On this episode I talk to Cody Beck, Leisa Young and Rick Young about parental alienation.

Cody has worked extensively advocating for fathers within the system, first with ABF (Australian Brotherhood of Fathers) including giving submissions at the Family Law Inquiry, and now independently with his own firm Beck Law in Southport.  Cody supports the organisation DADS and advocates to raise awareness for parental alienation.  He knows this affects so many Australian families and is committed to supporting similar organisations that are working tirelessly for change and awareness in this space.

The money being raised at the even we recorded at is going towards building a DADS support centre.  Its aim is to provide face to face support for families who are going through domestic and family violence, family court proceedings and suffering the effects of parental alienation.  The energy behind the Parental Alienation Awareness ride are Ric and Leisa Young and they joined me to talk about the amazing day that unfolded at the show grounds.

Transcript

Malcolm Roberts:

Today’s news talk radio tntradio.live. Thank you so much for having me as your guest, whether it’s in your kitchen, your car, your shed, or wherever you are right now. I always say this, the two most important themes for my programmes are freedom, especially freedom versus control, and secondly, personal responsibility and integrity. Both are fundamental for human progress and people’s livelihoods. Today, I am broadcasting live from Redland Showgrounds in Brisbane, and we’ve got five people. So in the last couple of weeks, last couple of episodes, I’ve had one person for the last four hours. Today we’re going to have five people for the two hours. Before talking about that. I want to say that I must express my sincere regrets to tntradio.live for what happened on Wednesday. We had a phenomenal COVID under question two. It was our second COVID under question, called Opening Eyes and Hearts.

Malcolm Roberts:

We were using the parliamentary wifi in the Commonwealth buildings, and it was absolutely atrocious quality. We just could not give our feed to TNT Radio because it was so poor. We wanted to save that, but we didn’t. We got lost in that communications and caused a bit of a panic, which is sincerely regrettable. So we’ll let you know when the videos are processed because some really startling material coming out of that. So back to today. Today I’m broadcasting live from Redland Showgrounds, which is a suburb of Brisbane. I have five guests joining me to talk about parental alienation, because today is the second parental alienation awareness cruise. This cruise is one of the largest car bike and truck cruises that Brisbane has ever seen. It is a fundraiser event to raise money to build a centre for the family support group DADS, D-A-D-S, which we’ll talk more about later in the hour.

Malcolm Roberts:

I want to say that I had the privilege of being invited and participating in last year’s cruise. And we went from Brisbane, out into the farmlands around Gatton Lockyer, and it was just phenomenal. The amazing energy. It was really stunning. What a great group of people to be with. First, let’s talk about parental alienation, which is not a term we hear often. It’s estimated at the least one million Australian children are currently alienated from one parent by the other parent. And this typically happens during family breakdowns. Essentially it’s about one parent’s persistent attempt to damage their child’s relationship with the other parent. And it doesn’t just hurt the other parent. It devastates the children, scars them for life. It’s really about one parent controlling the other parent, and controlling the child. It affects moms and dads, moms and dads both. During family breakdowns, dads, though, more often find themselves as the parent that has become alienated from their children.

Malcolm Roberts:

Not only do the dads miss out, the children miss out, and this can cause lifelong mental health issues. Support for dads is often forgotten about. And today our guests are going to share their passions for supporting grieving families, moms and dads, through this process with a focus on fathers. We will be listening to experts and we’ll be listening to mums. Now, my first guest is Cody Beck, who I met some years ago through the Australian Brotherhood of Fathers in Southport on the Gold Coast. Cody is a lawyer who has worked extensively advocating for fathers within the system. First with the Australian Brotherhood of Fathers, including giving submissions at the Family Law Inquiry, and now independently with his own firm Beck Law, in surfers’ paradise, Gold Coast. Cody supports the organisation, DADS, which stands for Dads Against Discrimination Support. We’ll explain that later. And advocates to raise awareness for parental alienation. He knows this affects so many Australian families and he’s committed to supporting similar organisations that are working tirelessly for change and awareness in this space. Welcome Cody. Good to see you again.

Cody Beck:

Good to see you again, Malcolm.

Malcolm Roberts:

There’s so much recognition and services provided to women these days, Cody, during domestic and family violence issues, yet we rarely hear about what is available for men. Are they being under serviced in this area?

Cody Beck:

Men are very much under serviced. There’s a lot of government support for women going through family breakdown, family court, things like that. For men there just isn’t the same support apart from groups like the Australian Brotherhood or Fathers, DADS, other groups like that will help out dads and understanding what they go through. But unfortunately for men, they seem to get left out, which is disappointing in circumstances where you’ve got things like Queensland Women’s Legal Service and things like that, which the government donates a lot of money to. There’s nothing like that for men. And in fact, I’ve had my firm now for a few years, we try to get on the legal aid panel, to get legal aid to be able to help dads who aren’t financial. And we were knocked back because we were deemed a gendered service. Legal Aid wouldn’t allow us to go on the Legal Aid panel.

