Parental Responsibility

In parenting matters, the starting point is that there is a presumption that both parents have equal shared parental responsibility.

This means that you, as co-parents, need to make all decisions relating to the long-term care and welfare of your child together. These decisions include, but are not limited to:

1.     Living arrangements;

2.     Education;

3.     Health;

4.     Religion; and

5.     Any decision that makes it harder for the child to spend time with either parent.

The presumption can only be overturned if there are reasonable grounds to believe that a parent has engaged in abuse of the child or family violence. This is a difficult threshold to overturn, so most of our work involves finding ways for parents to navigate co-parenting and joint decision making after separating.

Parenting Arrangements

Parenting arrangements can be worked out in a number of ways to suit your circumstances.

If you and your child’s other parent are able to communicate effectively and make decisions in an ad hoc way based on yours and your child’s needs/commitments, you may not require any sort of agreement to make parenting decisions.

If you find it difficult to make decisions together, having a semi-formal or binding agreement is often the best option to provide consistency for your child.

There are 2 ways to formalise parenting arrangements by agreement:

1.     Parenting Plan – this is a non-binding agreement and is a lot more flexible than Court Orders. It can be as broad or specific as you like and is a good option if your child is older, or if you and the other parent are able to communicate about your child without high conflict.

2.     Consent Orders – this is a binding Court Order which you and the other parent enter into by consent. It can cover living arrangements, holiday time, overseas travel, approaches to health, religion and education, passports and more to give you an enforceable set of Orders you can rely on.

Applying to Court for Orders

If you and the other parent are unable to reach agreement, we can represent you to make a Parenting Application to the Federal Circuit Court or Family Court of Australia.

Above all else, the Court must make decisions in the best interests of the child. The Court’s primary considerations are:

1.     The benefit to the child of having a meaningful relationship with both parents; and

2.     The need to protect the child from psychical or psychological harm from being subjected to, or exposed to, abuse, neglect or family violence.

To learn more about children’s matters and parenting arrangements, please contact our team at Littles Family Lawyers.