‘This isn’t about men’s rights. It is about priorities’: Why this tragic issue must be heard

I READ the story of the barber facing the anti-discrimination complaint and my frustration at the priorities of society elevated

‘Fathers are killing themselves and the system is contributing’.

I READ the story of the barber facing the anti-discrimination complaint and my frustration at the priorities of society elevated.

By the time Thursday’s International Women’s Day came along I was almost curled up on the ground in a ball crying.

I am a man. I am writing this anonymously because the issues I am relaying would involve identifying my children and to do that would bring undue duress to them.

My beef is not either events. My beef is in large part the media and the system that predominantly men must face unsuccessfully.

On the day before the barber shop story was published a group of 30 people, mainly men, some women and children, held a protest on the steps of Parliament House in Darwin. It was part of a national day of action in all capital cities to raise the impacts of the current family law system and the child support agency.

A system which is a major contributor to the death of my fellow fathers. We don’t know for sure how many because when a parent kill themselves, and men account for 85 per cent of all suicides, of which the 35 to 49 year age bracket are the highest, the file is sealed under the guise of protecting the families and so we never get to scrutinise the role the system or the child support agency played.

My own lawyer here in Darwin told me while I was spending four years in the family law court system that he had four male clients kill themselves due to relationship breakdowns and the associated pressure placed on them by the system.

Yet this is a subject the media routinely refuses to address. Instead men are the villains and women are the victims. Imagine if you will, if men had a legally entrenched system which has as its starting point, two thirds in their favour. There would be outrage, but that is exactly the starting point fathers face entering the family law court system.

There is no right for 50-50 parenting as a starting point.

How is it this is ignored by the media, by the politicians?

It is ignored because the next conclusion jumped to by the broader public is that if a relationship fails then it is by far the male’s fault — it has to be. They are the perpetrators of violence, they are the perpetrators of evil and they are instigators in all acts of discrimination. And when it comes to violence the stats support such a conclusion except when it is not the case and the male is subjected to false accusation. But the system doesn’t care about individuals it applies blanket blame.

Fathers are killing themselves and the system is contributing.

My own experience with the family law court system and child support has left me on the brink of suicide.

I have not had a relationship of any description with my children for a long time – more than a decade. There are no court orders stopping me but an agreement the decision to have a relationship rests solely in the children’s hands. An agreement forced on me by the court or subject myself to years of expensive costs and distress, not only on me but on my then young children, in a system where I had no rights anyway.

I send birthday gifts. I send Christmas gifts. I get no acknowledgment they even receive them.

I pay child support and have the entire time. I currently have a $2.50 credit in payments. A child support agency case manager once told me to go and kill myself to make my children’s life happier when I kept explaining to them I couldn’t meet the payments.

Keep in mind right now today I am in front payment wise but that hasn’t always been the case especially during the darkest days of depression. I routinely give up 33 per cent of my salary for no access. I have even been forced to pay child support on moneys I didn’t earn.

Meanwhile my ex-wife has at times earned four or five times my salary.

Why? Because that’s the way the system works and no one wants to expose the system for what it is — a punisher and a killer of men.

This isn’t about men’s rights. It is about priorities. The priorities of society and the priorities of the media.

We deserved to be heard last Sunday but we weren’t. In this week coming more men will kill themselves and the family law system and the child support agency will have played their part.