Malcolm Roberts:

But we can have plenty of gendered female services.

Cody Beck:

Yeah. Yep. That’s all fine.

Malcolm Roberts:

So why is this ready cash for female services, but not available for male services?

Cody Beck:

I can’t answer that question. It amazes me that particularly in a society now where everybody screams about equality and carries on about sexism and all that kind of thing, for it to be so skewed against one gender, it blows my mind and it, and it’s not getting any better. And it’s only, and I said this to a lot of people, it’s only you and Pauline who are the ones who are talking about this, other members of government just aren’t interested in it. They don’t want to touch it.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah. I’m very surprised by it as well. And the only thing I can think of, Cody, is that it’s got something to do with the fact that some people have really been spread… It’s the bloody Greens. Okay. And some members of the Labour Party. What they’re spreading is bullshit about, it’s only the women who are victims. Well, that’s crap. 50% of the victims in this space are men. And you know that, you’ve had much experience with that. But it’s not the right thing. It’s not politically correct to talk about the men needing support, because they’re supposed to be the perpetrators, which is rubbish. Sometimes they are, sometimes it’s the women. So would that be some possible explanation?

Cody Beck:

Yeah. Look, the government and the media are peddling this thing that women are all victims and men are all perpetrators. It’s just not the case. Don’t get me wrong. Domestic violence happens and it’s very bad. And we should be dealing with it. But the reality is, the way the system is at the moment, it gives women an incentive to make false allegations. And I see false allegations constantly. Every day at work we’re dealing with false allegations. We’re consistently seeing a situation where a woman will make allegations. And basically the reality is, as a male, you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent, and the time and the cost to prove yourself innocent is significant. Going through the family court, you’re looking at somewhere about 18 months to get a trial at best. And with a lot of firms, you’re spending upwards of a hundred thousand dollars to be able to defend yourself when allegations, are made and the court will act protectively.

Cody Beck:

So they’ll essentially put mechanisms in place such as supervised visits and things like that, because they’re not sure if the allegations are true or not, and they can’t make a decision on that until you get to a trial. I was speaking to Pauline about this earlier. I think the best thing that the government could implement, and it would be a little bit resource heavy at the front end, but in the long run, I think it would unclog the system a lot, would be on day one of when you first get to family court, on day one, if there’s allegations made, serious allegations, about domestic violence or inappropriate sexual contact or anything like that, I think both people should be on the witness box on day one and be cross examined, even if it’s a limited amount of time, so the court can get to the bottom of that at the start, rather than it clogging up the system, having five or six court days before a trial, 18 months down the track, and the cost involved in that.

Cody Beck:

Not just financial cost, but the psychological cost for a dad who’s not seeing his kids. And then because what we are constantly getting is, when we finally do get to a trial, probably four out of five of our matters where there’s been allegations made, we get to day one of trial and the mother will come to us with an offer, something along the lines of five nights a fortnight, half school holidays. And it’s like, what she’s been talking about the last 18 months just didn’t happen. Happens all the time.

Malcolm Roberts:

I’ve heard that a lot. But the bias against men extends right through parliament. Pauline, as you know, got the joint select inquiry into the family law system and family court. And I attended the first session because the Greens and the Labour Party were bagging Pauline for months beforehand. They were really annoyed that the previous government gave us that inquiry. They were really worried about Pauline speaking. They tried ruthlessly to get it out. They were even moving motions to that effect, the Greens and the Labour Party. And so I turned up at the first hearing with intention of staying for many of the hearings, just to support Pauline, right?

Malcolm Roberts:

Ah, she didn’t need it. She’s a strong lady, she’s a strong woman. But the tone in that first hearing was atrocious. It was about men being the perpetrators, females being the victims. That came from the Greens, especially, and the Labour Party, but you know what? Pauline and the others had organised so many witnesses to come forward, that at the end of that whole series of inquiries, which went around the country, the Labour Party members had walked up to Pauline and said, we didn’t realise it was that bad. They admitted Pauline was right. So that’s the bias that’s in our society when members of parliament don’t even understand that themselves.

Cody Beck:

And it was huge. I made submissions with the ABF to the inquiry, and then we also did a Zoom call and I had a bit of a barney with some of the Greens and Labour-

Malcolm Roberts:

Good on you.

Cody Beck:

… people. Because the bias was just was out of control. And it’s good to hear that by the end of it, that they may have had a slightly different view, because at the start they were ruthless. They hated the fact that we were supporting men and that we were saying that men can be victims as well. And some women can be perpetrators. They didn’t like that at all.

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, what do you expect in a parliament that refused to endorse a motion saying All Lives Matter? So that’s quite clear. So what are the general issues then, Cody, and the struggles fathers face with contact with their children, following allegations of domestic or family violence?

