Patrick Parkinson
Biographic Data
| ID | 335507 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Patrick Parkinson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Patrick |
| FAMILY NAME | Parkinson |
| SIGNATURE | PARKINSON P |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9429-9768 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 51 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1990 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Gender Identity Discrimination and Religious Freedom
Is there a legitimate basis for religious exemptions from laws that prohibit gender identity discrimination on the basis of people’s beliefs? The author argues that much depends upon how gender dysphoria is understood. If it is seen as a problem requiring medical diagnosis and treatment, then arguably there is no religious basis for discrimination, except in a few situations where being a biological male or female is theologically essential to a …
International Survey of Family Law 2023
The International Society of Family Law is an independent, international, and non-political scholarly association dedicated to the study, research and discussion of family law and related disciplines. The Society's membership currently includes professors, lecturers, scholars, teachers, and researchers from more than 50 different countries, offering a unique opportunity for networking within a truly international family law community. The Interna…
Findings of unacceptable risk – A comment on Webb et al.'s analysis of child sexual abuse allegations in the Family Court of Australia
Webb et al.'s study of Family Court judgements involving allegations of child sexual abuse has yielded much valuable statistical data. It demonstrates that only 12 per cent of fully contested cases where an allegation of sexual abuse is made result in a finding that a child is exposed to an unacceptable risk of sexual abuse. This commentary seeks to explain this low percentage by reference to the cohort of cases that fall for judicial determinati…
Shared Physical Custody: What Can We Learn From Australian Law Reform
This article reviews the long battle to reform Australia’s custody and access laws between 1995 and 2011. The result is a law which strongly encourages courts to consider the option of shared physical custody, while also emphasizing the need to protect children from harm, not least from being exposed to family violence. The trench warfare over the text of the legislation between advocacy groups has now largely ceased. Good empirical research on t…
Family Property Division and the Principle of Judicial Restraint
The Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) provides that judges must not alter property rights on the breakdown of the relationship unless satisfied that it is just and equitable to do so. This is the principle of judicial restraint. In the past, and prior to the 2012 decision of the High Court in Stanford v Stanford, this principle was given almost no effect. The High Court sought to correct this approach, insisting that the family courts should not begin fr…
Child Sexual Abuse and the Churches: A Story of Moral Failure
Some people may be puzzled, even angered, that the title to this article ends in a question mark. Surely we already know that the story of child sexual abuse in churches is a story of shocking moral failure. Story after story has appeared in the media in Australia in recent years of terrible sexual exploitation of children - and if that were not bad enough, reports of the cover-up of those crimes by superiors in the Church who, for whatever reaso…
The use and abuse of social science research evidence in children’s cases
In parenting cases, judges are asked to resolve the dispute by reference to the best interests of the child. In many cases, they have the benefit of expert witnesses who are trained in a social science and who draw upon the available research, directly or implicitly, in making recommendations concerning the child's best interests. Lawyers and judges may also be exposed to social science research in other ways, including conferences and educationa…
Outcomes of Child-Inclusive Mediation
This article presents the findings of a small qualitative study of child-inclusive mediation concerning parenting arrangements after separation. Fourteen parents who had undertaken child-inclusive mediation, and a comparison group of 19 parents who had engaged in mediation without their children being involved, were asked about the outcomes of the mediation process. The parents had all undertaken mediation through Family Relationship Centres in c…
Family Structure and Children s Wellbeing – a Reply to Lucas, Nicholson and Erbas
Family structure and children’s wellbeing: A reply to Lucas, Nicholson and Erbas
The article by Lucas, Nicholson, and Erbas (2013) adds to a growing body of evidence that children who experience their parents living apart are at increased risk of mental health problems. However, the authors fell into error in their discussion of the connections between family structure and children’s wellbeing. The report that they used as a straw man did not put forward the ‘simplistic’ position they claimed Rather it explored in detail the …
Reasons for Disputes in High Conflict Families
Reasons for disputes in high conflict families
Ongoing high conflict disputes between parents about the arrangements for children after parental separation are costly for parents and for the court system, and damaging to children. This study involved 80 parents (45 families) who attended a contact orders program following disputes over contact, mostly by court order; 20 parents participated in an in-depth interview. The key issue in the disputes for these parents was concern about the child’s…
