Hello all, I will give a brief summary of my current situation:

I left my wife in January and I am currently going through a real nasty seperation, where my wife and the mother inlaw has accused me of sexual and physical abuse to my 9yr old daughter.

I am currently representing myself, as to date I have spent $30 000 on legal fees, and cannot afford a lawyer no more.

There already been a DOCS report done which basically said that ther eis no evidence that I have done anything which i have been accused of, and now are awaiting a professional independant report as requested by the Family law court (Majellan Process).

I have a current interim order without admission of guilt where i see my daughter once a week, as long I am supervised because of the allegations made about me.

I know that the evidence will show that my wife and mother inlaw have made false allegations about me, and I have applied for full custody of my daughter. I know that I most probably get at least 50/50 as the best scenario, and week ends every fortnight and maybe 1 nite during the week as worst case scenario.

In preparation for this, I have been paying for a spot at my daughters school for before and after school child care, along with moving within 5km of my daughters school.

Here is my question

My wife gave me a call yesterday saying she wants to move closer to her mother (about 20min drive from where my daughter and wife currently lives and 20min from my daughters school), because she said it be easier for her to get to work, and for the mother inlaw to take and collect my daughter from school.

My wife told me she can do this with out my approval.

I personally think that my wife is doing this so that my chances of at least getting 50/50 share custody will be harder if i live further away, and that the school she want to go to for my daughter does not have child care hence I will not have any arrangements in place for my daughter to be cared for when I have her.

I have a court hearing on the 20th August in relation to supervisors, so I am planning to get a stay order if possible preventing my wife from enrolling my daughter into a new school for next year and un-enrolling her in her current school, as the issue of custody still has not bene resolved.

My questions are:

1. Can my wife do this without me consenting?

2. Can I argue that my wife is doing this to make life difficult for me if i am trying to get at least 50/50 custody?

3. Argue that she is trying to alienate my daughter from me?

4. Does anyone know what sections of the Family Law Act that I can use to prevent her doing anything until final orders are given by the courts?

Sorry for making this so long, and hope it makes sense. Hope someone can give me some advice.

Hi hairdog and welcome,

As with most answers you may well say how longs a peice of string.

As far as moving without your consent to my knowledge " Yes ", but she can also be orders to move back into the area if it is deemed not in the childs best interest. Other memebers have been through this and their X partners have been forced to return to the State they left for varying reasons.
My X moved my girl some 300k's away and although I could have aplied for orders it would have taken six months pluss before things happened, as it was she got wise and moved back a year later. It really does depend on distance and effect pluss the judge.

You can argue that moving is more of a hinderance to your childs existing routine and moving her from her peers will have an adverse effect on her, add in that more consideration should be given to and existing regiem with after school care on hand than a few more minuets of travel for her mother and the disruption of removing her from an area with friends into an alien enviroment and you would be telling nothing but the truth.

It has been a while so I can't remember the rule number refering to this but I do remember that it can be manipulated by other rules and laws but perhaps another member may have the information at hand.

Your post is not too long and it makes perfect sense to many here.

There are others here and about that have suffered your fate and will be able to give a lot better advice than mine.

I think it would be imperative to construct a letter stating that you do not agree with her suggested move and that her reason of self convieniance does not outway your daughters social structure that exists, and as the case is still to be heard this may well be disruptive to future contact.

I know this isn't much help but I hope others will post better possible options for you.

best of luck hairdog.

What happened?