AZC20 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs

Part XIVB of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) makes it an offence, except in very limited circumstances, to publish an account of proceedings that identify persons, associated persons, or witnesses involved in family law proceedings.

IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment by this Court under the pseudonym Tamas & Spanou has been approved pursuant to subsection 114Q(2) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).

1. These reasons explain the summary dismissal of the husband's application for leave to appeal from interim financial orders made by a judge of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2) on 7 May 2025.

1. Proceedings between the parties for financial relief under Pt VIII of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) ("the Act") were commenced by the wife in 2024.
2. As the proceedings progressed towards trial in July 2025, numerous interim orders were made, though it is only necessary to mention those that are now relevant.
3. On 7 February 2025, a judge conditionally appointed the wife as the sole trustee for the sale of a parcel of real property at Suburb B, Qld ("the Qld property") (Order 2).
4. The parties then fell into disagreement about whether the conditions were fulfilled for the invocation of the trustee for sale order, causing a flurry of interlocutory applications which were listed before a senior judicial registrar.
5. On 9 April 2025, the senior judicial registrar suspended the trustee for sale order (Order 1).
6. The husband then applied to review and set aside all the orders made by the senior judicial registrar, which application was listed before the primary judge on 30 April 2025, when her Honour dismissed the husband's review application.
7. Then, on 7 May 2025, the primary judge discharged the suspension order made by the senior judicial registrar in April 2025 (Order 1), endorsed the trustee for sale order made by the other judge in February 2025 (Orders 2 and 3), and ordered the husband to pay the wife's costs of the dispute on a "standard basis" (Order 11).
8. On 9 May 2025, the husband filed a Notice of Appeal seeking leave to appeal from those four orders made by the primary judge.
9. In the meantime, the litigation proceeded to trial on 1 July 2025, when the dispute was compromised and resolved by final consent orders. Relevantly, the final orders make provision for the sale of the Qld property and the proportional division of the net sale proceeds.
10. Given the final resolution of the financial cause, the appellate proceeding was listed to give the husband the chance to explain why the application for leave to appeal from the anterior interim orders should not be summarily dismissed.
11. The husband did not appear at the hearing. He sent an email to the Court early on the morning of the hearing giving notice of his intention to discontinue the appeal (Exhibit A) but, by the time of the hearing, no Notice of Discontinuance had been filed.

1. The husband's Notice of Appeal comprises seven intended grounds of appeal.
2. Grounds 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 all concern Orders 1, 2 and 3, which discharge the senior registrar's suspension order and re-instate the other judge's trustee for sale order. The dispute over those orders is now superfluous because of the final settlement reached on 1 July 2025, by which the sale of the Qld property must now proceed to completion. The procedural implementation of the sale of the Qld property is no longer a justiciable matter, in consequence of which there is no appellate jurisdiction to entertain the application for leave to appeal from those interim orders (AZC20 v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2023] HCA 26; (2023) 411 ALR 615 at [30], [32]-[35], [58], [66], [68]-[74] and [91]-[92]).
3. Grounds 6 and 7 both concern Order 11 and comprise dual complaints of the denial of natural justice and an error of law. The intended prosecution of these grounds is misconceived because Order 11 comprises an interim costs order which did not survive the final orders (r 5.01 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth)). Interim costs orders are not final costs orders (Shipton & Garwood [2024] FedCFamC1A 83; (2024) FLC 94-189 at [23]-[26]). When the parties reached the final settlement, the interim costs order was not expressly preserved and, because the final orders were silent on the question of costs, the parties necessarily agreed to bear their own costs of the proceedings. Order 11 was thereby discharged ipso facto by the final orders (Sadasivam & Seshan [2019] FamCAFC 76; (2019) FLC 93-899 at [16]-[27]).
4. The application for leave to appeal from the interim orders made on 7 May 2025 discloses no reasonable prospects of success and so the Notice of Appeal is summarily dismissed (s 32(3)(b) and s 46(2) of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Act 2021 (Cth)).

I certify that the preceding sixteen (16) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Ex Tempore Reasons for Judgment of the Honourable Justice Austin.