[Paracelsus]

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenti...7079444358

This is probably more of interest to people like the Spearhead or MRA groups since it concerns child support after divorce (i.e. buying better padlocks for the gate after the horse has disppeared over the horizon), but it may be of passing interest if it evidences a growing disenchantment with some of the joys the present, female-biased divorce system works.

Quote:

“Many parents feel as though their child support is going toward items which provide no direct benefit to their children rather towards expenses which help maintain their former partner’s lifestyle,” Ms Rowland said.

The MP told News Corp Australia that one of her constituents had raised the controversial issue with her, complaining he was at a loss to understand where the child support he paid was going, because his child was dressed shabbily and needed serious dental work.

“Whilst I can understand that this may be challenging from an administrative perspective, many of these parents believe that there should be some accountability whereby parents receiving child support are required to provide evidence of the way in which the funds are being expended,” she said.
“This would help to allay these concerns that their children are being neglected or not properly provided for, despite the child support that they are providing,” Ms Rowland said.

On one hand I'd take this with a certain grain of salt. The MP involved is a Labor MP out in the western Sydney suburbs. Labor in Australia is currently in Opposition and it's still heavily on the nose with the electorate, especially out in battling suburbs (western Sydney's probably more like East L.A. in American terms.) This could just be a pathetic attempt at trying to score a few deluded MRA votes out there.

But the fact a woman's run with this idea, and a member of Parliament no less, is significant: Labor relies heavily on the female vote to get anywhere, and this is a direct smack in the face at that element of its constituency. Not to mention it suggests the issue is getting a bit of traction at last.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

It's outrageous that it's even a question whether it should be verifiable that the mother had really spent her child support income on the child and exactly on things the child needs... but we live in outrageous times, where merely questioning a woman's absolute morality is enough to get you lynched.

[Paracelsus]

(10-04-2014 03:23 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

It's outrageous that it's even a question whether it should be verifiable that the mother had really spent her child support income on the child and exactly on things the child needs... but we live in outrageous times, where merely questioning a woman's absolute morality is enough to get you lynched.

Yeah, that's why the story sprang out at me: first that a female MP had listened to a male constituent on an issue like this (this sort of complaint is usually brushed off and put in the same file as the Fathers4Justice activists) but that the same female MP actually went and criticised people who, as Kanye put, "Go out and get lipo wid yo money."

Note of course that the politically correct media doesn't specify genders, despite the fact the overwhelming majority of recipients of child support are women, not men. Still, for a Western democracy riddled with feminism this is a big step, and particularly so given a woman has said it. If it had been a male MP he would've been screamed down as a misogynist: Julia Gillard out here made misogyny a war tactic in her pathetic attempt at governing the country.

[alexdagr81]

Reminds me of this: http://www.complex.com/sports/2012/06/ch...in-florida

Her lawyer had to be laughing under his breath when he said $2600 is mere in child support.

[Deluge]

Saying Western Sydney (where almost half of Sydneysiders live) is comparable to East L.A of all places is insane. And I have no skin in this game. Also Greenway is a swing seat, the only reason Labor didn't lose it to the Liberals last year was because of the Jamie Diaz fiasco.

[Paracelsus]

(10-06-2014 10:20 PM)Deluge Wrote:  

Saying Western Sydney (where almost half of Sydneysiders live) is comparable to East L.A of all places is insane. And I have no skin in this game. Also Greenway is a swing seat, the only reason Labor didn't lose it to the Liberals last year was because of the Jamie Diaz fiasco.

I stand corrected -- sandgropers like me don't know the electoral breakups on the East Coast too well.

[Phoenix]

Pretty fucked up that the mother can do what she wants with the money, I didn't realize it was like this in Australia.
I've heard in other countries that the money goes into a separate account.

To be completely fair, the money should be put into a separate account for the child, and drawn upon using a bank card for purchases only. That way, all transactions would have to be defensible since they would show up on the statement, and the father could sue for any monies not spent on the child.

I think it's pretty unambiguous that Western family law is completely inequitable, and I think this comes from the cultural standpoint that 'the woman is a weak victim by default, the man is a wrongdoer by default'. I also think it is very unlikely this won't change in the future.

[Deluge]

(10-07-2014 04:28 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  

Pretty fucked up that the mother can do what she wants with the money, I didn't realize it was like this in Australia.

This isn't unique to Australia by any means.

Quote:

18 years, 18 years
She got one of your kids, got you for 18 years
I know somebody paying child support for one of his kids
His baby mamma's car and crib is bigger than his
You will see him on TV any given Sunday
Win the Superbowl and drive off in a Hyundai
She was supposed to buy your shorty TYCO with your money
She went to the doctor got lypo with your money
She walking around looking like Michael with your money
Should've got that insured got GEICO for your money, money, money
If you ain't no punk holla we want prenup
WE WANT PRENUP! Yeah
It's something that you need to have
'Cause when she leave yo ass she gonna leave with half
18 years, 18 years
And on her 18th birthday he found out it wasn't his

Ironically 9 years later he gets married without a prenup...

[Vroom]

It is a fucked arrangement, but I wouldn't want the government to have the ability to control or scrutinise what people spend their money on. I think the suggestion in the article is much better:

Quote:

Director of the Men’s Rights Agency, Sue Price, said non-custodial fathers often raise fears their child support is not being spent on their children.

“For a lot of them it isn’t, it funds the mothers’ lifestyle, and what adds insult to injury is they don’t get to see their children — that’s the worst offence.

But Ms Price said she did not think it was wise to introduce a system where the child support agency, or another body, scrutinised what custodial parents spent their child support on.

Instead she proposed all child support payments should be limited to “a reasonable amount” akin to the support provided through the Federal Government’s Family Tax Benefits.

Fuck "keeping her in the lifestyle to which she is accustomed" in a split. The lifestyle is what she gets as reward for being pleasant enough that you want to keep her around.

Also: What the fuck is the "mens rights agency" and why oh why is a shiela the director of it?

[Phoenix]

(10-07-2014 04:37 AM)Deluge Wrote:  

Ironically 9 years later he gets married without a prenup...

Haha love that song, Kanye would be well at home on this forum.
His wife is pretty wealthy herself though, maybe he thinks people will get tired of him sooner than her.

(10-07-2014 04:39 AM)Vroom Wrote:  

Fuck "keeping her in the lifestyle to which she is accustomed" in a split. The lifestyle is what she gets as reward for being pleasant enough that you want to keep her around.

That's 'Alimony', a separate, and truly fucked up, concept.

[Native Baltimoron]

Alimony and default female custody both need to go away. Of the two, default female custody is much more noxious to the fabric of society; kids raised by single dads are at much less risk of growing up to be criminals, etc. than kids raised by single moms. Back in the day, men usually were awarded custody rather than women, and society was more stable for it; the camel's nose under the tent was the "tender years" doctrine, an presumption that very young children should not be separated from their mothers.

I could maybe see alimony being reasonable in a divorce case where the husband was at fault, e.g. adultery, but that excepted, it's absurd on its face to pay someone to welch out on their end of the deal.

Anyways, with respect to the OP, at least some people have to be seeing that female triumphalism about the ways in which the system advantages women over men is likely to be self-defeating in the long run. If men decide, en masse, that the system is broken and it's time to tear it down, there's not a damn thing women as a group are likely to be able to do about it. Open hypergamy, to borrow a term from Rollo, does not encourage men to line up as providers for post-Wall carousellers.