Vipul & Doris [2025] FedCFamC1F 971 (21 August 2025)

(a) the children's education (both current and future);

(b) the children's religious and cultural upbringing;

(c) the children's health.

1. With respect to the Mother's exercise of sole parental responsibility for decision‑making the following shall apply:

(a) prior to the making of any educational, medical or religious decisions for the children the Mother shall:

(i) advise the Father in writing of the decision intended to be made and her reasons for it including any medical or educational reports, assessments or professional recommendations she is relying upon, with not less than 21 days' notice save for urgent matters where notice will be given as early as possible; and

(ii) seek the father's written response in relation thereto and provide not less than 8 days for the receipt of a response, save for genuinely urgent matters where the nominated response wait time can be less;

(iii) consider any such response prior to making any decision on the issue; and

(iv) advise the Father in writing as soon as reasonably practical of her ultimate decision.

1. The children live with the Mother.
2. The Mother be permitted to relocate the children's residence to New Zealand ("NZ").
3. The Mother do all acts and things reasonably necessary to re-enrol the children at B School.
4. The children spend time and communicate with their Father as follows:

(a) If the Father resides within 60 kilometres of the Mother's residence, the children spend time and communicate with their Father:

(i) each alternate weekend from the conclusion of school on Friday to 5.00pm on Sunday; and

(ii) for half of each school holiday period commencing in the first half in odd numbered years and the second half in even numbered years (or vice versa as preferable); and

(iii) on Father's Day weekend from 5.00pm on the preceding Saturday to 5.00pm Sunday.

(iv) for Christmas in even numbered years from 4.00pm Christmas Day until 4.00pm Boxing Day; and

(v) for Christmas in even numbered years from 4.00pm Christmas Day until 4.00pm Boxing Day; and

(vi) by way of telephone/Facetime/AppClose video call each Wednesday from 5.00pm to 5.30pm with the Father to initiate the call and the Mother to facilitate it;

(vii) For each of the children's birthdays, if they are not already spending time with him, from the conclusion of school until 6.30pm if a school day and for 4 hours on a weekend day as agreed and in default of agreement from 9.30am to 1.30pm; and

(viii) If the usual weekend time in paragraph 8(a)(i) falls on the Mother's Day weekend, time concludes at 5pm on the Saturday; and

(ix) As otherwise agreed between the parents in writing.

1. If the Father lives in Australia (with the children in NZ) the children spend time and communicate with the Father as follows:

(a) For one weekend each school term as agreed between the parents in writing, and in default of agreement from the conclusion of school on Friday to 5.00pm on Sunday on the 5th weekend of the school term, with the Father to spend the time in NZ with the children. The Father is to provide to the Mother not less than 21 days' notice of his intention to spend the weekend with the children. The Father is to inform the mother of the children's accommodation for the period.

(b) If the Father travels to NZ at any other time during the school term, on providing not less than 21 days' notice unless otherwise agreed, the children spend time with their Father for up to 3 consecutive days, with the Father to ensure the children attend school and their usual extra curricular activities for the period. The Father to inform the Mother of the children's accommodation for the period.

(c) In even numbered years commencing 2026

(i) for the Term 1 school holidays for eight consecutive days commencing from 5.00pm on the first Saturday of the school holidays until 5.00pm on the second Sunday of the school holidays;

(ii) for the Term 2 school holidays for fourteen consecutive days commencing from 5.00pm on first Saturday of the school holidays until 5.00pm on the final Saturday of the school holidays;

(iii) for the Term 4 school holidays for twenty-one consecutive days commencing from 5.00pm on the 22nd of December and concluding at 5.00pm on the 12th of January of the school holidays.

(d) In odd numbered years

(i) for the Term 1 school holidays commencing 2027, for eight consecutive days commencing from 5.00pm on the first Saturday of the school holidays until 5.00pm on the second Sunday of the school holidays;

(ii) for the Term 3 school holidays commencing 2027, for fourteen consecutive days commencing from 5.00pm on the first Saturday of the school holidays until 5.00pm on the final Saturday of the school holidays;

(iii) for the Term 4 school holidays commencing 2025, from 5.00pm on the third Saturday of the school holidays until 5.00pm on the sixth Saturday of the school holidays.

(e) By way of telephone/Facetime/AppClose video calls;

(i) each Tuesday and Thursday from 5.00pm to 5.30pm (or each Tuesday and Saturday);

(ii) on Father's Day from 5.00pm to 5.30pm;

(iii) on the children's birthdays from 5.00pm to 5.30pm;

(iv) on Christmas Day in odd numbered years from 5.00pm to 5.30pm;

(v) on the Father's birthday from 5pm to 5.30pm;

(vi) with the Father to initiate the calls and the Mother to facilitate;

(f) as otherwise agreed between the parents in writing.

