Rodgers and Howe

In *Rodgers and Howe*, heard in the District Court, the dispute concerned parenting arrangements for two children, a son born in January 1996 and a daughter born in March 1999. The father sought orders for the children to live with him for a significant portion of school term, while the mother sought to maintain the existing arrangements.

The court was required to determine the primary issue of where the children would live, and the extent of each parent's time with them. A further issue was the nature of parental responsibility to be allocated between the parents, and whether specific arrangements, such as attendance at church, should be mandated.

Faulks DCJ ordered that the children would live with their father for the first week of any fourteen-day period during school term, from Thursday after school until Tuesday morning, with the father responsible for transport to and from school. Otherwise, the children would live with their mother. The court also ordered that the parents would have equal shared parental responsibility for the children. Existing orders from 26 June 2006 were to apply otherwise. The father was also ordered to take the children to morning church service on Sundays, unless both parents agreed otherwise.