Cody Beck:

Look, as I said before, basically as a male, you’re guilty till you prove yourself innocent. So allegations can be made. There can be no evidence apart from the allegation from the ex-wife or ex-partner. And once those allegations are made, you’ve got dads dealing with having to have supervised visits. I had a situation where one of our clients was getting remarried. And at the wedding table, it was husband and wife, and then there was a supervisor sat next to the husband, and then the children were on the other side of him during his wedding.

Cody Beck:

And that’s another case where the mother made all these allegations about mental health and violence and things like that. And when we got to trial, on day one, she came with an offer for five nights a fortnight, half school holidays, which we took. And then funnily enough, after him fighting for about 18 months to get that time with his daughter, she then decided that she was going to move to, I think, Melbourne, with her new partner and basically dropped the kids off to the dad. He now has them full time. She has only school holiday time.

Malcolm Roberts:

That’s what we hear a lot, that the mother usually uses, sorry, not usually, the mother sometimes uses this as a bargaining ploy to extract a better deal from the court system. So what support services are available for men in comparison with the services available to women, Cody, when they get to the magistrate’s court?

Cody Beck:

From a government perspective, very little. They do have duty lawyers at the courts. There’s organisations, obviously, like the ABF and DADS that offer support as well. But you’ll find, for example, at the Southport courthouse, where I’m at frequently, there’s a domestic violence room where the women go to. It takes up probably about a quarter of level two of the court. There’s no room for men. Men don’t get to go there. And in fact, if I want to go and talk to an applicant, as a solicitor representing one of my clients, they won’t allow me to go in that room. It’s a women only room, and there’s nothing like that for men.

Cody Beck:

And previously, they didn’t even have duty to lawyers for men. They just had centre care would be at the court, but they’d only be there for a couple of hours a day. Whereas you’ll find frequently women will go into this safety room. Even when they’re the respondent in an affidavit, they still go in the safety room. The men don’t get to go in there. And then when they go to court, there’ll be one or two support people with the women. So there’s a lot of resources there at the Southport court. And it’s all over the state as well. But there’s nothing like that for men.

Malcolm Roberts:

So men are second class citizens then. We’re going to go to an ad break next, after this question, Cody. It’s complex. What’s it look and feel like? Give people a feel for what men are going through, because they must feel guilty with accusations. They feel powerless. And so we have a very high suicide rate. So that indicates something is horribly wrong with treating men as second class citizens. They’re frustrated, they’re boxed in. They don’t know what to do.

Cody Beck:

Mate, it’s heartbreaking. Day after day, you’re dealing with good men, who, all they want to do is see their kid. All they want to do is spend time with their children. And you’ve got all these blocks in the way. You’ve got a vengeful ex who’s using the system. And unfortunately, the system is there for them to use, using the system to make their life as difficult as possible. And frequently we’re seeing it’s just out of spite, that this is the only way that they can now inflict pain on this person, is by reducing their relationship with their children. It’s heartbreaking.

Malcolm Roberts:

So that’s how much the system has deteriorated that women and men, some men too, can use the system to try and break the other person, and in the process destroy their own children’s lives. That’s how ego driven and egocentric it’s become. Thank you so much, Cody, for being here today. It’s been a real delight having you, and thank you for speaking so forcefully and direct. Appreciate it.

Cody Beck:

All right. Thanks for having me. Cheers.

Malcolm Roberts:

The money being raised today at today’s cruise is going towards building a DADS support centre. It’s aim is to provide face to face support for families going through domestic and family violence, family court proceedings, and suffering the effects of parental alienation. The energy behind the parental alienation awareness ride are Rick and Lisa Young. And they join me now to talk about the amazing day that is unfolding right here at the red Redland Showgrounds. So welcome, Rick and Lisa. Good to catch up with you today.

Lisa Young:

Hi, Malcolm. Good to see you.

Rick Young:

Hi, Malcolm. Thanks for having us.

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, I want to thank you for last year. That was a stunning event. I got to ride on a Harley for the first time ever, and I enjoyed the whole trip all the way out to Gatton, 80ks or whatever it was. Something you appreciate. Just tell us anything. We always start with appreciation.

Lisa Young:

I’m going to say always appreciation for family. Absolutely, a hundred percent.

Rick Young:

I’d say the appreciation would be the support that the people have shown today, for coming out and bringing their families out and really just making a presence today. It shows us that we’re needed and that we’ll keep going.

Malcolm Roberts:

There are a lot of hurting people here who value highly what you’re doing. I noticed that last year, brought me to tears at times. It was just stunning. Why DADS, D-A-D-S, Dad’s Against Discrimination Support.

Lisa Young:

I guess when we started the community support page on Facebook, we wanted to capsulate the fact that it was fathers that needed the support, but also the discrimination side of things in the system, and wanting to take away that gender bias. So for us, it was about basically acknowledging that there is a loop here, there’s a hole in the system, and that is that there’s a lack of support for fathers, but also that there’s quite a discrimination against services that are out there, because predominantly the services for domestic and family violence are there for women.

