Indigenous Men's Health

With special guests:

• Ashley Gordon and

• Craig Hammond.   
  

This week we’re broadcasting to you from the opening of the week long National Men’s Health Gathering in Newcastle, which is about 2 hours north of Sydney. This national event occurs every alternate year and the whole week is dedicated to the health issues facing men today and how we can best deal with those issues.

The state of health of Australian men has been ignored and neglected for many decades by successive governments, while at the same time, the cultural landscape for men, has in recent times come under severe attack from many sources, causing a further deterioration in the well being of the nations’ men and boys.  

We are dedicating the whole of this weeks’ program to the opening day at this year’s National Men’s Health Gathering, which starts the week with the 5th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Male Health Convention.

We also speak with former rugby league star Ashley Gordon, “Aboriginal people and gambling” a dedicated Aboriginal leader and one of the organisers of the convention. Ashley is joined by fellow convention organiser and Aboriginal leader Craig Hammond, “The Brothers Inside Project” who is also committed to improving the physical and mental health of the nations’ Indigenous men.

If we want to see what is in store for our men and our culture, we need look no further then the enormous task faced by our Indigenous community to restore the health, dignity and well being of their men and boys. To their great credit and our national shame these communities are working hard to re-engage their once proud Men and have their cultural landscape restored.

The deplorable state of mens’ health in Australia,  is in no small part due to the fact that it has by and large been ignored by Australian governments and the media. Despite the fact that we are proud to be able to claim that Dads On The Air were the only media organisation to cover this important national week long event, it is an absolute disgrace that the nations’ media completely ignored reporting on this event and the dire state of our mens’ health.

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Men's Business

With special guest:

• Ian Watson.    
  

A leader in the field of mentoring his fellow man, Ian Watson is a shining light of hope and encouragement to those suffering at the hands of agenda driven zealots, who are hell bent on destroying the resilience and natural inner strength of men and boys. 

He runs popular monthly men’s gatherings where men talk men’s business. Ian’s well attended “Transit Lounge” gatherings, provide a welcome sanctuary from the many real life experiences men suffer at the hands of government sponsored agencies and the media, whilst many of their kids are forced to live in fatherless households.

While the gender war against men and boys rages unabated around the globe, we see an apathetic and ignorant community laughing at all the demeaning anti male advertising propaganda, that sees them easily drawn into joining the “all men are perpetrators ” domestic violence hysteria. 

However, there are encouraging signs that men have just about had enough, and are collectively starting to show their enthusiasm for more pro-active engagement with one another. Mentoring is fast becoming the accepted new communication tool to support those that have fallen victim to some of the worse excesses of male bashing persecution, the world has ever witnessed.
 
We also broadcast a recording made at the National Men’s Health Convention recently, of the presentation made by psychologist Drew Cowen who works in the Family Court in Newcastle, and who’s theme was “Giving Kids the Best Dad they can have: Helping Fathers and Kids to have strong healthy relationships when they don’t live in the same home”.
 
Now on the face of it, such a caring sounding title would indicate an understanding of what fathers and their kids are forced to endure , as they desperately try to keep their parent/child relationships intact following separation. But to many dads in the audience it appeared that the one preaching to them, was part of the problem and not the solution.

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Behind The Black Robes

With special guests:

• Barbara C. Johnson and    

• Paul Stolz.

We commence this weeks’ program speaking with American lawyer and author Barbara C. Johnson who’s latest book “Behind the Black Robes: Failed Justice” which has just become available. This book addresses a serious problem, the need for court reform and the abolishment of judicial and quasi-judicial immunity. Marinated with the makings of sizzle, the book is filled with the courts’ tricks and traps for the unwary. It sets out to alert the readers both why their law cases failed and what must be done to effect court reform.

Barbara C. Johnson is an unconventional 74 year-old, who has long been a fierce advocate for fathers’ rights in family courts. She is an outspoken critic of the Massachusetts court system, which she says is rife with corruption.

Secondly we speak with Paul Stolz, who is the CEO of Victorian support group “Evolve” which provides a supportive environment for disadvantaged young people to evolve into strong, caring and purposeful individuals.

Young men in today’s society face many challenges – they are struggling educationally, emotionally and socially. Without early intervention and on-going support, many are at risk of tragic futures involving broken relationships, crime, substance abuse and even suicide.

Evolve’s Young Men’s Program is an early-intervention option for young blokes who want to work through their challenges and build a more positive future for themselves.

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Action On Men's Health

With special guests:

• Greg Andresen 
  

• Ray Kelly and

• Geoffrey Greene. 

We start the program by doing a live cross to the National Men’s Health Gathering 2009, being held in the city of Newcastle. Greg Andresen reports on the planned activities for the four day event. While a significant national event, which only takes place every alternate year, it sees Dads on the Air as the only member of the national news media to attend this important National Convention on Men’s Health issues, for the full week.

Greg Andresen and Peter van de Voorde, who are representing Dads on the air at the conference, will be recording a number of presentations and have planned a series of interviews with leading participants that will be aired in coming weeks on our program.

