Episode 29 - Rodney Joyce - I Paid Child Support Consistently for 24 Years

Episode 29

Guest - Rodney Joyce

On this episode, I am joined by Rodney Joyce, a 57-year-old father of three from Ballina. Rodney shares the deeply personal story of fighting for his children and the struggles with mediation.

After separating from his first partner when his daughter was 4 years old, Rodney found co-parenting manageable until his daughter turned eight and contact was abruptly cut off. He describes his experience with mediation and explains why he found the process ineffective for his situation.

He recalls the heartbreaking experience of waiting for his daughter on Christmas Day, only to be told she would not be coming.

After meeting his second partner, they welcomed a son a year later. However, challenges soon emerged within the relationship. Rodney discusses these difficulties, including a traumatic assault that resulted in a police-issued protection order for his safety. He also details the subsequent legal battle in the NSW Children’s Court involving fabricated allegations.

 Rodney opens up about a difficult event where he received a letter claiming he had abducted his son. This situation unfortunately resulted in Rodney’s family having to drive his son to the airport to hand him over to his ex-partner. On a lighter note, Rodney also shares his experiences with his lawyer, jokingly referencing the character "Dennis Denuto" from the 1997 Australian film, The Castle.

Furthermore, Rodney touches on his 24-year journey of paying child support, the sacrifices he made to provide for his daughter, and his subsequent fight to recover funds owed to him.

 Today, Rodney has been happily married for 17 years. He is grateful to have all three of his children in his life and credits his beloved staffy, who was by his side for 17 years, for helping him through his darkest times.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Father's podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal for us. If you are going through the family law court process, particularly as a father, then this podcast may be relevant to what you may experience. Some things we discussed in these episodes may be triggering, and if you suffer from any form of mental health-related conditions or subject to domestic or family violence and need any assistance, then please call 1-800 respect and podcast. The views and experiences discussed by people on our show are not necessarily the views and opinions of Broken Fathers podcasts or their guest speakers. We strongly advise you to seek your own independent legal and professional advice as the Broken Fathers Podcast will not be liable, answerable, or accountable for any loss of damage or litigation resulting from discussions on our platform. Right, this podcast is now in session. At Straight Up Construction, they take pride in delivering high-end work across every trade. From new builds to renovations, no job is too big or too small. Director Luke Miller and his dedicated team tackle every project with integrity, hard work, honesty, and a commitment to delivering superior quality results every time. Straight Up Construction is built on the belief that strong foundations matter just as much in the bones of the home as they do in the heart of one. Families should stand strong and every loving parent should maintain their right to be a part of their children's lives. Straight Up Construction believes that in Cruzy Spirit, everyone deserves a fair go. That's why we're proud to have Straight Up Construction as our platinum sponsor. With their support, we continue to produce the Broken Fathers Podcast and try and light on the struggles of men who have been let down by the system. Welcome back, Broken Fathers Podcast viewers. On today's episode, I'm joined with Rodney Joyce, a 57-year-old father of three. After separating when his daughter was four, Rodney found co-parenting manageable until his daughter turned eight and found his ex-partner stopped allowing contact. Rodney sought mediation only to realise it was an ineffective process for the situation. While navigating these challenges, Rodney met his second partner and had another son. However, two years later he was assaulted while sleeping, which led to the the partner being arrested and taken away by police and handcuffs, resulting in a police issued protection order for his safety. Shortly after, Rodney was served with an AVO based on fabricated allegations. He once again found himself in mediation, facing a battle in the highest children's court in New South Wales, which he felt he should have won. Rodney paid child support for 24 consecutive years, and he shares the difficult details of his subsequent fight to recover money owed to him. Today, Rodney is happily married to his wife of 17 years. They share a son together, and Rodney is grateful to have all three of his children in his life. Mate, welcome to the podcast. Nah thanks for having me, mate. It's great to be here. Mate, um, like all my guests that travel from other states and take time out of the day and spend money out of their own pocket. I like to acknowledge that, mate. I think it's important, so thank you for very much. Nah, too easy. Um before we crack on to the uh circus of court and mediation, I think it's important to get to know a little bit about my guests. So where was Rodney born uh born, mate, and where'd you grow up?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Mate, yeah, it's um I was born in Monavale in the heart of Sea Eagles territory. Oh yeah, Sea Eagles, eh? Born into it, but yeah, born and bred into it. Um yeah, born down in Monavale, um um two years old, moved down to Barrel, um which is the Southern Highlands, until I was about uh ten and then we moved to um to Ballinor, um Balinor, New South Wales, up the far north coast there in 81. And in between all that, flatted around. But um yeah, growing up I had a great unbelievable childhood. I look at my son now and just go, my kids now, and I just go. I wish I feel jealous of what we had as growing up, as kids. Like we had not like my parents gave us everything we had, not monetary-wise, but as in love and care and everything they could give us, they gave us, but like just through the childhood of growing up and getting out there and down in barrel going yabbying and um coming home, putting it in on a bar a fire out the back and just cooking it up and adventuring. Yeah, it was the old days of you know, come home when the streetlights are on, like not now. Like you for home, you'd get family you'd get your mum and dad ringing up 40 times this year now, like last when we grew up, it was just like if you weren't home at dark, you got you know, you got a bit of a flog and but um but yeah then um and um moved to barrel and um yeah, just it was I mean to Bowl and it was just um just amazing, like you know, I moved there in 81. We just moved there um I was 12 years old, started primary school, didn't know anyone, first day of school, just walked in and had to meet everyone and didn't really get to meet too many people. Then one day I was still sitting on my chair on my own and um in the classroom, I think it was English, and um and then this other kid walked in that was new, and he sat beside me and he said, Is anyone sitting here? I said, No one sat there for six months, mate. It's a chair's all yours. So he sat beside me and um mate, we've been best mates ever since. Ever since. So for since we're 12 years old and we speak every day. Um but yeah, grew up in Balma, it was just unreal. Like, I I've got such a good crew of friends there that we like, even when we have school reunions, we go to school reunions and we're we're we're still we don't have a reunion because we've been together since we were 12 years old. Me mate or me not just that that I'll meet mate, we I met that first day, but going through high school, we're still friends to this stage, still close, and I suppose that's one thing too, we'll touch on later on. Is like um you gotta keep your good friends close to you because they can help you through the battles, but you've got to let them know too. You know, where people say no one was there for me, but you you've got to let them know too. So um, yeah, and then done that, and footy was my career. Footy was my life, yeah, growing up. Um that's all I ever wanted to do is play footy. P per position you play. Um I started in the backs. The older I got, I got moved into the forwards. And then it was too when you if you're a footballer, you know when you start getting moved into the forwards, it's time to think about uh yeah, we should finish it up. Uh yeah, so done that and um yeah, I was fortunate enough to get sort of looked at and got taken down to Sydney for about four years. Um played with the Tigers, and um it was a great experience as well. Met you know, if you ever move somewhere and you ever want to meet people, go and play footy or go and play a sport, and you'll meet people straight away. So I met some great people down the Tigers, and um look, uh you know, it's probably for another podcast, but I I everything I dreamed of growing up was playing football. I got given that opportunity through you know, I wasn't handed it to it. I had to I had to play good footy and put in the hard work and do the extras, but then four years into it I gave it away. Um just through my excuse was I was homesick. But but I just stopped doing the extras, stopped doing the percentage, and I came home and then Yeah, then travelled around Southeast Asia. I went to Thailand for eight months and So how old were you how old were you here when you decided on that? Uh 22. Yeah, so I came home from the playing the footy and just was bumming around, you know, just it was terrible. Like I was yeah, it was it was if anyone's watching this and has been given that opportunity, don't waste it away like I did. And I should have listened to my dad here. I was driving home, he goes, Don't waste this opportunity. I said, Oh, you don't understand, I'm homesick. I've been there for four years, homesick sober, you know. I just had excuses. And I came home and I actually turned the football off for ten years because um I was watching people I played with that that made it. And I'm not saying I would have made it, but I just went, I couldn't keep hearing those names. So not for anyone being um jealous or nothing like that. I was just I just threw that away. So I turned it off and didn't touch football for ten years until my younger boy, my third boy, came into it and he'd be a coach and that cr that stuff. So um yeah, but I had a mate, I can't my child when I hear people say, you know, I've got the best parents, I always go, Well, no, I have, you know. So they're unbelievable. They've been so the most but they're my supportive career, and um without them, none of the battle I faced because you know, like probably every uh majority of the people, they're the what some of the first people you ring when you're struggling. And they just were always there, like I said, we never had much to be given growing up as in monetary, but if I had to go find somewhere for footy, I don't I look back now and I go, they would have struggled to get me there, but they got me there. You know, they'll put me on trains with um you know eight Devon sandwiches, you know. That was my free days of eating. But that I didn't I just took that as normal, that's what it was back then. So but yeah, then um travelled to um Thailand for eight months, and that was an amazing time of my life too. So they're just things you'd never forget, and I was staying yeah, and then I always remember I was coming home to and this is the this is how the journey starts into um the relationships was uh well I'll pause you there real quick.

SPEAKER_04 9:15

Mate 81 Ballinar, what was the price of houses back then? Can you remember? It wasn't much, wasn't it what a few years?

SPEAKER_02 9:21

It was a it was a five thousand oh up over a mil. I actually got in the market in 2018. I never thought I'd buy a house. I never did. I just thought, no, I'm just gonna be a renter and everything like that. And um jumped in the market about 2018 and it's just holy crap, it's just gone skyrocketed. But um it was a small town of five thousand people, like you went to school and you knew everyone, like even though if they were in other years, you know. What's the population there now? 2530, I'd say. Yeah, it's a beautiful spot. I was just there recently. Mate, it's um yeah, it's spot X for for growing up as a kid. Like, I wasn't a fisherman, my brother was a fisherman. Um, you know, and that's the other thing. I got brought up with um an older brother, an older daughter, I mean older daughter, an older sister, and a younger sister. Um So how how many how many siblings you got all that? What was that? I've got an older brother, um, an older sister, but she passed away when she was four. Um No, that's cool. How if you don't mind me asking? She had a um she had a disease that back then, I don't know the name of it, it's a very long wording, but um it was she aged really quick, from what I gathered, um, from what mum and dad said. Um I was only two when she passed, but um I I've obviously got no reckon recollection of her, but I'm in photos with her. Um so yeah, and that was, you know, obviously one of the toughest times you can have as a parent, you know. Um I can't remember that, obviously. But um and that was one of the another reasons why moving when I went into the b the battles and felt depressed and everything. I never you know, you always think about um maybe doing being suicidal and going through with it, but I could never let my parents bury another kid. Yeah. I could just as soon as I had that thought came at my mind, that thought came in and bang, I just moved on. I just went, no, I've got to fight through this. I they're not gonna bury another kid. Yeah, that's what my mum says.

SPEAKER_04 11:14

She always says a a parent should never have to bury the kid.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Yeah, and it was a tough gig, mate. It was tough, you know. It would have been so hard for them. But there, my sister, and we're a very tight family. We still are. Um, we don't we still my brother lives up in Townsville. My family, um, we all live, rest of us live in Barrel. My parents live around the corner, you know. Like, it's unreal. Like, they're just so supportive. And um, and having an older brother was four years older than me, he sort of cut a path for me through Balma back in the day. It was a bit of a wild west day back then. Um, it's like the old Nate DS says, Were you ever bullied as a kid? I said, I had an older brother. Yeah, like you know, I didn't, but um nah it was great, and then um yeah, so that was pretty much where it went, and then came left Thailand, and um I remember jumping in the cab and the my mate who lived over there for about 20 years, so real quick, how old were you in Thailand now? Twenty-two, twenty two, twenty two, yep, yeah. In Thailand, yep, go yeah. And then um I remember jumping in the cab, he goes, Don't go, don't go, just stay, we'll get some money. Because you you know every day's a Saturday over there. And um I just um I said no, I'll be back in six weeks, I'll just go home, get some money and come back. And then I went to Balma, flew back home and then um got some work down in Barrel for six w for six weeks it was. I rang a family friend, had some six weeks work down there, I was going down there to work and um the six weeks turned into fifteen years. Yeah, we are and that's how it all started.

SPEAKER_04 12:38

Well, how's far is Barrel from Bellana?

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Back in the day, back in the day, uh 12 hours, 12 hours on bus, nine hours, ten hours by car, now it's down to about eight.

SPEAKER_04 12:49

So you're in Barron, this is I assume this is where you met your the first mother of your child? Correct, yeah. Yeah, right. Well let's uh let's dive into that. Yeah, mate, let's get what's repeating. Yeah, mate, your story, mate, you set the pace. Yeah, so met um so you're 22, 23 now? You come back from Thailand? Yeah, you work in Barrel.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

24, 24 now, yeah, roughly. Um probably came back to Barrel. Went down there for the six weeks' work and um just stayed with a family friend. Um, he got me the work just from plastering, and then just you know, coming from there previously, the family, and I didn't really know anyone as a kid, um, but my family still had connections there. And so um just and being still sort of playing football a little bit but not too interested at that stage, and met some footballers and they said, Come down, come down to footy. And I said, Nah, mate, I'm done, you know. I'm just I was only 24, 25, but I didn't want to play anymore, and my mate, and and I met some great people down there. Like I only met them, we had a um bit of a reunion last w uh about three weeks ago, and like I said before, mate, it was like we never left. People will would have been walking past us going, Geez G's like each other. Listen to you, but um Yeah, so I went down and watched a game watch them train one day and come out and play a game of touch. Yeah, right. Then anyway, ended up playing footy with them. And that's where I met um my daughter's partner pretty much just through playing footy and around the people they hang around. And then Yeah, I'll never refer to her as a name, as her name, it's just my daughter's mother. Um and then eat and I do that the same with my seconds with my son. Um then we just started uh going out and you know, living together, moved into living together and um that year or two turned into living together, then yeah, she fell pregnant. So you you're together what two, three years before she fell pregnant? My daughter I was twenty-six when my daughter was born, but yeah, my daughter was born in ninety-six. So yeah, that was yeah, pretty much together for about one or two years.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

And then yeah, my daughter was born, um, you know, and all three of my kids were never planned. It was always guess what? And I was like, Yeah, what? Alright. Um, but yeah, she was born, and you know, it was you don't know how you're gonna handle being a father, you know, but it just happens.

SPEAKER_04 15:16

It just if you don't mind me asking, I always ask one. I guess um, did you witness your daughter being born?

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Yep, I witnessed my daughter being born. Um, cut the cord.

