HALLETT & SPANOS

FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA

HALLETT & SPANOS

[2019] FamCA 1061

FAMILY LAW – CHILDREN – With whom a child lives – Best interests of child – Where previous proceedings between these parties were finalised after a trial, resulting in the child living with the mother and spending regular and consistent with the father – Where one of the orders made permitted either party from removing the child from North Queensland – Where the mother and the child moved to New South Wales – Where the father submitted that the child should live with him in Cairns and the mother submitted the orders previously made should continue, with the child living with her, albeit not in North Queensland – Where the mother did not appear on the second day of trial and did not participate any further in the trial – Where after a consideration of the evidence, the history of the matter, the attitudes and actions of both parents over recent years and, in particular, the evidence given by the Family Report Writer, the best interests of the child that she live with her father, he exercise sole parental responsibility for the child and she spend supervised time with her mother as agreed between the parties, among other orders.

Family Law Act 1975 (Cth)

APPLICANT:

Ms Hallett

RESPONDENT:

Mr Spanos

INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER:

Bevlee Joy Reaston

FILE NUMBER:

CSC

507

2013

DATE DELIVERED:

24 September 2019

PLACE DELIVERED:

Cairns

PLACE HEARD:

Cairns

JUDGMENT OF:

Forrest J

HEARING DATE:

23 and 24 September 2019

REPRESENTATION

THE APPLICANT:

In person

THE RESPONDENT:

In person

COUNSEL FOR THE INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER:

Ms Williams

SOLICITOR FOR THE INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER:

Ms Reaston

Reaston Drummond Law

Orders

All previous parenting orders in this matter are discharged.
That subject to the balance of these orders, the father shall have sole parental responsibility for the child, N born … 2012, (“the child”) in respect of making decisions about her education (current and future), her religious and cultural upbringing, her health, and for applying for and obtaining a passport or a renewal of a passport, but he shall inform the mother in writing whenever he is making a decision about any of these matters and seek and give reasonable consideration to any input she wishes to give in respect of the decision.
That the parents shall have equal shared parental responsibility for the child in respect of decisions about her name and any changes to her living arrangements that would make it significantly more difficult for the child to spend time with the other parent.
That the child shall live with the father in Cairns.
That neither parent is permitted to relocate the child permanently from the Cairns district.
That the Independent Children’s Lawyer (“the ICL”) and the family report writer, Ms E, shall speak with the child as soon as possible and explain the outcome of the proceedings and the meaning of these Orders to her, and when the ICL is personally satisfied that that has been done, she is discharged.
That the child shall spend time with the mother supervised by a person who the mother and father agree upon, and at such places and for such time as the mother and father agree upon, with such time to progress to unsupervised time at the father’s sole determination.
That in determining whether the child’s time with the mother is to progress to unsupervised time, the father shall seek and obtain advice from suitably qualified and experienced professionals.
The child shall communicate with the mother by FaceTime or some other similar internet based video calling communication platform, for up to a maximum of fifteen minutes, as follows:
(a)Tuesdays at 4:30 pm;
(b)Thursdays at 4:30 pm;
(c)Saturdays at 3:00 pm; and
(d)Sundays at 4:00 pm;
and at any other time as the mother and the father shall agree.
That if the child is not spending time with the mother on any of the following days then the child shall communicate with the mother by FaceTime or some other similar internet based video calling communication platform for up to a maximum of fifteen minutes on these days:
(i)        The mother’s birthday;
(ii)       The child’s birthday;
(iii)      Mother’s Day;
(iv)      Easter Sunday; and
(v)       Christmas Day.
That the father shall ensure that the child’s contact with the mother pursuant to paragraphs (9) and (10) of these Orders is facilitated by providing the child with an appropriate device such as an iPhone, an iPad or computer and assisting her to make the contact connection with her mother at the other end. That should the mother not have a device such as those referred to that may facilitate such communication, then the father shall ensure that the child’s contact with the mother is by telephone at least.
That whilst the child’s sister, B, continues to live in the Cairns district, the father shall facilitate the child spending time with her and communicating with her as he considers appropriate.
That the father shall ensure that the child has age appropriate protective behaviours counselling from a reputable and appropriately qualified and experienced professional counsellor from time to time.
That the mother shall deliver the child’s current passport to the father as soon as practicable, but at least within two weeks.
That each parent shall keep the other parent informed in writing of their current residential address, postal address if different, contact telephone number and any email address that they are contactable at and they shall provide the other with notice of any changes to the details of any of these within 24 hours of any such change.
That the father shall ensure that the child is re-enrolled at Suburb H State School, Cairns and begins attending there from the commencement of school term after the conclusion of the current school holidays.
That the father shall provide the mother, as soon as he receives them from the school, with copies of the child’s school reports, school photographs, and awards or certificates of recognition that she receives.
That the father shall provide the mother with at least one new digital photograph of the child at least every two weeks from the date hereof and he shall show the child, if he determines it appropriate to do so, any digital photographs the mother sends him for the child of herself, any other member of her extended family, any of her friends and any of her pets.
That the father is restrained by injunction from consuming so much alcohol that his blood alcohol concentration exceeds 0.05% (the legal limit for driving a motor vehicle in Queensland) at any time whilst N is in his direct care.
That the mother is restrained by injunction from consuming so much alcohol that her blood alcohol concentration exceeds 0.05% (the legal limit for driving a motor vehicle in Queensland) at any time whilst N is in her direct care.
That each parent is restrained by injunction from discussing these proceedings or the contents of any document related to these proceedings with the child or with a third party within the hearing of the child.
That each parent is restrained by injunction from denigrating the other parent, partner or any member of the other parent’s family to the child or within the hearing of the child.
That pursuant to ss 65DA(2) and 62B of the Family Law Act 1975 (as amended), the particulars of the obligations these Orders create and the particulars of the consequences that may follow if a person contravenes these Orders and details of who can assist parties to adjust to and comply with an order are set out in the Fact Sheet attached hereto and these particulars are included in these Orders.

Note: The form of the order is subject to the entry of the order in the Court’s records.

IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment by this Court under the pseudonym Hallett & Spanos has been approved by the Chief Justice pursuant to s 121(9)(g) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).

Note: This copy of the Court’s Reasons for Judgment may be subject to review to remedy minor typographical or grammatical errors (r 17.02A(b) of the Family Law Rules 2004 (Cth)), or to record a variation to the order pursuant to r 17.02 Family Law Rules 2004 (Cth).

FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA AT

FILE NUMBER: CSC 507 of 2013

Ms Hallett

Applicant

And

Mr Spanos

Respondent

And

Independent Children’s Lawyer

EX TEMPORE REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

On 23 April 2015, orders were made in this Court by Justice Tree after a five day trial between the parties to these parenting proceedings. Those orders provided for the parties’ child, who was then not quite three years of age, to live with the mother and for her to have sole parental responsibility for that child. Those orders also provided for the child to spend regular and consistent time with the father, after a short while progressing to each alternate weekend from Friday afternoon to Monday morning, overnight every Wednesday night and half of all school holidays.
At the time, and for three years thereafter, at least as I understand the evidence, the mother lived in a Cairns suburb called Suburb F and the father lived in a suburb called Suburb G, about 10 to 15 minutes’ drive, further to the north of Suburb H.
One of the orders the Judge made was very clear and very simple. It read:
Neither party is permitted to relocate the child from the district of Cairns.
Despite there being a high degree of conflict between the mother and the father during their short marriage and in the years afterwards, those parenting orders made by Justice Tree seemingly worked well until the middle of last year – 2018. In fact, the father says in his evidence that the mother and he agreed, from time to time, in the early months of last year that the child would spend additional time in the care of the father, and I accept that she did.
As I understand the evidence, that extra time that the child spent with the father was not because the mother was working or travelling away from Cairns or otherwise unavailable to care for her for some unavoidable reason such as that, but rather that she was apparently finding it difficult to cope with caring for the child in her home both because of the poor state of the home, more particularly the state of the toilet facilities (there being a problem with the septic tank) and also the volatile nature of the relationship between the mother and her then boyfriend. That relationship was, without a shadow of a doubt, a particularly violent relationship.
Notwithstanding the injunction against relocating the child out of Cairns, on Sunday evening, 10 June 2018, the mother sent the father several text messages over a short space of time. One of those said:
I’m leaving cairns as soon as I’m up to it. I don’t know if you are aware of the fact that sole custody gives me all rights and decisions regarding Ns future … you have no parental right and no one is going to remove her from me I have all rights to decide on her schooling religion and residency. I want you and your family to always be a part of Ns Life and I won’t ever exclude you from her life.
(As per the original)
Shortly thereafter, she texted:
This house is unliveable and it’s in Ns best interest. I will accommodate all relationship with you and your family but I have to go.
(As per the original)
The father then let the mother know that she could go wherever she liked, but he pointed out to her that the Orders prevented her from relocating the child away from Cairns. The mother then responded with the following message:
I will breach the order of removing N but it’s for her best interests and I will never come back to Cairns. The sole parental responsibility overrides all other orders read up on it.
(As per the original)
A few days later, on a day when the child was to receive an award at her school and she was to go into her father’s care that afternoon after school, the mother kept her from school and drove herself, the child and several pet cats, on an expired driver’s licence, all the way from Cairns to the J Region of New South Wales where, after apparently a 36 hour trip, she arrived at the home of her 99 year old maternal grandfather in the early hours of the morning. From the moment of their arrival, she, the cats and the child, effectively took up residence there with her frail and aged grandfather.
There is no evidence to suggest that he invited the mother to stay or even that he welcomed her into his home. In fact, the evidence, much of it documentary evidence obtained by the Independent Children’s Lawyer through the issue of subpoena from the Court, suggests that the paternal grandfather, who is substantially deaf and perhaps already beginning to suffer from the effects of dementia, may have had very little say in the mother’s decision for herself, the child and the cats to take up residence in his home. That evidence that I refer to also reflects that her decision to do so generated a great deal of trouble for the mother in respect of her relations with her own mother and maternal uncles, the direct first generation children of the 99 year old grandfather. I shall return to that a little later.
Soon thereafter the father brought an application to the Federal Circuit Court here in Cairns for an order that the child be returned to Cairns. That was heard by the resident Judge of that Court. No order for the return of the child was made and the matter was transferred to this Court. The mother was directed to file an application if she was going to be seeking orders legitimising her move – that is, to vary the existing orders by discharge of the injunction against relocation. That she did. The father subsequently applied for a change of residence so that the child lives with him and so that he is granted sole parental responsibility for her.
The same Independent Children’s Lawyer (“ICL”) who had been in the matter previously was re-appointed. She re-engaged the family report writer who had also seen the family and reported on them in the previous proceedings.
The matter is now back before the Court again, just three years after the last four day trial, to determine whether the child should continue to live with the mother in the J Region of New South Wales or whether she should now live with her father back here in Cairns. It has become a simple choice between those two options now because the mother has made it absolutely clear, in both her written and here oral evidence, that whatever the Court’s decision about where the child lives, she herself will not be moving back to Cairns. That is, if I order that the child live in Cairns, she will not be moving back to Cairns. She had told the Court in no uncertain terms, it is her intention to stay in New South Wales where she is, with or without the child.
Unfortunately, neither the mother nor the father had legal representation in the hearing before me. Fortunately though, as is so often the case now, the Court had the assistance of an ICL and counsel as the only lawyers in the case. These cases would be even more difficult than they are, without the assistance of an independent solicitor and counsel advocating for what they consider is in the best interests of the child. Long may the Legal Aid offices of this country be resourced sufficiently so that they may fund Independent Children’s Lawyers representing the best interests of children in cases where both parents are without legal representation.
Significantly, in my judgment, the mother did not present a serious argument that the child should not live with the father. Rather, her case was presented on the basis that the Court previously determined that the child should live with her and that should simply continue with the child living with her, even though the mother unilaterally, and in defiance of a strict injunction restraining her from doing so, moved the child from Cairns all the way to the New South Wales J Region. In support of that argument, the mother argued that she just could not live in Cairns anymore and just had to leave. She said that she had to go to New South Wales as that is the only place that she could get accommodation and be around family and people that she knew. She told the Court that she grew up in the City S area, which is not too far from where she moved to.
The father argued that the child should come back to Cairns and live with him. This is where she was born and where she lived for the first six years of her life. He argued that she has meaningful relationships with him, a 10 year old brother (who is a child of a former relationship of the father) who lives with the father several days each fortnight, a 19 year old sister (a child of another former relationship of the father) who lives with the father full time, and a 16 year old sister (a child of a former relationship of the mother) who still lives here. That child stayed in Cairns when the mother moved to New South Wales last year. I understand the evidence to be that she was living with her father at that time. The evidence suggests that she now, at the tender age of 16, lives with her young adult boyfriend.
Relevantly, the family report writer recommended that the subject child should live with the father in Cairns and that she should be returned to his care straight away. She recommended that in her report prepared in May this year, some months ago. When she gave evidence in this Court, she did not shy away from the strength of her opinion in respect of that matter. The ICL of course pointed to that recommendation and relied upon it, and the evidence of the family report writer’s opinions, in submissions that supported orders being made returning the child to Cairns to live with the father as soon as possible.
Of further relevance is the way in which the conduct of the trial transpired. Just a few weeks before the trial was to commence, the mother made written application to the Court for leave to appear by video link from Newcastle. She argued that the requirement to care for her 100 year old maternal grandfather restricted her capacity to travel to Cairns. Considering at that point, without having read a lot of the material, that it would be important in the circumstances of this case for me to see the mother in person in the witness box before me, I rejected that application and she was informed that she would have to be in Cairns to appear in person.
At the commencement of the trial, when I took to the bench and the matter was called on, the mother rushed into the Court room as I was taking the other parties’ appearances, informing the Court that she was a little late because she had had such an eventful morning. I did not enquire into the nature of that eventful morning.
Initially, she appeared reasonably composed and somewhat self-confident, certainly enough for the matter to proceed in my view. However, after counsel for the ICL had cross-examined the father, the mother, quite strangely, insisted that she had no questions at all for the father. I spoke to her about that, impressed upon her the significance of such a move in the circumstances of the case, but she was unmoved. She did want to cross-examine one of his several witnesses though, namely a former partner of his, Ms L, who is the mother of the 10 year old son of the father who I have already mentioned, his name is V. He spends quite a bit of time in his father’s care.
After asking a couple of questions of Ms L, the relevance of which she was called upon to explain, the mother became a bit upset and then insisted again that she did not have any more questions to ask.
Subsequently, the mother’s cross-examination began. I called upon counsel for the ICL to cross-examine her first, contrary to the usual practice of letting the applicant opposing parent cross-examine the parent who is in the witness box first. A number of times during the mother’s cross-examination by counsel for the ICL – who I might add was perfectly respectful and appropriate in the way she cross-examined the mother – the mother became what I will describe as emotionally dysregulated, began crying and needed a few minutes to compose herself. Her cross-examination went on until about 4.30 in the afternoon – yesterday afternoon.