Christian concerns about an Australian Charter of Rights
In 2009, Australia had a debate on whether it should enact a statutory Charter of Rights of a kind similar to that in the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. Some of the most organised opposition has come from churches and Christian organisations. The church groups opposed to a Charter are not at all against recognition of human rights — far from it. However, they oppose a Charter. Paradoxically, most of the churches and organisations perceiv…
Freedom of Movement in an Era of Shared Parenting: The Differences in Judicial Approaches to Relocation
In 2006, Parliament made major amendments to the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) (‘Family Law Act’) to encourage a greater level of shared parenting, and to give greater emphasis to the importance of children maintaining a relationship with both parents in the absence of violence or abuse. There are major differences between trial judges in how to apply the new laws to the problem of parental relocation — where the primary caregiver wants to move a lon…
Family Law and Personal Life
For most of his long and distinguished career as an academic family lawyer, John Eekelaar has been at the very forefront of his field. At a time when most family law texts were expository accounts of the legislation and case law, Eekelaar was writing work that placed the law in its social context in a way which illuminated the subject for a generation of undergraduates.1 With Mavis Maclean, his colleague at Oxford, he pioneered high quality socio…
Overnight Stays and Children's Relationships With Resident and Nonresident Parents After Divorce
This study focuses on adolescents' overnight contact with their nonresident parents. Sixty young people ages 12 to 19 and their resident parents were interviewed as part of a nationally representative study in Australia. The likelihood of overnight stays was lower when there was conflict and lack of trust between the parents. Adolescents who stayed overnight with their nonresident parents reported greater closeness and better quality relationship…
Judicial Conversations With Children in Parenting Disputes: The Views of Australian Judges
Judicial Conversations With Children in Parenting Disputes: The Views Of Australian Judges
Judicial interviews with children in contested parenting proceedings are an uncommon and contentious practice in Australia and many other common law jurisdictions. This article reports on a study of the views of Australian judges concerning talking with children in chambers. Most judges were opposed to talking with children because of concerns about how it would affect the quality of their decision-making, perceptions of fairness to the parents a…
What Responsibility Do Courts Have to Hear Children's Voices
No social organization can hope to be built on the rights of its members unless there are mechanisms whereby those members may express themselves and wherein those expressions are taken seriously. Hearing what children say must therefore lie at the roots of any elaboration of children's rights. No society will have begun to perceive its children as rightholders until adults' attitudes and social structures are seriously adjusted towards making it…
Reengineering the Child Support Scheme: An Australian Perspective on the British Government's Proposals
After years of problems with the Child Support Scheme in Britain, the Government has decided to attempt reform again, less than four years after a previous major change was implemented in 2003. The author evaluates these reform proposals, drawing upon his experience in leading a recent major review of child support policy in Australia. While many of the reform measures offer a sensible way forward for child support policy, Britain risks going bac…
Parents' and Children's Views on Talking to Judges in Parenting Disputes in Australia
Judicial interviews with children in contested parenting proceedings are an uncommon and contentious practice in Australia and many other common law jurisdictions. While there has been some debate about the merits and risks of such a practice among professionals and academic commentators, there is little research on the views of children and parents. In this study, children and parents involved in contested and non-contested family law matters in…
The Yardstick of Equality: Assessing Contributions in Australia and England
Following the decision of the House of Lords in White v White [2001] 1 AC 596, the Court of Appeal in England looked to the Australian case law on special contributions to develop principles for assessing the respective contributions of the parties in 'big money' cases. At much the same time, the Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia invoked the reasoning in White v White as a justification for suggesting that the doctrine of special con…
Child Protection, Permanency Planning and Children's Right to Family Life
Modern child protection law demonstrates a tension between two competing approaches. The first emphasizes the importance of partnership with birth families in the protection of children. The second emphasizes the need for children to have security in alternative care arrangements when it is not safe for them to remain in their parents' care, with a particular focus on adoption. Increasingly, these two approaches are seen as poles on an ideologica…
The child participation principle in child protection law in New South Wales
No Abstract
Statutory Compensation for Victims of Child Sexual Assault: Examining the Efficacy of a Discretionary System
