Edhouse & Edhouse

In the case of Edhouse & Edhouse, the parties were engaged in a dispute concerning the primary residence and parental responsibility of their child. The father filed an application for a review of the orders made by a Senior Registrar, while the mother filed an Application in a Proceeding seeking a suite of orders that differed from both the father's application and the orders made by the Senior Registrar. The primary legal issues the court had to decide were whether there were reasonable grounds to believe that either party had engaged in family violence, and if so, whether the presumption of equal shared parental responsibility was applicable. The court also needed to determine whether the disputes over the child's pre-school enrolments and attendance could be resolved by giving one party or the other parental responsibility for the child on an interim basis.

The court found that both parties had accused each other of family violence, but the evidence presented was largely uncorroborated and contradictory. The police reports showed that the police were disinclined to take any action against either party due to the conflicting versions of events. The court concluded that there must be reasonable grounds to believe that either or both parties had engaged in family violence, which rendered the presumption of equal shared parental responsibility inapplicable. The court rejected the mother's submission to leave parental responsibility where it lies under the Act, and found that the evidence pointed most strongly to the mother being the primary carer of the child. The reasons for this were the consensual arrangement between the parties, the mother's greater availability to provide primary care, her sufficient parenting capacity, and the absence of any risk of harm in either household.

The court ordered that the child's primary residence be with the mother, and that the father have parental responsibility for the child. The court found that the evidence did not support an order for equal shared parental responsibility, and therefore did not need to consider whether the child should live with the parties for equal time or spend substantial and significant time with the non-residential parent. The court also found that the disputes over the child's pre-school enrolments and attendance could not be resolved without giving one party or the other parental responsibility for the child on an interim basis. The court noted that interim proceedings should be confined to only those issues which, in the best interests of the child, require determination prior to a proper determination at trial.