Malcolm Roberts:

Right. We’ve noticed that everywhere for a few years now. And no one in government seems to be at all interested. They seem to be too timid about fixing this. So why is that?

Lisa Young:

Oh, I think we’ve all got our theories around that, Malcolm, but to be quite honest, I think there’s a lot of funding that goes into women. When you look at the Duluth model, which is the domestic and family violence model of, not just legislation, but the model itself, it’s written for women. And I am a woman, so I know that I can get a bit of a slack when I come out and I speak about it the way that I do. But at the end of the day, I think domestic violence isn’t a gender issue, it’s a humanities issue. And when we start looking at it from that point of view, we’re going to see a difference. And we’re going to see reform in the sector. We’re going to see a difference in the cycle of abuse when we start treating humans as humans, whether that be a man, a woman, or a child.

Malcolm Roberts:

Well said. It isn’t a gender issue, it’s a humanity issue. And you alluded, you didn’t state clearly, but you alluded to the fact that women sometimes are the victims, men sometimes are the victims, and you will help both. This is not just about males. This is about males and females. It’s not a gender issue, it’s a human issue. So you both have enormous passion for this. I can tell. I noticed it first, last year, as soon as I met you both. How has this passion come about and why this cause?

Lisa Young:

Oh, you can jump in here.

Malcolm Roberts:

Follow instructions now.

Rick Young:

It just comes down to a lived personal experience. Going through the family court, domestic violence systems and being a father, you soon come to the realisation that there’s little to no support for men, let alone fathers. And basically from there, we started the Facebook page and the response from that, and I think the big thing for DADS is the message is to people going through parental alienation, or going through family court, or facing false allegations, is that just to know that you’re not alone, because it can be of a very lonely feeling and a process.

Lisa Young:

It’s very isolating, I think, for a lot of families, particularly if they, or fathers or parents in general, if they don’t have a lot of family support, it’s very isolating. They don’t know where to turn to. With even just the allegations of any kind of domestic violence, they can lose their friendship, their network, their peers at work look at them differently. It’s such a flow on, it’s a ripple effect across the whole broad, but from our lived experience, we noted that there needed to be some support out there. And with me working in the sector, I had the tools and some of the resources and learning every day, as you do. And I knew that I had to get in there and jump in and help.

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, that couldn’t be clearer. But what you said, Rick, I’ve noticed that so many times with fathers who are broken, because they feel lonely, like you said. There’s no one to help them, and they feel incredible shame. Just thinking of that-

Rick Young:

Absolutely ashamed.

Malcolm Roberts:

… brings tears-

Rick Young:

The stigma.

Malcolm Roberts:

… to my eyes. Yeah. The stigma.

Rick Young:

The stigma that goes with it.

Malcolm Roberts:

Sometimes one of the couple will invoke a complete bullshit argument, an allegation against the father, usually, sometimes against mother, but it’s usually against a father. That father is labelled in public as perpetrator of domestic violence or child abuse. And it’s false. And so imagine the shame of that. I couldn’t think of anything more shameful for a man than to be accused of hurting or even molesting, for goodness sake, his children. And that’s done deliberately sometimes with no evidence, not even the hint of it happening, and the children denying it, and the mother, or sometimes the father, do that. So then fathers feel hopeless, and they’re trapped.

Rick Young:

Yeah, look, absolutely. And I refer to domestic violence orders as being the silver bullet, it’s the weapon of choice for separation. It’s the first weapon of choice. The first thing is what comes usually that we see and experience talking to dads is the false allegations during separation or the start of separation, and that essentially then alienates that other parent straight away. The process to clear one’s name to in the family court or the domestic violence can take years before you get a day in court

Malcolm Roberts:

And a lot of cash.

Rick Young:

With parental alienation, I think, one thing I’d like to raise is grandparents who are the forgotten victims of all this. And I can tell you now, just with the fathers that we talked to and the mums that we talked to, it’s the grandparents that are funding a lot of these hundred thousand dollars family law costs. It’s the grandparents that are selling their caravan, refinance their homes, putting off retirement to pay for their son or their daughter to go through the family court process. It’s a money making machine, and it’s not right. It’s certainly broken.

Malcolm Roberts:

There’s no doubt it’s broken. Because we are scrunched over one microphone, I’m looking very closely at these people’s eyes and there’s real glint in their eyes, there’s real energy coming out of these people. It’s wonderful to see Rick and Lisa. Now one of the things that might surprise people is, we’re on a cruise for vintage cars, not [inaudible 00:24:52] what do you call them? 1960s, muscle cars.

Rick Young:

Yeah. Just muscle cars.

Malcolm Roberts:

Trucks, motorbikes and [inaudible 00:24:58] There’s some wonderful machinery here. There’s some in cars, like me.

Rick Young:

Yeah, absolutely.