1. All changeovers between NZ and Australia shall take place at the international airport where the children are arriving in either Melbourne or City E; and
2. All changeovers where the time spent between the children and their father takes place in New Zealand are to occur at a public place as agreed and in default of agreement at a place nominated by the Father within 5 kilometres of the Mother's home.
3. During the time the children are in the Father's care pursuant to these Orders including at times as otherwise agreed in writing, the children shall communicate with the Mother:

(a) Via telephone or Facetime/App Close video call each Wednesday from 5.00pm to 5.30pm; and

(b) On Christmas Day from 5.00pm to 5.30pm; and

(c) On the children's birthdays from 5.00pm to 5.30pm; and

(d) On the Mother's birthday from 5pm to 5.30pm

with the Mother to initiate the call and the Father to facilitate it.

1. Each parent at their discretion may, if either of the children wish to call the other parent at times outside usual ordered times, contact the other parent to facilitate such call at a time if possible which suits the other parent and the children.
2. The parents shall communicate through AppClose or another agreed parenting app for information sharing and organisational matters about the children's care, welfare and development.
3. The parents be and are hereby restrained by injunction from;

(a) Abusing, insulting, criticising, belittling, rebuking or otherwise denigrating the other parent to or in the presence of the children and from permitting any other person to do so;

(b) Discussing these final orders or any aspect of these proceedings with the children in their presence or within their hearing, save for informing the children about the arrangements for them to spend time and communicate with the other parent;

(c) Telling the children that they do not agree with the final orders or that the final orders are unfair, unjust or they were made because of fault by the court or the other parent; and

(d) Encouraging the children to speak negatively about the other parent or their family members.

1. Each parent will notify the other as soon as practicable if the children or either of them suffer any significant injury, serious medical issue or are hospitalised including attending any emergency department and the parent who is with the children at the time must as soon as practicable notify the other parent and provide details of the medical issue along with the names and contact details of any treater so that each parent may liaise directly with the children's treating practitioner or other allied health professional to be informed.
2. The parents are at liberty to provide a copy of these Orders to the children's school, medical practitioners, allied health professionals and extra-curricular providers.
3. Each parent is authorised and permitted to, at their own expense:

(a) attend any sporting or extra-curricular activities that the children may attend where parents usually attend;

(b) attend all school events that parents are usually invited to attend;

(c) obtain from the children's school all notices, reports and photograph order forms which parents are usually provided;

(d) obtain from the children's medical practitioner and/or allied health professional information about the children's health and treatment, any documents including reports for referrals and prescriptions, subject to the discretion and policy of that health care provider; and

(e) arrange separate parent/teacher interviews.

1. Each parent shall keep the other informed of all medical and dental treatment the children are required to undergo while in their care and authorise the children's treating practitioners to communicate with the other parent.
2. The Mother will inform the Father of any medical, specialist practitioners and allied health appointments for the children including forwarding email messages from the practitioners to the Father regarding the appointments.
3. The Father is only permitted to arrange medical, dental and allied health appointments including attendance at any psychologist or mental health professional for the children by written agreement with the Mother. (This excludes attendance in an emergency for accident, injury or illness that requires urgent medical or dental treatment).
4. Each parent will keep the other informed of their contact details and promptly advise the other of any change, including any email address, residential address and mobile telephone number.
5. Each parent subject to these orders is at liberty to travel overseas with the children outside of the Commonwealth of Australia or New Zealand while the children are in their care in accordance with these Orders and for this purpose:

(a) Each parent shall provide no less than eight weeks written notice to the other;

(b) The travelling parent will provide the other:

(i) The destination and itinerary on which the children will travel and with whom they will travel;

(ii) Details of the airline/vessel on which the children will travel;

(iii) The dates upon which the children will depart and return to their residence;

Contact telephone numbers for the duration of the travel so that the other parent may be at liberty to communicate with the children; and

(c) A full itinerary no less than seven days prior to the intended travel.

