Case Study: When will a court change parenting orders?

There were final parenting consent orders, made when Jake was 8 years old, that Jake should live with his mother, Amber, in Canberra. When Jake was 15 years old, his father Harry applied to change the orders because Jake had ‘more than 50 times’ told Harry that he wanted to live with him in Melbourne.  

There is a firm rule in family law that final parenting orders can’t be varied unless both parents agree, or there is a significant change of circumstances that justifies the serious step of re-opening a parenting court battle. 

Interestingly, the court said that, in principle, the strongly held views of a 15-year-old about where they lived did qualify as ‘significant change of circumstance’. In this case though, the court was not convinced that Jake did, in fact, hold strong views, but rather just wanted to please his Dad, whom he clearly loved. There was concern, also, that a history of violence by Harry raised issues about whether Harry was a good role model. The court decided, on balance, that it wasn’t in Jake’s interests to be involved in a new court case between his parents in the last two years of his education, and so Harry’s application was dismissed.

Reece & Seabrook [2020] FCCA 1588 https://bit.ly/30MPQJA 

Names are pseudonyms