Children’s matters in Australian family law
Separation brings practical questions about care, communication, schooling and long-term decisions. Australian parenting law changed significantly in May 2024, making it especially important to understand the current framework.
The better starting point is this: there is no automatic rule that parents must have equal decision-making or equal time. If a Court is asked to decide, it must focus on what arrangements are in the best interests of the particular child.
Choose the issue you need help with
Parental responsibility
Understand responsibility for major long-term decisions and how joint decision-making can be ordered.
Read guide → AgreementParenting plans
How written parenting plans work, what they can cover and why they are different from Court orders.
Read guide → Living arrangementsWho the child lives with
Modern family law uses “lives with”, “spends time with” and “communicates with” rather than the old custody terminology.
Read guide → TimeTime with each parent
There is no automatic equal-time rule. The focus is the arrangement that best meets the child’s needs and safety.
Read guide → Financial supportChild support
How Services Australia calculates support using income, care percentages and the statutory costs of children.
Read guide → Common questionsParenting FAQs
Practical answers about care arrangements, communication, decision-making and what happens when parents disagree.
Read guide → Urgent / overseasInternational child abduction
What to know where a child may be taken overseas or not returned to Australia.
Read guide → Extended familyGrandparents & others
Grandparents and other people concerned with a child’s care, welfare and development can apply for parenting orders.
Read below →The child’s best interests come first
When the Court makes parenting orders, the child’s best interests are the paramount consideration.
The current law asks the Court to consider matters including:
- what arrangements promote the child’s safety, including safety from family violence, abuse, neglect and other harm;
- the child’s views, taking account of their maturity and understanding;
- the child’s developmental, psychological, emotional and cultural needs;
- the capacity of each proposed carer to meet those needs;
- the benefit of relationships with parents and other significant people where safe; and
- anything else relevant to the child’s particular circumstances.
Parental responsibility does not mean automatic shared decision-making
“Parental responsibility” means the duties, powers, responsibilities and authority that parents have in relation to children.
The old presumption of equal shared parental responsibility was removed from the Family Law Act on 6 May 2024.
A Court can still order joint decision-making about specified major long-term issues, but it does so because that arrangement is in the child’s best interests — not because the law starts with a presumption that decision-making must be shared.
No automatic 50/50 parenting arrangement
Equal time is not an automatic starting point.
A child might live mainly with one parent and spend regular time with the other. Another child may have a more evenly shared arrangement. The right arrangement depends on the particular family.
The terms commonly used in parenting orders are:
- who the child lives with;
- who the child spends time with;
- how the child communicates with another person; and
- how parental responsibility for particular decisions is allocated.
Most parents do not need a Judge to decide everything
Parents who can reach agreement may use:
- an informal practical arrangement;
- a written parenting plan; or
- consent orders approved by the Court.
A parenting plan can be flexible and useful, but it is not legally enforceable in the same way as a parenting order. Consent orders are Court orders and must be followed.
Family Dispute Resolution usually comes before Court
Except in limited circumstances, a person who wants to start parenting proceedings must first attempt Family Dispute Resolution.
If the matter does not resolve, an accredited FDR practitioner may issue a section 60I certificate, depending on what occurred. That certificate is generally needed when filing a parenting application unless an exemption applies.
Exemptions may be relevant in cases involving urgency, family violence, child abuse or other circumstances recognised by the legislation.
Safety can change the process
If there are allegations or risks of family violence, abuse, neglect or serious harm, safety becomes central to both the parenting outcome and the Court process.
Parenting arrangements do not have to maximise contact where that would expose a child or another person to unacceptable risk.
Urgent Court applications and exemptions from ordinary dispute-resolution steps may be available in appropriate cases.
Grandparents and other important people
Grandparents do not have an automatic right to a particular amount of time with a grandchild.
However, a grandparent — or another person concerned with the care, welfare and development of a child — can apply for parenting orders.
The Court still decides the application by reference to the child’s best interests.
Child support is separate from parenting arrangements
Parenting time and child support interact through the care percentage used in the child-support formula, but they remain legally separate systems.
A disagreement about child support does not by itself justify withholding time with a child, and a parenting dispute does not automatically change a Services Australia assessment.
The simple way to think about it
There is no one-size-fits-all parenting formula
The law does not start with “mother versus father”, automatic 50/50 time or a presumption of equal shared parental responsibility. It starts with the individual child: what is safe, workable and in that child’s best interests.