SPEAKER_04 15:26

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SPEAKER_02 16:56

Yeah, it was pretty, yeah, it was pretty, yeah, it was amazing, actually. Like, um, I still remember um, yeah, she like they're in labor for a long time. Um there wasn't it wasn't like I remember going there in a cab. We had to call a cab to go there, and the cab driver was like, Oh my god, I've never had this done before. I've never done it I said, Well, drive a bit faster if you probably won't have to. Um so yeah, mate, it was it was unreal. Um born in barrel, and um she came out, cut the cord, it was long but long, long labour. I remember the doctor came in, it was like 11 o'clock at night. He actually came in, he had his pajamas underneath his shirt. I still remember it. I still remember it. But yeah, she was born and um got to cut the cord on her on my daughter. Um and then yeah, everything was and I witnessed except my you know my other son, I witnessed him being born, but I didn't witness, which is one of the things I sort of live to regret. Um, but at that stage in the career of my life, sorry, um I didn't get to get over to Thailand. He was born in Thailand with because my wife's tired.

SPEAKER_04 17:52

Your second wife?

SPEAKER_02 17:53

Third wife.

SPEAKER_04 17:54

Third wife, okay. We'll we'll we'll we'll get there eventually.

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Yeah. Yeah, and then um so yeah, it was great. Um everything was going good for uh about a year or two. Yeah, she uh probably yeah, a year or two, then you know, cracks started to form, you know. I've got faults, I didn't see them, I just thought I'm still cruising around and 26 year old, still playing footy and 27 and working. Um always worked, never never relied on anyone. Um and then Yeah, just one day she just said, um, you need to get out.

unknown 18:26

True.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:27

So So you're those so your daughter's about four years old then, right? Yeah. Yep. So your daughter's there's cracks showing. Yep. Daughter's about four, then she says Yeah, it's over, get out.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Um, you know, um I still remember the day of walking out with just bags. That's all I had. I had two bags in my hand. Um it was pretty brutal, like it it is what it is. Did she ever say why? No, I just think it was just fell out of love, just fizzled, you know. There was no fighting, there was no carry-on. It was nothing. It was like, oh just get out. If I didn't have, as I always say, if I didn't have my daughters, I would have been out, like just walking down that road, just going on to the next adventure, you know. But when you're walking out with those two bags in your hand, you look back, and there's your daughter looking out this glass plate window at you with her hands up against it and just looking at you like where's dad going. And I remember looking back like that. It was a tough walk. It was um really tough walk that, and um, but like I said, I had a mate ring me up and said, Mate, I've heard, I'm coming to pick you up, you come and live with us. And um, I moved in with him and his wife, um, or his girlfriend at that stage, you know, like that's why you've got to keep your friends close, like you're really good friends, keep them so close and let them know what's going on because they're gonna help you through. And like I said before, people will be there for you, but you just gotta let them know and speak because um, you know, like I said, people say no one was there for me, but you gotta communicate it. You gotta communicate and yeah, and it was yeah, so obviously the child support letters came pretty quick. Um they were they were back in the back then, I won't say back in the day anymore because it makes me feel too old, but back then it was like they came in the mail. Yeah, and they probably don't know if they probably still do today. Yeah, they still do. You choose yeah, so the letters came through pretty quick for child support. Um, you know, so I think it was I think maybe it was like the first um couple were like I think it was like 120 bucks a week um child support. And that was like How much a week? Probably about a hundred, hundred and twenty. Um, you know, I was only earning back. Yeah, that's big money then, don't back then, yeah, it was like four hundred a week. Yeah. Um free eighty, I think actually, I was learning something like that. But um, yeah, so that came through and everything was going all right. We've seen my daughter for the first four years. Um, you know, I got visitation, you know, not as much as I'd like, but I had every two weekends, every second weekend, um uh two weeks holiday a year, um Christmas, picked up at eleven. How far away was she living? Oh, just the next town. Yeah, or the okay. Not far at all, like a ten minute drive. So we'll still around, um, not far at all.

SPEAKER_04 21:10

And then I'll finish the sentence for you because this is uh common behaviour, what do I say, not a tactic, if this is a common uh common beh is behaviour? I'll finish my sentence. I think this is a common behaviour I see with a lot of fathers that have on as soon as they meet another person, that's when uh the ex will make their life hell and make them not stop sending their kids up.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

Pretty much, mate. Yeah, when I was writing it down and getting a timeline up and running, I went, wow, yeah. And it happened again, it happened twice. It would happen two times. Yeah, because everything was cruising. I was living by myself like a oh with that with those family friends, but then I moved out by myself, gave her her own room, um, set it up like she was always there, you know, like um it was there, it was always there. I paid everything I had to pay, um, never shirked it, and like as usual, every That's sat in this chair and in your chair, you're aware that your child support goes off you the w from the previous financial year. So it doesn't matter if you have a day off or you're casual, you're still paying$120. It's not what you earn that week or that year. So if you can only work three days a week, um you're gonna find money. And you know, when I had my daughter, um sometimes there wasn't a lot of money to go and do stuff, but I made sure, you know, if she wanted to go to McDonald's, we went to McDonald's. I just pretended I was I was not hungry, you know. If she had a birthday party to go to that was organised that week and was on my weekend, she went. I wasn't letting her, letting my daughter miss out on anything that I couldn't provide for her. So, like I said, I wasn't gonna be that person to say, nah, this is my weekend and she's staying with me, and we're doing this, we're doing that. I've already got stuff planned. It's I'm doing what my daughter wants to do, and that's what a father needs to do. You need to give them give them as much as you can, like my parents did, and also protect them, which my parents did. So it was unreal.

SPEAKER_04 23:05

Um yeah, but then it turned pretty bad, like as in um So she f how did she find out that you started you you had met someone that your second I th it wasn't small town, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Just a small town, and she started knowing as well. Um obviously. So then yeah, just um the the weekends, those every second weekends started turning into months. Um the holidays stopped. I had one I had w I only ever had one Christmas with her where she came to my house and she opened presents. And that was the night she she stayed over that night prior, so I was able to do the she was about eight or nine then. And she was able to op wake up in the morning and I was able to do the put the powder on the floor and got my work boots out and made like Santa turned up and done all that and she was able to open the f open her um presents up. Um that was the last Christmas I ever had with her from ever since she's been born. Um except the obviously with the ones we were together early in the days but when she was young. Um the second one, because it turned pretty bad after that one. Um we've not seen her, all the care got taken away. Um like I'd you come home from work on that Friday afternoon, you're pumped. You're getting to see your daughter. You know, you've been waiting two weeks. So you get home and you get everything ready and you get there, you sit there, and you're about to jump in the car or they're getting dropped off the next day the phone rings. She's not coming. So I'm like, Jesus, what do you you know? I used to just sit there and um I used to sit there by you know, I used to have to pick her up at four o'clock. By the time I got myself together, it was like dark outside, I hadn't put any lights on because I was just sitting there just just just gone into another mental side of things thinking it's another two weeks now. It's another two weeks until I get to see her. And the only person that was there, you know, not through anyone's fault of their own, not being there was my dog. Like um, he was oh man, God. What type of dog Staffy that's why you sent me a photo. He was um mate, as everything in life, like everyone's got an opinion, good or bad, and everyone tries to tell you what to do. He never tried to tell me what to do, because he, you know, obviously he's a dog, but um all he ever done was always just sit there right beside me, always supported me, always by my side. They know, yeah, they do. And I tell everyone, get a dog. Like, even when I had to, it was probably one of the hardest, toughest, other than with my kids outside of that. My life had to put him down because he was 17. He's I was looking up, I was googling stuff, going, How old? What's the what's against book of records for dogs' ages? Because he he was 17. Yeah, but he's beginnings, but he just couldn't, he couldn't see anymore, he couldn't hear, and his legs were going, he was falling over, couldn't get back up. And I had to put him down. It was just I didn't want to. I was waking up going, please, bro, just fall asleep and don't wake up for me. Just do it easy on yourself and do it easy on me. But I had to, yeah, he was just and then I when I put him down, I we had another little dog, and my mate said, What are you getting another dog for? Like, look what you just went through putting Jay down. I said, You've got to have a dog in your life. And this little dog I got now, he's a little shihtzu Maltese, and uh mate, behind a plate of glass, he's tough as you happen that door up. He um he goes to water, but no, he just sits beside you as well. Um sorry, I segue to be there.

SPEAKER_04 26:53

No, mate, that's fine. No, I I dread the day that that has to happen.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

I had I had another he I had the other little fella he came in in the last couple of years, but um yeah, and Jay, even when we used to I used to take him everywhere because it was just me and him. Um used to put him in the car, he'd never sit up on the seat, he'd always just sit on the floor underneath the dash, underneath the glove box, and put his left face on the chair and just look at me all the way I was driving, just never take his eyes off me. And never slept on my bed, he always just slept on at the front of the bed looking at the door. Probably, I don't know if he's protecting me or just keeping an eye out for me.

SPEAKER_04 27:29

Mate, my dog's 60 63 kilos and he sleeps on my bed, one diagonal diagonally, one corner or the other, and I'm left in the corner.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

Yeah, so he was, yeah, like I said, getting back to it, yeah, at dark you'd be cut it'd be turning around to seven and six o'clock, and you just have to pull yourself together and go, right eh, another two weeks, hopefully, and you just all the next weeks you just all the next days and weeks you just go on, geez, I hope it happens, hope it happens. Rinse and repeat. Come the next that that next Friday. The toughest one was um that second the second Christmas where I was supposed to get her um at eleven o'clock. And um I was uh had the tree up uh presents all under the tree, and and be f and be probably before I carry on um and go on about this too much is like my daughter and my son were never aware of any of this what happened ever because I never told them about it um when they were growing up. I never um disrespected their their their mothers in front of them. I didn't want to do that because I didn't want that to be me. I didn't want I didn't want to be that person. So I so yeah, so that when I tell these stories, this is gonna be the first time they've heard them if they do listen. And it'll be probably the first time a lot of people have heard this because it's not something you'd sort of talk about. And I think it's important that we do talk about it, like with your podcast you do it now, it's unreal. Um and I think people need to hear these stories because you go, Wow, that was pretty tough, you know. So yeah, it was eleven o'clock, getting back to the Christmas day, had everything ready, had the chips out on the table. It was only gonna be me and her. Had the chips out on the table, um, you know, the lollies, everything you do as a Christmas, and like I said, growing up we had great Christmases, so I wanna I wanted to reflect that to my daughter. Um everything was ready to go. Then the I was 11 o'clock and I went, that's what's going on, no one's turned up. What's happening? So I made the phone call and where she go, when's um I don't want to say it, yeah. When's um when's she turning up? And I swear to god, this is how it was. I got got laughed at and so she said she's not coming. And so and that was it. The phone hung up. And so I had to sit there um and like once again, I sat there just staring at that Christmas tree with all those presents that were unopened, just staring at it, just thinking, holy crap. And yeah, about I think it was like once again that afternoon turned into dark hours, and just me and my dog there again. And the hardest part of my life then was packing that tree up and putting those presents away. It was um it was yeah, it was many. Gut wrenching, mate, I know. It was a story you don't want to sort of relive, but um and that's where all those the men out there now that are going through it and um you know, you you're waiting for that phone to call, or where are they? You're waiting for that phone call and you're checking the phone to see if you're like back then it was a landline, you've seen it, is it ringing? Is this is it is am I still connected to the phone? Oh, there's no phone call yet. So you think you keep looking out the windows, are they turning up, you hear a car, is it them, is it them? It's not them. That was uh um possibly one of the last contacts I had on phone with them um for a f that she was about eight or nine then, so until she was about fourteen. Didn't see her at all um for those years. And then um one year I was I was I can't remember where I was um but the phone rang and I looked at the phone and it was my daughter.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

I went, Oh shit, how could this? Wow, oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

I was pumped, you know. What year are we in now? Uh roughly probably now yeah, I suppose that's something we should have said because both of these don't um my daughter and my son was all together. So it wasn't all like one simultaneously, so it happened all together. So this is when she was about fourteen, born ninety six, what's that? 2000 probably 2010, roughly, which makes a 14. Yeah. Um, and so my other son was born then. Um, he was like four. So yeah, it it just yeah, it they just m morphed into each other. Yeah, um, so yeah, not only did I fight it once, um, I fought it twice, and and we'll go into the second one, but um I look back now, and the first one was just pre-limp.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

It was just a warm-up fight, it was it was just the warm-up battle for the one that was really coming.

SPEAKER_04 32:25

But uh looking back now, that first battle, I know we haven't got in the second one yet. Looking back now, like that first battle, you probably would have thought you were at rock bottom, but correct me if I'm wrong, coming in the second battle, that's probably when you was more at rock bottom. Is it would that be?

SPEAKER_02 32:38

Yeah, 100%, yeah. It was tough. It was hard. The first one was hard because it it was um first time and the second one was tough, it was hard, but I was sort of like I said, yeah, I had I I I w I had some scars worn. I I already had the battle scars. Um lot of them were on my heart, you know, that have never healed. Um and that's something you sort of it helped me a little bit moving into the second one, 'cause I didn't have well there, I suppose we can walk into that was I was gonna say I didn't have much to do with the courts in the first one, but I I only had all I'd done was had a um mediation, which was before the she was turned fourteen, so I suppose we should go back to that in between eight and twelve. So I didn't wasn't seeing her. Um so I organized mediation and went to see a solicitor. Um so you know, as you are all aware, phone calls and emails and all that cost money. Um for the mediation to be organized, I think it got to be at$5,000, and that was just for a sit-down like this. So I walked into the room, um, I was just on my own. Like I said, I didn't want to bring anyone else into my battles. This was my battle, and I know they would have been there to support me, but there's battles you can have support for, and there's battles you sort of keep people away from, and they were the the those battles are the ones I didn't want my family to be involved in, or my future partner. This what she wasn't involved with me at this early stage with this battle. Um yeah, so$5,000 to get to mediation um turned up, and I just said I want to see my daughter, how I'm supposed to have, as these court orders state in a paper that say I supposed to have them, have her when I should have her. And that's where I learnt that those court orders don't mean much. Um police have got no I don't know if it's changed now, but back then they had no jurisdictions to enforce them. You could ring up and say, you know, I'm not seeing my daughter, they'd go and do a welfare check at the where she has is and just ring you back and say, Look, she's fine. And I actually had a few police say to me, Um, there's nothing we can do. We've going to get her and bringing her here for you because it says you need to have a Friday afternoon from 40. It's not, you've got to go through the process again. And it's like, holy shit, so I've got to fork more coin out. So yeah, that mediation got five thousand dollars, walked in. It was nothing, it was just a shout and match from one side.

