The Emasculated Vikings

With special guest:

• Joakim Ramstedt.  

Today we speak with well known Swedish musician, human rights activists and political Blogger, Joakim Ramstedt. He and his popular band Tequila Sunrise have released a new album, with many of the songs referring to the various elements that comprise the destructive International family justice system, which is doing so much harm to unsuspecting separating parents and their children around the globe.

Throughout history, people have found ways to separate children either from one or both of their parents and extended families. This phenomenon can be traced right back to medieval times.

Modern man has fine tuned the methods used to accomplish this insidious practice and has even found a way to make it legal to do so, by creating a court of law that hides behind the mantle of “In the best interest of the children”, while it severs many of the world’s children from half of their biological family tree.

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Marriage Matters

With special guests:

• Warwick Marsh  and

• Bill Kable.

First we speak with the founder of the Dads4Kids Fatherhood Foundation, which is now Australia’s largest pro-father, pro-marriage and pro-family charity, Warwick Marsh.

Warwick, together with his wife and daughter, recently attended the Smart Marriages Conference in Florida, USA. During his US tour in July, Warwick met with leaders in the American fatherhood and marriage movement and recorded many interviews for TV and radio. He speaks with us about his recent tour and his passion to promote marriage and the virtues of staying together for better or worse.

Next we introduce the newest member of the Dads on the Air team, Bill Kable. Bill is a Sydney lawyer who is also a professional mediator with a mission to encourage fathers to take an active role in the lives of their children, and to ensure they remain in the lives of their children should parental separation occur.  

Bill speaks candidly about some of his own experiences with the family justice system, and how it fails non custodial parents and their children, especially in the area of non-enforcement of contact orders.  

Also in the studio were two other new members of the Dads on the Air team, Bill’s wife Catherine, a University lecturer and Trevor Miller, a retired ABC TV editor. All of whom have had extensive experience with the family justice system and realize the urgent need to ensure the nation’s children obtain real equal shared parenting time with both of their  parents, following parental separation.  Welcome aboard. 

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Empowering Gender Equality

With special guests:

• Jeffrey Asher and

• Geoffrey Greene.
  

First up we speak with the newly appointed President of the Shared Parenting Council of Australia Geoffrey Greene, who was a key figure in the establishment of the Council 8 years ago and a key figure in pushing through the moderate reforms to family law by the previous Australian government; reforms which now look like they will be wound back by a Labor government and a few key feminist ministers.

Secondly we speak with Canadian academic Jeffrey Asher, formerly of Dawson College, who taught on the statistical merits of sexual politics and in the autumn of 1994, offered students at Dawson College the only course in Canada on ‘Men’s Lives’. Following 6 years of unrelenting pressure from extreme feminists, he was finally forced to resign and abandon the course in 2000. “My father taught me to respect ladies and that human rights were indivisible. In the 1970s, I lectured on sexual equality of opportunity and equality before the law. Like most men, my naivete about feminist politics was sustained by raging hormones”.

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The Menace of Extreme Feminism

With special guests:

• Amfortas.
  

This week we look at the struggle of the community to deal with the outrageous effects of extreme feminist dogma on our daily lives. Much of the discourse centers around myths and rogue statistics which paint a very negative picture of the men and boys in our communities.

This propaganda machine which rolls out a production line of inaccurate information of a misandrist nature, is being used as a template to formulate anti male government policy, and which is proving so detrimental to the health and well-being of the males in our society.

Unfortunately our leaders ignore community calls for them to more aggressively enquire about the accuracy of the anti male information they receive, and on which they base their judgement and ultimately cast their vote.

We recently saw our Australian federal opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, make the mistake of not checking the accuracy of the information presented to him. He did this to his own detriment and is now paying the political price for ignoring the need for scrutiny.

Yet when Senator Steve Fielding goes on a search for the truth regarding the global warming climate debate, he is ridiculed by fellow politicians and the media, for doing so. While at the same time government members, like lemmings jumping over a cliff, blindly toe the anti-male line and continue to refuse to question the accuracy of the extreme feminist dogma that permeates our corridors of power, and continue to vote against equality and justice for men.