Malcolm Roberts:

I’m not in an ordinary car, but there’s so many cars like the one I’ve got, which is ordinary, but what are the backgrounds? There are construction workers, there are lawyers.

Rick Young:

Well, I was just going to say, just to give an indication, the CFMEU union really got behind the dads just recently. And one of the guys there, Stuart Burgess, he’s a construction worker, commercial work, obviously a union member on their sites and all their foremans, all their heads are really getting behind that. And what’s been put to the unions is how many fathers don’t turn up to work? How many fathers have accidents on sites, because they’re not focused? Because they’re stressing about family court costs. They’re facing false allegations. They’re not seeing their kids for a year, two years. It’s just all these statistics, like I said, on sites, particularly the high rise commercial sites, where it’s quite dangerous and a lot of risk. You’ve got guys on site that are, like I said, they’re not focused or they’re not turning up to work, or they’re ending it. They’re not there next week.

Malcolm Roberts:

It’s literally a matter of life and death. Not only the suicide rate being so high, but literally someone’s mind being elsewhere, feeling hopeless-

Rick Young:

Endangering others.

Malcolm Roberts:

… and endangering others and himself or herself at work. But there are all kinds of professions involved. It’s not just people who like bikes. It’s not just people who are construction workers. It’s not just people who are professionals. All kinds of people are being victimised in this. The only thing that seems to be common, it’s not always the case, is the fact that they’re men.

Rick Young:

Yeah.

Lisa Young:

Yeah. It would be very safe to say that. And I think if you asked me this 10 years ago, I probably would’ve disagreed, and that’s just putting it out there. But now that I’ve worked in the sector, experienced the sector from a lived experience, I can see that I was probably living under a cloud or head in the sand, because unless you’ve actually experienced the system firsthand or you know someone that has, you’re not aware of this, and it goes the same with child protection matters. When you’re talking child protection and I work in that space alongside child safety, and you’re working with families to try and give them the tools that they need to keep the children safely in the home. You wouldn’t believe or breathe of it what we see and what we experience as a practitioner.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah, I must say, my eyes were opened by Leith Erickson. He did a phenomenal job at Australian Brotherhood of Fathers, still doing it. Man’s amazing. You could see the anger in him, and I think eventually Leith worked it out. He had to process his own anger to be more effective, and I’m not speaking on behalf of Leith, this is just my opinion, but he transformed into someone who’s very calm and unflappable, and because he recognised that was necessary. And so it was just a pleasure to see Leith that way. But you mentioned, a few minutes ago, Rick, the weapon of choice is the domestic violence allegation, and it alienates parents and shatters kids.

Rick Young:

Well, it does a lot of things, Malcolm, it does exactly that. And the damage to the kids can be irreparable and life lasting. Parental alienation, children, one minute seeing a parent saying goodnight, getting up, then all of a sudden, not seeing that parent. They’re gone. It’s also this system financially rewards that parent for doing that. And then we start digging into things like child support and family tax benefit A and B, and rent assistance. So it’s almost an incentive to some parents, and believe it or not, there’s plenty of them. I know parents, where they get their kids during afternoons, after school, for example, they might get the kids five days a week after school.

Rick Young:

Mom’s happy to hand the kids over. But they will not have an overnight, because when it comes to overnights, that’s when it affects the dollars. And the standard every second weekend for a dad, that’s because if it’s three nights a fortnight, it goes over into a different threshold for child support. That’s the other thing. So these are all the things, it’s nothing to do with the best interest of the children. It’s just that it’s a financial reward. And that’s sad that people would use kids. But that’s the reality of it.

Malcolm Roberts:

And it’s sometimes a financial reward to get money, but other times it’s a financial reward to make sure the partner doesn’t get money. It’s a get even session.

Rick Young:

Look, and particularly at the start of a family court proceeding, it comes down to percentage of care when you talk property settlements. A parent might have the children, 80% care. Come time to share the property pool and divvy it out, there’s an automatic assumption that, that person with a kid, that has them as majority of care will get an absolute bigger piece of the pie, if that makes sense. I’m sure Cody could go into that further. And then you’ll find in a lot of cases that I particularly hear about, is after the trial, after it’s all divvied out, you can have the kids whenever you want now.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yep.

Rick Young:

So it’s-

Malcolm Roberts:

So we’ve talked a lot about the problem. The support centre sounds like it will have many services on offer. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you see it working? What types of services are needed?

Lisa Young:

Yeah. So I think the whole point of having the service centre here in the Redlands, because there’s nothing like it well anywhere really, but there’s nothing like it here in the Redlands, specifically, but it’ll allow us to give that face to face support to our family so they can come in, they can talk to us if they need a food hamper, if they needed a go card or a fuel card or something like that. We may be able to provide some emergency relief for men that are fleeing domestic and family violence. There are no shelters for men that can accommodate men and children.

Malcolm Roberts:

That sounds like what women’s shelters do.