When the ICL’s counsel finished her questions and just when the father was about to commence his cross-examination of the mother, I considered that to be an appropriate time to adjourn the hearing overnight. As I often do during the course of a trial, I urged the father and the mother to consider perhaps having some further discussions with each other and the ICL with a view to potentially trying to come up with a solution or an agreement in respect of their parenting of the child that each of them might be able to live with, rather than having a decision imposed upon them that both of them may not entirely be happy with and I adjourned overnight.
At 10.00 am this morning, when the matter was called on to resume the second day of hearing, the mother did not appear. Attempts were made by the ICL to contact her by telephone. Those attempts initially were fruitless. At 10.30 am, having heard nothing and being concerned about particularly the wellbeing of the child, I issued an ex parte recovery order for the child to be found, taken into the custody of police and delivered to the father’s care. However, before that order could be issued to the police, shortly thereafter, contact was made with the mother and she was told that the Court had issued such a recovery order. The Court was then informed that the child would be brought into the registry and delivered into the father’s care. The Court was also informed that the mother did not wish to take any further part in the hearing. The recovery order was not brought to the attention of police and subsequently, during the course of the morning, whilst the trial continued in the mother’s absence, the Court was informed that the child had verily been brought in as promised and was handed into the care of some of the father’s family members whilst he remained engaged in these proceedings.
I also heard this morning evidence from the family report writer, Ms E, a social worker who has been writing reports for the Court for some time. She was asked some questions, particularly pertinent to matters that I had pointed out were still of some concern to me in the determination of this case and ultimately when her evidence was finished, I heard oral submissions from counsel for the ICL and from the father himself. Having heard those submissions, I determined to make final orders and give extemporaneous reasons for those orders this very afternoon. That is what I am now doing.

By what principles should this matter be determined?

Although the mother unilaterally moved the child to New South Wales last year and she did so in open defiance of the Courts’ previous Order, this case is not a contravention hearing and is not to be determined simply on the basis of determining whether or not the mother had a reasonable excuse for breaching the Order that she breached. It is, like all parenting orders cases, to be determined according to law – that is by reference to the statutory provisions of Part VII of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) (“the Act”).
The Court is being asked to make parenting orders by all three parties. The Court is empowered to make such parenting orders as are proper having regard to the paramountcy of the best interests of the subject child.[1]
[1]Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) ss 65D, 65AA and 60CA.
In determining what is in the best interests of the child, the Court must consider the matters set out in ss 60CC(2) and (3) of the Act. Two “primary” considerations are set out in s 60CC(2). They are the consideration of the benefit to the child of having a meaningful relationship with both of the child’s parents and the need to protect the child from physical or psychological harm, from being subjected to, or exposed to, abuse, neglect or family violence. Section 60CC(2A) mandates that greater weight is to be given to the second of those primary considerations in the application of them. As will be seen, from what I later say, that is significant in the determination of this case.
Additional considerations are then set out in s 60CC(3). They are, suffice to say, many and varied and the last of them highlights how broad the range of the inquiry can be. It simply empowers the Court to consider “any other fact or circumstance that the Court thinks is relevant.”
Though the process of determining proper parenting orders that are in the best interests of the child that is set out in Part VII of the Act, includes a presumption that parents equally sharing parental responsibility is in the best interests of a child and certain mandatory steps follow if an order conferring parental responsibility equally upon the parents is made, there is also a provision, clearly activated in this case, as Justice Tree correctly identified, stating that the presumption is rebutted if there has been family violence between the parents. If you read Justice Tree’s judgment, there is no doubt that in this particular case there has been family violence between the mother and the father in the past.
Justice Tree made an order conferring parental responsibility solely on the mother. He did that principally because his view of the conflict that existed between the parents and their inability to communicate with each other with any semblance of reason and normality led him to conclude that it would not be in the child’s best interests for them to share parental responsibility. No doubt that was because of his view about s 65DAC and its mandatory requirements.
That section provides that where an order for equal shared parental responsibility has been made, and a decision about a “major long term issue” as that term is defined in s 4 of the Act has to be made, there are three mandatory requirements. One, the parties must consult, that is the parents of the child who share equal shared parental responsibility, with each other about the making of such a decision. The second is they must make a genuine attempt to reach that decision jointly. The third, and perhaps most significant of the three requirements, is that the decision must be made jointly. As I have said many times before in judgments I have delivered, the corollary of that is, the decision cannot be made unilaterally.
What that means effectively in my view is that where parents have such poor levels of communication and such high levels of conflict, making an order for equal shared parental responsibility that required them to do all three of those things, most particularly only make decisions about major long term issues in the child’s life, jointly or not at all, would be a recipe for disaster in respect of the best interests of the child. No doubt Justice Tree also took that view. He determined, simply, that the parent with whom the child was to live would have to have sole parental responsibility for the child in this particular case.
No evidence persuades me that a different order should be made, save that I would restrict the matters over which the parent would have sole parental responsibility slightly more than his Honour did. I am not persuaded that the parent with whom the child primarily is to reside should have unfettered parental responsibility to make decisions changing the child’s name or changing the child’s residence such that it would make it significantly harder for the child to maintain contact with the other parent in accordance with the orders that are to be determined. I will make orders that limit that.

