Financial pressures causing couples to split

Relationships Australia says rising living costs and housing stress are causing couples and families to break up.

Financial counsellor Fiona Hawkins says more couples are struggling with relationships because of increased financial pressures.

And she says counsellors are also seeing an increase in problem gambling.

"Frankly when there's no other way to make the budget balance, some people will head to the pokie room and that can put enormous strain on a family's stability," she said.

Court overcrowding 'inviting violence'

The Federal Government has been told that overcrowding at Newcastle Family Court is creating a volatile situation that invites acts of violence.

Newcastle's family court services half of New South Wales and has one of the highest rates of security breaches in the country.

Nine years ago, a man stabbed his wife outside the court.

Member for Newcastle Sharon Grierson says every year security guards deal with clients threatening to kill people, or trying to bring in weapons, "from syringes, to screwdrivers, to knives".

She says a new building is urgently needed because the current one does not have enough courts for hearings or room to separate people caught up in acrimonious disputes.

"Everyone is mixed in together in a volatile situation and that's one of the reasons that the security risk is so high," she said.

"People have loitered and tried to attack each other."

Family Court of Australia chief executive officer Richard Foster says a recent national review of court facilities identified Newcastle as a top priority.

"The design of the court doesn't meet contemporary standards and needs changing because people just don't feel safe going to court," he said.

Family lawyer Judith Olsen says the court is too crowded to interview clients in private.

"They have to sit there with the other person walking up and down in front of them, or sitting in close proximity staring at them," she said.

"I've seen people who are obviously very, very disturbed, or very, very distressed attempting to intimidate them.

"It is not a dignified surrounding for people's matters to be dealt with."

Related:

Govt to fund 75 family counselling centres
The Federal Government has announced that 75 new family counselling services will be funded this year.

Divorce stopping home ownership
Relationship woes rather than housing affordability is keeping younger Australians from home ownership, a new study has found.

Divorce season
The new year is so notorious for divorce appointments that among the legal profession, the Monday of the first full week back in the office after the Christmas break is known as D-Day.

Quote: Once again this is a clear admission by the court of what acrimonious disputes, divorce and family separation cause in terms of domestic violence. Overcrowding always causes problems no matter where you go even in prison. But in a sense it wouldn’t matter where you put the next family court or even how you designed the facility because the 'mood' would always be the same. Perhaps it’s the very 'idea' that causes the problem and not the court, facilities or design so much because no other Family Court would be immune?

Question: What can be done to reduce acrimonious disputes, divorce and family separation? Wouldn't that help fix the problem too? Prevention is better than cure.

Divorce stopping home ownership

Relationship woes rather than housing affordability is keeping younger Australians from home ownership, a new study has found.

Flinders University academics have found higher percentages of younger Australians are embarking upon home ownership than ever before.

Professor Andrew Beer surveyed 2,600 people to find the average age for first entry to home purchase had fallen over the last 30 years.

"(It's) because of the liberalisation of home lending, rising incomes and increasing aspirations," Prof Beer said.

His fellow researcher Debbie Faulkner said people at younger ages were also falling out of home ownership when divorce or separation ended their inability to maintain mortgage payments.

"Our research suggests that the real challenge for governments into the future is not to help more people become home purchasers, but to sustain home ownership," Dr Faulkner said.

The pair said their research showed it may be appropriate to redirect the First Home Owners Grant towards helping people at risk of losing their homes - rather than accelerating entry for would-be buyers.

Researcher warns of shared custody increase

[Firstly this article starts off with this statement from the ABC]:

"Audio: Shared care parenting linked to anxious kids: study (The World Today)"

[But no anxious kids were linked to being separated from both parents right?]

[Now]

A new report into family breakups is warning of a sharp increase in shared custody arrangements, even when [Allegedly] they are not in the best interest of children.

[So I take it by that statement that (shared custody) parenting by the father and mother of the child is not in the interest of the child. Taking into account no other extraordinary factors like sexual assault or violence in the home. Since when?]

Dr Jennifer McIntosh from LaTrobe University says changes to the law in 2006 mean parents who resort to court or mediation to sort out custody battles are now more likely to end up with equal access to their kids.

[Yippee and it is about time. Why do you think they changed the law? To get the opposite result? And why do women hate this so much? Because when they hop of the nest like squirrels to mate with the next richest man that comes by it is not so easy to move into the next state and forget the children had a father. At all material times taking into account that women are more likely than men to leave the marriage or relationship.

