Two homes, two sets of school shoes and a calendar on the fridge colour-coded for pick-ups. For separated parents, everyday details like these are where co-parenting really happens, and since May 2024 the law has been built around them too.
On 6 May 2024, changes to the Family Law Act took effect across Australia. The Legal Services Commission of South Australia explains that the old presumption of ‘equal shared parental responsibility’ has been removed. Parenting decisions now start from one question, which is what’s best for each child.
For families on the Coast and beyond, it’s a welcome shift. It leaves room for arrangements that fit real life, whether that’s week-about, a school-term routine or a roster built around Mum’s or Dad’s shift work.
Big decisions, like which school your child goes to or how their health care is handled, can be shared or made by one parent, depending on what works for the child. Time with each parent is worked out the same way.
Six things that matter for every child
When a court looks at a child’s best interests, it now weighs six considerations, listed in a Women’s Legal Service NSW factsheet. They also make a helpful checklist for parents sitting down to plan together:
- keeping your child, and everyone who cares for them, safe
- any views your child has shared
- your child’s developmental, emotional and cultural needs
- each parent’s capacity to meet those needs
- the benefit of your child’s relationships with each parent and other important people, where that’s safe
- anything else that’s relevant to your family.
For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, the law also protects their right to connect with and enjoy their culture.
Kids get a say
Your child’s views are one of the six considerations a court weighs. When a court appoints an Independent Children’s Lawyer, that lawyer now needs to meet children aged five and over and give them a chance to share their views, unless the child doesn’t want to or there are exceptional circumstances.
For a child, that meeting is a chance to share what matters to them, like staying at the same school or keeping Saturday netball, with the lawyer representing their best interests.
The law’s definition of family also now includes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander concepts of kinship, recognising the wider circle of relatives in a child’s life.
When life moves on
Kids grow, jobs change and families move. If you already have final parenting orders, the law now sets out when a court will reconsider them. There needs to be a significant change in circumstances, and a fresh look has to be in your child’s best interests.
That gives families more certainty about when orders can be reopened. If a move interstate or a big change at home is on the horizon, getting advice early helps you plan the next step together.
A plan on paper
Parents can agree arrangements without going to court. A written parenting plan, or consent orders approved by the court, gives everyone clarity about who’s doing what and when.
It helps to settle how big decisions will be made first, then map out the weekly routine, the school holidays and the special days kids look forward to, like birthdays. Running the plan past the six considerations above keeps your child at the centre of it. If safety is a concern, get advice before you agree to anything.
A family lawyer can help you put the 2024 changes to child custody laws to work for your family, from first arrangements to updating existing orders.
This article is general information only and isn’t legal advice for your situation.
