Young Libs attack de facto families

By Bill Mason

BRISBANE -- "The Queensland Young Liberals have shown themselves to be political dinosaurs over their attack on the rights of de facto couples and their children", Kathy Newnham, Brisbane acting organiser of the socialist youth organisation Resistance, said on January 30.

"At a time when the Coalition nationally and in this state is slashing welfare, cutting jobs for all, and driving working people even deeper into poverty, to threaten the rights of de facto couples is an assault on the majority, not some imaginary `out group'", Newnham said.

"The rights of real-life mixed families, especially for young people, should be strengthened, not undermined, in this time of crisis."

The Queensland Young Liberal convention on the Australia Day weekend resolved that the legal rights of de facto couples should be limited because, they claimed, child abuse and neglect were common in families where the parents refused to show commitment by marrying.

Young Liberals country vice-president Chris Young said children of de facto couples did not receive as much love as those with parents who were married.

A child maltreatment study in the latest Australian Institute of Family Studies journal concluded that there was "no single factor" that fully explained why child abuse occurred.

Abuse Child Trust spokesperson David Lacey said on January 28 that there was no research to support claims like those made by the Young Liberals, which he described as a "common myth".

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