SPEAKER_04 35:06

It was just I don't think I've ever heard a good story about mediation, as in like where someone got a result. Maybe they did years down the track.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Well, I'm 2-0. So there you go. So yeah, that was just and it was and I like I said, I'm only here telling the truth. Um, nothing else other than that, and it was all just shouting from one side, you know, your shit, you're crap, this and that, you're never there. Well, how can I be there if my daughter doesn't get dropped off or if I get phone calls that say don't turn up, and she's not gonna come with you. You turn up and you go to pick her up and you're not and you've been told not to. Who do you think the next person's gonna be pulling up behind you in the car? The police with an OVO or whatever. Um so yeah, I that was a zero result. I walked out there in no better situation than I walked in, probably worse, as in mentally, um, because I knew those orders aren't standing up, that's it, it's done. Um, I'm not gonna see my daughter. It's up to her, it's up to making sure my daughter's there for me to pick her up, but she never was. So I remember going back to the solicitor's office the next couple of days. I said, Okay, so it didn't work, where do we go from here? And she goes, and this is the exact words she said. She she said to me, How much money you got? I said, I don't know why. She goes, Well, it's gonna cost ten grand at a minimum to go any further from here. I said, I've already paid five, and look where we got. Yeah, nowhere. Go, nowhere, but you organized a meeting. That's a five you ring up, you know, I I don't know about the first one, but I do know about the second one. They had all and I dare say the first one, well, we didn't go to court, so that the meet the the mediator's just not someone that either side got, it's just someone that the courts have put in the middle um to sort of sort it out, but they weren't there for you either. The second one was which we'll get to later. Um Yeah, and then I just went, I don't have ten grand. And she just went too bad, so sad. See you later. And so I walked, I still remember the office I walked into that day, I still remember the lady, I still remember her face, don't know her name. I remember walking out there going, Wow, they they just their care factor is zero. All they care about is the coin, how much they can get out of ya, and I just wish they were up front at the start to say this is gonna cost you. Obviously, you can't say the exact amount, but it's gonna cost you X, Y, Z, and the chance your chance it's like your chances of winning are pretty low.

SPEAKER_04 37:45

I I don't mind a lawyer unless I don't mind, I appreciate and respect a lawyer that says, Listen, this is what's gonna cost you, but then they say, but it doesn't look good, or you know, at least you'll be not not caught on you along going, mate, this is what it's gonna cost, we'll get you a result, come on, like you can do, you know. I'd rather like a good army mate of mine, I serve with two tours, he's he's a fam lawyer, he he'll always be honest. He goes, mate, this one's gonna cost, but unfortunately, he goes, I don't I don't agree with the process, but unfortunately, you know, the way the system is, he goes, It's it's not gonna be in favour to you because you're the father, you know. So he he gives it to him very honest before even anyone decides to make a payment or go down that road, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 38:26

Oh, you should because once you start forging out the money, then you're in it, you're in the game. Like it's like sports pet. If you see a if you see a bet that's paying a hundred or one, you're not gonna throw money on that, are you? You know, at odds on, yeah, yeah. You put a hundred dollars on, you get a hundred dollars back. You know, you're gonna bet on that, but you're not gonna bet on the hundred or one shot. No, that's right. You better put a dollar on it if you're my grandmother, she used to bet on those hundred or one shot. If it was a great horse, she'd be all over it. But yeah, like and so yeah, um that was in between the eight and fourteen year old, yeah. Just so that was I had no contact, that was it. Walked out of there. I didn't have the money, like you know, I did I wish I did, I wish I was. I would have went on with it, you know, I would have carried on with it, but I didn't have the money, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:09

It's just like there's um yeah, you know what though one you know I asked this question at the end, and if someone asked me, because I don't think I've ever answered on any of my episodes, if someone said if you could turn back time, you know, knowing what you know now, would you have changed anything to during the process? Honestly, two things. I would have self-represented, which I would have known how to do, and I'm sure that's gonna be fucking hard. Uh because you know you've got to learn how to submit stuff on the portal and stuff, and you know, I heard they don't respect you, they don't take you seriously in the court. Or two, I wouldn't have fought at all. But that's I only know that now because I've been through it. You know, if I could tell a father, if a father hits me up for advice now and says, Hey mate, you know, you got any advice? Look, if I told them, hey mate, don't bother going through it, he's gonna give me the same answer that I gave the bloke that told me that before they dad said, I'll go piss off, mate, I'm gonna fight for my kid. And I get that, I respect that, but you're gonna find out the truth the hard way. Um, that you know, in the family court system, you know, you're up shit creek without a paddle in a canoe when you're a father now. So but you know, so I don't look I just tell fathers, look, just watch episodes and take what you can from it.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

I think I think self-representing in the future may have a good spot because with with AI now, you can go on there and ask it a question, it'll spit it out for you. Be my solicitor, what do I do? Everyone's doing a chat GPT. I think the podcast might be pulling a few law firms out of business too, just quite like they say it's going to put people out of business, but only the people that don't want to move with the times are using AI. Yeah. You know, and getting back to being honest, like that's what I do with work and everything in life. Like, if I get asked a question at work, I'll say, Look, I don't know the qu I don't know the answer now. I'll go and find out for you. It's not and I'll come back to you with the answer. It may not be the answer you want to hear, but it's the answer. And if I got that from the solicitors that the one solicitor, or the two, sorry, that represented me, I would have taken that and went, yeah, okay, I walked into that knowing, and I still lost. That's cool, I'm happy with that. But not knowing and not getting that and then just getting told.

SPEAKER_04 41:19

I think I think naturally we put too much faith in lawyers because we think, well, they're subject matter experts, they know what's best. If I take my car to the mechanic, you're probably not the best metaphor there, but you know, because mechanics can you know have a reputation of ripping people off. But you know, you when you you you go somewhere for a service, putting premium air in your tires. Yeah, right. But when you go to see a subject matter expert, you just naturally have faith in them because, well, you know, this is your bread and butter. And I think we put too much faith in them straight away and go, right, mate, here's the money, get my kid back, and then it's I think some of them know it's like it's like tattooists.

SPEAKER_02 41:53

Um I remember tattooing that was doing me. Um, you know, and you've got a shitload more than me. They don't make money off you or m or or the sleeves. They make money off the people that are going in to get that little one, you know. They get those little ones. Charge a minimum hour, right? Minimum hour rate, get for thirty, three hundred bucks at for for that one of those little a a sailor like the old school tattoos where they just they love doing what they do to us, but they're not making money.

SPEAKER_04 42:18

Same thing as not all tattoos, some tattoos out there that are, mate, full day rate, we'll just say purpose scenario, say 1200, make it up. Full day rate, mate, eight hours, full day rate, twelve. People go, yeah, sweet. Guys will rock up, they'll rock up, then they'll go at the back, then they'll start the tracing the tattoo, have a siggy, get a coffee. Two hours gone. Hold on, man. You didn't tell me I thought eight hours of tattooing, yeah, mate, full day rate, but you know, so you you yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

First two hours of drawing up the stencil if they do stencil or if they're gonna do free hand, but um yeah, and I think that's the way it is. It is like you go to the content experts and they you think they know what they're gonna do, but I think they look at us as that person coming in to get that one little tattoo because they go, It's this money here, this is this is ringing up, and as soon as we leave, that caravan, go go and have a look at it. We just got one, we got another one in, you know, which is uh the guys like us going to fight, and no one we're I don't know, 95% chance. Um, I did speak to a mate of mine before I came up here um last week, and I didn't get say too much about us coming up here, um, but I said, you know, just talk about battle. And I didn't know he went through the battle, and um yeah, he actually got a good lawyer that told him, or a good solicitor that told him, um, and his solicitor actually because his solicitor fought the system prior to him and got fifty-fifty custody. So he used him and he told him up front, this is what it's gonna do, this is what it's gonna cost. You the chances are better than 90% or whatever it was, and so he went through with it and got it, got the fifty fifty custody. And I'll probably move on to it later. But I asked him, Did you still have to pay child support at fifty fifty? He goes, Yeah. Yeah, that's another thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

I went, What? What's still fifty fifty fifty? You still have to pay.

SPEAKER_02 44:01

So yeah, um yeah, so going back, walked out and um yeah, it didn't and like I said, coup about four years later she was 14, got the phone call. Um her name came up on the phone and I answered the call and she goes and and my daughter, if she's listening, I don't want this to make you feel bad or anything like that. But um it's just she doesn't know what this side of the story because she was probably manipulated by other people and she said, Um, I've got something to tell ya and I said straight away I'm thinking 14, okay pregnant or something like that, along those lines, you know. I just that's a that was my natural first because I hadn't heard from her for years. And she says, um I don't know how to say it without letting too many people know, but um she says, Oh I'm in a how can I say it? I'm in a care facility, we'll put it that way. I'm in a care facility and it's because of you and hung up and I was like what the hell was that? Like, holy shit, what like and um I didn't know what was going on. No one spoke to me, no one told me, like, and she got the and she rang me. And so then I'm trying to ring the the mother her the m her mother and nothing, just get nothing. And so finally I tracked it down where she was being um taken care of was um in Liverpool in Sydney there. So I found the facility, found the number. I was living at Balnut at that stage. Um no, I was still dead in barrel, sorry. And so I rang it and I said, Oh, it's you know, my daughter there, and they said, Yeah, she's in here, she's in here. I said, Oh, that's great. Um They they they were good. They were good. They were the you'd ring up the nurses, they'd probably go to that station in the middle of everything, and they were sh they were really good. They sort of they gave me more information than anyone about why she was there and what was she what she was going through. Um and then I'd say, Oh, can I um can I speak to my daughter? And they and I'd all it was it wasn't her fault and it's not your fault, darling. And I I you know you'd hear them hear the nurses turn around and say, Yo, do you want to speak to your dad? And you just hear in the background, oh no, I don't want to speak to him and say, Oh, they'd say sorry, um, she doesn't want to speak to you at this stage. Sometimes I used to ring and she would speak, um, but not not much. And then I found out why she was in there and I just went like why would you do that to you? Why would you um be so uh maniqu mini manicular and so to say that why she was in there was because she you weren't seeing her. It's like I was there to see her, you were keeping her away from me.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

Like and now my daughter has mentally scarred and got physical scars because what you're doing? You know and I'm like I haven't cried since ever.

SPEAKER_04 47:18

Take your time, brother, let it out.

SPEAKER_00 47:19

But I'm like, um All you had to do if it why did it take to get to this stage?

SPEAKER_02 47:28

If this is what all she wanted, I was there, I was the next town away, I was ten-minute drive, I would have been a five-minute drive because I would have broke the speed limit if she needed me there. I would have got there, I would have crawled there.

SPEAKER_00 47:39

I would've got the train, I would have I mean my dog would have walked there. If that was the reason why she was in there, like hello the solution is you, Dad.

SPEAKER_02 47:49

You're f the father, come and see his daughter. I wasn't up there because I didn't want to be there, I wanted to be there. Every bit of part of it. Um So yeah, and I just I just look back now and I go, what mentality would make a mother do that to a daughter to put her into to that's where she ended up. Um but in life everything comes good, everything comes around, you just gotta stay in the battle. Um which I d which we did, and she did too. Like she's she's such a great kid. A great daughter, a great mother. Went through some tough times, but probably I look back now and it's tougher than what I went through, you know. Um we've getting probably told some lies and being manipulated like that, and um but about two years after that, that uh first phone call, I got another phone call from her and her number came up and it was oh shit answered it. Hey dad, it's me. I said, Hey darling, how are you? She goes, I'm sorry. I said, You don't ever have to apologize to me. Ever have to apologise to me ever. And so from that phone call, we started yeah, having a bit more of a it was more it was a phone call more than anything, nothing else. Um still there was no contact. Um but we sort of had an in. She says she obviously got the help she needed, that she probably didn't need if I was told, like I said before. Um but she got better, which was great. And then um contact started happening through phones, which was great. It was unreal. It was really good. And like I said before, she's such a sweet kid. Um she's up she's thirty this year. Great mother, she's got a great partner. She she got kids? Yeah, she's got a young boy. So your granddad now? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice, right? Nice. Little um, she won't mind me saying, little ranger. Um it's it's orange, man.

SPEAKER_04 49:57

It's what is the rule? Uh they say that someone has the male has to have a certain colour hair and the mother has to, and then that's what makes a red haired child.

SPEAKER_02 50:07

What's a real I'm not quite sure, but my um my daughter's um she's um she's indigenous. Um her mother's indigenous, so she's indigenous. So I think when you have dark hair then? Yeah, she's got dark hair. What's a part uh dark hair? Well he's I think he he's a um he's a um a multi, uh Maori boy. Yeah, so I think when they're mixing and being indigenous. Um but yeah, she's a great mother, um, you know, and then I we go and I don't see her as much as I'd like, but um, you know, we've still got contacts and um if there's every m ever money, you know, I send money now and I know it's going to her. You know, child support, you don't know where it's going, but at least my money's going to her. Um, you know, it's getting there, it's getting to her.

SPEAKER_04 50:51

And um, so I'll pause you real there, real quick, if you don't mind. Um, so you you know, you're 57, I'm 38, so that's that's a 19-year difference. And I'll I'll use you as an example. You know, um this is why I do the podcast because you know, I fear uh or factoring that my daughter might get brainwashed and told certain things about me. Um that's why, you know, when I don't send I don't bother sending birthday letters, I've got no communication at all. Um, but I don't bother sending letters because I don't think they're gonna be passed on to her. But what I do have, given today's 2026 and the technology we have is I can leave all my messages, like you know, back when you were 38, there wasn't Instagram, Facebook, stuff like that. So the beauty today is I can use technology um not to get back at my ex anything, but to leave messages for my daughter so that in the future when she gets old and she googles my name, your name, you know, to go, oh look, podcast 2025, oh episode one, and you know, she can go, oh geez, you know, he was talking about me, was thinking about me, you know. So that's how I I try and let all my guests know that you know we use the power of social media technology today to leave our messages for our children, you know.

SPEAKER_02 52:07

So now I think and that's why I think I'm and it that's why I reached out to you, um, because I thought I think it's it's on the hill and time to um to let to help people know, like I said before, that um, you know, to punch through when times are tough, and there wasn't social media back then to be able to put on there that, hey darling, I miss you. It was just I couldn't even have phone contact and I don't want this to be uh for her to watch this or my sons to watch this and think and for it to rehash. I just want them to know that um I was always there, I never left. I I just f I did leave but only to um I never quit on 'em. I just went back to recalibrate, I suppose, and re-rearm and restock and get ready for the for when that time did come that they came back into my life at 18, that I was the father they glad they had, you know. But unfortunately, um like I sort of live with a motto that um it is what it is and um you gotta move on with life, and there's always a good thing that comes out of a bad thing. Um you just gotta find it though. You there it'll be there, you just gotta find it, and um it might take longer than what it is, like um, but it it is what it is, and she's in my life now, and she's um yeah, like I said, she's just a great kid, and I love her to death, and I wish I was there more with her, but like I say, the old saying, it is what it is. But um but that yeah, so then about I suppose then it end it didn't end well, like nothing ended well, obviously, because everything we went through. Um child support was the constant in that. Um I suppose that the last bit of that first phase was when she t she turned twenty. She was about nineteen or twenty, and I got a phone, and I hadn't by then, so she was 1920. My son, my second son was 10. Um about that, yeah, about then. So child support was cons constant, like I said, for 24 years, and I Googled that too to see if that was a record. Um I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

I don't know, but if if there's anyone out there watching this and you're about 24 years consistently, every year, every month, every week, let me know.

