Australia
Two empirical studies have been undertaken in Australia to obtain the experiences of family members involved in relocation disputes - a small-scale, retrospective, qualitative study of 33 parents by Associate Professor Juliet Behrens, Associate Professor Bruce Smyth and Dr Rae Kaspiew; and a larger, prospective, longitudinal study of 80 parents and 19 children by Professor Patrick Parkinson, Associate Professor Judy Cashmore, the Hon Richard Chisholm and Judi Single, from the University of Sydney Faculty of Law.3
Behrens, Smyth and Kaspiew
The Australian Research Council funded Behrens, Smyth and Kaspiew (2008a, 2008b, 2009a, 2009b) to undertake a small-scale, retrospective, qualitative study involving in-depth interviews with 38 separated parents (27 fathers and 11 mothers) concerning their experiences of contested relocation proceedings in the Family Court of Australia (FCA), the Federal Magistrates Court or the Family Court of Western Australia between 2002 and mid-2005 (i.e. where the Court order had been made between 18 months and five years previously). The research team also planned to interview the children of these parents, but after only being able to recruit three children had to abandon this aspect of their study.
The study aimed to specifically examine how parents (and children) perceived the impact on themselves and other family members of the decision; what had happened for the family members in the aftermath of the decision (for example, how had patterns of contact evolved in the period after the decision?); and what reflections on the process did parents have, and what advice would they have for other parents? Parents were recruited through the Courts (400 letters), with letters sent to solicitors
3 Our research team has been collaborating with this Sydney team to undertake a parallel project in New Zealand.

23 when they were returned address unknown (55 letters). Participants then opted in to the study.
The study also included an analysis of all 200 FCA contested relocation decisions between 2002 and 2004 (i.e. the population from which the interview sample was drawn). While this judgment analysis was useful as a benchmark study in itself, it also provided a check to enable the research team to assess how typical their interview cases were.
FCA Judgment Data
Ninety percent (n=160) of the people who wanted to move were female, while only 5% (n=15) were male. In 2% (n=4) of the cases both parents wanted to relocate to separate locations. In 57% of the 200 cases the relocation was allowed, and in 43% the relocation was denied. Sixty-one percent of the cases involved a proposed move of 1000 km or more, or overseas. Prior Court proceedings had occurred in 71% of cases and half of these had gone to a Court determined outcome. There were allegations of violence in nearly 70% of the cases. The primary reason for relocating was to be closer to family (33%), to be with a new partner (30%), or to escape violence (8%). There was no clear view expressed by the children in 50% of the cases, but 20% wanted to move, 16% did not, and 11% were split. The contact patterns in place at the time of the Court decision included: no contact or no overnights (30%), weekend and holiday contact (48%), more frequent contact (11%), and shared care (11%). Residence was contested in 63% of the cases.
The applicant was more likely to be allowed to relocate with the children if it was the mother who wanted to move. She was less likely to be allowed to move if there were three or more years between the separation and the judgment, or if she said she would go anyway (43%). The mother was slightly more likely to be allowed to go if the youngest child was 6 years or older (57%, compared with 54% for a younger child). She was more likely to be allowed to relocate if the father did not have new partner, and was much more likely to be allowed to go if her extended family was in the new location (61%), or she was going 1000 km or more, or overseas (64%). There were no significant differences between cases where there was high conflict and those where there was not, with the exception of cases that were clearly abusive or involved child abduction (63% allowed to go). Where both parties made allegations of violence or abuse, the relocator was allowed to shift in 49% of these cases, and where it was the mother only alleging abuse (54%), father only alleging abuse (63%), or neither alleging abuse (59%). When reasons for relocating were taken into account, relocation was most likely if it was to escape violence (64%), but less likely if was to be with a new partner (54%). Relocation was more likely if neither parent had a poor financial status (61%). Where there was no contact or overnight stays, 60% of relocations were allowed, weekend and holiday contact (61%), more frequent contact (53%), or shared care (39%). If the children expressed clear views that they wanted to go, 68% of the relocations were allowed. If residence was not contested, 74% were allowed to go. If there were problems with the mother’s credibility, only 20% were allowed to relocate.