Other considerations

I intend now to extemporaneously go through the considerations that are set out in ss 60CC(2) and (3) having regard to the evidence as it fell before me and my findings in respect of those matters of evidence, to essentially highlight and lay the groundwork for the orders that I have determined I will ultimately make.
As I have already said, the primary considerations to take into account are the benefits of having a meaningful relationship with both of the child’s parents. In this particular case I place a great deal of weight on the Family Report of Ms E. She had the benefit of having met and interviewed this family some years ago when she met and interviewed them again this year. Although, unfortunately really, her ability to interview the mother was somewhat inhibited or hamstrung by the fact that the mother did not travel herself to Cairns for the purposes of undertaking the interview, but rather, stayed in New South Wales and was interviewed by Ms E over the telephone.
Nevertheless, Ms E was able to provide a written report and produce opinion evidence about the matters of relevance in the proceedings. I am satisfied on the evidence that I have heard and read in this case that this little girl who is now seven years of age, already has a meaningful relationship with both of her parents. As I have already said, they were together when she was born, seven years ago, they were together for a couple of years or maybe a bit less at the time they separated, they lived close by to each other in the northern suburbs of Cairns for several years after separation until the mother moved away last year.
The father took every advantage of the provisions of the orders that were made in 2015 providing for the child to spend time with him. Indeed, the mother herself boasted, if I could use that word, of the fact that she had complied completely with the orders until such time as she decided to decamp from Cairns and Queensland, meaning by that that she had always provided the child to spend time with the father and to communicate with him as the orders provided. As I already said, I am satisfied the child in fact spent more time with the father, especially in the months leading up to her departure from Queensland, unplanned and unscheduled departures from Queensland, than the orders provided for.
The evidence of the father himself, his family members who gave evidence on his behalf and indeed the objective independent evidence of Ms E, all supports a finding that the child has a very good relationship with him. As I have said already, the mother has not made out a significant case that she does not. Indeed, to her credit, even when she was asserting that she was unilaterally going to breach the Court’s order and leave Cairns and leave Queensland, she was still trying to reassure the father as best she possibly could at the time, that she had no intention of stopping the relationship between the child and him.
On the other hand, I also accept that the child, having been living with and in the care of the mother for all these years now, for much of the time of her life so far, does have a relationship with her mother that can only be described as meaningful. The evidence of Ms E, which I accept without a doubt, was that in her opinion the mother dearly loves and dearly cares for the child and the child has a special part in her heart and her life. I am mindful of those relationships when I consider the orders that I am going to be making in this particular case.
The second of the primary considerations the one that I have already highlighted must be given greater weight in the application of the two of them is the need to protect the child from physical or psychological harm from being subjected to or exposed to abuse, neglect or family violence. As will be highlighted when I refer to certain matters of evidence subsequently, there is a very serious concern in this particular case that leaving the child in the principal care of her mother indeed has in the past, that is in the years that have passed since Justice Tree made his decision, and currently does, and would in the future if she was left in her mother’s care, expose her to what I am quite prepared to describe as an unacceptable risk of both physical and psychological harm through being exposed to or subjected to abuse, neglect and family violence.
I immediately add a postscript to that to say accepting the evidence of Ms E and on my own understanding of the rest of the evidence, that I do not find that the mother herself has physically abused or harmed the child nor that there is an unacceptable risk that she would do so in the future but rather the mother’s personality and emotional state and her dependence upon alcohol and potentially drugs, both prescription and illicit, do expose the child to an unacceptable risk of abuse, neglect or family violence. I will go into that in a little more detail subsequently.
Giving priority or greater weight to the consideration of needing to protect the child from this risk in the first instance causes me to be of the view that putting the child in the principal care of her father meets her needs and most importantly the prioritisation of the need to protect her from physical or psychological harm by being exposed to or subjected to abuse, neglect or family violence, the far greater risk of which exists in my considered judgment, if she remains in the fulltime care of her mother in New South Wales.
Turning to the additional considerations in sub-section (3) of s 60CC, I skip over immediately any views expressed by the child and any factors that the Court thinks are relevant to the weight it should give to the child’s view as she is only just seven years of age and her views have not really been and nor would it be appropriate to seriously seek to elicit them to put them before the Court. She is certainly not of an age or level of maturity where any views that she expressed would be given any significant weight. I do not recall discerning any particular views one way or the other being expressed by her in her interview with Ms E. In any event, any such views have not moved me to the view that they should be given any particular weight.
