Parental Responsibility in Queensland: Shared, Sole, and What Changed in 2024

What Parental Responsibility Actually Means

Parental responsibility under Australian family law is not about where your child sleeps. It is about who makes the major long-term decisions that shape the child's life — education, health, religious and cultural upbringing, and name changes. These are distinct from day-to-day decisions (what the child eats, what time they go to bed, what they wear), which are made by whichever parent has the child at the time.

Under Section 61C of the Family Law Act 1975, both parents have parental responsibility for a child under 18. This does not end because you separate or divorce. It remains in place unless a court specifically orders otherwise.

Shared Decision-Making vs Sole Decision-Making

When the court is asked to make parenting orders, it can assign decision-making authority in several ways:

Joint decision-making means both parents must consult each other, share relevant information, and make a genuine effort to reach a joint decision on major long-term issues. If one parent makes a unilateral decision — such as changing the child's school or enrolling them in a new religion — without consulting the other, they are in breach of the order and can face enforcement proceedings.

Sole decision-making gives one parent the authority to make all major decisions without needing the other parent's agreement. This is typically ordered when one parent has demonstrated an inability to communicate or cooperate, when there is a history of family violence, or when the parents have an intractable disagreement on a specific issue.

Split decision-making is a middle path: one parent might be given sole authority over education decisions while the other retains sole authority over health decisions, with joint responsibility for everything else.

The 2024 Abolition of the Presumption

Before 6 May 2024, the Family Law Act contained a statutory presumption that equal shared parental responsibility was in a child's best interests. Unless this presumption was rebutted by evidence of violence or abuse, courts were legally bound to start from the position that both parents should share decision-making authority — and then to consider equal-time arrangements.

The Family Law Amendment Act 2023 repealed this presumption entirely. Courts now approach parental responsibility and care arrangements with no legal starting point. The decision is made purely on the evidence, assessed against the six best-interests factors under Section 60CC: the child's safety, their views, their developmental needs, each parent's capacity, the value of maintaining relationships, and any other relevant circumstances.

This does not mean shared decision-making is less common — many parents still agree to it, and many courts still order it. The difference is that shared responsibility is now ordered because the evidence supports it for that specific child and family, not because a statutory presumption pushed everyone toward it by default.

When Sole Parental Responsibility Makes Sense

Courts are more willing under the post-2024 framework to order sole decision-making when the evidence shows that joint arrangements would not work. Common situations include:

• High-conflict communication. Parents who cannot exchange information civilly, escalate every discussion into an argument, or use the child as a messenger are poor candidates for joint decision-making.
• Family violence. Where one parent has used violence, coercion, or intimidation, requiring the victim to consult and negotiate with the perpetrator on major decisions can be harmful and dangerous.
• Non-engagement. A parent who does not respond to communications, misses medical appointments, or fails to participate in school events may be unable to fulfil the practical obligations of shared decision-making.
• Fundamental disagreement on a specific issue. If parents are deadlocked on a single issue — such as whether a child should attend public or private school — the court can assign sole responsibility for that issue to one parent while maintaining joint responsibility for everything else.

How This Affects Your Parenting Plan

When drafting a parenting plan in Queensland, you need to address decision-making explicitly rather than assuming "we'll just decide things together." Specify:

• Which major long-term issues are decided jointly and which are decided by one parent
• The consultation process — how you will share information and attempt to reach agreement
• What happens when you disagree — a return-to-mediation clause is standard
• How day-to-day decisions work (made by the parent who has the child at the time)

Vague plans that say "both parents will make decisions together" without specifying a process for disagreement tend to generate the most disputes. The Queensland Child Custody and Parenting Plan Guide includes decision-making matrix worksheets that help you map out these arrangements clearly.

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