NEWS

Child Not Allowed to Travel Overseas on Holiday with Mother

In the recent decision of Lee & Zhu (2010) the Federal Magistrate did not allow a mother to take the parties eight year old child to China for a five week holiday as the child would miss 17 days of school and this was not in the child’s best interests.

The Court rejected the mother’s proposition that if the child were not able to have a holiday, it would affect her physical or psychological health or blight her future. The father was prepared to agree that the child could travel overseas during the school holidays, and was further prepared to allow the child to miss three days of school but not the 17 days with the mother requested.

The Court said that it would not be swayed by the argument that just because the trip had been planned, booked, paid for and that the departure date was imminent, it would be obliged to allow the child to travel overseas for that length of time. The Court suggested that the mother should have considered the effect on the child of taking her out of school for an extended period of time and made alternative arrangements which would have ensured the child spent less time out of school.

As in all matters relating to children, the Court will look at what is best for that particular child in those circumstances. This decision should therefore not be viewed as an overall blanket prohibition that it will never be appropriate for a child to have time off school to go on an overseas holiday.