Family Law - Latest News
28/09/2011 | JAIL FOR PARENTS WHO KIDNAP THEIR KIDS AND TAKE THEM OVERSEAS? It’s the stuff of nightmares – your partner stealing your kids and disappearing overseas. Statistically it happens 2 or 3 times a week in Australia. Under current law, parental international child abduction (PICA) isn’t necessarily...
17/08/2011 | WILL AWARENESS Wills. We think about making one from time to time. Or we make one and then forget all about it, regardless of our personal circumstances changing. Or we make one using a store-bought Will-kit, without advice, and hope it all pans out...
29/06/2011 | ARE WE MOVING TOWARDS SAME-SEX MARRIAGE LAWS? Same-sex marriage has recently received a lot of media attention. Under the federal Marriage Act, the definition reads “the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.” Clearly there are...
2/06/2011 | MEN IN BUSINESS It's strange how the small innocuous choices we make every day can sometimes change the course of our entire lives. For Forster-born Josh Crowther, that seminal moment came when he was a student at Newcastle University...
25/05/2011 | WHAT’S THE DEFINITION OF ‘FAMILY VIOLENCE’? When relationships break down & there are children involved, family law aims to make decisions based on what’s best for the kids. But it’s a tricky business. Many of us saw the reports last week about traffic delays on the harbour bridge...
18/05/2011 | A FAMILY TRUST COULD SAVE YOU They’ve been around for quite some time. Those ‘in the know’ set up a family trust years ago to benefit their family financially. But if you’re not a financial planner or lawyer you could be forgiven for just making a will and avoiding...
4/05/2011 | THE HOUSE IS MINE - WE WEREN’T DE FACTO! OR WERE WE? And there you were thinking your relationship was safely ‘non-de facto’ and your property out of reach of your partner should the relationship run its course. Don’t you have to live together as a couple to be considered de facto?...
27/04/2011 | THE SMACK - IS IT LEGAL? To smack or not to smack; that is the question. It’s a much debated theme – should you physically discipline your kids? These days are you even allowed to? The smacking debate has frequently come under the spotlight...
20/04/2011 | DOLPHIN IN THE RATZ RANKS As Josh Crowther found himself on the bottom of a particularly vicious ruck last Saturday he was caught in a difficult dilemma. Josh, half back for the Forster-Tuncurry Dolphins rugby team,was playing his team’s most bitter rivals...
16/03/2011 | IT’S TIMES LIKE THESE WE CONSIDER OUR OWN MORTALITY Floods, cyclones and earthquakes tend to get us thinking. Things sometimes happen that are beyond our control; that change the course of our future. As distasteful as it may be to ponder your own mortality, here’s the thing...
2/03/2011 | GUN LAWS Discussion about gun laws in Australia always has the potential to generate some strong views. It’s a topic that tends to come up whenever there have been a few media reports around shootings. Recent stories include drive-by’s...
29/12/2010 | NEW PAID PARENTAL LEAVE KICKS IN JANUARY 1ST It’s been a long time coming and a hard won battle but Australia’s new paid parental leave laws will come into effect on January 1st 2011. Parents will now get 18 weeks paid parental leave, based on the minimum wage of $570 a week...
8/12/2010 | KIDS BORN THROUGH SURROGACY JUST GOT A BETTER DEAL Surrogacy has long been a contentious issue. While some would argue that a woman bearing a child for someone else is the ultimate sacrifice, others see it is as being unethical and detrimental to the child denied their birth parents...
24/11/2010 | THE FAMILY VIOLENCE BILL Since the Howard Government introduced the concept of ‘Shared parenting’ there has been some opposition. One of the criticisms of the 2006 family law amendments was that women became afraid to raise allegations of violence by the father...
13/10/2010 | IS YOUR MARRIAGE VALID? Recent media reports have drawn attention to the law surrounding marriage; specifically, whether a marriage is invalid if the vows have been said incorrectly. It’s a scary thought for many supposedly wedded couples...
