Enforcing your parenting arrangements

Informal agreements and parenting plans

Informal agreements and parenting plans are not legally enforceable.

If the other parent breaches this type of agreement, you must follow the usual process for resolving parenting disputes and comply with the pre-action procedures, unless you are exempt.

You must:

• attempt a type of mediation called Family Dispute Resolution, and
• write to your ex-partner to identify the issues still in dispute, make a genuine attempt at resolving your dispute, and state the orders you will seek if you apply for parenting orders.

For more information, see Family law mediation.

If you have followed the pre-action procedures and still can’t reach an agreement, you may be able to apply for parenting orders. Parenting orders are legally enforceable. If a parent breaches parenting orders without a reasonable excuse, the Court can enforce the orders and penalise the parent in breach.

For more information, see Going to court.

Consent orders and parenting orders

If you have parenting orders, you and the other parent must comply with every order that affects you. This includes taking all reasonable steps to comply with an order.

You will breach a parenting order if you:

• intentionally fail to comply with the order
• make no reasonable attempt to comply with the order
• intentionally prevent a person who is bound by an order from complying with it, or
• aid or abet a person who is bound by an order to breach it.

This includes consent orders and orders made by a Judge after a contested hearing.

For more information about your legal obligations under your parenting orders, see Parenting orders.

If you believe the other parent has breached a parenting order, you must follow the usual process for resolving parenting disputes and comply with the pre-action procedures, unless you are exempt. This includes attending mediation.

Mediation offers you and the other parent the opportunity to address any issues that may be causing the breach or misunderstandings about how your orders operate.

You should also arrange mediation if you want to change your parenting orders. While you are negotiating a new parenting arrangement, you must continue to follow the existing parenting orders and meet your legal obligations under those orders.

If you can’t resolve your dispute at mediation, or you are exempt from mediation, you may be able to make a contravention application to the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia.

If you think you might have breached a parenting order, you should get legal advice.

There are serious consequences for breaching a parenting order without a reasonable excuse.           

A court can order the parent in breach to:

• attend a post-separation parenting program
• give the other parent make-up time
• pay compensation to the other parent
• enter into a bond
• participate in community service
• pay a fine
• go to gaol
• pay the other parents’ legal costs.

For more information, see Children: Compliance and enforcement on the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia website.

Overseas parenting orders

Australia has agreements with several countries that allow you to register parenting orders made in those countries so that they can be enforced in Australia. You can find a list of these countries in Schedule 1A of the Family Law Regulations 1984 (Cth).

Overseas orders can be registered if one of the following people live in Australia:

• you or the other parent
• your child
• a person who has the right to have your child live with them, the right of custody or access to your child, or the right to spend time with your child.

You can send a written request to have your orders registered to the International Family Law Section of the Attorney-General’s Department. You will need to provide:

• three certified copies of the orders, and
• a certificate signed by an officer of a court or by some other authority in the country in which the order was made relating to the order stating that the order is enforceable in the overseas jurisdiction at the date of the certificate.

You should post your documents to:

International Family Law Section
Attorney-General's Department
3–5 National Circuit
BARTON ACT 2600
AUSTRALIA

The Attorney-General’s Department will send your documents to a Registrar to be filed with the court and registered.

Once your parenting orders are registered, they are in force and have the same effect as orders made in Australia. They can be enforced like orders made in Australia until their registration is cancelled. As such, everyone who is a party to the orders must follow the orders while they are in force.

For more information, see Overseas child custody and access orders on the Attorney-General’s Department website.