Question
of the week Question of the week

Curious. Interesting. Informative.

16 March 2018

The needle and the damage done

Family Law
Federal

Asked

Family Law - Orders for supervised contact

Our client is in the early stages of preparing a proposal to her ex for consent orders for children and property. Before we sent him any correspondence he abused her and she has since taken out an AVO to protect herself and their children from him.

How are AVO's dealt with in children's consent orders? What do we propose to him? Initially she wanted to give him supervised contact once a week. He is an alcoholic and a suspected drug user.

Answered

Thank you for the question.

Your client may wish to propose a regime of supervised visits, dependent on regular drug testing. If these are successful for say 3 months, she could then agree to more time, but still supervised. Cases such as Lendrum & Carriel [2010] FMCAfam 1322 and Cannon & Cannon [2010] FMCAfam 681 may help with drafting. They provide for regimes of drug testing and self-executing orders in terms of time with children in the event of failed drug tests.

Generally, the court acts protectively in circumstances where there are allegations of family violence and he could expect orders such as the ones proposed above, on an interim basis, if your client put her allegations about his behaviour in an affidavit.

If the parties do ultimately reach agreement and enter into consent orders, your client will need to identify the risk on the Application for Consent Orders form and file an additional document. As of 1 March 2018, changes came into effect in relation to consent orders in the Family Court. A new form was added - Notice of Child Abuse, Family Violence or Risk of Family Violence (Application for Consent Orders) must be filed with the Application for Consent Orders if parenting orders are sought and a party has said, as your client presumably will at item 25 of the application, that there has been, or is a risk of child abuse, neglect or family violence.

If the parenting order made is inconsistent with the AVO, see s 68Q.

Regards,

Mentor