Amfortas together with other concerned citizens, has put together an excellent series of podcasts on the need for accuracy in reporting, on what can only be described as the human rights abuses of men and boys, and explains how, when and why, this is happening.

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The Canadian Special

With special guests:

• Karen Selick
• Rodger Gallaway and
• Jeffrey Asher.

This week we look at the struggle for family law reform in Canada, the home of some of the world’s most extreme anti-male anti-father legislation. Recently Dads On The Air interviewed Canadian MP Maurice Vellacot, who has introduced shared parenting legislation into the Canadian parliament. This week we follow on from that interview by talking with the highly experienced family lawyer Karen Selick, who has been an outspoken proponent for reform of the system; Roger Gallaway MP, who co-chaired an inquiry into shared parenting in Canada and Jeffrey Asher, a lecturer on men’s studies who taught the last men’s studies course in the country.

With Australia’s left wing government heading in exactly the opposite direction to the rest of the western world and winding back the modest reforms of the previous government promoting cooperative care of children after divorce, now is the perfect time to look at the situation around the world. Canadian society and many tens of thousands of fathers and their children have paid a very high price for the country’s previous embrace of extreme anti-male ideology; and numerous voices are now united in a call for sanity to prevail.

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Democracy At Work

With special guests:

• Neil Humphreys
• Sue Price 
• Michael Woods and
• Benjamin Easton.

This week we range across a wide variety of subjects, talking first up with the ever lively author of a new book on becoming a dad, Be My Baby Neil Humphreys. From the cheery to the rational, we then talk with Sue Price, the founder of the Men’s Rights Agency, arguably the most articulate supporter, of the rights of men in our modern society.

This is followed by a fascinating interview with academic Dr. Michael Woods  UWS, as we take a revealing look at the way the real statistics on Domestic Violence and Child Abuse have been kept from the general public, and how many Government Policies appear to be formulated based on inaccurate information.

We close the show talking with Benjamin Easton a Political Busker, who is participating in a demonstration outside the Bank of New Zealand, protesting their outrageous portrayal of all men as bashers and all women as victims, clearly themselves the victims of domestic violence hysteria. Somewhere along the line they forgot that half their customers are male and most of them object to being portrayed as Neanderthals.

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Shared Parenting - Why It Works

With special guests:

• Maurice Vellacott
• Michael Green and
• Sue Price.

With moves clearly afoot to wind back the modest reforms of the previous government on shared parenting legislation designed to encourage a relationship between both parents and children after separation, we take a look at the very strong case for shared parenting as the norm post-separation, with advocates arguing it works best for both children and parents - as well as saving the government a great deal of money by encouraging single parents to get off welfare and into work.

Maurice Vellacott is a Canadian Member of Parliament who has just introduced a bill promoting shared parenting into the Canadian legislature. He says a recent poll demonstrated that 78% of Canadians support equal shared parenting, with slightly more women than men supporting co-operative care of children post divorce.

Surveys in Australia have shown similar high levels of support, with the main obstruction to the commonsense notion coming from government bureaucrats and the family law industry itself. Regular guest Sue Price from the unfashionably named Men’s Rights Agency will talk about the devastating impacts on individuals and the broader community of the sole-mother custody model which has done so much harm over recent decades. She dismisses the current spirited campaign by feminist lobby groups outside Family Courts as nothing but hysterical male bashing by people with absolutely no knowledge of family law.

We close the show with an extended interview with Michael Green QC, author of the book Shared Parenting, who is also alarmed at the current moves to unwind shared parenting legislation. He argues that with legislation in many jurisdictions now enshrining shared parental responsibility and parenting time, there is ample research which indicates how important it is for children to continue meaningful relationships after family breakdown.

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Fatherhood and Politics

With special guest:

• Ray Barry.

Ray Barry is the Religious Affairs Co-Ordinator with Fathers 4 Justice (F4J) and Party Leader for the Equal Parenting Alliance (EPA) in the UK. This is a must-listen interview, succinctly summing up the state of Family Law in the UK and the challenges that lie ahead.