Interview Data
Behrens et al. (2009a) classified their 38 participants (27 fathers and 11 mothers) into four groups:
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* OS: seven successful opposers (mostly fathers, one mother) * OU: twenty unsuccessful opposers (mostly fathers, one mother) * AS: six successful applicants (all mothers) * AU: five unsuccessful applicants (mostly mothers, two fathers and one 
subsequent AS) 
Twice as many parents had an order allowing relocation than not allowing relocation, and most of the participants were fathers. Thus, the dominant accounts ascertained from the indepth interviews were those of men who had unsuccessfully opposed a relocation. The researchers caution that their data is based on only one side of the story (no ex-couple data), and is not objectively verified through access to Court files or cross-checking of their judgments. Care is therefore needed in interpretation as the study has yet to be peer reviewed. 
Most of the parents were in highly conflicted or abusive relationships prior to the relocation proposal. In these cases the relocation was really part of a longer story about conflict, enmeshment and poor relationships. Ten of the 38 cases involved very short, unhappy relationships where the parents’ separated during pregnancy or shortly after the birth of a single child. For a significant minority of the parents the relocation proposal was one of a vast number of issues over which there had been conflict with their children’s other parent, and over which there had been Court proceedings. The patterns of conflict tended to mark the relationships both pre- and post- the Court decision. In the small minority of cases where the dispute was largely over the proposed relocation, the parents were more likely to report smoother patterns after the relocation decision including less conflict, improved relationships, and no subsequent moves. These cases also involved long distance parenting where the relocation had been allowed. 
These participant dynamics were not atypical when compared with the judgment data which revealed that over 80% of the cases in the quantitative sample of 200 Court decisions involved either highly conflictual or abusive relationships; high levels of previous Court proceedings, including those which had gone to final hearing; 45% of cases involved a single, young child; and there had been prior moves or mental health / substance abuse issues in nearly half the cases. 
Relocation and parent-parent relationships: For the significant majority (26/38) of the parents interviewed, relationships between them and their children’s other parent had not improved at all since the Court’s decision - even up to six years after that decision was made. There were two main categories of cases where relationships did improve, although even these remained troubled: where there were apparently extraordinary efforts by one parent; or those time healed cases which were almost all lower conflict ones in the first place. 
Behrens et al. (2009a) identified two patterns of long-distance parenting: * ‘separate homes, separate lives’ pattern – where children travelled to the distant parent and that parent knew little of the child’s life in the new location. * ‘parental engagement in both locations’ pattern - a more flexible approach based on active engagement by the parent in children’s lives in both parents’ locations. In two cases fathers had arranged to rent a room in the new location
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to enable them to see their children in an appropriate environment. In other examples, parents travelled extraordinary distances to see children at school events (e.g. one mother living away from her children regularly travelled five hours one way and five hours back in one day for these). Parents also reported going over school photos with their children to get to know the names of their friends, or texting their children every day.
Which pattern developed seemed to partly reflect the child-centredness of the parent living away from the child. But resource considerations, the age of the children and flexibility on the part of the parent with whom the child was living were also important. Many fathers talked of the expense and difficulties of travelling to the other location.
Reasons for relocating (or not): Those applying to relocate all gave multiple, complex and multi-layered accounts of their reasons for the decision, with psychological factors often being more significant than material ones. The need to re- find oneself was a strong theme for those wanting to relocate. Opposers of the proposed relocation tended to see things through a less complex lens, and often gave primacy to their bread-winning responsibilities. An important factor for a significant minority of the opposers in considering whether or not to relocate themselves was a concern that the relocator would move again. There appeared to be no understanding that this would not usually be possible under a Court order.
Allegations of violence: A significant majority of the 38 cases involved allegations of violence and/or abusive behaviour, yet the divergence between the ways the mothers and the fathers described their experiences was stark, revealing strongly gendered discourses about this issue. Men’s accounts tended to speak of violence in terms of engagement with the legal system, for example over State protection orders obtained on weak grounds, allegations made falsely or blown out of proportion and claims about violence being used in a tactical way. It was rare that any behaviour that led to such engagements was discussed in any depth. The mothers, however, struggled to label violent behaviours in ways recognisable to the law. Their experiences of violence were a motivating issue (though not a deciding factor) in relation to their proposed relocation. Some women’s accounts demonstrated the impact that the dynamics of control have and the way this can be played out in legal proceedings. Women’s experiences of the response of the family law system were varied, with some experiencing recognition and validation, others feeling their concerns had been marginalised, and others being advised not to raise a history of family violence.