Lisa Young:

Yeah. It does sound like that. Except unfortunately, we don’t get the grant funding that they do. So we have to do things like this fundraiser to make sure that we can raise the funds to open this support centre and then support these families through what they’re going through. And they can come to us, paralegal administration, so we do help them work out their legal aid forms and things like that. We let Cody take care of the rest, because we’re not solicitors, but ultimately, most families don’t even know where to start. And sometimes it’s just good for them to come and talk and unpack it a little bit with someone and get it off their chest. Because unfortunately, solicitors just don’t have the timeframe to provide that emotional support. So that’s where we come in.

Malcolm Roberts:

So it’s counselling service, legal support, social network, unpacking their feelings, because men tend not to do that. Don’t we mate?

Rick Young:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it comes down to that stigma of just, I’ll just deal with it, or generally that the ex-partner, she’s just angry right now and things will come around, but definitely, again, when you feel alone, you’re pretty less inclined to actually speak to people about it because you think, well, they don’t want to hear my, but you meet other guys today that will…

Lisa Young:

Well, the other thing is, like you were saying before, Malcolm, is the shame and it’s the judgement , right? So how did they talk about that with their normal friendship group if a judge has ordered that they can’t see their kids, or if they’re having supervised contact with their children in a supervised centre? Oh, there must be a reason for that. Or you must be a bad man. You must be a bad person. It isn’t always the case.

Rick Young:

Yeah. And I was going to say, well, I would’ve said the same thing, Malcolm, if you had to ask me, we’re sitting in a pub 10 years ago and you said to me, that guy over there, he hasn’t seen his kids in two years, the courts ordered that he can’t see them. You know what I mean? I honestly would have thought and I would have judged and just thought, well, our court systems don’t stop good parents from seeing kids. He must be a grub. He must deserve that. He must be a bad guy. Until you experience our justice system, not our justice system so much, but the family court proceedings, and the way it’s conducted, those blinkers come off and you start to realise, no, there are good dads, there are great dads that are not seeing their kids.

Malcolm Roberts:

And if you want to see a great person, look at someone who’s been deprived of his children. The whole world is his child or his children.

Rick Young:

Absolutely.

Malcolm Roberts:

Men have that same feeling towards their children as women do, and yet we’re treated sometimes as not.

Lisa Young:

Yeah. I hate that as a parent. I have children to, another father, before I met Rick, and my children, there’s no court orders, they get to see their dad as much or as little as either party wants. Do you know what I mean? And I think that’s the biggest thing that’s missing here is that these blokes, they’re not every second weekend babysitters, these guys are fathers. They deserve the same right. Just because they haven’t carried the child for the term of the pregnancy does not mean that they do not have the right to have that equal time with their children.

Malcolm Roberts:

So well said. We’re going to take an ad break now, and then we’re going to be back with Rick and Lisa. And I’m going to ask them about how well pets are protected. I’ve got that for a reason. See you in a couple of minutes, we’ll be right back.

Malcolm Roberts:

I’m on TNT Radio. I’m Senator Malcolm Roberts, and the reason I’m on TNT Radio is because I get to interview lots of wonderful people like the guests we’re having today, because they don’t have an alternative voice. The mainstream media is the mockingbird media, the lamestream media, the legacy media. They push a narrative. They don’t listen to both sides. And that’s what I’m sick and tired of in our political system, in this country as well. It’s based on bullshit. And we need to get all sides of the story. And that’s why I work with Pauline, because she listens and she pushes both sides of the story.

Malcolm Roberts:

She goes out, and we both go out and listen to people. So did you know that there are many ways you can listen to TNT Radio? Why not stream us direct from our website on your desktop, tablet or mobile device, or download our app from the app store. We even stream live on YouTube, Rumble and Odyssey. We’ve got you covered on TNT Radio. And we’re now going to hear an exclusive, tell us about how pets are looked after under this system when men can’t get attention, but pets can.

Rick Young:

Yeah, look, I think it was last year, it come to my attention, Malcolm, when the government was issuing the budget or announcing the budget, which children and women for domestic violence would get X amount of millions. What sort of pricked my ears up was when I’m waiting to see if they allocated any money towards men that year. And it was actually when they announced that there was pets of DV, so pets of domestic violence. And I believe that, that funding goes to things like your animal shelters, when there’s from a domestic violence home that needs caring. Which is great, because I love animals. But to me, that is a bit of a kick in the guts to, I suppose, the blokes out there who pay tax, that half that funding come from men, I assume. Population, whether it be 50/50, but I assume that the taxpayers being men as well, have contributed to that budget, yet $0 allocated to men when it comes to domestic violence. But the government allocate so many million to pets of domestic violence. I just found that appalling.

Malcolm Roberts:

That says so much, doesn’t it? And it’s not good, but I’m going to get you some dog tags and then maybe they’ll take better care of you, or get you a leash. Has he got a leash, Lisa?

Lisa Young:

Oh yeah, sometimes, if I keep you on it. If keep you on the leash.