The civil rights group Fathers 4 Justice was founded in December 2002 by Matt O’Connor after he experienced first hand the injustices of the secret family courts as he struggled to see his two boys Daniel and Alexander after a traumatic divorce. Started as a vehicle for social change, F4J quickly became the high-wire act of protest groups, whether powder-bombing the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, scaling the balcony at Buckingham Palace in a Batman Costume, invading the Pulpit at York Minster during a General Synod Service or taking the National Lottery Draw live off air on BBC1 in front of ten million viewers.

The Equal Parenting Alliance is a relatively new UK political party, formed in February 2006 which aims to promote a system of family justice in the UK that puts the needs and interests of children first.

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Gender-Neutral Approaches to Domestic Violence

With special guests:

• Joep Zander
• Patricia Gho and
• Paddy Murray

In the social justice arena, two small European countries appear to be way ahead of the pack, and Dads on the Air has been among the first to report these important historic developments to the English-speaking world. First, on the 10th of March we reported on the new “50/50 Equal Shared Parenting Time” laws in Belgium, and now we are pleased to report that the Dutch Government has finally recognized the need to provide domestic violence shelters for abused men.

First up we speak with Joep Zander, who is a well known author, artist and fathers rights activist in the Netherlands. He presents his view of the new DV shelters, acknowledging that because it is still very early days he has some reservations about the scheme. However he hopes the shelters will turn out to be successful in providing a much needed escape for men from their violent partners or families.

Next we speak with Patricia Gho of Stichting Wende, director of the men’s shelter in the Hague. Commenting on the radical change in Dutch Government thinking that led to the trial, she states that “the Government simply could no longer ignore all the data that has for many years shown that there is a real need to also provide shelter for the abused men in our community”.

Bringing the issue closer to home, last up we speak with Paddy Murray, the Buddhist chaplain from Goulburn prison. Mr Murray has done some interesting development work in violence-prevention in Campbelltown with both men and women. He ran the first violence prevention course for women, which unfortunately is no longer in operation. His approach, which he calls “peaceful relating”, is to move beyond gender in violence-prevention work, arguing that the gender lens is just a distortion that does not help much with the work.

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Making History

With special guests:

• Pascal Gallez and
• Michael Green.

We have a very special program this week. Our guest is Pascal Gallez from Belgium, and the subject of our discussion today is the revelation that we now appear to have a template of Real Equal Shared Parenting Time laws in Belgium. Dads on the Air understands we are making history by being the first to bring this to the attention of the English-speaking world. While not perfect, it certainly is a big step forward in the right direction.

This is an important milestone, because it will provide all those fighting so hard around the world to bring about change to the Draconian Family Justice System, with an example of how “Equal Shared Parenting Time” laws need to be structured and how they can work.

Also on the program we’ll be speaking with Michael Green. Michael currently is the patron and past President of the Shared Parenting Council of Australia. He is a Lawyer, a QC, an author of two books on parenting issues, and runs a mediation company. We’ll be speaking to him about his thoughts on Belgium’s new Shared Parenting Laws and how they might work in Australia and other countries.

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European Update

With special guests:

• John Forsyth and
  
• Jiri Fiala.

John Forsyth is a journalist based in Scotland who worked for the BBC in London for 10 years before returning to Scotland to become Political Editor of Scotland on Sunday newspaper. He has recently resumed freelancing for newspapers. John has taken some interest in the Scottish Government’s persistence with a gender-based analysis of domestic abuse to provide 10s of millions of pounds in funding for support groups for female victims of domestic abuse and violence and zero for males in the same situation. The latest 2007-8 domestic abuse statistics were published recently with a government press release saying police reports of domestic abuse had gone up 2%. Somehow they managed to gloss over the fact that police reports of women as victims of men had fallen while incidents of males on the receiving end had gone up by 12%, as they have in each of the last 8 years.