Second of the additional considerations is the nature of the relationship of the child with each of the child’s parents and other persons. My assessment of the evidence about the relationship between father and child is that it is an entirely appropriate one. That is not to say that I consider the father to be the perfect father, or without blemish or flaw in his personality or in his parenting style or indeed in the way he relates to the child’s mother, but the evidence of Ms E’s assessment and opinions and the evidence of the other witnesses that the father relied upon all give me cause for satisfaction that the father’s relationship with the child is indeed an appropriate father-daughter relationship.
I give particular weight to the evidence of each of his adult children, including his 19 year old adult daughter who currently lives with him, all of whom spoke in fairly glowing terms, if I can use that expression, of their father, their feelings towards him, their support for his application to have their young sister live with him and be cared for by him on a full time basis. Over the years that I have been sitting in this Court, I could not say that young adults will always support their parents in a situation of crisis, most particularly in this place, where children have experienced breakdown of their family around them, and the separation of their parents during their childhood. As I say, it is in my experience not always the case that those children when they reach their young adulthood are going to speak in such complimentary terms of one or other of their parents.
The fact that all these young adult children of the father have been prepared to put their views about him and his parenting into writing, as brief as those affidavits were, making themselves vulnerable to the prospect of being required to present in the witness box in court and give evidence, is something to which I give some weight.
Very significantly though, I point to the evidence of Ms L. Ms L gave a fairly brief affidavit, I must concede, but nevertheless it is even more rare to see a former partner and co-parent of a parent litigant in this place come into Court, go on affidavit in support of their former partner and co-parent’s application in respect of another child and for them to give evidence in affidavit form of the respect that they have for that parent, a former partner of theirs, in terms of their parenting capacities. The evidence of Ms L, as I say, was brief, but nevertheless it was firm and concise. It satisfies me that she and the father, though separated for several years now, have maintained a very amicable co-parenting relationship in respect of their 10 year old son. It is amicable, it is flexible, it is cooperative, it is tolerant, it is compromising, it is understandable, it is child focussed, it is built around respect for each other as the child’s other parent and the role that each other plays in that child’s life. It is what one might say is a type of relationship between parents that every child deserves, even most particularly when their parents are no longer living together in a loving intact relationship. It is as good as parents in a separated situation can give their 10 year old child. That speaks volumes really, in the circumstances of this case for the father as the relationship that he has with the mother is what one might describe as the polar opposite of that. That begs a number of questions. If the common denominator in the two different parenting relationships is the father, and one of the relationships is a perfectly amicable, normal, appropriate, co-parenting relationship which is child-focussed and one is not, then it has to be said that much of the responsibility for the fact that the second one, that is with the mother in this case, is not such a relationship, must, no doubt, be laid at the feet of other than the father.
I immediately concede that I am not so naïve to suggest that the father is absolved of any responsibility for the poor nature of the relationship that exists between him and the mother. Nevertheless, having said that, as I have identified he has a very good relationship with the mother of his other child, a former partner, and one wonders, I say rhetorically, why he does not have such a relationship with the mother in this case. Much of the evidence that I have seen and heard in the last two days unfortunately points in the direction of it being the mother who is the troubled party who may very well be significantly responsible for the nature of their relationship.
Speaking of her and the nature of relationships, the evidence about the nature of the child’s relationship with her mother troubles me. As I observed in the interchange between myself and Ms E, it seems as if the mother is intent on trying to be a friend rather than a parent to her children. The evidence about her relationship with her teenage daughter, B, who is now 16, makes me think that. She is more intent on trying to be B’s friend than a mother. The evidence that I have discussed with Ms E about the cruise that was planned in July of this year exemplifies the very point. Not only does it exemplify how the mother was intent on trying to impress and befriend her 16 year old daughter and B’s friends as well, it also exemplifies the lack of judgment of the mother in that she permitted her just 16 year old daughter and her friend to go on a 12 day ocean liner cruise around the south pacific without any apparent need for chaperoning or care from an adult. Additionally, in the witness box she said something like, that surprised me a little but relates to this very point, when she said she had many friends who were 18 year olds. Of course, I do not suggest that intergenerational friendships are bad but again, it just highlighted the fact that the mother potentially is trying too hard to still be a very young adult and to be friends with her teenage children and their friends rather than fulfilling appropriate adult parenting roles in their lives. I am concerned that she would maintain the same position and relationship in respect of N as she grows.
There was other evidence about the nature of her relationship with N that also troubled me greatly. There was some other evidence, the first that comes to mind, hearsay evidence as I acknowledge it to be, where shortly after the mother left and went to New South Wales from Cairns last year, the father was in communication with the administration of the school which she was taken from, whereby he was informed by the school administration that they, that is “they” collectively the administration of the school, were also worried about the child, in that parents had reported that little N, who was 6 at the time, had been seen going into local shops in Suburb H on her own, carrying a $100 note by herself apparently gathering up and purchasing groceries to the value of between $50 to $100.