Our second interview is with Indigenous leader Ray Kelly, an academic based at Newcastle University, who gave the opening presentation at the 5th National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Male Health Convention. This Convention was the forerunner to the National Men’s Health Conference and the National Family and Relationships Forum, and was devoted to Indigenous issues where men’s health issues are even more predominant than in the general community.

We also speak with Geoffrey Greene the President of the Shared Parenting Council of Australia, about the three separate inquiries into Family Law being conducted by the Rudd Government. He argued that despite the concerted push to wind back the Family Law reforms introduced by the Howard government, the Trade Union movement would be a force within the ALP to block these changes. The Union movement wants to avoid a return to the dark ages when fathers only saw their children intermittently, if at all, following separation.

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The Rite Journey

With Special Guests:

• Andrew Lines and
• James Adams

Rites of passage and initiation into adulthood through ceremony and the passing on of wisdom from men to boys has always been a fundamental part of indigenous and tribal cultures but is strangely lacking in the West.

Andrew Lines is a high school teacher from South Australia who has devloped a unique boy’s education initiative which has evolved over the last 10 years. The program is called The Rite Journey and is implemented over a year in the school setting for boys around the age of 14 and is now being adopted in a number of private schools. There is also interest from the public sector. In looking at the racist, sexist and homophobic views that some of his students were expressing, and in the grip of reading Stephen Biddulph’s Manhood, he decided to question how this came about and found a lack of male role models, mentors and teachers in the boys lives.

Following our tradition of tracking Australian family law reform closer than any other media outlet, this week we move on to talk to James Adams from Fathers4Equality about the issue of perjury in the Family Court. He argues that the common practice of making up allegations against the father in the Family Court is a form of child abuse.

In a recent press release Fathers4Equality argued that the Chief Justice Diana Bryant’s personal push to take out the perjury elements in the Family Law Act is a case of poor judgement.

He says: “The Chief Justice of the Family Court, Diana Bryant, has recently launched an extraordinary attack on Australia’s internationally regarded 2006 Family Law amendments, by writing to the Attorney-General and asking him to urgently repeal important provisions within the amendments.

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DOTA Goes Spiritual

With special guests:

• Archbishop Barry Hickey and
• Fighting Father Dave.

The mainstream churches have long ignored the many issues confronting fathers in Australia today, so we decided to take a look at the issues of fathers and the various churches.

Catholic Archbishop Barry Hickey has written that the absence of fathers is the biggest family and social problem in our society. “If Father Christmas was offering me gifts, I would ask for peace in every family and a father at the heart of every family,” he was quoted as saying in the publication Perth Now. “The absence of fathers is the biggest family and social problem we face today. It is the biggest cause of lifelong difficulties for fathers, mothers and, most of all, for children.”

“The absence of fathers is bigger than anger, aggression, alcohol, drugs, crime and under-achievement by children because it is the biggest single contributor to all of them. This is borne out worldwide by every large-scale, long-term study of family. I know that Father Christmas isn’t going to solve this problem for me, but I keep praying for it,” Archbishop Hickey said.

Fighting Father Dave is Parish priest, community worker, martial arts master, pro boxer, author, father of three. His website is www.fatherdave.org. Author of Sex, the Ring and The Eucharist, is the only Australian in the Holy Order of the Anglican Church who has ever had to box professionally in order to raise the funds to keep his ministry going. He is known as “Sydney’s Fighting Father,” who combines his work as a Parish Priest with a ministry to street kids, heroin addicts and other ‘undesirables’ from the underside of Australian Society. He uses boxing and the fighting arts to teach young people self-control.

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Men's Sheds and Private Spaces

With special guests:

• Professor Barry Golding, University of Ballarat. With men’s voices almost eliminated from the public debate on gender - and certainly from the formation of public policy - the importance of private spaces where men can simply be themselves is more important than ever [more info]
• Simon Hunt, Family Law Maverick. Simon’s propositions are very much solution based, are well thought through and need to be considered seriously, as an intregal part of the debate to bring about much needed changes to a hopelessly flawed Family Justice System

Plus the next instalment of the radio drama Hero Joe, produced especially for Dads on the Air.

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Taking the Journey

With special guests:

• Gary Hodson, president of GAMMA - Gay and Married Men’s Association. GAMMA is a group of dedicated men who identify as Gay or Bisexual and who are - or who have been - married or involved in a heterosexual relationship. For more than a quarter of a century GAMMA has offered support and advice to thousands of married Gay and Bisexual men in New South Wales. Gary discusses the various issues faced by gay dads in Australia.
• James Adams, from Fathers 4 Equality, and candidate for Family First for the seat of Wentworth in inner Sydney at the upcoming federal election.
• Mark Young, from the Lone Fathers Association, Mackay Branch (QLD), with some disturbing information about reforms to the Child Support system.
• Paul Dayman and Damien Litchfield from Anglicare’s Boys Will Be Men program in Lilydale, Victoria. Boys Will Be Men is a school-based mentoring/adventure therapy program for boys aged nine to 12. The program brings together men from the community who volunteer their time to be positive and non-judgemental role models for a number of boys in a weekly program.

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