SPEAKER_04 54:20

I haven't had anyone on done 24 years, so I'll mate.

SPEAKER_02 54:24

It was uh look, I always say you pay what you have to pay for your kids, you know. Um you can't beat the si you I you know, I don't know, you can't beat the system. I've worked on construction sites with boys trying to dodge it by when they get found they go to the next job, then they go to the next job. Yeah, if they might it might be temporary benefit for a bit, but I'll catch up with you. They'll catch up with you. I've known people that have um got stopped at immigration going out for a holiday. Um the departure prohibition order. Because they're going to be PPO. They're going, where are you going, champ? I'm going for a holiday. Why? You owe X amount of dollars of child support. You're staying if you can afford to go on holidays, you can afford to pay your child support.

SPEAKER_04 55:04

Well, that's how I got a hold of Crystal, who just um represented me in the child support battle. Um Jeffrey Morgan, who I had on, he uh he was leaving on a prepaid holiday to Bali. The they got he got stopped at the airport, DPO said you overpaid, you overdrew$10,000 in child support. He said, Oh no worries, pulled out his card, went to pay it, and the lady on the phone said, No. And the AFP officer actually stood up for him and said, Lady, he's got his card out. He's you got the problem, he's got the solution. He'll pay it, move him on. No. She said, No, just approve a point of power. So he took him to court for to fight it for seven years, got nowhere. And then he found Crystal from Child Support Consultants, she used to work for child support 14 years, now runs her own business, and he he put me on her and wow, like that's a subject matter. I I can't stress enough people do not go to law firms when it comes to child support, wasting their time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:00

Mate, I had um I stopped dealing with child support about 14 years in, 24 years now. Probably about I just stopped because it wasn't doing me any good. Um because every July, you know, tax time comes around. Um, so you put your tax in, they take it, then the next time, next two weeks later, you get a letter to say this is how much you're paying this the next next year. So you'd ring up and say, What the hell? It's gone up to$400. And when I was over in doing FIFO, obviously it goes off what you earn. So there were stages there I was paying$1,600. Like I said, one basically one of your weeks we're getting paid. What were you doing with FIFO Brooke? Um, I was over on construction over at Upper Carafer in Port Headland. Oh yeah. Yeah, just working for a few companies over there. I'm a safety, I suppose that doesn't matter. Um I'm safety advisor, I'm proud of it too, you know. It's a tough gig. But um I like I loved doing it. I came off the tools, I went over as a fitter actually. Oh, did you? Yeah, I worked in the Pilbroth Chevron. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well that was in the same time I was up at Sino and that was 200, 16, 17, 18, 90. Yeah, so I was there 2000, went over in 2011 to earn my fortune as a fitter.

SPEAKER_04 57:16

I just realised I wasn't in the microphone. That's right, mate.

SPEAKER_02 57:18

But had a great time, met some great people, and that's where I got off the tools to be a safety advisor. And um, yeah, like and I think coming off the tools and being that trader helps, you know, you know what people are going through and being out and then there. But um, yeah, child support was like, you know, and everyone, you know, it's probably working away from it every bit, but everyone sort of says, Oh, you earned some good money over there, don't you? I said, Yeah, but you're doing 70, 80 hours a week, you know, and you're getting paid double time, time and a half, and all that. So you and it's groundhog day, as you as you'd be aware, it's groundhog day every day. You go back to that little donger, and and when you're going through child support and family matters, going through that donger back in the day, like you put I put myself in that situation, so I don't blame anyone. But for a mental side of thing, it's not good. It's not good.

SPEAKER_04 58:01

I was speaking to one of the lads about this uh big supporter. He um he says, Man, the suicide rates uh in FIFA land, you know, for fathers going through this, you know, with the fake DVOs, the child can't see the kids and they're doing 12-hour shifts, the the production isn't the best because I don't blame them. They're just they're zombies, they're sitting in the truck, and all they can do is think about you know, where's my kid? And then they go back to the little donga room and they stare at the scene, and some of them have been hanging themselves in camp.

SPEAKER_02 58:26

Wouldn't surprise me, mate, that the thing you found went back then it was four on one. They've they've eased it up now to like you can two and twos, nineteen and nines, but back then it was four on one, um, which is a long step. That's four weeks in there in that same room, and you're in a room with a they've changed it now. The the rooms are a lot better. I was there 11 until about 13, 14. Um, the rooms are changed now. Um you'd lay there in your bed and you could hear the person on the toilet with the toilet paper, you could hear it because they were just paper thin. Um, but yeah, look, companies try and do their best over there with that type of stuff, um, but some of them are just an AU okay day for a couple of pamphlets on the table and a barbecue, and then it's back to the next 364 days to doing the same thing. Um, but and the thing we found in when you look at it, the main time there's incidents is the first week and the last week because everyone's thinking that first with their minds not in the gig. Their last week, then the mind's not in the gig, they sort of ease up a little bit, but yeah, it was tough. It was but you put I put myself in that situation, so I can't blame anyone other than myself. So um that was on me, but um yeah, it's it's hard. But then, yeah, so when my daughter was about 19, she I had a phone call from Childsport. Obviously, it comes through. Oh, and it was a lady, she said, Dog, just what I'd let you know, I think it must have been I think they would have had, I think something must have came up in their system because I hadn't I stopped paying child, like my daughter daughter turned 18, Childsport's top. So it was like a year and a half, two years after that I got this phone call. So it must have been, oh I've got to make just to tick a box, you know, we have to we have to call him. And so the lady rang me and said, um, I just thought of and and I don't want to disrespect, but as as like 98% like I said, I only dealt with three of them that were good. About 98% of them are arrogant and um so disrespectful the way they speak to you. I remember, and I think it might be the same with government situations, and now I'm not talking about every union official, but I've been in my gig, you run into a few union people, and they're good people, you know, and they come on pretty chest out, bravo, and carrying on and you know, you know, trying to intimidate you. And I actually said to them at the end of it, I said, Why didn't you just come through the gate and I would we would have inducted you and I would we've got nothing to hide out there, I would have walked you out there. Too easy, you know, there's no dramas, bro. You just just do the right thing. I said, Well and I said it to both, I said, Why are you such assholes? I said, That's how we get trained. So, and I reckon there must be a manual in the w in child support to say, be be an arsehole to 'em, you know, stuff them, get everything you can out of them, and don't they got you're never gonna meet 'em, because they never tell you your names. So you're never gonna meet them. So who cares? It's just another person on the phone. And you can't hang up on these unfortunately like the telemarketers, so you want to hang on to them and speak to them. But yeah, she said, um, I just thought I'd let you know that um the partner um of your daughter underestimated her income by um back when she was 16. So this is four years ago. This is two years after she's finished. I'll buy two thousand dollars. Um, would you like that money back? I said, Yeah, it's not for the money, but it's for the principle of the fact that I paid everything I had to, and I got, you know, I got taken off my money got taken from me. She goes, Oh, well, if you want it back, you've got to go through a small claims court.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:52

And I went, Oh, well, whoa, whoa, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. I said, hang on.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:55

If I Was that was that what ART is called today? Small clay, or was that something separate? I've never heard of small claims court.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:01

I think it's just like a the can't like a county court, but I don't know, that's probably just like a court you go to that's not I think just like the local court. Yeah, you just go and you you got you putting I don't know, that's what she said to me. And I went, Oh hang on. Back when I was sort of felt fell behind a bit here and there, like I got my wages garnished, I got tax intercepted, I got which is embarrassing when you're at work and the boss comes out and says, Oh, we just had a letter from child support, we've got to garnish your wage, you know. Yeah, I was getting garnished for a long time, and so which is it it works out alright anyway, because it gets taken out before you spend it.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:39

But uh find the positive and the negative.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:41

Exactly, mate, exactly. And um, I just wish the money went. I was thinking about driving up here. I thought, imagine if I'd love to see the the stink they'd have if you said, Yeah, look, I'm happy to pay child support. If I've got to pay$300,$300,$150 to you,$150 into the child's bank account that she can't touch till she's 18, and I guarantee you there'll be a blue saying, no, no, you can't do that, you can't do that. Why can't you? You're putting$150 in a week by the time she's 18. I'm not I've done intermediate mass, so I can't add that up. But you know, I'm pretty sure by the time she turns 18, there's a good little stock to deposit for a house. But I bet you that would would get shut down. Yeah. Um, so I went, oh right. And she goes, Yeah, well, that's what it is. Click and hung up on me.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:21

And I went, Oh, well, there's another battle lost. Um, just had to keep on punching through. But that yeah, so how much did it owe you?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:29

2,000 about 2,600. And did you ever get it back? Well, funny story. Yeah, let's just tell me. About a year later, got another phone call, answered it. Hello, this is from child support. I went, and I think they're all Mary because I dealt with a lot of I remember I remember I dealt with a lot of Marys.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:47

I don't know if that's just the token name.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

It was amazing. Like how many I was thinking the other day, I thought, geez, I dealt with a lot of Marys and Johns.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:57

Fucking Mary. She's back. Sounds like it's she's back in the dead. It sounds like you're about Mary on the phone.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:04

I made it, it was crazy. And um, but like I said, only three ever helped me. But um, yeah, and she rang me and she said, Uh, I were just going through the system and I see your own child support. I said, Yeah, she goes, Do you want it back? I said, Yeah, but I've already had a phone call like a year or so ago and got got shit canned. And she goes, If you want it back, I'll get it for you. And I said, Oh, okay, yeah, no worries. I said, Look, it's not the money thing, I wasn't I'm not a rich person, so it's not about the money or I was broke or needed money, it was just the principle of the fact. Anyway, she goes, Yep, no worries, leave it with me. And the last time I ever heard from my daughter's mother was when my daughter rang me again. And she rang up and said, Hey dad. I said, Hey darling, what's happened? She goes, Oh, I'm just ringing for mum, and I could hear her in the background.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:02

Tell him, tell him.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:04

She goes, Oh, can you mum's been rang up by child support and they're they're taking money off her each week. Um, can you ring child support and stop that for her?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:13

She said, Welcome to the last 24 years of my life.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:16

And I went, um, I could hear her in the background. And I said, Darling, look, no disrespect. You shouldn't have been ma told to make this call, but it all makes sense. That when that phone call happened, I had flashbacks from the years previously with what she got put through, and that was just like, wow, that was the moment I went, far out. What she's been told and what she's done, and everything like that, and what she's been put through, just and I said, Darling, the best thing is just look, just stay out of it. Your mother shouldn't have rang you, made you ring me. This is just wrong in all levels. She goes, I understand, Dad. And I knew she got put up to it. She didn't ring up out of her own free will, ring your phone, and I don't want to. Talk bad about that person, but anyway. Um, yeah, so that was it. I said, Look, I'm not doing it. I know I'm not. It took a long time to get it all back, but I it was like I said, it wasn't the money side of things. It was like I was getting 40 bucks here. I did I just stopped looking at I don't have a lot of money in the bank, but I didn't I wasn't looking in the bank like they probably do every f every four or every month looking at it's child support page yet. I could see in it, there was only getting forty dollars here, sixteen dollars here. Took 'em four years to pay it back, something like that, but it was the principal.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:31

I had uh the guest I had on from Child Support, just still works for 'em. Anyway. Um I think they said it's the seventh of every month child's sport gets paid into I might get the day right, but the seventh of every month. Everyone's child's sport, that's when they said, you know, the next day when they come to work, that's the busiest day of the month because that's when all them their mums are calling up. The money hasn't gone in, the money. And it's it's because they haven't got it from the follow or for whatever reason, it's just whatever's in been transferred in there gets deposited out on the seventh. I think it's the seventh of every month. But they said, Yeah, that day of the month is like the worst because that's when everyone's calling up. There's no money in the bank, there's no money in the bank.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:15

Mate, I remember used to ringing up and getting put on hold, and there was st there were stages you're looking at your phone going, I've been on hold for 45 minutes trying to speak to someone. And that was one of the reasons why I gave up because um it was just I reckon they do that to take the piss as well. Let's see how long we can keep him on a L for.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:34

Yeah, yeah. Well, that that was one of the a lot of the questions that came through that they wanted to ask when I had my guests on from child support was is there a training manual for them how to treat fathers like shit? Oh, there's gotta be, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:46

There's gotta be. There's no way myself, yourself, and everyone else that sat in this chair can have the same story. It can't be. I've ran into I ran into like I said, I ran into three. That was one. The second one was the lady I fell behind a little bit on my child support, um which we all do. Um I was working in the I was working in FIFO, I still remember on the job site I was on, and I I think I was still getting my tax in, so I got a good tax through. And I said, rang him up, I said, right, I'm gonna I think it was like not just, but I think it was like six grand I owed. So I rang up, said right, I'm gonna wipe, I want to wipe this debt. So I rang up child support and said, Hi, um, I don't think this was Mary. I think it was and I said, Tell you, I was just wondering, um, I got an outstanding child support debt. I was wondering if I can pay it off today. And she goes, Oh, oh yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Just let me have a look at it. And she goes, Oh, you you owe six thousand, whatever it was, six thousand something dollars. I said, Yes, that's correct. She goes, Um, four thousand's only your four thousand dollars of it is only what you owe. The rest is penalty fees. Penalty fees, interest which gets charged like a bank. I got she told me, I don't know how true this is, daily. So you get charged the whatever you owe the interest on that. I was told apparently, and plus penalty, there was two or three things that was there. So did she wipe the penalty fees as long as you paid the four grand?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:08

She said, give me a minute.

unknown 1:09:09

Yeah, good.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:10

And she hung up. Oh, she didn't hung up, she sort of put me on hold. Do you remember her name? It wasn't Mary. Well, shout out to whoever that was. Yeah, whoever that was.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:18

It was she was really because and that's what the the worker said, it's it's up to the off like the every single person can wipe the wipe the debt. But if they don't want to, they don't have to. But they they hope they can if they want.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:30

Yep, and she said, just give me a minute. And true to her word, she came back within less than a minute. She goes, Yep, I've wiped all that off for you. All you have to do, and I'm just sitting there going, One press of that computer button just took two and a half grand off my and that money wasn't going to her rent. That whole six grand wasn't going to the the the part the partners. That's right, the Commonwealth keeps the penalty for the two and a half was going to the Commonwealth. So I said, Right, here's my number, my card number, boom, boom, boom, bang, five minutes after that conversation, I was back to zero and didn't know and kept on paying from that week. I didn't want to fall behind again.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:03