6/10/2010 | LEGAL RIGHTS OF SAME-SEX COUPLES The legal recognition & rights of same-sex couples has long been a contentious issue in Australia. Since 2009 there has been much change, with same-sex couples now having many of the same rights as heterosexual couples; although not all...
15/09/2010 | ARE YOU WILLING TO PROTECT YOUR FAMILY? This week the NSW government is focusing on getting people to write a will, through a campaign called ‘Good Will Week’. The law in relation to inheritance changed in March this year...
1/09/2010 | GETTING KIDS EDUCATED Education has received a fair bit of attention in recent months. The government’s school building program has regularly featured in the media, as has their promise to deliver computers to secondary schools...
14/07/2010 | KEEP THEM SAFE - NEW CHILD PROTECTION LEGISLATION There is little question that NSW’s child protection system has had some fairly major flaws. Over the last few years we have been inundated with media reports about child abuse and neglect, and cases that have ‘fallen through the cracks’...
9/07/2010 | REGIONAL LAW SOCIETY PRESENTATION David Fryatt - solicitor from Stacks/The Law Firm, Taree - will be a presenter at the Regional Law Society's "Succession - Contested Wills" event in Newcastle on Friday 6 August...
7/07/2010 | STAYING HOME OPTION FOR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE VICTIMS Leaving home and seeking refuge elsewhere has tended to be the only real option for women wishing to escape a violent partner. While hardly ideal, that has typically been the pattern...
16/06/2010 | ORGAN DONATION - NOT YOUR DECISION Lately we’re being bombarded with ads about organ donation. In particular, there’s an emphasis on the need to talk to your family about your wishes, now, while you’re still alive and kicking...
9/06/2010 | SHOULD INTERNATIONAL CHILD ABDUCTION BE A CRIME? It seems logical to assume that a parent who takes their child to another country, unbeknownst to the other parent, and without their consent, is committing a crime...
24/03/2010 | The Shared Parenting debate continues It’s hard to dispute the logic behind the shared parenting laws that were introduced by the Howard Government in 2006. Key to the laws was the idea that children benefit from having substantial time with both parents...
10/02/2010 | Farm Succession - keeping it in the family Making sure the family farm stays in the family might seem pretty straight forward. But there are a number of complex issues that can arise...
3/02/2010 | New laws on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Anyone who has repeatedly tried and failed to conceive a child naturally will know the experience can be distressing and emotionally draining...
27/01/2010 | Flexible work arrangements for a modern world Having children is part of family life. You only have to look around to see that we are experiencing something of a baby boom...
20/01/2010 | Adoption - navigating the mine field Talk to anybody who has attempted to adopt a child in Australia and you will hear the same story; it’s not easy...
9/12/2009 | Where there's a will... Writing a will is something we may not want to think about it, or don’t consider to be a pressing need right now...
14/09/2009 | The Shared Parenting Debate When a couple separates, it's a challenging and emotional time for everyone involved, particularly the kids. Making decisions about who the children live with has never been easy.
19/05/2009 | Steps Taken To Curb Family Violence While Australia can rightly be proud of its open and accountable democratic society,some aspects of our culture are not so laudable.
28/09/2011 | JAIL FOR PARENTS WHO KIDNAP THEIR KIDS AND TAKE THEM OVERSEAS? It’s the stuff of nightmares – your partner stealing your kids and disappearing overseas. Statistically it happens 2 or 3 times a week in Australia. Under current law, parental international child abduction (PICA) isn’t necessarily...
17/08/2011 | WILL AWARENESS Wills. We think about making one from time to time. Or we make one and then forget all about it, regardless of our personal circumstances changing. Or we make one using a store-bought Will-kit, without advice, and hope it all pans out...
29/06/2011 | ARE WE MOVING TOWARDS SAME-SEX MARRIAGE LAWS? Same-sex marriage has recently received a lot of media attention. Under the federal Marriage Act, the definition reads “the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life.” Clearly there are...
