What is considered a ‘relevant’ relationship under the Domestic and Family Violence Protection Act?

The protections under the Act are available to people in a broad range of relationships:

• intimate personal relationships
• family relationships, and
• informal care relationships.

Intimate personal relationships

Intimate personal relationships include couples, people who are engaged, in a de facto relationship or who are married. They include people who are separated or divorced, who have a child together, and people who are living together or have previously lived together as a couple. People who are or were engaged to be married including a betrothal under cultural or religious tradition are also covered. It can include people who haven’t lived together in some circumstances, including people under the age of 18. A court will consider each relationship on a case-by-case basis to see if an intimate personal relationship exists. To assist the court to decide if such a relationship exits, it may look at how long the couple have been together, how often the couple see each other or how dependent on or committed the couple are to each other.

Family relationships

Family relationships exist between two people who are related by either blood or marriage, including a spouse, a child, a parent, a sibling, a grandparent, an aunt or uncle, a cousin, a step-relative, half-relatives and in-laws. Children under the age of 18 cannot access protections in these categories of relationships. The Child Protection Act 1999 sets out the relevant law for the protection of children within families. For some people, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, a wider group of people may be considered as family and may be recognised under the Act.

Informal care relationships

Informal care relationships exist where one person is dependent on another person for help in their daily lives, such as assistance with dressing or grooming, meal preparation, grocery shopping or arranging medical care. This does not include help provided by a paid person but where the care is provided without payment. A person receiving a carer payment from the government is not a paid carer and can be part of an informal care relationship. 

The information in this article should only be used as a guide. Legal advice should be sought from a lawyer.

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