The evidence also suggests to me, and I am satisfied that it happened, that the mother, in the time that she has lived in New South Wales, went away and left the child in the care of inappropriate carers; namely, she has left her in the care of the maternal grandfather on occasions. Now, whether that is for her, a 6 year old, to care for him, the frail, aged, partly demented, and I say that respectfully, 99 year old great-grandfather, or for the reverse for him to care for her, neither situation can be said to be appropriate or reflective of sound judgment and a good parenting relationship of mother and child.
Evidence also establishes that the child was left in the care of inappropriate carers in the form of 18 year old housemates, who the mother could not even ensure got out of bed in the morning to care for her child when she woke and got out of bed, and could not even ensure they got her to school that day. Just on that particular issue, I just refer to some further evidence of relevance. The circumstances relate to the time that the mother travelled back to Cairns to give evidence for Police prosecutions against her former partner, the partner she was in a relationship with just prior to her leaving Cairns. He had been charged with a criminal offence arising out a serious incident of domestic violence that had ensued just days before the mother had decided to leave Cairns, out of which he had been charged with assault occasioning bodily harm and, I understand, wilful damage to property, caused when he smashed her television and smashed up other items around the house. She says, she thought she was required to come back for one day and one night and she made arrangements for a friend, she says, who was a responsible adult, to care for her daughter in her place in her own home. She says that her stay in Queensland got extended beyond what she expected and the child had to be looked after without the mother being able to return to New South Wales for a second night. She said her friend could not look after the child for a second night, without explanation as to why, and she said the child was returned to live in the rental house that she was living in at the time with her 18 year old housemates, a young couple who were sharing with them.
It is to be noted at this stage that the mother and child had had to vacate the maternal grandfather’s house prior to Christmas last year because one of the maternal uncles had returned to Australia from England and had taken up occupation of the home and effectively required the mother and the daughter and the cats and the dog to vacate while he was present, there being a massive schism in the maternal family between them about the grandfather’s position and his financial circumstances. I will return to that as I said I would.
The evidence supports, and I find, that the mother emailed the school, which was the second school the child was attending in New South Wales after she had been taken down there, on the morning after the second night when she had stayed in the supposed care of these young adults, and told the school in the email that her child was sick and she would not be coming to school that day. The mother conceded in the witness box when confronted by me with it that that was an outright lie and that she had totally lied to the school to explain the child’s absence. The child’s absence simply being explicable because the mother had not been able to ensure that the young adults who were in the home were able to even get out of bed in the morning when the child did and to get her to school. So, to make up for that, the mother contacted the school and said she is sick and she will not be coming.
Now, to the mother’s chagrin, she got caught out on the lie because the father, knowing that the mother was back in Cairns without N, became concerned about who N might be being looked after, quite legitimately so as it seems to be so in hindsight and retrospect. He contacted the police and they did a welfare check on the child at home. The documentary evidence showing that when they got there, the child was up and about but in her nightie or pyjamas and the young adults were still sound asleep. They had to be woken and they took some time to be woken by the child. Police determined that they would take the child to school because there was no reason she was not at school. She was dressed into her school uniform and taken to school in the absence of her mother. Subsequently, it transpires, as I am satisfied, the young adults contacted the mother and told her that the police had come there and taken the child to school. Then, the mother contacted the school and told them that, effectively, if I can use layman’s terms, hold the phone on that previous email, circumstances have changed, she is not sick, she will be at school, and then tried to explain her situation of being in Cairns. As I said, in the witness box she admitted that the first email was a lie and that she had to explain herself to the school in the way that she did.
Now, whilst I am dealing with these factual matters that I outlined under the consideration of the nature of the relationship between the mother and the child, they go to a number of other considerations as well, such as attitude towards the responsibilities of parenthood, capacity for parenting appropriately and the like.
Before I leave the nature of the relationship of the child with others, I have to mention the relationships she has with her other sibling. On the evidence, it seems that she and her brother V, who is 10 years old, so not a lot older than her, get on very well. V’s mother is quite complimentary of their relationship and says that she would do anything to further that, effectively. Indeed, she said she would be quite happy, if required, to care for and help out with N in the future if she is living in the care of her dad. If she comes to live with her dad in Cairns full-time, then she will be spending a significant number of days with V, with whom she has already been spending significant number of days with over the last several years. He is her brother whom she already has a good relationship with and with whom she would be living and able to further develop that relationship.
As I said, her big sister Ms M, who is 19, also lives in the same apartment as her father and seems to have a reasonably good relationship with her, as one might expect between a 19 year old young woman and her 7 year old younger sister. There is nothing to suggest that there is anything negative about that relationship. It is one, in my view, like the one with V, worthy of cultivating and encouraging and ensuring it continues. Indeed, although the relationship between parent and child is a very significant one when the child is still a child and one worth encouraging and nurturing as much as possible, for the future, I take the view that relationships between siblings are equally, if not more important, in the long-term for a child given the natural expectation that siblings of children will survive longer in the life of the child as they grow into adulthood than their parents. Those relationships are significant and worth fostering.
She also has a good relationship though with her other sister, 16 year old B, who I have mentioned, who is her sister through the relationship with both of them sharing the same mother. B, notwithstanding what the mother says about her wanting to move to New South Wales, still lives here in Cairns and has since the mother left. She was only 15 when the mother left, but chose not to go with her. She is now 16 and still lives here and has a boyfriend here who I am told is about 18 who has long, deep family roots in the Cairns area, the father asserting it is unlikely that they would move to New South Wales.
The mother asserted, quite confidently, that 16 year old B and her 18 year old boyfriend are going to buy a house in New South Wales and they are looking to move to New South Wales. She did not really give any evidence to positively support a finding that they were able to do that and how they were able to do it and having regard to my scepticism about much of what the mother has said as truthful, I do not give much weight to the assertion that 16 year old B and her 18 year old boyfriend are looking to buy a house in New South Wales in the near future. I expect for the short term, they are going to be living in Cairns at least and that in itself is another meaningful and good relationship for N to continue.
I do not ignore or give no weight to the relationship that no doubt N has formed with her maternal great grandfather, but I put it in the context of him being substantially deaf, partly demented, 100 years old, quite frail and ill, and, quite sadly, but it is a fact of life, within a few years, his death will become a normal and natural part of growing N’s life experiences.
The next consideration is the extent to which each of the child’s parents has taken or failed to take the opportunity to participate in making decisions about major long-term issues, to spend time with the child and to communicate with the child. In this case, the mother was given sole parental responsibility. The mother made it absolutely clear what she understood that to mean, that the father had no parental rights and she gave him no opportunity or permission or chance to participate in making any major decisions about the child, especially in respect of moving from Cairns to New South Wales, notwithstanding an injunction restraining her from doing so.
As I have said, the father certainly has impressed with the effort he has made to spend time with the child and to communicate with her over the years leading up to when she was taken from Cairns to New South Wales, but also in the time since. I do acknowledge and give some credit to the mother who certainly said, yes, I want the relationship to continue and who did facilitate time between father and child in the school holidays since last year. But I have to say, that was done in the context of being under the microscope of the Court knowing that the father had an application to bring her back; knowing the father had a contravention on foot for some time before he withdrew it; and knowing these proceedings were pending and one of the matters that the Court would have to seriously consider in its determination is whether or not she had been facilitating time between child and father if she was to have any prospect of remaining in New South Wales with the child.
