Report
Australian Parental Alienation Case Law Analysis: Executive summary of historic, pre-2024 and post-2024 parenting decisions
University of the Sunshine Coast
2026
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25907/01114
Abstract
Selected Australian parenting decisions show that family law may identify serious relationship undermining harm only after delay and interim protective arrangements have changed the child’s circumstances. By then, cumulative relational rupture can make safe repair substantially harder and, in some cases, no longer practicable.
Australian family law operates within a wider state and territory protective-order system. Protective separation can therefore occur before allegations of family violence or child abuse have been fully investigated or finally determined. When those allegations enter federal parenting proceedings, s 67ZBB separately requires the court promptly to consider what evidence-gathering and protective orders, if any, are appropriate.
These processes do not legally establish the allegations as true, but they can materially change the child’s circumstances while the evidence is being tested. No equivalent named and rapid pathway ordinarily responds to alleged relationship-undermining conduct unless it is identified as child abuse, including a risk of serious psychological harm. This creates an asymmetry in the timing and practical effect of the system’s response.
Details
- Title
- Australian Parental Alienation Case Law Analysis: Executive summary of historic, pre-2024 and post-2024 parenting decisions
- Authors
- Stan Korosi (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast
- Publication details
- 15 pages
- Publisher
- University of the Sunshine Coast
- Date published
- 2026
- DOI
- 10.25907/01114
- Organisation Unit
- School of Law and Society
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991262696202621
- Output Type
- Report
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