Jiri Fiala is the founder and director of the Czech Republics’ fathers group K213. Jiri has been desperately trying to obtain contact with his two children, which the Czech Courts will not support. After taking his case to the European Court of Human Rights, who incidentally ruled in his favour, the Czech Family Court still refuses to act upon the directions of the European Court of Human Rights, and will not enforce his legal contact with his children.

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Renovations Required

Dr James Cumes

With Special Guests:

• Rainer Sonnenberger and
• Dr James Cumes.

First up we are joined by Rainer Sonnenberger from Germany. Rainer is a member of the board of directors of the largest organization for fathers and childrens’ rights in Germany Vateraufbruch Fur Kinder.

Next we speak to James Cumes, renaissance man and author of, amongst other things, America’s Suicidal Statecraft. James was one of the few commentators to predict the current global economic crisis. We speak to him from Vienna where he explains some of the causes of the global predicament and offers some sensible solutions to resuscitate the Australian and global economies.

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Rites of Passage

Dr Arne Rubenstein

With Special Guests:

• Arne Rubenstein and
• Ruedi Oswald.

At the Men’s Advisory Network’s Second National Conference back in August, in Fremantle, we recorded Dr Arne Rubenstein’s inspiring keynote address titled Creating contemporary Rites of Passage and the Pathways to Manhood Program. Dr Rubenstein is the co-founder and CEO of the Pathways Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that runs the national award winning Pathways to Manhood Program in schools and communities around Australia. This program for teenage boys and their fathers is a contemporary Rite of Passage that aims to inspire the boys to have a vision and reach their potential.

Ruedi Oswald, is a licensed Swiss social worker who is going to give us an insight into what happens to separated fathers in Switzerland, and how easily they can be separated from their children once one parent is allotted sole custody by the legal system. We’re going to try and find out what differences there are in the way that separation and divorce are dealt with by the Swiss Family Justice System compared to what happens in the rest of the western democracies. While his wife, who is a doctor, lives in the family home and he hasn’t seen his 3 kids for 10 years, he is forced to live out of the back of a converted van. Ruedi is looking for support and can be reached at swiss.socialwork@web.de.

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Save the Males

With Special Guests:

• Kathleen Parker and
  
• Peter Burns

Author Kathleen Parker has created a furore around the world with her new book Save The Males. Don’t miss this fascinating interview. So disenfranchised have men become, that only a woman can state the bleeding obvious, that the extreme sexism of gender feminism has done a great deal of harm to men, women, children, and society as a whole.

One person who knows all about the brutality of the modern state is Peter Burns, one of the leading members of the fathers’ rights movement in NZ, he hosts a very successful website http://dad4justice.blogspot.com/ where he dispenses a wealth of information from around the world to do with fatherhood issues.

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Social Justice: Think Twice

With Special Guests:

• Angela Conway
• Toni McLean
• Richar’ Farr
• John Flanagan.

The Australian Family Association is campaigning against the proposed changes to NSW legislation that would remove the word ‘father’ from birth certificates and get rid of the term ‘paternity leave’. We are pleased to have their spokeswoman Angela Conway on the program. “We oppose the change, it is part of the national and international picture of eroding the traditional family and the concept of a natural parent,” she said. “The social science evidence is pointing us in the other direction; that natural parents, both mothers and fathers, are vital to their children.

We are also delighted to have domestic violence counsellor and expert Toni McLean on the show. She has had the courage and integrity to genuinely think outside the square when it comes to violent couples and the best way to promote healthy relationships. Together with supportive and experienced group facilitators, her Think Twice program offers a complete range of options for individuals and couples experiencing difficulty in their relationships from normal conflict through to all forms of abuse, as well as physical violence.

We close the show with the ever entertaining Richar’ Farr, a leading figurehead in the international fatherhood movement. He is the founder of KRights Radio and the nationally syndicated program The Message. Richar’ describes his new internet radio station as “a town hall meeting on radio.” He calls it Kids’ Rights Radio - KRights for short. The unique station began its unusual and compelling broadcast on Aug 1, 2004, and is now on the air 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

We also talk with John Flanagan about the upcoming Dads4Kids Rally at NSW Parliament House to protest the removal of the word ‘father’ from birth certificates.

