QLD Divorce and No Contact from Mother - Seek Abandonment through Family Court?

[Bradio11]

Hi all,

My daughter (11 years old) has been living with me now for the last 4 and a half years and has not had any contact from her mother in the last 4 years. We have been divorced for more than 5 years and separated for the past 9.

My questoin is, due to not being able to contact my ex or know of her whereabouts, can I seek an abandonment or similar so I can do the simple things like get a passport or even get her placed on my medicare card?

Any info would be appreciated before I start spending money going through family court.

 

[AllForHer]

Australia doesn't have any laws that permit a person to claim abandonment of a child by a parent, but there are other options available to you to have these matters sorted. Unfortunately, none of them are really 'court free'.

First, you can apply for special circumstances surrounding consent for the passport. You must show you've attempted to contact the mother for consent, and that you've been unsuccessful. Read here for more information: Passports - Children and parental consent

Contact the Department of Human Services about the Medicare issue, but I'm fairly certain you just need a birth certificate to have the child added to your Medicare card. You can acquire this through the Office of Births, Deaths and Marriages.

If you want more of a 'blanket' approach, you could look at proceedings for parenting orders, seeking sole parental responsibility. You must first attempt to resolve the dispute without court involvement by attempting a family dispute resolution conference with the mother. If this is unsuccessful and agreement can't be reached, or the other party refuses to attend, you'll be given a s 60I certificate, which is a mandatory component for an initiating application to the court, seeking parenting orders. All court proceedings must grant reasonable opportunity to the other party to respond, but if the mother does not wish to do so, the matter can proceed undefended and orders made in her absence.

The court would make orders it deems to be in the best interests of the children. Hope this helps.

 

[Bradio11]

Thanks for that AllForHer it does. I believe it will be the same as when i went through the divorce process and there will be no response but the problem now is i have no idea where she is nor do i have any way of contacting her and feel it will will be hard to get an easy reault. The main issue is here her mother has refused to have any contact with her and we have had to deal with all the heartache of a little girl who doesn't understand why her mother doesn't want to talk to her. I am scared that with no custody orders in place that one day she could show up and take her away and i will be left having to fight through court to get her back.