De facto relationships re-defined

Philandering husbands could soon be ordered to pay their mistresses "maintenance" after an affair ends thanks to a new shake-up of Australia's family law.
Under the Family Law Act reforms, de facto partners together for two years will get the same rights as married couples to seek "spousal maintenance" claims. Maintenance, as distinct from child support, may be ordered when the other party is "unable to support herself or himself adequately" following separation.
But legal experts warn the amended Act opens the definition of a de facto couple to wide interpretation.
It prescribes a de facto relationship as an opposite-sex or same-sex couple "living together on a genuine domestic basis." Yet it also stipulates that a de facto alliance can exist even if one of the partners is legally married to somebody else or in another de facto relationship.
In another twist, the laws shape as a threat to polygamist husbands. Queensland Law Society family law chair Julie Harrington said: "In polygamy, you have only one marriage that’s recognised, so you have wives two, three and four as the de factos. At least those women will now have some rights which they otherwise didn’t (have) under the Family Law Act."
Ms Harrington said the new laws could also create a debt nightmare for others, who now face the possibility of ongoing spousal support to a string of previous de facto partners.
With married couples, maintenance orders generally end when the ex-partner receiving the money remarries. De factos will come under the same rules if they marry a new partner. But no explicit provision exists in the legislation for maintenance payments to stop should a recipient enter a new de facto relationship.
"Young people might have a series of short de facto relationships – and they’re potentially up for paying spouse maintenance for several," Ms Harrington said. However, a spokesman for federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland said that in this situation the payer would be entitled to head back to the family courts to show "just cause" for discharging or varying the order.
To learn how the family law changes could affect you, contact your local solicitor.

"Source: Queensland Law Society Newsletter of the Law, November 2008"