Aussie, kids entitled to relationship with dad
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Australian Business News
Wayne Butler of the Shared Parenting Council...said the law was quite clear: "that children are entitled to a relationship with their dad, and it's good to see the Family Court coming around to that". Mr Butler was responding to a report in The Australian yesterday in which Family Court judge Robert Benjamin removed two children, aged nine and seven, from their mother in Tasmania, with whom they had lived since the couple separated in 2005, and sent them to live with their father in Melbourne. The mother had been the primary carer of the children since birth. The father left Tasmania for Melbourne in 2006. He had access to the children on holidays, but the "changeovers" had become fractious and his daughter was becoming estranged from him. The judge said the mother had not encouraged her children to have a good relationship with their father. (04/01/09)