One of the lads I work with, he owed uh, you know, uh over a hundred grand. And um they caught him one day, he caught him, they caught him, who cares? The call got made and they said, Look, if you just pay at least pay forty, we'll we'll we'll call it even. Hundred and something to f in a forty. So he said, Right, oh, so we paid the forty and that's amazing how it's up to it's like uh what do you call it, like a uh like a selling the car, like a negotiation or something, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:33

It's just like oh well But why would you why would you sit there and take two and a half grand off that's not going it's going to the government who are ripping everyone anyway? So what would what do you get now? I think it's a power trip. Oh yeah, it's a power trip if you get the wrong person that doesn't like the mail. Um I rang I I spoke to one guy and one more time in Childsport. His name might have been John, John and Mary. But he was really good because I I spoke to him one year about when you get your um what's it called when they send it through, what you're gonna pay next year, I forget.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:06

Yeah, they like the statement for the yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:08

And I said, Oh, I want to or change of assessment? Yeah, change of an assessment. I got the assessment through. I said, Oh, what what's my avenues here? Because I can't I'm gonna be busted each week. And he goes, Oh, you can do a change of assessment, but I would advise you not to do it, because everyone undervalues themselves and underestimates, then the next years they're gonna catch you, and then you're just gonna be paying bang, it's gonna go on top of that. So I actually listened to him and just f stuck it out. So yeah, they're the only three people I ever met through child support that actually helped, and I gave up bringing them and speaking to them a long time after that, and probably the last interaction I had with them, and um it's probably best to talk about it now so I don't have to bring it up with my son, was like when my son my son turned 18 in August, but he's still going to year 12 in year school, and so when you get to 12, when you get to when you're still at school, they can put a claim, yeah. They can put a claim in to say it can keep going until she's till he's um finished school. And so my parents are going, Oh, you've only got three more months to go. I said, nah, there's a letter coming. There's a letter coming. They go, What do you mean? I said, because he's still at school, and they can oh, it's only three months. Seriously, if you're struggling that hard to still take three months off you, that's just spite. That's just that's that's not for you, you know, that's just for being an ass. You know, and so the letter came. The letter came, and I would just like to say, ah well, just as a mate of mine down home, I'll I'll um run a boxing facility down there, mad dog boxing. He just always says, Joycey, whenever you're in whenever you're you're behind, just keep jabbing. You'll you'll rack the points up.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:47

What's what's mad dog's name?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:49

Um Scotty Smith. Yeah, mad Dog Boxing. Um shout out to Scotty, yeah. If there's more than one, punches in bunches he used to say. But um, yeah, so that was um that was the child support um just kept on going. But there then that finished was what what a what a day that was. I tell you, holy shit. It's amazing, like it'll happen for everyone, it doesn't last forever. And 24 years, it just became a norm for me. 24 years is a long time, yeah. But it just became a norm, and it does go away. Um, unfortunately, you can't control where that money goes. Um if it goes to the parents and they just whatever they're doing with it, you don't know, you can't help that, and it's you know, it hasn't changed when I started doing it. I doesn't sound like it's changed since. And I only stopped changed, I only stopped paying two years ago, so it wasn't like I've been out of the game for five or six years. So um, yeah, and I just found out that they just find you, they get you. Yeah, they just get you. They do. They do. So yeah, that was pretty much it with with my daughter. Um, like I said, it and it finished great. It's like unreal. It's good. I'm back with her, you know. So she's 30 now?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:00

30 this year, yep. Your first um sorry, your you had your daughter first, you say then you had your son. Yep. How old is your son, your second your first son now?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:12

My first son now, he's 21 this year. Twenty-one, yep, okay. So there was a nine-year difference. Yep. So yeah, um, I was there for his birth. Um it was wasn't we weren't together long when when that happened. I'm not talking weeks or months, probably a year or so, and then probably I'd say, and he was born. Um I was there for that. Experience I'll never forget. Um once again, Labour went for ages, and I still remember got induced and he came in about eleven o'clock, the doctor, and he goes, What's still not done?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:46

What's going on?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:46

Oh, we're gonna have to move this along. And I remember he went out and he came back in and he had white gum boots on, a white coat, and he had a trolley with all the tools underneath the the cloth.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:59

And I looked at him, I said, How messy is this gonna get, champ? Like you've got gum boots on. I said, What's gonna go on here? Well, he had tools anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:09

He had to get pulled out um and get taken and put into uh um a you know the oxygen thing and all that, but he he came out okay. Um and then yeah, this was the I was a little bit battle-hearted after the first one, but this really this is like um it turned uh it turned uh nuclear. This next one was um it was um yeah, about when he got to about two years old, um it just disintegrated.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:36

So um your son's born for how those first two years going before of you guys separate. They were alright.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:44

Alright. Um, we won't go into too many of um my son's and mother's pet issues, but she's got a few. Um a lot of that is um um you know, the medication and mixing alcohol together don't help. And it was yeah, it was like you'd go out prior to my son and um oh mate, I don't know what it was. It was just like it was a certain amount of p beers that just that was just just just changed. And so you're either in blues or you're getting wrestled by the you're just sitting there and you know the security coming and going, you gotta get out. I said, What do you mean? I just been sitting here now, your missus has been wrestled. I thought, what the hell? She just went to the toilet. No, she got in a fight in the toilet, you know. So anyway. Yeah, so it was never I used to hate going out. Hate it. I hated going out. She loved it. I hated it. Because I knew it was never gonna end well. And um yeah, then um I suppose we'll move into why. It was my birthday, and I went out for a couple of I didn't go out for a shitload, I just went out for a couple of brew beers with the bo with the boys, like like every man and woman does, and just went out for a couple of beers. I got home at eleven. I left the the house fine. Left, cruising, it was good. Some was there, she was there, yeah. Go out for a couple of beers, it's fine. Went out for a couple of beers and came home it was like ten or eleven o'clock, it wasn't late. Probably only had four beers if that, because I'm not a big drinker, I'm not a big drinker. Like I've never wanted to have a cart and bring a carton home, put it in the fridge. Um never won I haven't couldn't remember the last time I had a beer, to tell you the truth, I couldn't tell you. Um and then I don't drink not to because I'm you know 748 days sober, that I'm not that. I just don't just don't I don't know, just don't like I like it. Um she loved it. And then it came home and it it left. There was no drinking happening. I came home and she was like probably six beers deep, but my son was still up getting around in a nappy and I was like, what's going on here? She was blind. My son was there. I mean, holy shit, what are you doing? Anyway, started. I went, Oh look, you stay here in the lounge room, I'm gonna I'm taking him to bed. You know, he's got to go to bed. It's 11 o'clock, he's two years old, three years old. He's all he's got is a nappy on. And that was hanging down to his knees. So I changed him and put him in his pajamas, and we went and laid down in bed, and I had him in my arms, like I was laying there and I was there and he was in my arms right there. And I fell asleep, and next thing you know I was awakened by a stubby to my head. I was it was this side of my head. Fortunately, the stubby was full, it was a full bottle, so it didn't smash on my fat head. So I was as I was I was dead to the world, and it was like whack. And I put my hand up there, I went, holy shit, what was that? Then whack again on my hand. Little did I know then, but I don't know what it done to my head, but my head blew straight up and it fractured my finger as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:09

And I went, Oh shit, what are you doing? What are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:13

She's about to rain down with another one, and I stopped her. She was I don't know what time this was, but it must have she must have been into it, like dropping them when we went to sleep still. And so my son woken up obviously to the ruckus, and there was nothing from my side, as in physical, forceful contact, nothing like that. I was just trying to calm her down. I had my son there and he was crying. I picked him up, my dog was in front of me, you know, he was there looking after dad. He wasn't being aggressive or nothing like that, he was just standing there, and I was like, she's and I remember walking up the hallway, she's walking up, yeah, just raving, and her eyes were just I've never seen anything. I've never seen anything like it in my life. Her eyes were laser focused and to me to this to this day, no, no, they're black. I don't know why. I might have just been me thinking that, but there was just nothing there. There was nothing there was nothing there, and she was just it was just the anger and the like I've never seen anything like it before in my life. So I got her outs, got her to the kitchen and um and sh got her outside, and I thought, shit, this is not what's going on here. So and she it was screaming, it was like twelve, one o'clock at night by this stage, I think, and screaming. I don't like noise in my houses, so I was like, I can't there's only one thing I can do here to this I'm not gonna calm this situation down. I called the coppers. So I called triple O and they said they're on we're on our way. And on our way, could be five minutes meeting me. Anyway, I pushed her outside, out the back, put her out, didn't push, sorry, that's probably not the best word to do. Got her outside the back, and I thought I'd lock the door and she can calm down out the back. Well, out the back was where I had all my tools, my f my tools as a fitter, and we had a laundry door and it had a glass panel in the door, and next thing you know, this hammer came through. Bang! And glass just scattered all over the lino floor. And when lock when glass hits lino, it just goes everywhere. And my son's getting around with no shoes, got my dog there, I've got me there, and I went, calm, and she puts her arm in and unlocks the door and comes in. And I went, I've got to get out of this situation, I've got to get my son and me out of this situation. So we went out the front door and waited out the front until the police arrived. And I it was down in barrel. I don't know if you've ever been down in barrel, but it's it's it's cold, it gets cold at night time and daytime. So we're out the front, me and my son, my dog, the police turned up, paddy wagon turned up, and they said, What's going on? I told them what's happened. So they went inside. We were standing there outside for about 10-15 minutes when they turned up, and then um, yeah, the next time we seen her, she was getting walked into the back of the paddy wagon in handcuffs, and she was arrested for assault on me. And um, I remember going back inside, the policeman, they were really good, they were really nice, nice guys. They're probably, you know, it's not their first radio, I dare say, in this situation, probably. Um so I sat down with him and he's writing paperwork out about having to come there. He goes, Um, just so I'd let you know, Rodney, you you're gonna put an ABO on her for you, and I was like, Oh no, don't worry about that, don't worry about that. No, it's all good, it's all good. He goes, No, this isn't you, this is us. We're doing it for your protection. I said, Oh, okay, so he done it. Um, and then that was the end of it. That was the obviously. I said, I've got to get out of this relationship. Yeah, cleaned up the house and just sat around for the next I think that was a Friday, actually, and then I went, I just gotta write her. So my son's got oh, my son here with me. Yeah, he's with me, he's not going back into that environment. And like um of course, how's the best way to say this? Her drinking wasn't a one-off with within that family, I'll put I'll leave it at that. Pass down. Yeah. Um so I thought I'm not gonna put my son into that environment, so I I had him with me. So I kept him with me. There wasn't any dramas at the moment, no one was coming around to say you need to get hand him back or anything like that. She was probably going through I don't know anything what happened after that with her arrest or the court cases or the AV I didn't have to go represent because I didn't put the AVO on her, the coppers did. So they went to the court for that one and got put on her. It was a two year I think she got put on it for two years. Um so I didn't have to go for that because they had all the evidence there and my I think I gave them a statement that night. Um and then but then I'm sitting there, so I'm so I'm still paying child support for my daughter at this still doing child support for that. This has happened, I got my son with me, I've still got to pay bills, I've got to get back to work somehow. But I uh I was on my ace down there, I didn't have anyone around me, like I was in family support because my I was in barrel there from Baller. What do I do here? So as most of us all do, we rang our mum and dad up, you know, and they were on the next next they were in the car coming down. And we're sitting around and I said and I said, We will you take him home like until I can sort this out. You know, we'll sort it out, I'll get something sorted. I'll try and do whatever I can to sort this out and I can start keep working. And I wasn't putting work before my kids, but I had to keep going, you know. Um, because you know, rent's due and child support's due and bills are paid, and and you know I trust my parents with my life and I trust them with my kid my their grandparents, my their grandkids, you know. So that was the best result for me to do. So um my son and my dog got put in their car and they got taken home till I could work it out. About uh probably three weeks later, four weeks later, a letter came through to say that I've abducted my son and um that they're I didn't have any this is the first letter I got, and I couldn't have a chance to represent this was coming from a court. You've abducted you've abducted your son. Um the the family are going up to they're gonna be on a flight at whatever stage, they're gonna be flying up to Balna, he needs to be handed over at the airport to them, and yeah, and that's the end of it. And like, oh man, and that's what I say, I've got the best family ever. No disrespect to anyone else, it's got a great family, as we all do. Um my mum and dad couldn't do that, and I didn't want to put them in that situation. So my brother and my daughter, my sister, um went to the airport with him and handed him over, and they always say it was it was sh that was a shit shit day. It was a shit day, and I didn't want to put them in that situation, and I'm so proud of him for doing it. Um and my brother, he's a he's a great bloke, and he's got your back, he's ten toes down with you every dime of the week. If you rang up and said something's wrong, and for him to hold back at that airport, like he's they're probably pretty lucky that um nothing nothing kicked off, but um yeah, he's he's he's staunch as. But um, yeah, that happened and and then the fight started. The the the courts, the court battle started to try and because I once that happened and I got done for abduction, not it wasn't a court case for abduction, it was just that's what they said for them to go and get him. So I had no court case to fight there. Um but they had all the legal reputation because someone in that side of the family i was in the courts system, um not family law, but they were in the local court system, that's how they were able to get that, I believe. My belief is that's how they got were able to get that letter. Um and then the so I was trying to see my son, it wasn't working. Um it was sort of after about a while, I think if I can remember correctly, so an AVA was put on me um not long after that for baseless and non-factual evidence. No, no, I didn't do nothing. Like I just next you know I got the coppers on my door, knocking on my door saying, Here you go, Mr. Joyce, yes, here's uh here's your letter. Oh, what's this why the your Navio for intimidation? I said, I haven't been there.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:39

I haven't been around to the house.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:40

What are you talking about? They said, Oh, we've just got to give it to you. And so it was a court date set, and I was gonna just not go and just let it go. Let it whatever happens, if they put it on me, it happens. And a mate of mine said, Bro, you go, you need to fight this if you didn't It you need to fight it because that'll stay with you on your records, and it could be they don't say why. This is what he said to me. I'm not quite sure how true it is. In those AVOs, it doesn't say why on your record, it just comes up saying there's an ABO on you. It could mean anything. You point a gun. I this is the words you used when you said it could have been you could you could just point a gun to their head, you could have told them to go get effed, it could be anything. That's what they put it on you for. Or you're labelled. You gotta get fired, you gotta get fired. So I did. I went, no, stuff it. So once again, my support team, my family, my mum and dad came down. Um we went to court. I remember my parents went for a coffee. I remember sitting in the courthouse and someone from there, uh that side came up to me. He said, What are you doing? Um why don't you just accept it? And he reached out and sort of just put didn't f it didn't grab or force me in me, just put like, why don't you just accept it? I said, But mate, listen, I'm gonna tell you if you touch me again, we're gonna be back in this court for a total unrelated for the not this incident. And I'm not a physical or fightful guy uh in any piece of the form. Um my brother's that side of you know. Um but um but yeah, and he shit himself and backed off. And then he went, we went in there, sitting there with my mum and dad, and the judge said, Righto, um Mr. Joyce is here, where's the person that well I think I forget what they call it. It's not that's not the plaintiff, is it, is it? Uh whoever's putting it on them.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:28