The purpose of this study was to ascertain the relationship between certain victim and offence characteristics and the award of statutory compensation for victims of child sexual abuse, in a system which conferred a complete discretion concerning awards of compensation up to certain monetary limits
Parents' and Children's Views on Talking to Judges in Parenting Disputes in Australia
Judicial interviews with children in contested parenting proceedings are an uncommon and contentious practice in Australia and many other common law jurisdictions. While there has been some debate about the merits and risks of such a practice among professionals and academic commentators, there is little research on the views of children and parents. In this study, children and parents involved in contested and non-contested family law matters in…
The use and abuse of social science research evidence in children’s cases
In parenting cases, judges are asked to resolve the dispute by reference to the best interests of the child. In many cases, they have the benefit of expert witnesses who are trained in a social science and who draw upon the available research, directly or implicitly, in making recommendations concerning the child's best interests. Lawyers and judges may also be exposed to social science research in other ways, including conferences and educationa…
Reasons for disputes in high conflict families
Ongoing high conflict disputes between parents about the arrangements for children after parental separation are costly for parents and for the court system, and damaging to children. This study involved 80 parents (45 families) who attended a contact orders program following disputes over contact, mostly by court order; 20 parents participated in an in-depth interview. The key issue in the disputes for these parents was concern about the child’s…
Child Protection, Permanency Planning and Children's Right to Family Life
Modern child protection law demonstrates a tension between two competing approaches. The first emphasizes the importance of partnership with birth families in the protection of children. The second emphasizes the need for children to have security in alternative care arrangements when it is not safe for them to remain in their parents' care, with a particular focus on adoption. Increasingly, these two approaches are seen as poles on an ideologica…
What Responsibility Do Courts Have to Hear Children's Voices
No social organization can hope to be built on the rights of its members unless there are mechanisms whereby those members may express themselves and wherein those expressions are taken seriously. Hearing what children say must therefore lie at the roots of any elaboration of children's rights. No society will have begun to perceive its children as rightholders until adults' attitudes and social structures are seriously adjusted towards making it…
Overnight Stays and Children's Relationships With Resident and Nonresident Parents After Divorce
This study focuses on adolescents' overnight contact with their nonresident parents. Sixty young people ages 12 to 19 and their resident parents were interviewed as part of a nationally representative study in Australia. The likelihood of overnight stays was lower when there was conflict and lack of trust between the parents. Adolescents who stayed overnight with their nonresident parents reported greater closeness and better quality relationship…
Reengineering the Child Support Scheme: An Australian Perspective on the British Government's Proposals
After years of problems with the Child Support Scheme in Britain, the Government has decided to attempt reform again, less than four years after a previous major change was implemented in 2003. The author evaluates these reform proposals, drawing upon his experience in leading a recent major review of child support policy in Australia. While many of the reform measures offer a sensible way forward for child support policy, Britain risks going bac…
The child participation principle in child protection law in New South Wales
No Abstract
Outcomes of Child-Inclusive Mediation
This article presents the findings of a small qualitative study of child-inclusive mediation concerning parenting arrangements after separation. Fourteen parents who had undertaken child-inclusive mediation, and a comparison group of 19 parents who had engaged in mediation without their children being involved, were asked about the outcomes of the mediation process. The parents had all undertaken mediation through Family Relationship Centres in c…
Judicial Conversations With Children in Parenting Disputes: The Views Of Australian Judges
Judicial interviews with children in contested parenting proceedings are an uncommon and contentious practice in Australia and many other common law jurisdictions. This article reports on a study of the views of Australian judges concerning talking with children in chambers. Most judges were opposed to talking with children because of concerns about how it would affect the quality of their decision-making, perceptions of fairness to the parents a…
Statutory Compensation for Victims of Child Sexual Assault: Examining the Efficacy of a Discretionary System
The purpose of this study was to ascertain the relationship between certain victim and offence characteristics and the award of statutory compensation for victims of child sexual abuse, in a system which conferred a complete discretion concerning awards of compensation up to certain monetary limits
Findings of unacceptable risk – A comment on Webb et al.'s analysis of child sexual abuse allegations in the Family Court of Australia