Divorce season
Lawyers say women outnumber men two to one when it comes to filing for divorce in the new year. Anne Hollonds, CEO of Relationships Australia, said its phones "run hot" after the Christmas break.]

But Dr Jennifer McIntosh says often those parents are not able to cooperate and communicate well enough to shield their children from ongoing conflict.

[Or pay the rent? or feed themselves? or teach children to tie their shoe lacers? but they do manage regardless don't they?]

"We don't know long-term what the effects of combining shared care with high conflict are, my data shows short-term that these children are far more likely to be fearful, shy, clingy, to be anxious and worried children," she said.

[Oh yes we do know it's called 'normal experience' or 'common sense' and it shows long-term disregard for children that are denied equal access to both parents end up losing a parent and his/her 'extended family' including grandparents, nieces and nephews etc, who care for them all because one was simply denied that access and destroyed any possibility of any type of meaningful relationship with the child. What does that cause Dr?]

Researchers say parents who need to be ordered to have equal custody of their children are probably not equipped to make the arrangement work.

[But they were equipped to have the child? Even when we now know that up to at least three generations of parents don't have social skill to pass on to their own children here in Australia.]

Dr McIntosh says these parents are not often ready to deal with each other in a businesslike manner.

[Because the sovereign family unit is not the government's business or Dr Mcintosh's business. Oh, the Dr would like that to be so and that would make more business for the Dr. who is actually using people as fodder for her victim industry and psychologists who all get well paid to err on the side of the person paying them for their services in the Family Court for solicitors for one party or another in a 'business like profession'.]

"They need a way of sorting out communication, they need a way of cooperating at least passively and of getting on with the business of focusing on their children," she said.

[They need social skills, communication, and conflict resolution skills Dr. And parenting skills at the 'earliest intervention' not after they've had children because by then it is 'too late' to separate them because some Dr thinks they know better than parents do based on the 'prestige of grants from the government'.

Other parents are not the governments business or the Dr's business it's the parents business and both parents have equal rights to their children. And for anyone to argue that that is not the case all the way throughout a child's life, at least up until the age of 16, is running a business and living on government grants.]

Govt to fund 75 family counselling centres

The Federal Government has announced that 75 new family counselling services will be funded this year.

There will be 25 Family Relationship Centres, which are designed to help families resolve their disputes without resorting to court action.

The Government says another 28 centres will provide services to help children whose parents have separated.

Another 22 early intervention centres will also be established to help prevent family breakdowns.

Divorce season

APPOINTMENTS with divorce lawyers are soaring, triggered by the stresses and strains of the Christmas break.

Some firms report a doubling in consultations during January compared with other months.

The new year is so notorious for divorce appointments that among the legal profession, the Monday of the first full week back in the office after the Christmas break is known as D-Day.

Figures from the Federal Magistrates Court, which deals with most divorce applications, show that January marks the start of a steady month-on-month surge in the number of people filing for a legal split.

In the last financial year, December had the lowest rate of divorce applications, with 2828 nationwide (excluding Western Australia which has its own family court).

In January, applications rose by more than 10 per cent to 3225, followed by similar rises month on month before peaking at 4486 in May.

A court spokeswoman said the statistics reflect that people first see a lawyer in January but may only lodge a divorce application weeks or months afterwards, once they have tried and failed with counselling and mediation.

Paul Doolan, a partner with Sydney divorce firm Barkus Edwards Doolan, said: "The first few weeks of January are always our busiest time. We get a large spike in people wanting advice. Christmas can be a real pressure cooker situation for some people. They are thrown together for an extended amount of time and at the end of it someone just says, 'That's it, I can't take it any more and I want a divorce'."

"For other people, it has been building up for some time and they make a new year's resolution to get out of the marriage and act on that."

Frank Egan, CEO of LAC Lawyers, said the company sees double the average number of clients in the first weeks of the year.

Mr Egan said that as well as people spending a lot of time together over Christmas, there are related factors, including alcohol, arguments over money, credit card debt and problems with relatives.

"Some people are already separated and have been holding off on the divorce, but then Christmas comes and the arguments start over who is going to have the kids, who gets to take them on holiday and what's happening with the money and that drives them into finally filing for divorce."

Lawyers say women outnumber men two to one when it comes to filing for divorce in the new year. Anne Hollonds, CEO of Relationships Australia, said its phones "run hot" after the Christmas break.