I forget what the uh the not the the the prosecutor?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:31

No, the like they asked where she was. Where's where's the person that's put their ABO on and they're looking around the court. Everyone's looking around the court, going, Where the fuck is she? Oh, she hasn't turned up. So the judge said, Okay, so she's wasted Rodney's time, my time, the court's time, gone. The judge was some common sense. Yeah, and like I took time off work to go there, um my parents came down to support me, as they always do, and then yeah, it got wiped, so I went, sweet, so my mate was right. Um if you if you if you haven't done it, it could have been if she turned up, I don't know what would have happened. I don't know, but it just goes to show you it was a shit AVO, like if not to turn up to to defend it or to say this is why. And that led into a bit further down that day. And so um, yeah, then um had a little bit of um after that sort of it calmed down a little bit about a year or year or so later, and I started seeing him sporadically. Not as much as I'd like, but I still got to see him. But then she was doing like like bringing him on my weekends to friends of the family to look after. And I lived in the same town, uh, a two-minute drive away, and that was just a shit uh kick in the face to say, I can't look after him, but you're not gonna look after him, but I'm gonna give him to them to look after. And I was like, that's just what are you doing? Like, that's just spy it again. Like, why wouldn't you just let me see my son? Let or have my son, like it's my son. And then Yeah, I sort of and that they were close family friends, sort of fell out a bit with them because of that, because I thought, why wouldn't you ringing me up and say, Why aren't you looking after him? Why why is why is she dropping him around here? This is bullshit. Like you should be looking, you're his dad, you don't get to see him. But they sort of carried on a bit. But then um everything was okay. Then my wife of 17 years came in. And repeat from what happened the first time. It was just that washing got taken out, got hung out, a new load got put in, and rinse and repeat again came. And then it was just didn't get to see my son again, he got taken away. At this stage, it wasn't same it was the same, like I said, in conjunction with my daughter. Um, I wasn't seeing any of them. Um and my my wife, um, you know, going through that to um be with her. Um she's for 17 years been married and she's been the my loyal, staunchest supporter. I've kept her out of this fight due to I didn't want to be, I didn't it wasn't her fight to be a part of. Um she supported me 100%. She know she knows the the kids. Um the kids know she's a part of my life for the past 17 years. But as soon as that started to happen, then it just went um it just went went s went pear-shaped, and then I wasn't seeing him again, and like I said, and then we walk into another solicitor to s to fight for him, and um and I found I don't know, have you ever watched the movie The Castle?

SPEAKER_04 1:32:44

Oh the showing movie? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:46

Dennis Denito, the solicitor?

SPEAKER_04 1:32:48

Oh, I can't remember that part. Well, this was his brother. Oh really.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:52

You've got to laugh about seriously.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:54

I can't remember what happens in the movies. You're a dodgy lawyer. Oh, he's just no good.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:58

But he but he wins the case due to having someone else that's really good.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:00

Oh yeah, but but all that Daryl Kerrigan, all he could afford was Dennis Danito, who was a family friend, and um, but yeah, great movie, you could watch it anyway. And that's how I just look at him, and you've got to I had to laugh about it, and now I've got to look back and just laugh about it to how comical and farcical it was because um I thought, no, I'm gonna fight for myself because it was coming up at Christmas and I hadn't seen him for a long time. I hadn't seen my daughter either at this stage, but I sort of I hadn't packed that away with my daughter, but that it just became You brought it up. Not brought it up, but it became I'm not seeing my I can't see my daughter, so I'm just I've tried to fight for that one. Um the moment the energy's on my son, um, because that one's lost, that battle was lost. So this battle I'm still trying to fight for this battle. And so mediation came in. It was the the children's court in Sydney. I remember, and if you watch the castle, they're standing outside the Supreme Court in Canberra looking up, going.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:57

The castles, uh what do you call this love? Riss Halls? That's the same movie, The Castle?

SPEAKER_02 1:34:02

Um, it's with it's where he's getting his land taken off him by um the government for the airport.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:07

Yeah, yeah. Remember when he says, Oh, what do you call this love? You got the rissole. Yeah, Rissard's.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:11

Yeah, I remember that. That's it's how you do it. It's how you what do you call this dark ice cream? Ice cream, Daryl.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:17

How much do they want for it? Tell them their dream, and yeah, it's great. Um yeah, I remember standing out there going, This is this is A-grade now, this is the children's court, this isn't no local court, I'm up in the Children's Court of Australia, uh New South Wales. And had to go up and take time off work again to go to mediation before the court case was kicking off. And the the lawyers from Tweed Heads, I was up here at this stage. No, I was still in barrel, sorry, at this stage. Um so I was driving up from Barrel to Sydney, which is about an hour and a half drive to go to mediation, walk in there. There's two chairs, and the lady, there's only one chair full, and that was my chair. They go, Where's your where's the oh I said, it's not my job to get her here. I'm here because I want this. And oh well, we're gonna have to cancel as she's not here. I was like, What? I've driven all this way.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:07

This was the first welcome to the court for you. Welcome to the system.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:11

And I was like, What? And so anyway, get in my car, drive back to Barrel. Oh, we've organized for another one in two weeks. Okay, sweet, sweet, because the court case was getting closer, obviously. We're trying to mediate it before the court case. Um so once again, two weeks turned up, but still haven't seen my kids, obviously. That I'll keep saying that because I never got to see them until they were 18, roughly after that. Um turned up to the next mediation, and the lady said, She hasn't turned up again. I'm gonna ring her. I said, Yeah, good. Yeah, for sure, ring her. So she rang her up and she put her on speaker and I was listening to her, and the lady's looking at me hearing a talk, going, that door she's drunk.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:56

That's what she was saying to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:57

And I said, I don't know, what time is it? Uh you don't need a time, she doesn't need a time, but it's five o'clock somewhere. It's five o'clock somewhere in the world. And yeah, I'm not coming up. So that's that conversation finished, and so I we had two mediations I turned up to, and she didn't, and then the court case turned her up, turned around, and I've and I so I've been seeing the lawyer up there, that got up to about it ended up being ten, ten grand. Um so to get to where we were for the court date, he didn't come down, he just was on the phone, phone hookup, and I was it was cool, I was happy with it was like okay, you don't need to come down if you don't want to, because I'm thinking, well, I'm gonna be paying for that flight, and it's gonna be probably business class. I'm I'm already at ten, and I haven't got ten already. I haven't, you know. So I remember turning up the day walking into the courthouse, and I was sitting down by myself, and I didn't want to bring anyone else into this fight. Like I said, I fought it myself, and I'm sitting in the court, and her solicitor, it was unbelievable how it was just rinse and repeat, like it was from the other AVO. Her solicitor came up and said, Why are you doing this, Rodney? Why are you doing this? I said, I want to see my son. I said, Do you understand? I haven't seen my son for months, if not years, and it's coming up to Christmas. I want to know that my son is gonna be at my house at least on Christmas Day, and we can move forward after that with getting I can see my son. And she just went and walked away. And I went, the hell was that all about? Anyway, Sydney Court, they've got courtrooms everywhere. Court, I can't remember the courtroom, but courtroom six, Joyce versus so-and-so. So I walked in there and was like, the judge is sitting up there, he came out, sat up the top there, and I'm sitting in my chair on my ace, and the old Dennis Denito's brothers on the phone. Um they were to the left of me with two solicitors, um support, and I'm they're going, How does she afford the two solicitors? And I'm they go, Oh, I know. When you don't work and you got someone in the know, then you get um what is it called? Legal aid. So she's got legal aid, and I'm sitting there and it started, and I'm thinking, like to myself, I was positive, I was pretty keen. I was like, mate, I think the AVA was still on her at that stage. I turned up every remediation. The only thing I'd done wrong was take my son out of a bad situation to protect him. Surely, like, surely I'm golden here, like I'm sitting back going, sweet. And the more it got into the so the court started, and the judge says, Right oh, so he wants visitation rights for Christmas, then moving on after that. And he goes, Yes, my solicitor goes, yes, that's what we're chasing that's what we're after. Um and then their their solicitors piped up and said, Oh, um, he and then oh no, so the court, the judge looked and goes, Oh, hang on, there's an AVO that's on the on me, like the judge said the AVO's on me. And I went, and I jumped up and said, No, no, the ABO's not on me, the AVO's on her, not me. And the judge went, hang on, what's going on here? You so she looking at their party going, you told me the AVO's on him. And they turned around to her and like so they've obviously lied to the s her solicitor saying there's an AVO on him, which there wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:22

And they've gone, What are you you told us they're like this? This is seriously, they turned around to her and said, You told us the AVA's on her.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:29

And they said, Sorry, Your Honour, yes, the AVO is from is placed on her. And he's gone, no word of a lie, he said, So you've lied in my courthouse, and they've gone, we're sorry. So I'm there sitting, mate, I've got I've got a full house here. Like I'm sitting there going, mate, Royal Flush. Royal Flush, like you know, lay down Bezerra's in Yuca, like you can't be I can't be beaten here. And they obviously brought up taking my son, um, the kidnapping case.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:02

Yeah, I'd done it under the cloak of darkness with um flash bombs and you know, people coming, you know, coming down through ropes from helicopter from helicopters and kicking in windows and taking him.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:13

Yeah, that's how I done it. Um I protect I was protecting my son, and that's how we presented it, which is true. This is what I was doing. And um, so I'm still sitting there thinking, I'm I'm confident here. And the judge and the solicitor, the more he talked, the worse it got.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:28

And I'm there in my head, I'm going, bro, just shut up. We're in front. Like, I can't remember what he was saying, but I was just like, bro, you just got just shut up.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:37

And the judge, and it went for a while, you know, probably an hour, I think wasn't long, very court case, and he goes, Ah, okay, I've come to my decision. And I'm this, I was actually pumped. And he said, You'll get visitation rights, it'll be supervision, you'll get you'll get your son every second weekend for two hours, and I still remember the place at Nene's Playhouse, which was like a softball kids thing, you go and sit there, and there'll be a soup, it'll be supervised visitation. And I and I jumped up, I said, What's oh hang on, what's supervised visitation? They said, Oh, there'll be somewhere suit someone there in the supervisor, as you all know, there's someone there supervising you with your interaction with your son. And I went, sorry? I should grab the gavel. Yeah, bang! Yeah, that's it. I walked out and I was stunned. I was stunned that I I didn't even have that in my mind that that was how it was going to play out. I thought, I've got to why wouldn't they give me visitation right? Why wouldn't they let me see my son and have him how I should have every second? I was happy with every second weekend, Christmas and two weeks a year. I was happy with that. Like, what's wrong with that? Like, seriously, like just being so spiteful and so negative and so oh mate, I don't disagree I don't harbour any harm to happen to anyone. Um they say forgive and forget. I can't forgive and I'll never forget what they put me through and my kids more importantly, my kids through. I mean, I don't know if you can swear or not, but there's a like forgive and forget. Fuck that, I remember everything. I remember everything you put me through, and I'll never forget it. It's made me stronger, it's made me heaps stronger, as they say, like with um like you brought it up the word before, which which re um rock bottom, you know, like with rock bottom, you can't go any further than rock bottom. That's when when you're in construction, they build buildings. You gotta you get to rock bottom, then you can start building. Because if you start building before that, it just sinks. And that's like what life's about. When you're at rock bottom, you can't go any further. Now's the time to build. Build your life, build it off there and get your foundations done and build and build and build. And I walked out of there and I rang the solicitor, I rang up old Dennis Danito's cousin. I said, What the hell was that?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:54

I said, What happened there? I said, How did we lose that? And he goes, Oh, it's alright, it's alright, we'll put some things in place, we'll do this, we'll do that. I said, Bro, that's it. Yeah, I'm done. I'm cooked. I said, How did you lose that? I said, I cannot believe it. And I was so devoted, I was just like, I couldn't, and I said, I'm not doing it, mate.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:19

I said, I I'm not a bad person to have to be supervised. Yeah, I said, Oh, but you get to see your son. I said, You kidding me? You want my son to sit there and see me supervised by someone. So, what's he thinking? That's right. He's only a kid.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:36

You're mentally scarring these kids with this bullshit.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:39

Like, seriously, sorry to get a bit fired up, but I'm like it triggers him triggers me here in the supervision content visitors. That's what I had to go through, and it's that out of the whole journey, that's that category is what really broke me. Oh mate, and did did you end up doing it? Yeah, I couldn't. No, we got to a point they put me back on it over again, allegations which I got squashed and I broke. I said I can't do this.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:05

Yeah, I just I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:06

Like, I'm one hour out of being Lee McDonald's and I looked at mum and said, I can't do this.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:11

Like it's good that you got the hour, but I look back and I go, I you know, I wanted my son so bad, I wanted to see him so bad, but not under those I'm sorry, but not under those circumstances. I'm sorry, like people are doing it now, um look, that's I do me and you do you, and you do whatever you want to do to see your kids. I get that, but that that was it. That was the that was the day that broke me. Yeah, my breaking point. Every battle I went through, like I said, I was jabbing and I was jabbing, I was punches in bunches. Um But that was the one that um I think the wording I sort of come up with. I'd never quit, I just retreated because I had another family that stage too. I had a wife energy in there, and my son had just been, you know, my son had been born, um, my third son. People are going, probably adding this up, going, one, two, yeah, it's true, it's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:08

Yeah, um, but the third one's the charm, so it's all good. Just keep going. You'll find as I said, there's a way what do they say?

