FALLERT & FALLERT

In the matter of Fallert & Fallert, Judge Small of the Family Court of Australia considered an application by the mother for permission to relocate the parties' two children, aged 13 and 11, from Melbourne's Eastern suburbs to Town G. The father opposed this relocation.

The central legal issues before the court were whether the mother should be permitted to relocate the children's residence to Town G and, consequently, what parenting orders were in the best interests of the children. This involved assessing the impact of such a move on the children's relationship with their father and their overall welfare.

Judge Small determined that the relocation was not in the children's best interests and therefore restrained the mother by injunction from moving their residence outside the Melbourne Metropolitan Area. The court ordered that the parents have equal shared parental responsibility for the children, with the children to live with the mother. Detailed orders were made regarding the time the children would spend with the father, including provisions for school terms, holidays, and specific occasions, with adjustments to the father's time if the mother were to relocate the children more than one-and-a-half hours from his residence. The court also issued injunctions restraining both parents from denigrating the other or discussing the proceedings in the children's presence, and from allowing the children to read the court's reasons for judgment.