Relocation and parent-child relationships: Relocation was rarely the end of a parent-child relationship, but could be seen as a significant point of transition which parents managed differently depending on their own parenting styles, their relationships, their personal resources and the support available to them. The small number of parents in the sample who did lose contact with their children after a relocation had significant violence, mental health, and/or substance abuse issues.
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Conclusions
Behrens et al. (2009a) concluded that the parents contesting relocation in their study fell into three broad groups, although they acknowledged that these need to be tested more systematically: * rough roads - the largest group where the relocation dispute was part of a larger story about enmeshment, conflict and/or abuse. It is marked by a series of conflicts, often involving prior Court action, prior moves, and very poor or abusive inter-parental relationships. For most of these cases the ‘rough roads’ continued after the relocation, although there was a small sub-group for whom parental relationships improved, although these remained troubled. * smoother paths - a smaller number of cases where there was less conflict prior to a dispute about relocation. Relationships generally continued on this smoother pathway after the Court order, and were marked by continuing child- centred parenting, including long-distance parenting in both old and new locations. * separate pathways – the smallest group where contact virtually ended after relocation. This group was marked by quite extreme factors (drug use, controlling violence, mental illness) that preceded the decision and continued beyond it. 
The research team emphasised the need to be careful about the assumptions used when designing relocation law, for example, that a relocation dispute is just about relocation, as only a minority of their cases could be characterised like this. The relocation cases that were decided in Court, and for which the law was most directly used, often involved families with multiple problems where the relocation dispute was one of many sources of conflict. These high conflict/abusive relationships probably require a different approach from those that are not. Similarly, those situations where the child is conceived in a short-term relationship may need a different approach from cases where a child has lived with and established a strong relationship with both parents. It thus appears important to understand the pre-Court situation in order to make sense of what happens afterwards. 
Australian law has struggled with relocation decision-making since the early 1990s. The field is highly contested, particularly along gender lines, and there is a lack of research to inform its development. Decisions to restrict a person’s freedom of movement or to put significant physical distance between a parent and a child are not ones to be taken lightly. Judges in Australia report that making decisions about relocation disputes is very difficult and they would like more information about the aftermath of their decisions. Currently a high proportion of reported cases in children’s matters in the Family Court involve relocation, yet the law is getting less clear and reform (at least to a broader law on post-separation parenting) appears likely. 
Parkinson, Cashmore, Chisholm and Single 
Parkinson, Cashmore, Chisholm and Single are currently conducting a prospective, longitudinal, qualitative and quantitative study of relocation disputes (Parkinson,
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2008a, 2009; Parkinson & Cashmore, 2008, 2009; Parkinson, Cashmore, & Single, in press). This has been funded by the Australian Research Council since 2006. Participants were recruited through family lawyers who were asked to send a brochure to any clients who had sought advice concerning a relocation dispute, and where the dispute had been resolved in the previous six months. If a client wished to participate they contacted the research team directly.
Interviews have been conducted with 80 parents from 71 families: 40 fathers who all opposed their ex-partner’s proposed move; 39 mothers and one grandmother. All but one of the mothers were seeking to relocate with their children. One mother was a non-resident parent who opposed the father’s proposed relocation. There are nine former couples in the sample. Nineteen children have also been interviewed from nine of the 71 families. These family members have mostly been interviewed within a few months of their relocation dispute being resolved by consent or judicial determination following the 2006 Australian family law reforms. The first round of interviews began in July 2006. The families were then re-interviewed 18-24 months later and, due to an extension to the project, are now being followed for up to five years after resolution of their relocation dispute.
Preliminary findings have only been reported to date as Parkinson and Cashmore (2009) emphasise the project is “a work in progress” (p. 3) since the interviewing and analysis is still continuing.
Reasons for the relocation: Most mothers had more than one reason for wanting to relocate. These included a desire to return home / to access extended family support, moving to be with a new partner, making a fresh start in a new place, having a better lifestyle or financial prospects (especially housing affordability), or escaping violence and control (although this was a much less frequent reason given by only three participants).