Webb et al.'s study of Family Court judgements involving allegations of child sexual abuse has yielded much valuable statistical data. It demonstrates that only 12 per cent of fully contested cases where an allegation of sexual abuse is made result in a finding that a child is exposed to an unacceptable risk of sexual abuse. This commentary seeks to explain this low percentage by reference to the cohort of cases that fall for judicial determinati…
Beyond Pettkus v. Becker: Quantifying Relief for Unjust Enrichment
Boy, 15, Divorces Parent’: Irreconcilable Difference Applications in Victoria
The provision in Victoria's child welfare legislation, which allows parents or children to apply to the Children's Court on the ground of irreconcilable differences, is examined in the light of a much publicized case in Melbourne. Similar legislation exists elsewhere in Australia, and in New Zealand. The number of irreconcilable difference applications has declined in recent years due to the provision of counselling. A few cases still reach court…
Beyond Pettkus v. Becker: Quantifying Relief for Unjust Enrichment
Child Sexual Abuse, Access and the Wishes of Children
This article examines the question of whether access should be suspended entirely following findings that the parent seeking access has sexually abused the child. It considers the desirability of contact with a perpetrator from the point of view of the child's healing process in recovering from abuse. The article first considers the way courts have dealt with the problem of access decisions where sexual abuse has been proven, examining in detail …
The child participation principle in child protection law in New South Wales
No Abstract
Statutory Compensation for Victims of Child Sexual Assault: Examining the Efficacy of a Discretionary System
The purpose of this study was to ascertain the relationship between certain victim and offence characteristics and the award of statutory compensation for victims of child sexual abuse, in a system which conferred a complete discretion concerning awards of compensation up to certain monetary limits
Child Protection, Permanency Planning and Children's Right to Family Life
Modern child protection law demonstrates a tension between two competing approaches. The first emphasizes the importance of partnership with birth families in the protection of children. The second emphasizes the need for children to have security in alternative care arrangements when it is not safe for them to remain in their parents' care, with a particular focus on adoption. Increasingly, these two approaches are seen as poles on an ideologica…
The Yardstick of Equality: Assessing Contributions in Australia and England
Following the decision of the House of Lords in White v White [2001] 1 AC 596, the Court of Appeal in England looked to the Australian case law on special contributions to develop principles for assessing the respective contributions of the parties in 'big money' cases. At much the same time, the Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia invoked the reasoning in White v White as a justification for suggesting that the doctrine of special con…
Judicial Conversations With Children in Parenting Disputes: The Views of Australian Judges
Judicial Conversations With Children in Parenting Disputes: The Views Of Australian Judges
Judicial interviews with children in contested parenting proceedings are an uncommon and contentious practice in Australia and many other common law jurisdictions. This article reports on a study of the views of Australian judges concerning talking with children in chambers. Most judges were opposed to talking with children because of concerns about how it would affect the quality of their decision-making, perceptions of fairness to the parents a…
What Responsibility Do Courts Have to Hear Children's Voices
No social organization can hope to be built on the rights of its members unless there are mechanisms whereby those members may express themselves and wherein those expressions are taken seriously. Hearing what children say must therefore lie at the roots of any elaboration of children's rights. No society will have begun to perceive its children as rightholders until adults' attitudes and social structures are seriously adjusted towards making it…
Reengineering the Child Support Scheme: An Australian Perspective on the British Government's Proposals
After years of problems with the Child Support Scheme in Britain, the Government has decided to attempt reform again, less than four years after a previous major change was implemented in 2003. The author evaluates these reform proposals, drawing upon his experience in leading a recent major review of child support policy in Australia. While many of the reform measures offer a sensible way forward for child support policy, Britain risks going bac…
Parents' and Children's Views on Talking to Judges in Parenting Disputes in Australia
Judicial interviews with children in contested parenting proceedings are an uncommon and contentious practice in Australia and many other common law jurisdictions. While there has been some debate about the merits and risks of such a practice among professionals and academic commentators, there is little research on the views of children and parents. In this study, children and parents involved in contested and non-contested family law matters in…
Freedom of Movement in an Era of Shared Parenting: The Differences in Judicial Approaches to Relocation
In 2006, Parliament made major amendments to the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) (‘Family Law Act’) to encourage a greater level of shared parenting, and to give greater emphasis to the importance of children maintaining a relationship with both parents in the absence of violence or abuse. There are major differences between trial judges in how to apply the new laws to the problem of parental relocation — where the primary caregiver wants to move a lon…