1. The parents do all such acts and things and sign all documents necessary to apply for or renew the children's passports at the parents' equal shared expense.
2. The Mother is to retain the children's passports and if provided to the Father including when the children are travelling with him (or to or from visiting him in Australia) the Father is to return the passports to her when they are no longer required.
3. Each parent is restrained from travelling with the children to or through a non-Hague Child Abduction Convention treaty country unless agreed in writing by the other parent, save and except where the country is a stopover port only with proof provided by the travelling parent of an itinerary of a connecting flight to the primary destination.
4. The Airport Watchlist Order made on 2 April 2025 be discharged and the children's names removed from the Airport Watchlist.
5. The solicitors for the Mother, Cathleen Corridon and Associates, be released from the written undertaking to the Court made by Orders of 2 April 2025 to retain the passports of the children and not to release them to the parents without the written consent of both parents or an Order of the Court.
6. The Father be permitted to take the children on an overseas holiday outside the Commonwealth of Australia or New Zealand from the end of Term 1 in 2027.
7. Each parent do all acts and things necessary to make an application to the Family Court in New Zealand for these orders or mirror orders to the same effect to be made in the New Zealand Family Court, with each parent responsible in equal shares for the filing fee and to bear their own costs of any legal advice or legal representation retained for this purpose.
8. These are Orders to which the provisions of Section 68P of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) apply.
9. Where the provisions of these orders are inconsistent with the Protection Order Queensland order number ... Occ number ... currently in force against the Mother with expiry 2029, to the extent that these Orders are inconsistent, these Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia Court Orders prevail.
10. The Registrar/the Court is requested to provide a copy of these Orders and Reasons (if applicable) to the Commissioner of the Queensland Police Service.
11. The Independent Children's Lawyer ("ICL") meet with the children and explain the final orders as soon as practicable within seven days and thereafter the appointment of the ICL be discharged.
12. For the purpose of paragraph 9 (c) and (d) above, the Father be at liberty to spend time with the children in Australia or New Zealand (or starting from there if overseas travel is permitted in accordance with these Orders) with the Father to:

(a) Pay for the airfares for himself and the children for all flights save for return flights for Term 4 school holidays in each odd numbered year commencing in 2027, which the mother will pay the children's airfares if they travel to Australia;

(b) Accompany the children on the flights to and from New Zealand or organise for them to travel as unaccompanied minors with the airline between NZ and Australia; and

(c) Provide the Mother with the itinerary at least 28 days prior.

1. The mother is hereby restrained from changing the children's names.
2. All extant applications be dismissed.
3. Pursuant to ss.65DA(2) and 62B of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) the particulars of the obligations these Orders create and the particulars of the consequences that may follow if a person contravenes these Orders are set out in Annexure A and these particulars are included in these Orders.

1. Times expressed in these Orders are to be interpreted as the local time of where the children are located.
2. Where a changeover time is specified in the Orders where the children will be arriving by a booked flight on the day, the parents will use their best endeavours to arrange flights that as far as possible match the changeover times.

1. The Mother maintains concerns about the father returning the children at the end of spend time in Australia and should the father fail to return the children pursuant to these Orders the Mother will bring an application to the Court in New Zealand to suspend the provisions permitting the Father to spend time with the children in Australia.

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 Vipul & Doris has been approved pursuant to subsection 114Q(2) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).

1. The parties to these proceedings are in conflict as to the future parenting arrangements for their children, aged six and seven years. This matter has had a long and difficult history; there has been much upheaval in the lives of the parties and particularly in the lives of their two children.
2. The matter was listed for final hearing before me in relation to the competing parenting applications; each of the mother and the father sought orders that the children live with them. Additionally, the mother sought orders that she be permitted to live with the children in Town C, New Zealand, where the family resided prior to the parties' separation and where the mother and children continued to live following separation.
3. Section 60CA of the Act provides that the children's best interests are the paramount consideration in making parenting orders.
4. Pursuant to section 60CC(1) of the Act, in determining what is in the child's best interests, the Court must consider the matters set out in section 60CC(2). Those matters are:

(a) What arrangements would promote the safety, including safety from being subjected to, or exposed to, family violence, abuse, neglect or other harm of the child and each person who has the care of the child, whether or not a person has parental responsibility for the child;

(b) Any views expressed by the child;

(c) The developmental, psychological, emotional and cultural needs of the child.

(d) The capacity of each person who has or is proposed to have parental responsibility for the child to provide for the child's developmental, psychological, emotional and cultural needs;

(e) The benefit to the child of being able to have a relationship with the child's parents and other people who are significant to the child where it is safe to do so; and

(f) Anything else that is relevant to the particular circumstances of the child.

1. Section 60CC(2A) provides:-

(2A) In considering the matters set out in paragraph (2)(a), the court must include consideration of:

(a) any history of family violence, abuse or neglect involving the child or a person caring for the child (whether or not the person had parental responsibility for the child); and

(b) any family violence order that applies or has applied to the child or a member of the child's family.