SPEAKER_04 1:45:15

Normally bad things happen in three, or it's just three's the charm, so they're gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:19

Well, yeah, so with the third one, yeah. So um and then if I'm lucky, and yeah, exactly. And it came to a stage where I went, right, for me, I need to retreat and recalibrate, um, get my family out of this situation as well, because I didn't want that to ruin anything we had because I knew it was going to be strong. It was she was she's been my rock. Like I said to you before, I drive home from work last night, drove home, got off the flight from Melbourne, drove down home, and she's at the door waiting for me. We've been married 17 years, you know. Like seriously, like my boy comes out, what'd you do at school today? You know, but at least I get that with him, and then so we I went, the only thing I can do now is move back to Balma. I've got to get back, I've got to get out of this situation. It's not doing me any good, it's not doing them any good, um, and I'll be around family. And so I got back and my friends, like as I say, surround yourself with good people, which I did, got back home and um yeah, lived the next fair few years without any contact or nothing until they both turned 18 and they came back into my life. Um but yeah, um child support, like I said, paid all the way up, finished that, didn't know a cent, still didn't know what I've done that, finished clean. I think it worked out to be about I actually looked it up, I I I got on you can go all the way back. Do I want to hear this? I think the w furthest I went back was 2001, I think it was 2001, uh which was about right. And you worked out the total? Yeah, uh Chat GPT, I just done it all and put it in there. It was like 250k, I think. Um but um yeah, when I looked at it, I went, holy crap, like that's a lot of money. But I always say, I I and my mum always say says to me, You paid what you had to pay, and they can never take that from you. You done exact you you paid everything for those kids. They can never say you never paid, and I did. Um it was hard, it was hard to you know live in there. And I was driving to work some days on a Tuesday going, I hope my car gets me there because I've got no more petrol. I'm just I never ran out of petrol, but I'm there going, This car's on fumes, mate. Like I and I had to keep working. You can't, like I said, you can't have days off because it just keeps racking up. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, got 18 and moved up back home and my whole life switched. Um unfortunately, um my kids weren't I'd had no visitation with my kids. Um, but I had to get myself out of that situation to so to survive and to give my new family the best possibility to live a good life and moving up home, mate, like it was unreal.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:02

Like And you know, some people might look in and go, Oh mate, you know, maybe because maybe you you're the problem, but it's like, mate, I've been married 17 years, like there's there was no problem, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:16

The best point you could ever bring up, because I was actually thinking I was hey, like I was thinking, maybe it was me and I look, I I got faults. We all have you know we all got faults, but then I look at that and go, hang on, yeah, 17 years. 17 years, and it's it's been a tough gig, you know. Like my wife was from Thailand, my son was born over there, I missed that, and that was hard for me, but I had to stay here because I was going through the other stuff, so I sacrificed that because I was fighting for my son and my daughter when my other son was born, and going through the other thing with those first two, and my son was born, and like I didn't mess around, I put it all together, like it was all in the one.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:53

It was all in the one big kid.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:55

I wasn't staggering him, no way. I'm I'm fighting fights everywhere. I was like I got a left flank, like I mean, left flank, left flank, nine o'clock, six o'clock. I was everywhere just there, just uh keep your head down.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:09

And um, but yeah, so and like yeah, and then I was then it started getting my you know my wife came over here and my son came over here and they're citizens now, and um yeah, life's life's great now, mate. Like it's unreal. Like like I say to everyone, that was main probably the main reason I came on here to say that um your kids will come back to you. If they might not know that you were fighting for 'em, but and mine didn't, but they still got in contact with me the day they got out of that situation and turned 18 and moved away and f became adults themselves, they they they reached out and now they're in my life. My son moved up with me a while ago, stayed with us for a fair few months. Um, you know, got you know, I was it was gr so great, I got to get him his L's, you know, so I got to do that stuff, that that you know, getting his L's in. You know, he'd been on his book for two years, I'm going, Bro, let's go. You know, ha he didn't have that figure in his life, that forceful not forceful, but that father figure to say, Mate, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:09

Like you gun you you can't be sitting around, let's go and get it, get it, let's get it, let's get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:14

And yeah, so yeah, life's great now, mate. Seventeen married seventeen years to the the best woman ever. Um, my sixteen-year-old son, just a champion kid, and um I feel sorry for him a little bit because he's so shy. Um and I'll you know, I I worry about him a bit. But um, yeah, he's a great kid. He's but he's just that's just him. He's you know, he's got the hardest, like his mother. Um and if it wasn't for those two people in my life, man, like seriously, she's um she's a she's she's only small, she's five foot tall. Well shout out to her. We can say her name if you want. Yeah, Luan Lek, as they call her, Lek in Tys Small. She's only five foot tall. I'm very small, but she's she taught me and which has helped me in life is um you just gotta have a good heart. Have a good heart. Have a good heart, and which I have now. It's got a lot of scars on it, but um that's the only where the my scars are. But um, yeah, without them in my life, like seriously, like um it was funny, like I was going through tough time when I was on the tools and I was in a donger. And um they said, Oh, I was out in the middle of Alice Springs and they said, Oh, look, you got no this is already when I'd done t the 15 years I was supposed to go back to Thailand for six only six uh for six weeks. Yeah. I was supposed to go back after doing six weeks' work and it took 15 years to get back because I was in a donger and they said there's no more work anyway. I had I was paying for my own flights and I still had money in flights with Quantas and I rang them up, I said, What can I do? Um and this was really tough times when I was going through the fights um with my kids with the courts and all that and child support. And they said, Oh, you can put it um you can just have it there as credit or you can go on, you can use them. And I don't know, light bulb just went boom. Remember, you've got to get back to Thailand. So I went, Oh, can I book a flight at Thailand? She goes, Yeah, book it, bang, bang. That's how I ran into my wife. So everything happens for a reason. That's right. Everything happens for a reason. Then um, yeah, it's been great. She was out in the village life, and if you want to know what life's about, go out there. Yeah. She got brought up with nothing, poorest family in the village, lived up on dirt floors. This is only, you know, two thousands.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:24

Yeah, I've never been to Thailand, but I've been meaning to get there.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:27

No, it's um like out there and that's Thailand, like Thailand's everywhere, but out there is like it's it's village life, mate, and she and I keep reinter we take our son back because I don't want him to lose that connection. So we go there back a fair bit, and um I keep reintegrating and say, mate, your mum had nothing. Like she that's where they used the house is still there, that's where she used to live. Um and now, yeah, but without them, mate, that's what I mean. I took her out of the fight um and just wanted to make sure none of that affected what we had together, and I think it's worked well. Some some want to stay some want to support you and be at the front of the front line with you.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:03

I made sure she was back.

unknown 1:53:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:05

Yeah, because they can you know, my even though my journey's over the my part, they can absorb my energy someday. You know, recently the fight with child support would would zap me, you know, and then I'd come home and that energy would absorb onto her, and you know, so you don't want to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:22

And I kept that bottled up with me in a long time. Like I had a lot of time with I'd never let I I still do, I don't want to see them. I don't want to s get them to see me struggling, so I've got to stay strong for them and my son, and because if they see me broken, I'm not doing my job. I'm not I know I've got to be strong for them, I've got to you know, if they're not part of that fight, but I've got to still even though I'm broken from that, I've got to stay strong for over here.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:44

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:46

Um and yeah, she couldn't understand it. My wife can't understand child support because they don't have child support over there. No, yeah, yeah. Over there they don't have it. It's just um I've never looked into that, yeah. What countries do and don't have child support. Um mate, 100% because my wife's my wife's family looks after a lot of kids because over there um they have kids real early, and then um, you know, the when they're when you have kids real early when you're young and you want to go and be 18, then they just leave. It ends up being on the grandparent, or there's you know, there's there's a lot of orphans over there, and there's no one uh I haven't heard of child support. Another thing I never see over there is um old people's homes. I've never seen an old people's home. Well, I've never been there. Because they look after them. Oh yeah the grandparents stay in the house, so you don't they don't shuffle them off over there, they may go right out, time for you to go. And then five years later you put them in a that's how we we bought our house off a gentleman that was getting put in into a retirement home by his family in a lovely bloke, but three years later he died. I reckon once you get put in there and you don't want to be there. Mentally switch off, I guess. Yeah, mate, so that was that's about where I'm at with my life at this stage. Everything's cruising, my family are back with me, I've got my kids in my life. The only one thing I want is um Um have a photo. I haven't if there's one thing I wanted to finish my my um battle with is one photo with all my kids together. I haven't had it, haven't got it. It's been oh, since my last boy's born, sixteen years, it's been sixteen years and I've never had one photo altogether.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:14

Well, it's good it's good to hear happy as a brutal word and as painful that long journey was. It's good to get a happy ending in the end, and you missed out on a lot, but you know, um you've got to find the positive and the negative.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:25

Well you do, mate, and that's what I mean. Don't if you give up halfway through and you let yourself go and you're not gonna be re you're not gonna be you at your 100% when it's time for when they turn up. You don't know when they're gonna turn up. It could be today, it could be tomorrow, but you don't know when they're gonna turn up. And I think going back to the very, very early stages, probably the first few months of the split separation with my w the f the f with my daughter, I was on a job site, and um I I still remember the job site, I didn't remember exactly where it was, but we were erecting steel, and there was a bloke working there, never met him before, never seen him again, and we'll we'll just you know, it's back in the day then back in the day, smokers and lunch, it was no phone, you just sat around and talked. Yeah, yeah. And so he just said, How are you going? Or just discussing life with him and what I was going through. And he looked at me and goes, mate, there's one thing you're gonna go through a lot. And he predicted it. He said, You're gonna go through a lot, because I think you'd already been through it. Obviously, he said, You're gonna go through a lot, they're gonna take a lot away from you, and you're gonna lose a lot. He said, But they can never take away that you're your kid's father. And I've and I've always had that in my mind that they can take everything away from me, but they can never take away that you're your kid's dad. And it's yeah, it's true to this word, it's so good that I still remember him. There's people in your life you remember, and there's people you want to forget. But he he was one that would just yeah, it sticked it rain ran strong, and I held that with me all the way. That yeah, they couldn't change it, they try to change their last names as well, but they can't do that apparently without my signature.

SPEAKER_04 1:56:57

Yeah, yeah. Um yeah, they try. Um, I think my ex can get my situation's different, she has full parental rights. Um, give you uh the way it ended, but um yeah, um mate, what did we miss anything? I know there's not enough hours in the day.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:15

No, and I think that's about it, mate. Like I said, yeah, it was a brutal fight, but um, you know, it um fought it on all fronts.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:21

Um but yeah, no, that was about it. It's been good. Uh like I said, life's great now. Just don't give up out there if you're if you're going through it. I know you all are. There's like I said, there's people sitting in cars and thinking, you know, when am I gonna see them again? That you know, waiting for that phone to ring or whatever. Just stay the best you can because stay the course and be the best person you can but because you don't know when they're gonna come back. But they will, I guarantee you, they will come back. Mine I never thought mine would. I thought I was lost them forever, but they're back. Not for what I not every day of my life, but they're back in my life. So it'll happen. Just don't give up and don't fall for the darkness, just keep fighting and it is tough, but you'll be fine.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:12

Just Well, I'll you'll probably I mean you'll will I'll I'll ask you these conclusion questions. Um I I've got six questions here, I asked all my guests the same questions. But the first one is knowing what you know now, if you could start again, would you have changed anything during the process?

SPEAKER_02 1:58:29

Yeah, I would have documented everything. Yeah. I didn't document anything.

SPEAKER_04 1:58:34

Probably not use that Danito, what's his name? Uh yeah, Dennis. Dennis's cousin. Dennis's cousin. Darrell.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:41

No, um, well, yeah, even back in the day when um my my w my daughter with the phone calls, she's not coming. I wish I had documented everything because my mate who I spoke to a couple of weeks ago about it, he actually said he said, I documented everything. He said, I've still got the folder at home now. He said, and when I went to get 50-50 custody with my kids, and he and he said the judge read it. He said he actually sat there and went through it. He said, and that helped me so much. So I wish I um document I didn't document a thing, unfortunately. I just took it on good faith that they'd believe me and that they wouldn't fall for lies or um hearsay. Um and I'm thinking they didn't document anything either. So why is it but you know, um, yeah, I wish I would have documented everything. I wish I would have done a bit more of a staunch um look into um someone who was representing me more, then sort of jumping at the first person, or just listening to people to say, Oh, you should use so-and-so. Um, yeah, and then get make sure they said sit down with them, say, right, I want to want to see my kids, what's the odds here? What's my chances? Give it to me. Like you said, be honest, black and white. Be honest with me if it's 90% that you're gonna fail. I've still got 10% there, but let me know that what's the I know you can't tell me the full ballpark price, but at least give me the price of what you think we're looking at here because it adds up quick. I didn't know it until the end where they charge you for phone calls, they charge you for emails, they charge when you speak to you, they charge for that. And so I'd say document everything. Um I think everyone's nearly said that, haven't they? Like solicited.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:26

Yeah, yeah, everyone said it, but you know, um, and I agree, but you know, it's that's also so draining, like, you know, depending on where you're at with your ex, you know, my ex was just everything every day there was an allegation, so you know, there's cameras in your car, there's kind of and it it taxes you, you know, because you're you you're going about your day, but you're at work, but you're too busy fucking recording everything.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:47

Like I said too, like I was always it's it's constant it's a constant on your mind too. Like every day is a battle of thinking about your kids, you know, like every day you carry that p battle with you, like and um but they don't help it. They don't help it unfortunately. They're just I don't know, they're just pricks to be basically like they just want your money. They just it's just if you I've I know a lady down there now who helped me with 'cause Dennis came after my money after money, um that lawyer, um, because I didn't pay him. I went I went F you you done nothing mate. You're like shit. Like why would I pay that? It was a good bill too, like it was 10k. And I didn't know that he went to the courthouse and got that put, then that started incurring interest, and then by the time I sort of and I went to see a um family friend, and she's a friend too, who was a solicitor who I didn't know was a solicitor back then, but and she wasn't. She I went, she said, I'll get I'll get this cut in half for you. So if I went through now, I'd go and see her. Yeah, but you know, we have to learn the hard way the hard way. Yeah, so that's about all document everything, get a decent solicitor that's going to tell you the truth. Mate, how do we change the system? I don't know why. Straight away it's automatic. We're fighting, but we're behind the eight ball. I don't get it. If we're if I live in the same town, if I live ten minutes away, my kids can still go to the same school, I can still give them the same support. That why can't it be 50-50 straight off the bat and then we work down?

SPEAKER_04 2:02:19

Mate, the shirt I'm wearing is 50-50 should be the standard, so yeah, I totally agree.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:23

Like, why can't we start there and then go and then work then work our way down and say, right, I like and I'm not saying this any way, shape, or form, but I'm just sort of saying it in is in the situations. Oh, he's doesn't want him, he's not hasn't picked him up.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:35

Okay, that's fair enough.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:36

Fair enough, okay. No worries. But we start at 50-50. It's easier to start here and then oh, he doesn't want the kids, okay. Just get him to say it. You know, he he he verbally says it or he doesn't okay. Now we you can have 70, 80, 90, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:50

And how is that not best like they say because I think they said to me back in the day, I don't know if it's changed, but um, oh that the kids need um stability in their life.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:00

Well, it's not stable. Look what happened to my daughter. Look at the the lies and the bullshit that got told to my son.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:06

How's that giving them a good stable life? The best thing that came out, and I'm going to re retrack a little bit here, because I think it's important that um with everything my son's seen, and I dread it, I dread and it's not just through drinking that he doesn't drink. He's the only he's broken the he's broken that cycle, and I'm so proud of him because I thought he would have, because what he's surrounded with that environment he's in, 100% he should have came out on the tins, doesn't drink. It's unbelievable, and I'm so proud of him for not doing that. But why can't we start with 50-50, work our way down and go like that, and then doing stuff like you're doing is unreal. It's amazing that finally there's someone and there's probably a few other people out there that are letting people show their tell their stories, and I think the more they tell the stories the better. And I think if they ever had something in parliament where they say it needs to be I've heard since I started doing it every time you pick it up the newspaper or you hear, oh things are gonna change, things are gonna change.