Destinations and distances: Ten cases involved proposed moves overseas to the UK, USA, New Zealand and Israel. The majority of domestic relocation cases were interstate moves within Australia with an average of 1628 kms. The intrastate moves ranged in distance from 125-1600 kms, with an average of 365 kms.
Outcomes: The applicant was allowed to move with the children in about 65% of the resolved cases. The move was more likely to be allowed by consent than by judicial determination. Thirty-six (53%) of the 68 cases (three cases were still to reach an outcome) were resolved by judicial determination. In 21 (58%) of these 36 cases the applicant was allowed to move with the children. However, there were regional variations and it was much more likely that the relocation would be allowed from Melbourne and Perth than Sydney.
The prospects of settlement: Generally only 6% of Australian family law disputes in which litigation is commenced are resolved by judicial determination. It is therefore significant that 59% of the relocation cases were resolved by judicial determination. Many cases that did settle were resolved very late in the litigation process or after the trial had commenced. Parkinson and Cashmore (2009) further examined a sample of 22 cases in which settlement had been reached. In 15 of these cases, the father acquiesced in the mother’s relocation. In another case, the mother acquiesced in the
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father’s relocation (with the children). In five cases, the mother settled on the basis that she would not relocate, and in another case, she agreed to leave the child with the father while she relocated herself.
The main reason for settling was the fact that one parent gave up – the case was simply too difficult or too expensive, or the parent became concerned about the impact of the dispute on the child. A few parents – mainly fathers - settled not because they thought the proposed move would be in the best interests of the child, but because they thought that bringing the conflict to an end was in the best interests of the child.
The very low settlement rate in relocation cases has a number of explanations which probably operate together. The first is that there is little middle ground between the two parents’ positions on which to base a compromise. The choices are typically seen as binary: either the primary carer will move or she will not, either the non-resident carer will move to be in the same location as the primary carer or he will not. There is some room for negotiation and agreement, for example, over who will bear the travel costs if the relocation occurs. However, that presupposes acceptance of the parent’s move. Webcam, telephone and email are also options for communication, but the non- resident parents did not regard these as adequate substitutes for the experience of family life with their children through regular physical contact, involving overnight stays.
A second reason for the low settlement rate may be the extent of judicial discretion and lack of appellate guidance. People cannot ‘bargain in the shadow of the law’ if the law casts no shadow. The lack of appellate guidance has been a significant problem in Australia since changes to the law, placing a greater emphasis on shared parenting, came into effect in July 2006. Few relocation appeals have succeeded and while there has been some guidance on the process of reasoning in relocation cases, there has been none on the factors that ought to be most significant in determining whether or not relocation should be allowed. This unwillingness to lay down guidelines may well be making it much harder to resolve these already difficult cases.
Legal Costs: Legal costs were reported as a major source of financial stress and sometimes financial ruin. Parties spent an average of A$62,500 each on their relocation dispute, with a median cost of A$40,000 per participant. Naturally, there was a difference between cases resolved by judicial determination and those resolved by agreement (which included cases which settled in the course of a trial). Twelve respondents reported legal costs of $100,000 or more.
A confounding factor in estimating legal costs was that for a minority of participants, the issue of relocation arose around the same time as, or soon after, the separation. At this time, one might expect that lawyers would be advising on other issues to do with the separation, as well as the parenting issues. To test the possibility that disputes concerning property division might have added significantly to the overall legal costs, 50 cases in which the relocation issue clearly arose as a discrete dispute, at least one year after the separation, were compared with the costs of the group for whom the relocation issue arose within 12 months of separation. No statistically significant difference was found between the two groups. This suggests that even in the cases where the relocation dispute arose in the immediate aftermath of parental separation,
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or within a reasonably short time thereafter, it was the relocation dispute itself that was the main driver of legal costs. It should be noted that the high legal costs in the sample reflected the fact that most participants were recruited through private lawyers, and only a few had legal aid funding, or represented themselves for some of the proceedings.
Aftermath of the dispute – changing situations: Six fathers followed the mother to her new location. In two cases, the women decided to go anyway, leaving the child or children in the care of the father.
