The writer of this book is Graham McFarland, locally known as GMAC. Graham you could say is what you would now consider a common Australian man who married too early. 

What Graham experienced after doing what he thought was the right thing is what led him to becoming an advocate for better family laws. 

Marriage breakdown

After his marriage broke down and separated, he moved his young family back to Sydney to a suburb called Glenwood, North West of Parramatta in NSW. This was for the benefit of the children being close to extended family and the proximity to the good local schools. 

This separation led to financial destruction from the costs of child support, often consuming most of his income. This led to the onset of homelessness, with little to no support systems available, and not entitled to financial support as he had a full-time job and was not entitled to government support.

This then led to parental alienation, over the initial years seldom seeing or spending quality time with his young children. The laws at the time were in favor of the mother to the children. 

In the mid 2000’s Graham became heavily depressed, removed from fatherhood, missing out on his children growing up all because of separation and the communities bias that the parent will always be the mother.

The Power of Men Support Group’s

Luckily, Graham is a fighter, this outcome just didn’t sit well with him. He had a desire for a fairer outcome from family separation. After a few dyer years, he found the community “Dads in Distress” and spoke regularly to a man…. Tony Miller. 

Tony and the “Dads in Distress” community were amazing, they gave purpose and belief that things will change…. That this was only a temporary setback. They enriched Graham with knowledge about law, support that was available and action plans for a better relationship with his children.

From that interaction, Graham became extremely focused on being the BEST dad he could ever be. First came his own wellbeing, fitness and mental growth. He read everything, the law, other family law cases and started engaging with like-minded people. This led to studying state and federal constitutional laws.

This personal growth saw Graham’s career blossom, his health focus increase and his knowledge of his rights as an active parent increase. Eventually the tides started changing, he went from a few nights a month to 50/50 shared care. And in Graham’s case eventually full care and the main carer of his children.

Community Advocacy

In the years 2015 – 2018, Graham was often seen standing outside the Parramatta Family Law courts, creating awareness around family law outcomes, especially supporting men going through the same journey. He built a network of support around him. This created support mechanisms for parents, through his organisation Family Crisis Support. This led to emergency accommodation options for men, as there are no shelters for men. 

His new network of Dads was able to resettle a separated father quickly, from temporary accommodation to finding more permanent solutions. His community was able to furnish these new homes through furniture donations. He also arranged free legal seminars and emergency food and petrol vouchers. This reduced the initial financial burden of men after separation.

During these times he learned very quickly how the community really worked, fighting often against dreaded prejudices of the last 2 decades. 

The limited Politicians and Councilors who would listen would often be agreeable but would say, … “Family Law is a Nuclear Bomb”. What this meant was no politician wanted to fight for families, as it was taboo, and their political careers would be at risk. Many a meeting would end like this, especially “off the record”…

Federal Election Candidate 2019

The catalyst for this was Graham and 6 other members from this community ran for Parliament in the 2019 Federal Election. Graham fully funded his own campaign and spent 6 months walking the streets of his electorate, over 260 km’s. The focus of the team wasn’t to get elected; they knew as independents it was almost impossible without a lot of money. But boy did it help the growing conversation…

Later that year, the government started to listen. With all the family law advocates from all over Australia getting involved, they all achieved a fantastic outcome. In September 2019, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison started a new committee to look at the 60 recommendations made from the 2017 Family Law review, often coined the “Broken Family Law”.

After 2 decades

These days, Graham is now a grandfather, a young one at that. He has found a remarkable partner that he loves and adores, they got engaged this year on the banks of the Lough Derg, Youghalarra Ireland. His ancestral home.

He has been interviewed a few times, and still is active in his community. You will find him on radio weekly, producing and broadcasting on community radio with two other remarkable dads, “The Dads Radio Show”, a show of dads talking about all thing’s fatherhood and life….

The basis of this book was to share the questions that 1000’s of men has asked him over the last decade. Hopefully to share his positive and contagious attitude towards life to 1000’s of more…