Rick Young:

Short leash.

Malcolm Roberts:

So I think I know the answer to this question, but I was just wondering, how much of a demand is there for services such as the ones we’ve been talking about that are missing, and where are these people going now? I’m guessing they’re going nowhere.

Rick Young:

Look, I think there’s quite a few fathers’ Facebook pages and things like that. There are support groups. I know dads that have reached out to us today that said they would’ve loved to have come, but if their ex-partner found out they were here, they’d be in trouble.

Malcolm Roberts:

What?

Lisa Young:

Yeah, or it’d be used against them.

Rick Young:

Malcolm, recently we sold lapel pins to raise money. The DADS lapel pins. We’ve had judges tell fathers in the courtroom to take the lapel pin off, that it’s intimidating. So when we talk about where a dad’s going, they’re actually in fear. I’ve had one father who had a domestic violence order placed on him, a temporary protection order, private application, for wearing a DADS shirt.

Rick Young:

The supports there, but there’s dads out there that are scared to even, and this is a free country. This is Australia. It’s not the country that I served in the army for, where fathers can’t wear a DADS shirt or lapel pin to let them know they’re not alone when they’re in court. They’re feeling anxious, they feel alone. And they’ve told me, this is their feedback, that wearing that pin makes them feel that, you know what? I can finish court and come out, give Rick a call, tell him how I went. You know what I mean? And for these judges and magistrates to tell them to take the lapel pin off, that’s the system we are facing.

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, first of all, thank you so much for your service to our country.

Rick Young:

My pleasure.

Malcolm Roberts:

And thank you for doing what you’re doing now. So many people are being rescued by you and Lisa and an army of people behind you.

Lisa Young:

We sure do.

Malcolm Roberts:

It’s wonderful.

Lisa Young:

It gets me every time, this guy. As soon as he starts talking, I just get all choked up. But he is right. He served this country and he served two tours for us, for what we have today, for what we’re doing today, to have this beautiful weather, this event and this community engagement. And he does it all for nothing.

Malcolm Roberts:

Well, you’re achieving quite a bit, so that’s wonderful. The real story is that there is a need for you to do that. There shouldn’t be. That should be taken care of by our communities. But there’s also distortion of statistics. You know that the veterans who come back, even from overseas service have a very high rate of suicide. And when a dad takes his own life, because he feels hopeless and shamed, that’s sometimes put down to PTSD from Afghanistan or whatever. That dad’s issue is completely bulldozed. It’s completely-

Rick Young:

RSL DVA. Don’t want to touch it with a 10 foot pole. And I can tell you now, and this is from one fellow I served with. He faced false allegations, domestic violence. He was kept from his child. And the easy thing for them to do is simply, oh, he’s a veteran. Yeah. He’s been diagnosed with PTSD. Oh, that’s an easy one, suicide. PTSD. But in fact, he took his life because he didn’t see his daughter for two years. But they don’t want to link the veteran’s suicide to this. And where that comes in, Malcolm, is I’ve never been charged in my life, don’t have a criminal record, but a veterans training, their tours, and particularly if they’ve been diagnosed with PTSD, the stigma around that, in our courtrooms, from the judges, even police.

Malcolm Roberts:

The stigma of PTSD?

Rick Young:

Being a veteran with PTSD.

Malcolm Roberts:

Yeah.

Lisa Young:

Yeah.

Rick Young:

Yeah. Plenty of other services suffer PTSD, ambulance officers, police, first responders, that sort of stuff. But being a veteran, particularly a combat veteran, there’s a certain stigma that you are a risk to the community. You’ve never broken a law in your life. You’ve never hurt anyone in your life, but the sheer training and qualifications and your experience, you are treated absolutely differently, without justification. And that goes into the courtroom, where the courts… How do I put it? You’re portrayed as a trained killer, that you’re a potential risk to your children, simply because you’re a veteran, and I’ll tell you now, I’ve said it in court myself. I said, the funny thing is, two days a year you want to buy me a beer, the rest of the year I’m a risk. Which is it? You know what I mean? And we better have to think about the March come Anzac Day, because you got a lot of bad people getting together and marching, if we’re going to judge veterans as a risk based on just their service.

Malcolm Roberts:

Two days ago was Long Tan day.

Rick Young:

Yeah, it was.

Malcolm Roberts:

Vietnam veterans day. And I think about the people who went to Vietnam, especially the… Well no, including the conscriptees, not especially, everyone who went there, including the conscriptees, and they came back, and every previous war they were celebrated and given ticker tape parades. After Vietnam, they were shamed. Oh, you’re a Vietnam vet, you’re probably a drug killer. Now you’ve got a man or a woman, but a man in particular, who’s gone to, say, through training, had extensive training, being taught to do his manly job, if you like, defending the country, facing bullets, all of that. And he comes back and he’s accused of domestic violence when it didn’t happen. That’s not all the time, but sometimes it did happen. He’s accused, he feels shame and guilt. And he’s saying, what the hell am I doing here? And then that ends his life. That man, who’s got the discipline.