Abandoning the relocation: The fact that the Court allowed a relocation was no guarantee that it would actually occur. Two women who were allowed to relocate decided in the end not to go through with it – even after a full trial. In one, the mother wanted to move from Melbourne to Perth, following a man with whom she had formed a new relationship. She was permitted to do so. The distance was 3,500 kms. Her daughter was then three years old. The Court ordered that the child have ten visits with the father per year, each of seven days’ duration. Three weeks after the hearing, she decided that the move would not be in the best interest of her child. She was concerned about the burden of travel for her and her daughter to comply with the Court orders and also on how the father and his family felt about the move. Her relationship with her new partner ended because she would not move. The relocation case has also led to a serious deterioration in her relationship with the child’s father, who is angry with her for trying to take his daughter away from him.
Another woman was allowed to go to Queensland from South Australia, but had to wait for twelve months until her child was a little older. She formed a relationship with a local man and, although he was willing to give up his job and move with her to Queensland, leaving his children behind, she decided that it was best to stay where she was.
Two other mothers returned to live where they were before. One returned from the United States (her home country) within about a year of leaving. The other returned having been given permission to relocate 1600 kms away. Within two months of the move, the mother returned to the area where the family used to live. In neither case did the move have the benefits that the mothers expected. The grass is not always greener on the other side of the relocation fence!
Contact problems: A number of non-resident fathers reported problems with the arrangements within a few months of the relocation. In one case, for example, twin boys, aged 7, were permitted to relocate with their mother from Victoria to Queensland. Court orders were for extended holiday contact and twice weekly phone calls. The mother moved again after she had moved to Queensland and did not inform the father of her new address or telephone number. The twins came for their contact visits for about one week of most school holidays. About three days before the children arrived, the father would receive a phone call from the airline with the flight number and time. When the father returned the children to the airport after their contact, he was not informed if they had arrived safely. The father had already spent $65,000 on legal fees at the time of his interview, and could no longer afford to bring the matter back to Court.
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In a few situations, contact appears to have been completely lost due to estrangement - this was particularly the case in overseas relocations. One mother reported that over a long period of time, the father had alienated the children from her. She acquiesced in letting him take the children back to the USA, his home country. She went over there on a visit a few months later, but the children would not see her. In another case, a man reported that his former partner took the children to the USA and then rang to say she was not coming back. He saw the children once about eight months after they moved, but now they will not speak to him at all and do not want to see him.
Other left-behind fathers reported that they were not kept informed of the child’s address, phone number or transportation arrangements for contact visits. They also said that Court ordered telephone calls and webcam ‘visits’ were discontinued a few months after the relocation.
Travel costs: There was no clear pattern of distribution between the parents. Of those where the relocation took place and contact was occurring, 17 parents shared the costs approximately equally, four relocating parents met all the costs and five met most of them. Three non-relocating parents paid all the travel costs, and five paid most of them.
The cost of travel can impact upon the viability of the Court-ordered contact arrangements if the relocation goes ahead. Overseas relocations involve particularly significant issues of cost and difficulty in terms of the travel, given the vast distances between Australia and most other countries. In one case, a father consented to his British born former partner returning to live in the UK with two children aged 12 and 8 on the basis of Court orders that he would see his children three times a year in Australia and once per year in the UK. The mother was to bear the cost of travel to Australia. Her plan was to fly with the children from the UK to Australia, where the father would meet them at the airport. The mother would return straight away to the UK. She would then fly back to Australia to collect the children and return again immediately to the UK. Thus, for every trip of the children to Australia, there would be four return airfares. This occurred the first time the children were due to visit Australia, but prior to the next occasion, the mother sent the father an email to say that she was not bringing the children as she could not afford it. At the time of his first interview, he was exploring his legal options for trying to enforce contact.
Travel costs within Australia also emerged as a major issue. In one case, for example, the mother estimated it cost her A$15,000 per year. Another mother estimated A$1100 per month, or over A$13,000 per year. Where the travel was between capital cities on the east coast of Australia, there could be relatively inexpensive airfares available. However, these cheap flights were not usually at hours suitable for younger children. Flights to regional centres were often considerably more expensive.