SPEAKER_00 2:04:11

This is 20 years ago, and still nothing's changed.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:14

So is it the crazy thing, everyone talks about it? Politicians, lawyers, barists, fathers, everyone talks about how broken the system is, but no one touches it.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:24

And if they want to sit down and really have a um inquest into it or say, right, eh, let's get this working better, because hopefully, you know, the guest you had on Pauline can do something um about it, they cannot do it sitting there with people that haven't been a part of it. That's right, haven't walked your shoes. They've got like with what I do in my job. There's no way would I write a safety procedure or write something to do with out on site with what they're what the guys are and girls are doing on site without getting their input. Why would I do that? It's not my I know how to write it, and I've been out there on the tools of myself. Get their input into it, get blokes like you to sit in there and go, Well, well, hang on, that doesn't work. Well, why? Bang. This is why. Bang, bang. How much do you more? Me, I can tell you why. My daughter got put in a place where she shouldn't have been in, and she's got scars, mental and physical scars, because of that crap. You need to give us 50-50 to start with when we work our way down. That's got to be the number one. And even though, like I said, my mate got 50-50, still had to pay child support. I was like, Yeah, bro, what? He said, Because I said, Why did you have because apparently I looked into it, apparently if you earn 80, they earn 40, you've got to get that, you've got to pay that difference over that side. I'm like, Well, hang on, they've got a week where they can work.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:43

That's right, right? But here's here's a common one. Um, a father resigns from his mining job because he wants to be closer to the kid or whatever, so he comes back and gets a city job, so you know, say goes from 140 a year to 90, and um updates all this change of assessment and that, and the child still goes, Yeah, but you have a capacity to work with four uh you have a capacity to join NASA and fly the moon, don't you? I I've left that so I can be closer to my kid. This is my pay slips, this is my contract, this is hard evidence, this is the money I'm on. Oh, yeah, but you've got the capac what do you mean you've got the capacity?

SPEAKER_02 2:06:18

How how easy would it be? Like I worked it out with getting whatever they get as being a single mother, I don't know what it is. I think it was like 27 or 30 plus everything else they get, then plus getting money. They're in a 60 to 80k a year. Why would you go looking?

SPEAKER_00 2:06:34

I know. Why would you change that as well?

SPEAKER_04 2:06:37

Make them go on get too many incentives, you know. So yeah, that's what I would change. Um, funny question. You're in jail on death row, and the guard comes and asks you what you want for your final meal, drinking dessert.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:51

The first thing I'd I'd I'd request would be making sure it's around my table at home, my my parents' table, because that's where everything in my our life's revolved around. It's the kitchen table where all good times and bad times have happened, and um as long as I was around there, I wouldn't sit down and cop whatever I'm about to cop, I'd stand up and cop it. But it'd definitely be um it'd be my wife's um uh cow mangae, um, which is it's a normal Thai dish and it's so simple it's just boil chicken on rice with uh probably a curry similar or something? Not a curry, similar. So they put the chicken in this big stock pot, full chicken, they boil it up with a few little things, but then they use that water to make the make the um soup cook the rice. Oh yeah. Then they use that so you get it at Thailand. It's great for after the gym when you when you post gym food protein, because you've got the little bowl of rice, um chicken on top, then you've got the little then you've got a little um chicken soup there, and they put this hot chili sauce on it, be careful with that one. Um yeah, so definitely be that because every time she says um oh like she can she can eat raw chilies, and I just sit there, go, wow, and I go, Yeah, how many put in that?

SPEAKER_00 2:08:06

She goes, only put two, darling, only put two.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:09

Um and she can yeah, but um yeah, it'd definitely be that. Um definitely be mum's um pav or um um trifle because she cooks trifle every year for me. I'm the only one that eats it at Christmas time. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:20

She goes, I'll make it the trifle for you.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:22

Is that good? Yeah, and then um I don't know, I don't drink beer or but I suppose I would have a beer just to say, well, well, I don't drink beer, I might as well have one before I go.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:32

So yeah, what's off drink? I I love Pepsi Max put on on tap, you know, post meat. It's different, isn't it? Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:38

I have this argument with my son about Coca-Cola in Australia and Thailand. I said, bro, I don't know what it is, but over there it's different. I don't know. Better oh good, it tastes different, better. Better, yeah. It's like there's a shop in Balma that sells lollies now. And um I went in there the other day, they had um coke from Mexico, you know, because it's one of those shops you have.

SPEAKER_04 2:08:57

There's probably real coke in there or something.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:59

Yeah, well.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:00

I don't know, I've never had coke before, but it didn't do much to me. Yeah, I went to sleep, but I don't think the other stuff does.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:05

But um no, no, I have that conversation with myself, and he goes, Oh yeah, right, here we go, we've got to put up with this story again. So I if it was a soft drink, it'd probably be a um a white monster, probably. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, I haven't heard the white monster. Yeah, they're not bad. Apparently zero cars.

SPEAKER_04 2:09:20

Mate, if you were in a room with every single person you'd met or interacted with on this journey, who was the first person you'd be drawn to and why?

SPEAKER_02 2:09:30

I would definitely brush everyone that was there on the negative side. I would just ghost them and walk straight past everyone in that room and because I've never given the time a day since what they've put me through, I'll never give them the time again. There'd be two. Um and I'm not putting my mum and dad, I see them every day, but it'd definitely be that man that day at on the job site that said um Um you'll always be they can't take that away from you. Um so it'd definitely be him to say thank you because you were right, and the other one would be my dog. Um like I said, seven years with him fighting fighting with me silently and not giving his opinion, and then I had to put him down, I'd say sorry. I wanna I'd want to say sorry to him for that. Um but I'm sure he's up there kicking it, jumping through the hose that he couldn't jump through when he got older. So I'm sure he's doing all that stuff. So it'd be definitely that guy, but I'm not I don't I'm not doing it lightly with saying I walk past my mum and my dad and my fam my brother and my sisters and um my wife and my son now. I I'm not disrespecting that in any way, shape, or form, but it's just I don't know, it's just those two just really and I don't want to give those other people the time of day or the negative people in my life because I think if you keep looking back on the negatives, it just it just keeps you there. And I just want to be positive in my life now and just keep fucking moving on and just going, nah. And I wouldn't even tell them to go get effed or anything like that. It just it's just yeah, if you I think if you ghost people in life and go, and that's what I wanted to do going through all this. I never broke in front of anyone, like in my in front of my kids. I did in front of my parents, fair enough, but never broke in front. I try to stay staunch in front of my kids and I never broke in front of them, the the mothers ever. I made sure you're not you might break me when I'm in my house, but you're not gonna I'm you're not gonna see me broken.

SPEAKER_04 2:11:24

Yeah, so yeah, definitely be them too. Nice man, mate. Two more. What strategies or tips helped during the process that you could recommend to listeners?

SPEAKER_02 2:11:34

Um get a dog, 100%, get a dog, mate. Bro, like seriously, get a dog. I don't care what dog you get. Yeah, just get on. You got a staff for you, haven't you? I got American XL bully. Yeah, same, same. But um, yeah, get a dog. Like you're like me, you walk along with your dog, they probably walk people come walk the other. Yeah, you got the whole foot part for yourself, yeah. But um, no, mate, you get a dog and Your life, seriously. Um, they just like I said, they don't talk back, they're ever I used to he used to get out, and I used to never know how he got out. And like I said, how did he I had a backyard lockable? I said, How did he get out? He'd just be sitting at that front door waiting for me to come home. He never ran away. And they reckon the only way time dogs will run away when they're not getting looked after at home, they go, shit, I'm not getting eaten, I'm getting flogged. It's like anyone, like you gotta leave. So definitely get a dog. What was the question again?

SPEAKER_04 2:12:29

Um what strategies or tips help during the process you can recommend to listeners?

SPEAKER_02 2:12:33

Get the dog and then just find the right time where fighting just isn't like the battle it's time to retreat, it's time to sit back and take a knee, take the outcount, um, and then come back out fighting. Because it's gonna happen, because if you keep fighting a battle that's you know, it's just gonna beat you up bad, and it beat you up bad, it beat me up for ten years. And I just was in the deepest, darkest hole, as we all are, all have been. And by the time I found the right time to I don't want to say quit, retreat, I like that word better, because that means you're going back and you're just restocking, like you know, being in the army side of things, that's what it is, isn't it? Retreating, going back, reloading, re-treat, re-restocking, getting more people in your team. Um, so that's what I did, and it helped me so much. And surround yourself with I've said it heaps of times, good positive friends that I got that bloke that sat beside me, that we've been mates since we were 12 years old. He's a bloke, and all the boys I talk about, we all that's probably who rang me before on the chat. We've got a footy chat going.

SPEAKER_00 2:13:44

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:45

So we go to reunions and everyone goes, Oh yeah, you're the beam.

SPEAKER_00 2:13:47

We fucking see each other every day. We we talk to each other every week, taking a piss.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:51

Get a mate that's gonna tell you straight. My mate is black and black. We all know it. We all see he's black and blue. He just tells you, fucking it's a shit haircut, or he's just that's how he is, and it's great. So have friends in your life that are gonna be supportive as well. But like I said before, people that say no one was there for me, but you gotta tell them that you gotta help, you gotta reach out and say, bro, I need help. So yeah, definitely that.

SPEAKER_04 2:14:15

Mate, last one, any message for your children?

SPEAKER_02 2:14:20

Yeah, um, definitely for my all of them. My my daughter, she never had to you you know, you didn't have to ring up and apologise that day. Um you know, you I just I understood everything. I look back now and I wish I was there to protect you and support you so you didn't have to go through that. And um it was just a shh just a shit go of what they put you through to that. You didn't need to do you didn't deserve that. Um but I love ya. We're together now. You're best mother and always been the best daughter in my life that I could have asked for. Um and yeah, I just want to be there f whenever you need me for the next eighty years of the rest of our life together. So yeah, and I just love her to death and she's a great mother. So yeah, just um Yeah, that was that's about it, I suppose, for the my um my daughter and my son. Um, you know, like I know, mate, you got told some some sh crap and lies and everything that you got put through, and but I'm just so proud of the man he's a you know, he's 21 this year and he's become a man now. Um and he's such a good kid. He's polite. Um he's he's a big dude, very tall, um, but he's taller than me now, so he thinks he's got it over me. He probably has. But um, no, but I just love him to death as well. And um, you know, I only want the best out of him, best for him. Um I want him I just want to make sure he, you know, goes out there and lives life to the fullest because at 21 years old, this is where you can get out there and really go travelling or do whatever you want to do. Um but yeah, I just want to say I really love him and yeah, that um I'm so proud of him. Um especially the not ringing thing is just a crazy, how the hell did you come out that without doing that? Like considering you're surrounded at twenty-four hours or nearly seven. So yeah, proud of you bro, and um you're always gonna be my bro. So and my youngest boy, yeah, like I worry about him more than anyone. I don't know why. I think because I've been there with him every day and I just see him. Um I'm more emotional with him than I am the other two. It's crazy. But um no, he's just a he's such a good kid, like he's so fucking so proud of the he's smart, he doesn't try at school, you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:16:45

He comes home with B's, and I go, bro, if you just tried, you get A's, he goes, you know, you know, he and he knows where he wants to go in life. He he's such a good worker, like he buddies ever since he was 14, he goes and works with his mum on holidays, Lino.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:00

He doesn't have holidays, he goes and works with his mum, you know, because he just works, he's got a great work ethic, and I'm just glad that I was able to have that what I didn't have with my other two, with coming home from school and saying, How was school? Even though it was like, no, not much happened. I'm just glad I had that with him and I hope he understands that question. Yeah, without him in my life, that um um I don't know if I would have been able to be where I am. So yeah, thanks mate, and I love you to death. And yeah, and I just want to finish off with my wife, she's just um just like I said before, just anchor. Oh mate, just the my rock, eh? Just always been there for me. Like like last night, who's at the door opening the door for you coming home?

SPEAKER_00 2:17:43

Like, usually they're laying in bed, but she's there 17 years and you're still doing that, yeah. Like seriously, like I just drove home, went, how'd you know I was coming? Oh I knew so.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:52

Yeah, I just want to tell her I love her and um for 17 years it's you know, we've been together and we've got heaps more to go. So yeah, it's been yeah, that's about it. So it was better than what I thought it was gonna be.

SPEAKER_04 2:18:03

Well, mate, look, you know, how do you feel?

SPEAKER_02 2:18:06

Great, yeah. I'm looking like I said before, um probably my parents were probably 80% across what everything would happen. Not everyone knows everything, and I'm glad I can get to tell the story. Um for my parent my kids to I don't want you know for for my kids to understand that I did fight for you and I wasn't pushed I I you know from no matter what you heard that I was there at all times. Um yeah, and I'm glad you gave me the opportunity to come on and hopefully help someone else that knows that just hang in there. That's the only thing. If I want to, you know, just hang in there and like they come back, they do come back, they will come back.

SPEAKER_04 2:18:41

I'm gonna show you, mate, uh your story well, because every every episode I've done, I've got messages back of of how how it's helped them. So but mate, um what a journey. I'm glad there was a positive in the in the negative in the end. Gotta find it. You gotta find it, gotta find it. But um, mate, on behalf of myself, the Brogan Fathers podcast, and all my viewers and listeners, mate. I want to thank you for coming up, spending time out of your day, money out of your own pocket to come in and tell your story. Uh, I know it's it's it's gonna help a lot of people out there, and um, you know, I wish you nothing but the best moving forward. Uh Daily Cherry Evans gonna get us a premiership this year for the Roosters. And uh just have to throw that in there. Jeez, that'd be a kick in the face, wouldn't it? Um, but yeah, guys, thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Um, real I'm wearing the 50-50 should be the standard t-shirt. The links in the bio on our Instagram and Facebook page, or just go to fkvx.au and also shout out to a lot of the guys that I served with overseas in the army. Uh Cherry Creek Estate, the boys on avocado farm. They also make avocado oil. Uh, it's available in Woolworths. Give the guys a follow. And mate, all the best. Nah, thanks for the opportunity, mate.

SPEAKER_02 2:19:52

And um money and travel. I'm just glad I got to do it. I don't worry about that.

SPEAKER_04 2:19:56

Thanks, brother. Thank you. Cheers, man.