Nothing under this particular consideration and none of the evidence causes me any concern about the father’s position vis-à-vis the child that would worry me in terms of putting the child in his care. He is very keen to be a father to this little girl and he has demonstrated that in the past.
The next consideration is the extent to which each of the child’s parents has fulfilled or failed to fulfil the parent’s obligations to maintain the child. It is quite clear that the mother is financially challenged if I can use that expression. She owned a home though in Suburb F, apparently paying a mortgage on it, though she was not employed. My understanding is that she is a qualified health professional, she gave some evidence about that in her affidavit, but I do not know how long it is since she has actually worked in the field, certainly in the last several years she has been parenting the child and surviving on Centrelink benefits to the best of my knowledge. She owned a home at Suburb F as I have said, but the evidence, particularly photos the father adduced into evidence that he took shortly after she vacated that home showed that that home was in a terrible state of disrepair and uncleanliness and mess which reflects, sadly, very poorly on the mother’s desires to maintain a clean and healthy household for herself and the child and capacity to do so. Nevertheless at the same time, the mother who I understand has a cigarette smoking habit and serious drinking habit, has been able to spend money, and no doubt substantial amounts of money, on purchasing alcohol and cigarettes to meet those habits whereas at the same time was unable to afford several hundred dollars that were needed to cause the septic tank to be unblocked so that she and the child had a toilet system in their house that they could actually use.
I am also very concerned about the mother’s financial position vis-à-vis the status of her living arrangements in New South Wales. Without going too much into it, she is currently in receipt of a carer’s pension given the fact that she is looking after her 100 year old grandfather. There has been significant disputes between her and her mother and her maternal uncles who seem to suggest that she is motivated by nothing but greed and financial gain and lack of any desire to properly care for their father at all. She is also in dispute with the independent and objective carers who were provided and in place caring for her grandfather before she travelled down. There is evidence that she took him to a JP and caused him to revoke his enduring power of attorney in favour of his children and that she was able to then cause financial decisions to be made for him for some time.
According to the evidence I have seen, the uncles and her mother actually accuse her of inappropriately taking funds from their father’s account during the course of last year. Evidence apparently lead the New South Wales Civil and Administration Tribunal to put in place orders appointing the public guardian as the grandfather’s guardian and a separate person as a financial trustee or guardian for him. The evidence I have seen now is that the mother has to rely on making written requests to the trustee to be allocated funds each week which at the moment are limited to $200 per week by which she can go and buy food and groceries and supplies for the house out of which she is said to support the grandfather. Nevertheless there is other evidence that suggests that her level of care for the grandfather is still neglectful and some might say abusive. I do not wish to go into that much more save to say that the mother herself acknowledged that the tenure that she has in the home as his carer is completely limited to the length of time that he has left remaining living independently with her assistance in his home. If he passed away, she would have to move out; if he moves into a nursing home, one would expect that she would have to move out. The question of her carer status would also come into play.
She did not indicate any intention to get a job that I saw or heard. I am also rather confused about her position in respect of child support, in that she told the Court that she had waived the need for the father to pay child support in return for him using that money to pay for the airfares to travel to see the child or to have the child travel to Cairns. He tells the Court that when she went down, she made an application based on then having 100% care and responsibility for the child, his child support was increased and he had to pay child support over the last year until just recently a few weeks back when the mother, needing money to come to Cairns for this hearing, was able to offer him some respite in terms of child support, or at least take a payment to pay for her trip to Cairns in lieu of or in meeting some arrears of child support that he was in.
On the other hand, while the details of the father’s financial circumstances are not entirely clear, he was not asked questions about what his current level of income is; that may have been, if I can use the word, strategic on the part of Counsel for the ICL. I mean by that, she may not necessarily have wanted to expose the father’s income situation to the mother. I am satisfied that he is in a financial situation where he can adequately care for the child from the income he generates in his roofing/plumbing business that according to him is growing and going from strength to strength as time goes by at the moment.
The next consideration is the likely effect of any change on the child’s circumstances, including the likely effect on the child of the separation of either of his or her parents or any other child. On the father’s case and the ICL’s case, the child moving back to Cairns would simply be restoring her to the situation that she knew before she left; that is, the place where she was born, the place where, until the middle of last year, she had spent all of the six years of her young life, the place where she was attending school, where she no doubt had peers. There was no suggestion that she did not enjoy that school. There was no suggestion that she had bad relationships with other children at the school. Indeed she seems to be an outgoing, popular little girl. I did read some evidence that in one of the schools she moved to in New South Wales, she was nominated to be class captain, even though she had only been there a little while.
Of course that begs a number of questions but nevertheless my point here is that if I make an order that she lives with her father, the change, as dramatic as it might be in respect of moving her from her mother’s full-time care, is not going to be changing her to something that she does not know. She certainly knows her father’s care, she knows the environment within which she will be living with him, she knows the suburb, she knows the place, she knows the people that will be around her (her brother, her sisters), she knows the other children at the school the father says he intends putting her back into, and she knows (presumably) Ms L, who she might come into contact with from time to time. The upheaval that she will experience from being moved will be significantly lessened by the fact that she will be coming into a situation that she is already aware of.
I do accept that she will experience some emotional trauma being separated from her mother in such circumstances, particularly given her mother’s decision not to move back to Cairns at the same time to make herself available to see her. That is her mother’s decision. I must say, rightly or wrongly, that causes me to think that her mother accepts that the child will cope with the upheaval and the separation from her and the placement back with her father in circumstances where the mother has no intention to follow. If she had the view that the child would not cope, one might think that she would come and move back to Cairns herself. She cannot move back into the same house as she sold it but she could move back to Cairns and make herself available to spend time with the child. She is not doing that, so she must be satisfied the child will cope satisfactorily and in any event, even if she is not, I am.
Now, I am going to jump over the practical difficulty and expense of the child spending time with a parent because I will come back to that.
I am going to go to the capacity of each of the child’s parents to provide for the needs of the child, including emotional and intellectual needs. As I have said, I do not for the moment suggest the father is a perfect father – there are not too many of them around. I do not for the moment think he is a perfect human being. There are not too many of them around either. As I have said, I am satisfied that he has sufficient capacity to be a good enough parent to care for this child on a full-time basis going ahead.
In contrast, I have struggled through the reading of the evidence in this case before I came to Cairns, through the hearing of the evidence and the observation of the mother in the witness box, the hearing of the cross-examination of her and most particularly the reading of the subpoenaed documents to convince myself that the mother has the capacity to provide for the emotional and intellectual needs and other needs of the child. I am satisfied, as was Ms E, that the mother has a serious alcohol dependency. I have no doubt about that. I think she probably has, as I have said, a serious nicotine dependency as well. I also question and have serious concerns about the prospect of her having a dependency on drugs; that is, prescription drugs, which she readily concedes in her material she takes on a regular basis for anxiety and depression and those sorts of things, and, potentially, illicit drugs, given the sort of chaotic lifestyle that she has been leading.