Family Law and Personal Life
For most of his long and distinguished career as an academic family lawyer, John Eekelaar has been at the very forefront of his field. At a time when most family law texts were expository accounts of the legislation and case law, Eekelaar was writing work that placed the law in its social context in a way which illuminated the subject for a generation of undergraduates.1 With Mavis Maclean, his colleague at Oxford, he pioneered high quality socio…
Overnight Stays and Children's Relationships With Resident and Nonresident Parents After Divorce
This study focuses on adolescents' overnight contact with their nonresident parents. Sixty young people ages 12 to 19 and their resident parents were interviewed as part of a nationally representative study in Australia. The likelihood of overnight stays was lower when there was conflict and lack of trust between the parents. Adolescents who stayed overnight with their nonresident parents reported greater closeness and better quality relationship…
Christian concerns about an Australian Charter of Rights
In 2009, Australia had a debate on whether it should enact a statutory Charter of Rights of a kind similar to that in the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. Some of the most organised opposition has come from churches and Christian organisations. The church groups opposed to a Charter are not at all against recognition of human rights — far from it. However, they oppose a Charter. Paradoxically, most of the churches and organisations perceiv…
Reasons for disputes in high conflict families
Ongoing high conflict disputes between parents about the arrangements for children after parental separation are costly for parents and for the court system, and damaging to children. This study involved 80 parents (45 families) who attended a contact orders program following disputes over contact, mostly by court order; 20 parents participated in an in-depth interview. The key issue in the disputes for these parents was concern about the child’s…
Reasons for Disputes in High Conflict Families
Outcomes of Child-Inclusive Mediation
This article presents the findings of a small qualitative study of child-inclusive mediation concerning parenting arrangements after separation. Fourteen parents who had undertaken child-inclusive mediation, and a comparison group of 19 parents who had engaged in mediation without their children being involved, were asked about the outcomes of the mediation process. The parents had all undertaken mediation through Family Relationship Centres in c…
Family Structure and Children s Wellbeing – a Reply to Lucas, Nicholson and Erbas
Family structure and children’s wellbeing: A reply to Lucas, Nicholson and Erbas
The article by Lucas, Nicholson, and Erbas (2013) adds to a growing body of evidence that children who experience their parents living apart are at increased risk of mental health problems. However, the authors fell into error in their discussion of the connections between family structure and children’s wellbeing. The report that they used as a straw man did not put forward the ‘simplistic’ position they claimed Rather it explored in detail the …
Child Sexual Abuse and the Churches: A Story of Moral Failure
Some people may be puzzled, even angered, that the title to this article ends in a question mark. Surely we already know that the story of child sexual abuse in churches is a story of shocking moral failure. Story after story has appeared in the media in Australia in recent years of terrible sexual exploitation of children - and if that were not bad enough, reports of the cover-up of those crimes by superiors in the Church who, for whatever reaso…
The use and abuse of social science research evidence in children’s cases
In parenting cases, judges are asked to resolve the dispute by reference to the best interests of the child. In many cases, they have the benefit of expert witnesses who are trained in a social science and who draw upon the available research, directly or implicitly, in making recommendations concerning the child's best interests. Lawyers and judges may also be exposed to social science research in other ways, including conferences and educationa…
Shared Physical Custody: What Can We Learn From Australian Law Reform
This article reviews the long battle to reform Australia’s custody and access laws between 1995 and 2011. The result is a law which strongly encourages courts to consider the option of shared physical custody, while also emphasizing the need to protect children from harm, not least from being exposed to family violence. The trench warfare over the text of the legislation between advocacy groups has now largely ceased. Good empirical research on t…
Family Property Division and the Principle of Judicial Restraint
The Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) provides that judges must not alter property rights on the breakdown of the relationship unless satisfied that it is just and equitable to do so. This is the principle of judicial restraint. In the past, and prior to the 2012 decision of the High Court in Stanford v Stanford, this principle was given almost no effect. The High Court sought to correct this approach, insisting that the family courts should not begin fr…
Political science (26 works) · Law (21 works) · Law (19 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies (11 works) · Family Dynamics and Relationships (10 works) · Project commissioning (9 works) · Publishing (9 works) · Criminology (8 works)