Loh and Kalliou

In the Family Court of Australia, Justice Dessau considered an application by Ms Loh (the applicant wife) for permission to travel with her 10-year-old son to Malaysia, and an amended application by Mr Kalliou (the respondent husband) for final orders. The central dispute concerned the husband's fear that the wife would not return the child to Australia if he travelled to Malaysia, given the parties' acrimonious history and the wife's ties to Malaysia.

The court was required to determine whether it was in the child's best interests to travel to Malaysia with his mother, and if so, on what conditions. This involved assessing the risk of the child not being returned to Australia, the adequacy of proposed security for his return, and the impact of any decision on the child's relationships with both parents and his cultural heritage. The court also considered applications for costs.

Justice Dessau found that while it would generally be in the child's best interests to experience his mother's home country, there was a sufficient risk of him not being returned to Australia. This risk was heightened by the mother's lack of substantial ties to Australia, the financial influence of her parents, her sister's return to Malaysia, and the strains of ongoing litigation. The mother's offer of $20,000 as security was deemed inadequate given the expert evidence on the difficulties and costs of securing a child's return from Malaysia. Consequently, the court dismissed the wife's application for permission to travel with the child.

The court ordered that the wife's application be dismissed and the husband's amended application be adjourned for a future hearing. No orders for costs were made, with Justice Dessau finding that while the husband was successful, the wife had not brought her application frivolously, and ordering costs against her would be unduly harsh given her financial position as a full-time student. The court also declined to award costs against the wife for a previous hearing, noting concerns about the husband's handling of that matter.