1. I have had the advantage of reading all of the trial documents filed on behalf of the parties, and also had the opportunity to observe the father's evidence be tested over the course of the past two days.
2. Having regard to that evidence, in conjunction with the trial material, and in particular, the Family Report prepared by the Court Child Expert, Ms D, I am well satisfied that the proposed Minute of Consent Order signed by the parties and presented to the Court comprises a suite of orders which are in the children's best interests.
3. That Minute provides for the children to continue to live with the mother, for the mother to have sole responsibility for decision-making in relation to long-term issues affecting the children, and for the mother to be permitted to return to New Zealand with the children. Those orders will ensure the continuity of long-standing and settled care arrangements where the mother has been the children's primary caregiver.
4. Having regard to the evidence before the Court I am satisfied that the children have thrived in the mother's care, and I am well satisfied that such arrangements ought continue.
5. The order as to decision-making authority is important. It is clear from the evidence presented to the Court that that there has been a tumultuous parenting relationship between the mother and the father which has negatively impacted upon the children. Having regard to that history I am well satisfied that an order allocating decision-making responsibility to the mother is appropriate, to ensure that the children continue to thrive and that decisions about their care, particularly long-term decisions about matters such as their place of schooling and attendance to their health needs, can be made without conflict or delay.
6. I am satisfied that the parties have ongoing difficulties with respect to communication and cooperation in relation to such matters. Whilst it would appear to be common ground that until 2023, the parties had a cooperative, and as described by the father, an "amicable" coparenting relationship, there has been a significant breakdown in that relationship. Unfortunately, the choices that the father has made, and the ways in which he has conducted himself, have not assisted in facilitating a cooperative parenting relationship. I am satisfied that the father's overholding of the children, following an agreed weekend with them, marked the beginning of the breakdown of that relationship.
7. A series of poor decisions on the father's part has ensued since that initial incident of overholding. Those decisions include the father's refusal to return the children to the mother's care, his pursuit of the mother, the breach of his undertaking given to the New Zealand Family Court to stay away from an airport to which the children were to be returned by the mother, his involvement of police following the breach of that undertaking, and his misleading of police officers as to the arrangements to be implemented that day. I am satisfied that those decisions made by the father demonstrated poor insight and a lack of focus upon or understanding of the children's needs.
8. All of those matters have undermined the cooperation and the cooperative relationship between the parties. For those reasons, I am well satisfied that the children's best interests will be served by decision-making authority resting with the mother.
9. The Court is requested to make an order permitting the mother to return with the children to New Zealand. As with the allocation of decision-making responsibility, I am well satisfied that this order is in the children's best interests. The mother has been required to remain in Australia and live apart from her husband pending the determination of these proceedings. As a result, she and the children the subject of these proceedings have been separated from her two children (being the children's half siblings) of that relationship, one of whom is aged three years and the other of whom is an infant. The children have been deprived of the opportunity of spending time with their younger siblings and of benefiting from the development of those relationships. This has been an unsettling and difficult period for the children and the mother. Having regard to those matters I am satisfied that the return of the children to their known and familiar environment should be permitted to occur.
10. The evidence, including the concessions made by the father during his oral evidence, confirms that the children have lived for the majority of their lives in New Zealand, in Town C, that they were settled in Town C, and that following the parties' separation they remained there with the father's consent upon his return to Australia.
11. The children, when interviewed by the Court Child Expert, identified Town C and the school they attended there as the touchstone for them with respect to a settled life. These factors weigh heavily in supporting the return of the mother with the children to Town C, New Zealand.
12. I am satisfied that the proposed arrangements for the children to spend time and communicate with the father are appropriate and are in the children's best interests. They will afford the children an opportunity of spending time with the father in New Zealand should he choose to visit them there. It is my sincere hope that he does; it is important for the children that the father have an understanding of their world there, and that he have an opportunity to engage with the children, their friends, their school, and engage with their broader community and extra-curricular activities in New Zealand. The orders also provide opportunity for the children to visit the father and spend time with him in Australia. This presents further opportunity for the children to engage with the father, with members of his family, and with their Aboriginal culture, through the paternal family. I am satisfied that the proposed Orders provide opportunity for the children to connect to their cultures in New Zealand and Australia.
13. In circumstances where the parties have agreed to the orders, which are supported by the Independent Children's Lawyer and where the evidence before the Court supports a finding that those orders are in the children's best interests, I will make orders in the terms proposed by the parties.

I certify that the preceding eighteen (18) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment of the Honourable Justice Johns.