Family Court of Australia

The Family Court of Australia was a superior Australian federal court of record which deals with family law matters, such as divorce applications, parenting disputes, and the division of property when a couple separate. Together with the Federal Circuit Court of Australia, it covered family law matters in all states and territories of Australia except for Western Australia, which has a separate Family Court. Its core function was to determine cases with the most complex law, facts and parties, to cover specialised areas in family law, and to provide national coverage as the national appellate court for family law matters. In 2021, the Morrison government introduced legislation merging the Family Court with the Federal Circuit Court of Australia to form the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, effective from 1 September 2021. Since the merger, the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia is the only court which has jurisdiction to deal with purely family law related issues. The Family Court of Australia was established under Chapter 3 of the Australian Constitution, by the Family Law Act 1975, and commenced operations on 5 January 1976. It currently comprises a Chief Justice, Deputy Chief Justice, Appeal Division judges and other judges. In July 2008, there were 44 judges (5 of whom were also Judges of the Family Court of Western Australia), 2 judicial registrars and 1 senior registrar. In December 2017 the number of judges was down to 36, including 8 Judges of the Appeals Division. The Court maintains registries in all Australian states and territories except Western Australia. The Court has had five Chief Justices to date, Elizabeth Evatt (1976–1988), Alastair Nicholson (1988–2004), Diana Bryant (2004–2017), John Pascoe (2017–2018) and Will Alstergren , the current Chief Justice who was appointed on 10 December 2018 (having served as Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia since September 2017 and continuing to hold that position).