QALE & QALE

[2021] FCCA 506

FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT OF AUSTRALIA

QALE & QALE [2021] FCCA 506

Catchwords:
FAMILY LAW – PROPERTY – Property dispute after 16 year marriage – parties having no assets at commencement and achieving significant property holdings at conclusion – wife seeing to retain matrimonial home for the benefit of 13 year old autistic son – court finding parties contributions and future needs equal – whether superannuation split appropriate – just and equitable that each side retain their superannuation.

Cases cited:

Mallet v Mallet (1984) 156 CLR 605

Palumbo & Mandel [2019] FamCAFC 228

Stanford & Stanford (2012) 247 CLR 108

Applicant: MS QALE

Respondent: MR QALE

File Number: DGC 2120 of 2019

Judgment of: Judge Burchardt

Hearing date: 5 & 17 February 2021

Date of Last Submission: 17 February 2021

Delivered at: Dandenong

Delivered on: 19 March 2021

REPRESENTATION

Counsel for the Applicant: Mr P

Solicitors for the Applicant: Erol Cinar Lawyers

Counsel for the Respondent: Ms Goldthorp

Solicitors for the Respondent: Barbayannis Lawyers Pty Ltd

ORDERS

1. The matter be adjourned to this court for mention before Judge Burchardt on 25 March 2021 at 9.30 am.

IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment under the pseudonym Qale & Qale is approved pursuant to s.121(9)(g) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).

FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT
OF AUSTRALIA
AT MELBOURNE

DGC 2120 of 2019

MS QALE

Applicant

And

MR QALE

Respondent

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

1. This is a property dispute between parties who were married 2002 and separated on 1 March 2018.  The parties have an agreed spend-time regime for their two children, X and Y, both of whom were born 2007.  In effect, the children spend equal time with each of their parents.  X is autistic and Y has Asperger’s syndrome.

2. The applicant wife seeks an equal division of the parties’ property, albeit structured in a fashion to enable her to retain the former matrimonial home, for reasons I will expand on in due course.  The respondent husband seeks a 56/44 division in his favour, and does not shy away from the sale of the former matrimonial home should that be thought otherwise appropriate.

3. For the reasons that follow, I think it is just and equitable that the parties should receive 50 per cent of the entirety of the pool, including each retaining their superannuation.

Agreed or Uncontroversial Matters

1. The husband was born 1971 and the wife 1973.  They did not cohabit before their marriage in 2002. They separated in 2018.

2. The husband worked for a number of years for Employer A, both in Sydney and in Melbourne, and was technically employed by Employer A from 2003 until December 2016.  However, in about 2014, he was the victim, as he himself put it, of a concerted campaign of bullying which caused him to become unwell and, it would appear, despite some equivocation in his oral evidence, that he may not have actually worked very much until his employment was finally ended in December 2016, when he received a redundancy payment of some…