FEDERAL CIRCUIT AND FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA (DIVISION 1)

1. The father's application in a proceeding dated 20 August 2025 is dismissed.
2. Costs of the independent children's lawyer are reserved.

Note: The form of the order is subject to the entry in the Court's records.

Note: This copy of the Court's Reasons for judgment may be subject to review to remedy minor typographical or grammatical errors (r 10.14(b) Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth)), or to record a variation to the order pursuant to r 10.13 Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 (Cth).

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 a pseudonym Schneider & Brass has been approved pursuant to subsection 114Q(2) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).

1. By order of the Chief Justice made on 19 May 2025 this proceeding was transferred to me and fixed for trial on 11 August 2025. On that date the trial was vacated because the mother's legal representation ceased and the case was otherwise seriously underprepared.
2. Yesterday, on 21 August 2025, the father purported to bring an application in a proceeding seeking the determination of an urgent ex parte application for a recovery order in his favour in respect of the child who is the subject of this litigation. The father also sought orders in the nature of an airport watch list order. The father also sought orders for the mother to provide hair follicle test results. He also sought an order for him to have sole parental responsibility for the child pending further order. Other ancillary relief was sought in his application in a proceeding.
3. The father is and remains represented by solicitors. Today, he appeared by counsel who was in turn instructed by the father's solicitors. The application in a proceeding on which the father relied in his ex parte application was not prepared by the father's solicitors, nor was the affidavit that was made by the father said to support the various applications in the father's urgent ex parte application in a proceeding. The ex parte application in a proceeding and the father's affidavit made 20 August 2025 were not filed in this court. Those documents did not bear the seal of the court nor did they bear a date and time stamp disclosing their filing.
4. Pursuant to orders made by Senior Judicial Registrar Conlan on 10 October 2025, the child -

(a) has lived with the mother;

(b) has had parental responsibility for major long-term issues allocated to the mother; and

(c) has had his time with the father reserved pending the determination of the father's criminal matters and hair follicle testing.

1. By orders made by the Chief Justice on 19 May, no later than 28 days prior to the trial on 11 August 2025, the mother and father were required to complete hair follicle testing. The case was woefully underprepared for trial on 11 August 2025. It could not proceed. I had no choice but to vacate the trial date which I so ordered. The father still has no order in his favour conferring on him time with the child. Orders for parental responsibility, live with arrangements and time with the child spends with each parent, are to be contested at a trial to be conducted at some future time.
2. The father asserted on this application that the child is in an unsafe environment at the present time. He seeks an order described by him as a "recovery order" for the child to be placed in his care even though no operative order presently applies to that effect. In other words, no existing order applies against which the child is "recovered" into the care of the father. In the absence of an order conferring time for the father with the child, no grounds exist for the recovery order to be made. I dismiss the recovery order application on that ground.
3. No evidence exists to support the making of an airport watch list order. This application was brought by the father himself bypassing his solicitors on the record. That practise is to be emphatically denounced. Registry staff correctly refused to accept for filing the father's application in a proceeding and affidavit. This application was brought ex parte even though the mother had notice of it and made viva voce submissions in respect of it. No basis existed for the application to be brought ex parte. Mr McLeod, counsel for the ICL, correctly submitted that this application should be dismissed ex debito justiciae. I agree. No reason was advanced for the bringing of this application ex parte when the legal foundation of the bringing of the application so comprehensively failed.
4. I dismiss the father's application in a proceeding dated 20 August 2025. If the father wishes to renew his application, he may do so on proper material and any such application must be filed by solicitors and not otherwise.
5. The mother is not represented so she does not bear any costs.
6. I reserved the ICL's costs.

I certify that the preceding ten (10) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the ex tempore reasons for judgment of the Honourable Justice Wilson.