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Women Who Speak Out For Men

Barbara KayWith Special Guests:

• Barbara Kay and
• Malia Blom.

Barbara Kay is a columnist for the National Post, Canada and the author of such courageous and widely-circulated male-friendly articles as On domestic violence, no one wants to hear the truth, The plight of divorced dads and The last white ribbon.

Malia Blom is executive director of the Boys and Schools program in the USA. Boys and Schools is dedicated to improving the lives and futures of boys. Their outreach efforts focus on raising public awareness regarding issues related to boys’ health and achievement. The Boys and Schools program is a project of the Men’s Health Network, a non-profit educational organization committed to improving the health and well-being of men and boys.

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Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men?

With Special Guests:

• Dr Warren Farrell
• Warwick Marsh and
• Kay Knight

This week we interview Dr Warren Farrell, world renowned author of countless books on gender, including The Myth of Male Power, Why Men Earn More and Father and Child Reunion. With women’s and gender studies courses dominating our universities; where the next generation of leaders learns contempt for men and their traditional roles and are taught to hate males and fathers and the so-called patriarchy, Warren Farrell has set out to address exactly this audience with his new book, produced by leading academic publishers Oxford University Press, Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men? A Debate.

Next up we will talk with Warwick Marsh from the Fatherhood Foundation and Greg Andresen (from DOTA), who organised the recent Men and Fathers’ Health Forum in Canberra. We close today’s show by talking with Kay Knight from the Thanks Dad Photos competition, run by a group called Community Connections on the NSW North Coast.

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The Woman Racket

With special guests:

• Steve Moxon and
• Sue Price.

Steve Moxon is the English author of a new book called “The Woman Racket - the new science explaining how the sexes relate at work, at play and in society”. Notwithstanding its provocative title, The Woman Racket is a serious scientific investigation into one of the key myths of our age - that women are oppressed by the “patriarchal” traditions of Western societies. Drawing on the latest developments in evolutionary psychology, Moxon finds that the opposite is true - men, or at least the majority of low-status males - have always been the victims of deep-rooted prejudice. As the prejudice is biologically derived, it is unconscious and can only be uncovered with the tools of scientific psychology. The book reveals this prejudice in fields as diverse as healthcare, employment, family policy and politics: compared to the long and bloody struggle for universal male suffrage, women were given the vote “in an historical blink of the eye”

Also Sue Price, from the Men’s Rights Agency joins us to talk about the new Child Support Agency scheme to go through old income tax records in an attempt to bring some additional pennies into its coffers.

Plus the 5th and final instalment of the radio drama Hero Joe, produced especially for Dads on the Air.

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The Best of 2007 - Part 1

With special guests:

• Sue Price: founder and spokesperson for the Men’s Rights Agency
• Dr Ludwig Lowenstein: world expert on Parental Alienation Syndrome
• Maggie Hamilton: author of What Men Don’t Talk About
• Andrew Denton: TV personality from many shows including Enough Rope
• Erin Pizzey: founder of the world’s first refuge for battered women
• Tony Coe: president of the UK’s Equal Parenting Council
• Ann Bressington: outspoken South Australian MP, who is calling for better Child Protection
• Mark Harris and Jolly Stansby: Fathers4Justice UK activists. Mark is also the author of Family Court Hell
• Jim Bailey: New Zealand father’s activist.

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International Comment

John Waters

With special guests:

• Dean Tong - internationally known family rights and forensic consultant on child abuse, domestic violence and child custody cases. He is also the author of a number of books including “Don’t blame me Daddy: false accusations of child sexual abuse - a hidden national tragedy” and “Elusive Innocence: survival guide for the falsely accused”
• John Waters - well known Irish journalist and social commentator, who calls a spade a spade. John speaks his mind at the Amen conference in Dublin, attacking the authorities for ignoring their duty of care to fathers and their children and refering to this scandal as being a gross violation of human rights

Plus the lastest news items from Australia and overseas affecting dads and their children.

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