Joint parental responsibility

With­out any court orders and usu­al­ly with court orders (unless it is deter­mined by the court that it is not in the best inter­ests of the chil­dren), both par­ents have joint parental respon­si­bil­i­ty. This means that it is both par­ents’ respon­si­bil­i­ty, not that of a new part­ner of either one of them, to make deci­sions about the long-term issues that will affect the children.

Long-term deci­sions and day-to-day matters

Long term deci­sions involve such things as which schools the chil­dren will attend, what reli­gion the chil­dren will be brought up in, any med­ical deci­sions, the liv­ing arrange­ments of the chil­dren and the names of the chil­dren. How­ev­er, the day to day deci­sions about the chil­dren, such as their rou­tines and who the chil­dren will see and spend time with, are usu­al­ly deter­mined by each par­ent at the time that the chil­dren are in their care. It is not nec­es­sary to dis­cuss such day-to-day mat­ters with the oth­er parent.

Lim­its of your influence

Gen­er­al­ly, you will not be able to decide whether the child will see or spend time with your for­mer partner’s new part­ner unless there are safe­ty con­cerns. Ulti­mate­ly, it is the chil­dren that mat­ter and if your for­mer partner’s new part­ner is mak­ing an effort with them and being kind to them, that is the most impor­tant thing. 

It is rec­om­mend­ed that you accept your for­mer partner’s new part­ner and work through your emo­tions with close friends or a coun­sel­lor. If at all pos­si­ble, try to reach an agree­ment with your for­mer part­ner about what is rea­son­able and unreasonable.

Gen­uine safe­ty con­cerns for your children

If you have gen­uine con­cerns about the safe­ty of your chil­dren or the adverse impact of your for­mer partner’s new part­ner on them, you should seek imme­di­ate legal advice. If you do have such con­cerns, it is pos­si­ble to seek court orders restrain­ing your part­ner from let­ting the chil­dren spend time with that per­son. A court will only grant such a restraint in cir­cum­stances where there are real con­cerns about the wel­fare of the children. 

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion please contact:

If you would like to repub­lish this arti­cle, it is gen­er­al­ly approved, but pri­or to doing so please con­tact the Mar­ket­ing team at marketing@​swaab.​com.​au. This arti­cle is not legal advice and the views and com­ments are of a gen­er­al nature only. This arti­cle is not to be relied upon in sub­sti­tu­tion for detailed legal advice.

Publications

No will, no direc­tion: The estate of Liam Payne and under­stand­ing law of intestacy

When Liam Payne sang ​“nobody can drag me down” we did­n’t think he was talk­ing about his aver­sion to sit­ting…

Beware Retail Lease Dis­close Statements

Before a retail lease is entered into, the Retail Leas­es Act 1994 (NSW) (the RL Act) requires a land­lord to give a signed Lessor’s…

Devel­op­ers beware the statu­to­ry non del­e­gable’ duty of care under the Design and Build­ing Prac­ti­tion­ers Act 2020

The Design and Build­ing Prac­ti­tion­ers Act 2020 (DBP Act) came into effect in NSW in June 2020. Since its intro­duc­tion the courts…

In the News

Michael Byrnes is quot­ed in the arti­cle, Pro­posed non-com­pete ban could back­fire on work­ers, firm warns”, pub­lished in Lawyers Week­ly on 20 May 2025

Michael Byrnes is quot­ed in the arti­cle, ​“Pro­posed non-com­pete ban could back­fire on work­ers, firm warns”, pub­lished in Lawyers Week­ly…

Press Release | Swaab’s James Skel­ton Appoint­ed Chair of Glob­al Emerg­ing Lead­ers Advi­so­ry Board at Mer­i­tas AGM in Mex­i­co City

In this piv­otal lead­er­ship role, James will guide ini­tia­tives to strength­en rela­tion­ships among Emerg­ing Lead­ers across Mer­i­tas’ 175 glob­al mem­ber…

Press Release | New Part­ner Appoint­ment — Mark Glynn

With over two decades in the indus­try, Mark is a recog­nised front-end con­struc­tion lawyer spe­cial­ist with­in the build­ing and con­struc­tion indus­try. Mark…

Sign up for our Newsletter

*Mandatory information