Furthermore, the costs were not only in the children’s airfares. The mother of a young child might have to travel to the other parent’s home and then return to her own home because of her work commitments, and then at the end of the visit, fly back again to collect the child. The alternative of staying in the other parent’s town for the duration of the visit could also impose financial stress if there was no free accommodation, or if it would not be possible to hold down a regular full-time job because of the frequency and extent of the visits required by the Court orders.
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Non-resident parents also noted the expenses they faced when they travelled for weekend visits to their child(ren) in their new location – airfares, motel accommodation, rental cars and food. One father estimated his travel costs at A$10,000-A$15,000 per year. The Court orders provided that the parents should share the cost of travel for the children to fly from Queensland to Tasmania each school holidays. The father was also to have one week a term in Queensland. He described the difficulties of moving up to Queensland for a week:
I stay in a self-contained room. I look to pay, you get a good room between a $100 and $120 dollars a night. The whole exercise, with airfares, costs me $2000 to $3,000 a shot. That’s with a rental car, because I don’t have a car up there, that’s for the hotel room, and you go shopping and because you don’t have all your bits and pieces you tend to buy, like you’ve got to buy things to clean the sink with and all that sort of stuff. So you’re always buying things each time and there’s nowhere for me to store stuff so each time you go up, you’re buying new stuff.
Another father described the cost of a weekend visit as follows:
And just to give you an idea, ...one of them ...cost me, I think it was just under $800 and that’s not counting food. And they were cheap fares. Cheap fares, hire a car, it had to be a reasonable size car to get the two car seats in the back. The Judge said wherever we stay - this is the Court order that the judge said this - that we had to have a full kitchen. I had to be able to cook and wash and everything there now. So that’s what it cost me for that weekend just to see the kids.
Regular travel over long distances may be very difficult for parents on average incomes to afford, particularly after the great expense of a Court case. It must be questioned whether such high costs of contact can be sustained over a long period.
Burden of travel: Some children, including very young children, were required by the terms of Court orders to travel very extensively. One primary school child, for example, was flying between Brisbane and Sydney every other weekend, as well as in school holidays. Many children flew unaccompanied by a parent between cities. In one case, a relocation was permitted for a 2-year-old child who moved from the Gold Coast to rural Victoria, a distance of about 1,700 kms. Every 13 days she travelled to visit her father in Queensland for an eight-night block. The mother typically travelled to the Gold Coast to give the child to the father, travelled back, and later returned to collect the child. Another 2-year-old child relocated with his mother from Tasmania to rural Victoria. Six times a year this little boy travelled for 3.5 hours from his home in Victoria to Melbourne airport, where his father met him and took him to Tasmania for a ten-night block.
Some children resisted the travel that was required by the Court orders and this was one reason why the contact arrangements that are ordered by the Court break down. The cost of transportation for the parent of accompanying their child on a flight to their ex-partner’s location, returning home (without the child), and then going back to collect the child sometimes became prohibitive and resulted in less frequent contact
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visits being made. Two important issues arose with these shared parenting arrangements over vast distances involving very young children. The first was the stress on the child of such frequent dislocation from his or her normal home and routine, for long periods. The other concern was the effect on young children of such long separations from their primary carer in the cases where the primary carer delivers the child to the other parent and then returns home before coming back to collect the child again. Seven or eight day absences from a primary caregiver represent a very long time in the life of such young children. Sharing the parenting across the continent may appear to solve the problem of reconciling a parent’s freedom of movement with the need to involve both parents in the child’s life, but this is perhaps at great cost to the child’s well-being.
Levels of conflict: Interviewees reported very high levels of conflict with the other parent. Hostility from the mother was mentioned by many fathers even where the Court had allowed her to relocate. The most likely explanation for this was that the litigation process itself had seriously damaged the parents’ relationship, causing ongoing anger and resentment. The burden of onerous contact arrangements may also be a factor.
Conclusion
Parkinson and Cashmore (2009) conclude that relocation disputes exact a huge financial toll on parents, and it may be surmised that they also exact a huge toll on children in indirect ways. These cases are very difficult to settle, and occupy judicial resources disproportionately. If cases do settle, this tends to be because one parent gives up rather than because they reach a reasonable compromise in their dispute. The costs and burden of travel may well cause a great deal of financial difficulty for parents, or lead to a diminution of the level of contact intended because the costs are unsustainable. In many cases, it seems, Australian Judges have tried to resolve the relocation problem by ordering extensive contact involving frequent travel in a way that is neither developmentally appropriate nor affordable. That creates as many problems as it solves.
