A 2005 study conducted by researchers at the University of British Columbia titled "The gender paradigm in domestic violence research and theory: Part 1-The conflict of theory and data" concludes, among other observations that:
    One detects a tendency to dismiss male victimization in reports where the female victimization rate is higher. It raises the question as to why this comparison is so often made. If group B is victimized less than Group A, it is nevertheless being victimized and the social mandate should be to reduce victimization of all citizens, not just certain groups. We would not accept this argument for any other pair of groups. Although women may be injured at a higher rate, men are injured as well. The inevitable conclusion is that feminist theory on intimate violence is flawed. It cannot accept the reality of female violence. While male violence is viewed as never justified, female violence is viewed as always justified. The data do not support this double standard.
    Same sex domestic and intimate partner violence.
    The 12-year National Plan is heterosexist in its focus. Based on a gender paradigm in which women are victims and men are perpetrators, it effectively renders same sex DV and IPV invisible.
    This is because if the Plan were to acknowledge the seriousness and prevalence of same sex violence, its definition of DV as a gender-hate crime perpetrated by men against women would be discredited.
    Again, a cursory search of the literature will reveal some significant material on lesbian DV and IPV, though the area is still very under-researched.
    The following is a paper delivered at the Australian and New Zealand Critical Criminology Conference 2010 by researcher Justine Hotten, on the lack of services and research in Australia for lesbians who experience and perpetrate DV and IPV. The author concludes that Australian research inevitably assumes heterosexuality in issues of DV and IPV, due to the use of dominant feminist frameworks for identification of the problem.
    This heterosexism is identified as a serious barrier to seeking help with lesbian partner violence, as the prejudice informs service provision.
    This research from Murdoch University reports:
    Some studies also suggest that the rate of violence is higher in same sex relationships. A 1985 study of 1109 lesbians by Gwat-Yong Lie and Sabrina Gentlewarrier reported that slightly more than half of the respondents indicated that they had been abused by a female partner. Coleman, in a 1990 study of 90 lesbians reported that 46.6% had experienced repeated acts of violence. Finally, Ristock's study of 113 lesbians reported that 41% said they had been abused in one or more relationships.
    The Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearing House offers this UK study on DV in gay and lesbian relationships. It states:
    Domestic violence in gay and lesbian relationships, as in heterosexual relationships, ranges from physical or sexual violence to psychological, emotional or economic abuse (Bagshaw et al. 2000). Like domestic violence in heterosexual relationships, domestic violence in gay and lesbian relationships includes: a pattern of behaviour, involving one partner using and maintaining power and control over the other, which causes fear in the other partner (ACON 2004, p. 5).
    The report concludes:
    Future research could also seek to provide a better understanding of how current approaches to domestic violence marginalise people on the basis of sexual preference, identity, orientation…
    Studies such as this one this one by Mark W Lehman (2007) conclude that:
    The vast majority of experts state that same-sex domestic violence occurs to the same extent or more frequently than does opposite-sex domestic violence: on average one in every four couples.
    There is a considerable body of evidence on female perpetrated DV and IPV, and enough on DV and IPV in lesbian relationships, to justify questioning the heterosexist assumptions on which the 12-year National Plan is based. Given this research, combined with the anecdotal evidence of victims and an increasing unease amongst commentators and clinicians, is it either legitimate or useful to continue to define DV, IPV and family violence as a gender hate crime, perpetrated overwhelmingly by men against women and children?
    The National Plan outlines the Gillard government's intention to reduce DV, IPV and family violence over the next 12 years. In reality, the Plan will address only male perpetrated violence.
    In so doing, the Plan will continue to effectively silence the voices of victims of female perpetrators in both heterosexual and same sex relationships.
    The Plan continues to use the outdated and increasingly contested framework of gender hate crime. There is certainly more than enough reason to question the use of this framework as a basis for public policy, not least its ineffectiveness to date.
    We urgently need a far more holistic approach to the problems of domestic, intimate partner and family violence, one that demands policy makers incorporate alternative frameworks of perception, of which there are several, into the official definitions and understanding of DV on which policy is based.
    Domestic violence is problem that dearly costs our society both financially, and in terms of extensive physical, psychological and emotional damage, often life-long, to the women, men and children who are its victims.
    Is domestic violence a gender hate crime? I would argue that evidence increasingly suggests that is not.
    Does this matter? When policy designed to reduce this crime is based on a false ideological premise that cannot help but detrimentally affect services and outcomes, I would suggest the definition of the crime matters a great deal.
    Internationally there is a growing recognition that a gendered conceptualisation of DV has passed its use-by date, and that such explanations do not account for the reality of DV research findings. Interventions based on a gendered approach are ineffective.
    Link..