Marriage Act 1961

Where:

the parents of a child born illegitimate have married each other or the parents of a child born in a place the law of which did not recognise the status of illegitimacy have married each other;

the marriage took place outside Australia;

neither parent of the child was domiciled in Australia at the time of the marriage; and

the law of the place where a parent of the child was then domiciled did not recognise the status of illegitimacy or, if the law of the place where a parent of the child was then domiciled did recognise that status, the child was, by that law, legitimated by virtue of the marriage;

Where the relationship of a child and his or her father and mother is, for the purposes of the law of a place, required by a law in force in that place to be determined irrespective of whether or not the father and mother are or have been married to each other, the law of that place shall, for the purposes of this section, be taken not to recognise the status of illegitimacy.

Subsection (1) applies in relation to a child:

whether the child was born before or after the commencement of section 25 of the Marriage Amendment Act 1985, whether the marriage of the parents of the child took place before or after that commencement and whether or not the child was still living at the time of the marriage or, in the case of a child born before that commencement, at that commencement; and

in the case of a child born illegitimate who, by virtue of the marriage of the child’s parents, was legitimated by the law of the place where a parent of the child was domiciled at the time of the marriage—whether or not the law of the place in which that parent or the other parent was domiciled at the time of the birth of the child permitted or recognised legitimation by subsequent marriage.