Talk:Australian family law

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Australian family law is part of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.
Stub	This article has been rated as Stub-class on the quality scale.
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.
Article Grading: The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.
	This article is supported by WikiProject Australian law.
WikiProject Australia To-do: edit  Here are some tasks you can do to help with WikiProject Australia: The current Australian collaboration of the fortnight article is Torres Strait Islanders. Requests: Bicentennial Heritage Trail, Daintree Reef, George Adams, Insurance in Australia, Poppy Industries, Sports Rorts affair, State Orchestra of Victoria, Yarmirr v Northern Territory Attention: Aboriginal Protection Act, Australian Payments Clearing Association, Coral Sea Islands, Qantas, Peter Foster, Reg Ansett Expand: Barossa Valley, Coorong, South Australia, List of Australian military memorials, Palm Island, Queensland, Rossiter Bay Juanita Coco Stubs: Australian Racing Museum Australian women's cricket team, Barry McKenzie, Calgardup Bay, Western Australia, Mortein, Prospect Creek, Russian Jack, Yabbying, Younghusband, South Australia Images: Darwin beer-can regatta, Darwin International Airport, Dingo Fence, Driza-Bone, Eucalyptus coolabah, Esky, Four'N Twenty Pie Quality watch: 37 FA-Class Australia articles - 21 GA-Class Australia articles.

[edit] Missing bits

Whoever decides to edit this article next could incorporate discussion of these concepts:

• no fault divorce
• Federal Government's constitutional power, and state schemes of property division for de facto partners

Discussion on the recent amendment to the Marriage Act to the exclusion of same-sex couples would also be pertinent. Sambo 14:38, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding Australian family law to Family Court info

It would not, particularly with the current reforms and the expanded family law jurisdiction being given to the Federal Magistrates Court, be prudent or useful to consolidate information on family law under the Family Court. Doing so would incorrectly imply that the Family Court is the only court in the country that deals with family law, which it is not. Indeed the Federal Magistrates Court currently handles ALL divorces for example and as mentioned above is about to begin exercising even greater family law jurisdiction than it currently has.

The Family Court of Australia is only one of several courts that exercises jurisdiction under the Family Law Act and even then it does not exercise original jurisdiction in Western Australia which has its own Family Court as that state chose not to refer its powers to the Commonwealth when the Family Court of Australia was established. And in the Northern Territory, the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory and the Fanily Court share concurrent original jurisdiction under the Act.

The Family Court, however, is the superior Court and will remain so but it is wrong to assume it is the primary court for dealing with family law - particularly after 1 July 2006 when that will no longer be true. After that date the Family Court will be streamlined into a specialist court dealing with only the most complex and difficult family law cases (roughly 7-10 per cent of all family law matters) while the FMC will handle most if not all of the general family law. Not to mention that community-based dispute resolution will also increase under the reforms.

Can I suggest that you maintain Australian family law as a separate section which contains information on the Family Law Act and its establishment, and separate sections for the main courts that exercise jurisdiction under the Act, ie Family Court, FMC, Family Court WA?

---

I agree with the above comments. Nicholas Allan, lawyer, Farrar Gesini & Dunn 05:31, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Same - agreed. But I do want to ask whether "Family Law" should include defacto relationships, including same sex relationships Joe Petersen, lawyer 15:32, 05 September 2006 (AEST)