Galloway & Steele

In *Galloway & Steele*, Harper J of the Family Court of Australia considered an application by the mother for fresh parenting orders, specifically seeking overnight and other time with the child. The father, who has sole parental responsibility and with whom the child lives, had consistently offered supervised time, which the mother had refused. The child had had minimal contact with the mother since December 2015.

The central legal issue before the court was whether there had been a sufficient change of circumstances since previous judgments in 2012 and 2015 to warrant a relitigation of the existing parenting orders. The mother contended that her application should proceed to a full hearing, including a family report and investigation of the child's views, rather than being determined at a preliminary stage.

Harper J determined that the mother's application was appropriately dealt with as a preliminary or threshold question and should be dismissed in the best interests of the child. His Honour referred to earlier judgments by Fowler J and Loughnan J, which had found the mother to be an unreliable witness, evasive, and holding an intractable, negative view of the father as an abuser. These earlier judgments had rejected allegations of abuse by the father and found no evidence to sustain such assertions or an unacceptable risk of harm in the father's care. His Honour concluded that no sufficient change of circumstances had been demonstrated to justify relitigating the parenting orders.

Consequently, the Initiating Application filed by the mother on 26 October 2020, and the Application in a Case filed on 10 December 2020, were dismissed.