SELWOOD & SELWOOD

The Family Court of Australia considered an application by Ms Selwood (the applicant wife) to vary existing child maintenance orders against Mr Selwood (the respondent husband). The dispute centred on the allocation of costs associated with the extensive medical and rehabilitative treatment required by the parties' 13-year-old son, B, who suffers from mild cerebral palsy. B's treatment involved a surgical procedure in Sydney, necessitating travel and accommodation expenses for B, his mother, and his younger sister, C, who accompanied B for support. The parties were unable to agree on how these costs, along with other medical expenses, should be borne.

The primary legal issue before the court was whether the existing child maintenance orders, specifically those made by consent on 23 September 2010, were "not proper or adequate" and whether the circumstances of the child had changed so as to justify a variation. The court was required to determine if it had the jurisdiction to modify the consent orders, which had previously addressed the maintenance of private health cover and the husband's responsibility for medical and education expenses incurred by the wife on a credit card. The wife sought orders for the husband to contribute to specific medical and related expenses for B's surgery, while the husband sought the dismissal of these claims.

Justice Dawe found that the application should be treated as an application to vary the existing child maintenance orders under section 66S of the *Family Law Act 1975* (Cth). The court reasoned that the significant medical needs of B, which had evolved since the original consent orders were made, constituted a change in circumstances justifying a review. The court noted that the parties had implicitly accepted its jurisdiction to make orders regarding these expenses, even if they did not frame them explicitly as child or spousal maintenance. The court applied the principles of section 66S, which permits the modification of existing child maintenance orders where they are no longer proper or adequate due to changed circumstances.

The court ordered that the husband pay one half of the total medical, travel, and accommodation costs incurred by the wife and both children in relation to B's medical treatment, provided the wife produced receipts to the husband's solicitor within 14 days of incurring such costs, including those incurred since 1 January 2013. Furthermore, the parties were ordered to take all necessary steps to maintain the existing level of private health cover with Medibank Private, with the husband to meet the expense of this cover. The question of costs for the application was reserved.