Rick Young:

It’s not just suicide. It goes into substance abuse, whether it be drugs, alcohol. It’s not just mental health. A lot of suicides… And I’m so happy that you’re going to be speaking to Paul today, from Zero Suicide, because he can really educate the people, listening about how suicide is just simply palmed off as, oh, it’s a mental health issue. No, no. Not seeing your kids, having kids in your life one minute and then getting told to get out of your house and you don’t see your kids for the next two, three years. That’s not normal. It’s inhumane to have someone say you don’t see your kids because of allegations have been put on that paper. You haven’t had a day in court yet.

Rick Young:

It’s just someone who’s made allegations, but you better get some money together, and you’ll get a day in court in about 12 months to two years. That’s not right. A big thing I really want to raise is, let’s just compare, and no disrespect to Anna Clark and those beautiful children, but let’s compare the attention that, that grab, that tragedy compared to Stanley Obi, who was a father, and his children and his partner, where his ex broke into his house, poured petrol on him and set him a light in his house.

Malcolm Roberts:

So most people would be saying, Stanley who?

Rick Young:

Who’s Stanley? Exactly. And that’s my point. There’s no benches, there’s no foundations, there’s no ribbon cutting.

Lisa Young:

ScoMo wasn’t at his funeral.

Rick Young:

Funeral. We went to the memorial walk with his family and friends, people who worked with him. He worked at an age care facility in Brisbane. Just a beautiful father. He just got custody of his kids, awarded custody. And he also got custody of his ex partner’s child as well. There was red flags. She was posting on social media what she was going to do. But yet, like I said, that shows where the media sits with this narrative. And it comes down to heartstrings. What’s going to pull a heartstring? Daisy and the kids or Stanley and the kids?

Malcolm Roberts:

That’s inhuman. Yeah. I think it’s important to say to people that no matter how bad life gets, life is better than suicide. It always comes good. It might take a while, but it always comes good. There’ve been times when I’ve been in challenges and I thought, my goodness, how am I going to survive this? But I did. And I look back on it and I go, thank goodness that happened because I learned from it. So I think it’s very important to… You’ve probably had to talk to people who are looking at committing suicide, and life is always better.

Rick Young:

Yeah. I think, again, Paul’s obviously a lot more educated on the suicide prevention, things like that. But I think by the time, particularly men reaching out publicly on Facebook saying, I’m really struggling, guys. I don’t want to be here anymore. That call for help, they’re really at their wit end. A lot of them, if they’re speaking out.

Malcolm Roberts:

So what do you say now, Rick and Lisa, to someone who might be thinking about that right now, or has felt that way for some time? What do you say to them?

Rick Young:

Well, a lot of times the guys that I talk to, particularly the dads, I explain to them that it consumes you and feels like this is your forever. That I’m never going to see those kids again, it’s never going to get better. And it does. It will, over time, and sometimes it might be five years, but it’s, like you said, it’s better to be here. We don’t know what’s around the corner next week. I used to say it to my kids all the time, you’re not getting to see me right now, or I might be doing supervised visits. It was two hours a fortnight. And I used to say to the kids, look, I know it’s not good. This is not a perfect situation, but you know what? I promise you, it’ll just get better. I just had a little bit of faith that it got better. I’d get the kids every second weekend and then end up getting the kids living with us. They have that attitude, particularly my daughter, oldest daughter, is that, you’re right, dad.

Lisa Young:

What may seem really heavy at the time and what you’re going through, and there’s no words, and a lot of people can’t even give you any empathy, in the sense that it’s going to make it feel all right for you. But I guess, what Rick is really singing home here is that you do need to be here and you do have people that love you. And there will always be someone there to talk to you. There will always be someone to help you through it. And if that’s not us, there will be somebody else. It could be a complete other stranger that has absolutely nothing to do with these organisations and what we do, but there will be somebody there. And eventually your heart will not hurt as much as what it might be at that one time. So you just got to-

Rick Young:

Might not go away.

Lisa Young:

Yeah, that’s right. It might not go away, but you just got to hang in and hang tight.

Malcolm Roberts:

And there’s a funny thing about we humans, we sometimes think that the feelings that are consuming us are us, and life is hell. But that’s not true. We’re not our feelings. So is there anything you can say to people, give them a website, Facebook page? How can people get in touch with you? What would you like them to do to support you? Anything like that? Did you like to say, give them a location website?

Lisa Young:

Yeah of course. So our website is the full name, which is dadsagainstdiscriminationsupport.com.au. You can email us at info@dads, with an S, d-a-d-s-q-l-d.com. And you can reach us on our social platform. So we are on Facebook and we are on Instagram and we are on TikTok as well. And all of our contact details are across our platforms, so you can reach us via phone. And it is a two man team at the moment. But once we have this community centre doors open, there’ll be much more than a two man team.