Australia

Mr. Todd and Mrs. Todd were married in 1960 and had two children. On 23 November 1974, Mrs. Todd left the matrimonial home with the two children, but all three moved back in on 21 April 1975, where they continued to reside until the parents decided to divorce in 1976. The application for divorce under the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) (the “Act”) initiated in the Family Law Division of the Supreme Court of New South Wales was transferred to the Family Court of Australia.

In 2015, the appellant was charged and convicted for committing five sexual offenses against his sister. The had purportedly occurred over  years,. Most of the charged offenses, sexual exploitation of a child and two rapes, occurred when the appellant was an adult, but prosecutors also charged him with an indecent assault committed when he was 11 or 12 years old and thus presumed to be incapable of the offense.

The complainant was a woman in an exclusive lesbian relationship for four years. The complainant and her partner wanted to have child but learned that donor insemination in Queensland would not be available for them, so the complainant traveled out of state to seek this treatment. She found the experience to be emotionally and financially draining, so she stopped the treatment. Thus, the complainant decided to try and ask the clinics in Queensland for the donor treatment. She found a clinic at which the respondent was a director.

In the case of Jacomb v. Australian Municipal Administrative Clerical and Services Union, the applicant, a male union member, sought a court order that a union unlawfully discriminated based on gender by adopting quotas for its executive branch. The quotas required 50% of executive positions to be held by female members. The applicant submitted that the 50% requirement was discriminatory against men who made up more than 50% of members and that the quotas should be proportional to the women's membership within the union.

The appellant in this case was convicted of multiple domestic violence offenses and sentenced to prison. The appellant sought an appeal on the basis that the judge in the lower court “erred in failing to consider special circumstances in relation to the question of accumulation” and also imposed a “manifestly excessive” sentence. In light of the seriousness of the appellant’s offenses, as well as his history of domestic violence against the victim in the case, the Court ordered the appeal dismissed. When dismissing the appeal, the Court noted the appellant’s “pessimistic . . .

The Justice and Related Legislation (Marriage and Gender Amendments) Act 2019 (Tasmania) was adopted to amend several major pieces of legislation in Tasmania, including the Adoption Act 1988, the Anti-Discrimination Act

The Act’s purpose is to provide means to hinder persons from committing acts of family and domestic or personal violence by imposing restraints on their behavior and activities. Under the section 106B of the Act, restraint orders can be issued against a person who has caused or has threatened to cause injury or damage to another person or property and is likely to do so again or carry out the threat, behaved in a provocative or offensive manner and is likely to do so again, or against a person who has stalked another person.

In Kiss v R [2021] NSWCCA 158, the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal considered an appeal against a sentence by the applicant, who had been convicted of three counts of sexual intercourse without consent and one count of intentionally choking or strangling the complainant. At the time of the offences, the applicant and the complainant were in a relationship. On appeal, the applicant argued that the offences were objectively less serious because they occurred in the context of an ongoing consensual relationship.

A married couple, both of Indian ethnic origin and citizens of Fiji, sought protection for fear of persecution on the grounds that the wife was abducted and raped because of her Indian ethic origins and because of her husband’s local political activity. The Refugee Review Tribunal did not accept that the wife was raped for reasons of her Indian ethnic origins, nor her husband’s support for the FLP. The court affirmed.

The plaintiff alleged that, during the course of her employment at construction firm Winslow Constructors, she was abused, bullied, and sexually harassed by Winslow employees and subcontractors.  She alleged that Winslow was vicariously liable for the acts of its employees and subcontractors, or in the alternative, negligent in failing to provide a safe working environment.  On the fifth day of the trial, Winslow admitted liability for negligence. The decision before the Court was the quantum of damages available to the plaintiff.