The findings demonstrate the importance of reality testing proposed arrangements for children if the relocation goes ahead and the non-resident parent cannot or will not move to the new location. Will the proposed contact really be sustainable financially over a significant period? Will the children be able to cope with the travel involved? Will the proposed contact actually be happening two or three years down the track? The fact that a Judge orders contact does not mean that it will occur, or that it will do so with the frequency anticipated. If Court orders permitting relocation are being made on the assumption that the contact which is deemed to be in the best interests of the child will in fact take place, then that assumption ought to be seriously questioned.
It follows that in any given case where a Judge is minded to allow the relocation, he or she needs to ask whether the relocation would still be in the best interests of the children even if the contact proposed by the relocating parent does not eventuate at all, or is only a fraction of the time that the proposed orders contemplate? Judges need also to consider, and seek evidence about, whether the children will cope with the proposed travel. Relocation disputes do create intractable problems, but there are ways forward. Practitioners need to reality test with clients both the decision to move and the costs of opposing the other parent’s move. Legal costs can be reduced – and
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settlements encouraged - by clearer signalling of likely outcomes in different kinds of cases based firmly on evidence about the best interests of children rather than untested assumptions. Judges will be assisted by better evidence about the likely impact of the move on the relationship with the parent left behind.
Other Australian Research
Parental Conflict over Relocation
Smyth et al. (2008) used data from the third wave of the Caring for Children after Parental Separation Project (undertaken by the Australian Institute of Family Studies) to ascertain the extent to which parents reported disagreements about relocation in the post-separation context. Participants were read a statement about various issues that could contribute to disagreements about parent-child contact: * Money – including child support; * The wishes of one or more of your children; * Concerns about the ability of either of you to care for the children; * Issues relating to a new partner (asked only if the respondent or their former 
spouse had repartnered); * You or [target partner] moved or wanted to move. 
The most common type of disagreement reported by separated parents was about money (67% of resident mothers; 57% of non-resident fathers). In contrast, disagreements over one of the parents moving was the least common dispute (20% of resident mothers; 33% of non-resident fathers). Yet, respondents rated these relocation disagreements as the most difficult to manage. Smyth et al. (2008) conclude that “disagreements about relocation appear to be a pincer-type issue. That is, while they might only apply to a minority, they are extremely hard issues to resolve – perhaps because there’s (literally) little room to move” (p. 40). 
Attitudes to Parental Relocation 
Significant gender differences were found in an Australian study examining separated mothers’ and father’ attitudes to parental relocation (Smyth et al. 2008). In the Caring for Children after Parental Separation Project, respondents were asked: ‘If a resident parent4 wants to move interstate with the children, should they be allowed to do this – (a) regardless of other circumstances? (b) only in certain circumstances? or (c) not in any circumstances? 
Most respondents – with the exception of fathers exercising shared care – tended to say that a resident mother should be allowed to move interstate only in certain circumstances. This category represents a kind of middle ground ‘it- depends-on-the-circumstances ...’ response. ... [T]hree of the four groups of fathers – shared care fathers, non-resident fathers, and fathers with split residence of children – were the most likely of all the groups to believe that a resident mother should not be allowed to move interstate under any circumstances (51%, 37% and 39% respectively) (in contrast to 18% of resident fathers who held this view). This represents an extreme position which would 
4 The authors note that attitudes to non-resident parents’ freedom to relocate after separation have not yet been explored in Australia.

34 presumably argue for a blanket prohibition on (not even just a rebuttable presumption against) relocation. This ... highlights the dangers of relying on attitudinal research in policy formation. It is noteworthy that none of the shared care mothers or fathers believed that a resident mother should be allowed to move interstate regardless of the circumstances. Any significant moves by either party, of course, are likely to threaten the viability of shared care arrangements, and both mothers and fathers in these situations seem to recognise that mobility may need to be restricted where shared care is occurring. (Smyth et al., 2008, p. 41)