So all of that evidence establishes, as I have said, the complete inability of the mother to resist drinking alcohol, to take responsibility for her poor decisions, to actually make sensible and reasonable decisions instead of poor ones, the complete disregard and disrespect she has for the law, for Courts of law, and for the Orders that Courts make. I struggled, when listening to her and asking her questions about how this Court could expect that in future she will respect its orders and abide by them, to accept her positive assertions that the Court could, simply by reference to her past experience (she said well I always obeyed the orders in the past up until the middle of last year). Her demonstrated lack of regard for law and for Courts over the last year or so is seriously troubling and indicative of what I find is just a general lack of respect for the law and its application to her that the mother has.
There is another very serious aspect of the mother’s incapacity to provide for the needs of the child and that demonstrate that she has a poor attitude to the responsibilities of parenthood, which is another of the considerations under subsection (3), and it relates to the child’s schooling.
I asked the mother in the witness box whether she valued education for the child and she said “yes” that she did. I actually do not accept that and consider that it was a straight out lie. I know that most parents would have to have some semblance of respect for education in this day and age, but generally you can determine how real a person’s respect for education and the value of that for their child is by simply looking at their behaviour in respect of the child’s education in the past.
Now, the records of the child’s schools, the many that she has been to – three I have to say. I say many but remember this child’s only 7. The three schools she has been to – one in Queensland and two in New South Wales the time that she was there –between January 2017 and July 2018, so over 18 months, were before the Court. Those records reflect that N missed 61 full days of school and 3 part days. Between July 2018 and the end of the year when she moved to New South Wales, she missed 29 full days. For the first part of this year, she missed 24 full days and 9 part days. So the mother’s attitude, demonstrated by what I said earlier about her contacting the school and lying to them about getting her to school, is that education is of secondary importance to the child.
That was further demonstrated by her booking herself and the child and her other daughter, B, on the cruise that was to leave Australia and be away for 12 days from the very start of school term in July this year. The mother seemed to think, well, she’s young enough that it doesn’t matter. That might very well be the case if the history of the child’s attendance at school demonstrated otherwise that the mother did truly value education and perhaps saw the child going on a cruise perhaps as an extension of her education, but I very much doubt that that was what was motivating the mother in wanting to take the child on this particular cruise in July during school term.
I have got no cause to believe that the father’s attitude to education is similar to the mother’s. There is nothing that suggests that he does not seriously value education. Indeed, I was impressed today, in the exchange between him and I, where he made it clear that he was quite prepared to ensure that the child is re-enrolled at Suburb H State School if she was to come live with him and that she will attend at Suburb H, even though his son, V, goes to another school which I think I recall was called T School, which is some 10 minutes away, when he initially had said something in his material about the two of them potentially going to the same school. I got a sense that he does value education, sees the value in sending the child back to the school that she was attending before and is familiar with and will ensure that her attitude towards school and education is one of respect, understanding of its benefits and value and that she continues to go, except on days in which she is so ill that she simply just cannot go.
One of the other remaining considerations is whether it would be preferable to make the order that would be least likely to lead to the institution of further proceedings in relation to child. I am satisfied in this case that the order most likely to lead to the further institution of further proceedings in relation to the child would be one leaving the child in the mother’s care in New South Wales, especially where her tenure in her grandfather’s home is not clear and we just do not know what the future brings for the mother in New South Wales, whereas the stability that pervades the father’s life is more than likely to lead him to want to commence further proceedings in respect of N if she was to stay in her mother’s chaotic, unpredictable care.
It is my intention at this stage, satisfied that it is in the child’s best interests to do so, to make an order that she, from this day on, lives with her father in Cairns. Now, that’s easily implemented as is already clear because she is already here today and pursuant to the arrangements that were made this morning following on from me making a Recovery Order that in the end did not have to be issued, she is already now in the father’s care, albeit in his de facto care through the child being cared for by one or other of his adult children as I understand it, or at least someone known to him.
The serious matter that I then have to consider of course is what contact or time the child should have with the mother.
Now, there was some serious discussion about this, particularly when Ms E gave her evidence this morning. I was quite concerned, before I heard from Ms E, about the notion of making an order for supervised time with the mother, simply because I am concerned that the mother will not be able to afford to travel to Queensland or will not prioritise the cost of travelling to Queensland to see her child. If she has to have supervised time with the child, she will not prioritise the cost of that if it is private. Supervision at a children’s Contact Centre run by a non-government organisation is not so good because they usually only offer a couple of hours every fortnight and the positions are rarely available or are hard to come by. So there are a number of considerations.
However, when Ms E gave her evidence, she expressed some serious concerns about the mother’s capacity, having regard to her dependency on alcohol and her inability to emotionally regulate, to provide safe, stable, adequate, good enough care for N when she is with her. Indeed, Ms E made it clear that she did not favour unsupervised time, quite strongly so, if I can respectfully say that. She had read and learned a lot of the things that I have spoken about already and no doubt, although we did not talk about it, was of a similar view to me in respect of what I call the “iceberg theory”.
This little girl is not yet of an age where she can really protect take steps to protect herself – and in the social milieu in which the mother is mixing, with the lack of judgment the mother demonstrates, with her problematic dependence upon alcohol that can sometimes completely black her out - the child is at some very, very significant risk of physical, psychological, sexual harm. The very fact that the mother’s relationship with her last boyfriend had as much violence in it as it did is terribly concerning having regard to the types of relationships that the mother forms, potentially on a very short term basis or on a longer term basis.
As difficult as it is to make an order that the child should only have supervised time with the mother, in the circumstances of this case, that is what I intend to do, having regard to Ms E’s evidence. That is what the father was urging upon me and, indeed, ultimately what the Independent Children’s Lawyer submitted was in the best interests of the child.
Ultimately, again I say, I am not in a position where I can actually set out by orders the exact sort of supervised orders that the mother is to have, save to say, again, accepting some evidence that Ms E gave, that the father has demonstrated that he should very well have the capacity to put the child’s best interests first, not in a spiteful way restrict and prevent time between child and mother simply to meet his own needs or in some sort of vengeful way, but rather to act in a child-focused way, realising that it is important for her to have an ongoing relationship with her mother, as flawed as some of the mother’s parenting might potentially be and to determine in that vein the type of the time and the circumstances of supervision in the future, whether that be here in Cairns, whether it be down in Sydney where he has relatives, members of his family, whether it be in the J Region.
I am minded at this stage to accept all of that and to make orders that provide for the child to spend supervised time with her mother, supervised by a person or persons that the parents agree upon, certainly on terms that the parents agree upon, with the time to proceed to unsupervised time at the discretion of the father after he takes advice from appropriately qualified professionals.
In all the circumstances that I have outlined and for all those reasons, I am going to make the following orders, satisfied that they are proper and in the child’s best interests.
I was asked to give consideration to putting the child on the Family Law Watchlist. I do not think there is a need. The father will have the child’s passport, the mother will not be able to remove her from the country, she will not be able to apply for a passport from say, the UK, as was discussed. She would need the father’s permission to do that and she is not going to have her in her care in such a way that she can remove her from the country unless the father actually lets her have her in her care in those circumstances and that is not going to happen for a long time and I do not have any concern that she needs to be on the Watchlist to be protected from removal from the country by her mother and similarly, I do not have any fear or concern that she is at some sort of unacceptable risk of being removed from the country by the father.

I certify that the preceding one hundred and twenty (120) paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for judgment of the Honourable Justice Forrest delivered on 24 September 2019.

Associate:

Date: 1 December 2020

[2019] FamCA 1061

Key Legal Topics

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Family Law

Statutory Interpretation

Legal Concepts

Injunction

Breach

Jurisdiction

Remedies