Australia: Family and Matrimonial

For families caring for a person with a severe disability, understanding how to provide long-term financial security while maintaining access to social security benefits presents unique challenges. Special Disability Trusts offer a structured legal solution with significant asset-test exemptions and gifting concessions, but navigating the complex eligibility requirements, compliance obligations, and determining whether this structure suits your family's circumstances requires careful consideration.

What should farming families consider when one child works in the business and other children do not?

A Victorian Supreme Court case examines whether a 16-year-old mother's 1968 consent to adopt her newborn son was obtained through coercion by hospital and social welfare institutions. The court must determine if the adoption process breached duties of care under standards that existed nearly 60 years ago, while the plaintiff argues she was prevented from seeing her baby and pressured into relinquishing parental rights.