Married Persons (Equality of Status) Act 1996

This Act is the Married Persons (Equality of Status) Act 1996.

This Act commences on a day or days to be appointed by proclamation.

Notes in this Act do not form part of the Act.

A married person:

has legal capacity for all purposes and in all respects as if that person were unmarried, and

has a legal personality that is independent, separate and distinct from that of the person’s spouse.

This section does not affect any specific laws in relation to a minor.

Spouses (including a husband and wife) each have a right of action in tort against the other as if they were not married.

A married person is entitled to civil and criminal redress against the person’s spouse for the protection of his or her property as if that person were not married.

A married person does not, by reason only of the person’s status as a spouse, have the authority to pledge the credit of the other spouse for necessaries or to act as agent for the other spouse for the purchase of necessaries.

Subject to any agreement to the contrary, a married person is not liable for any debt incurred by the person’s spouse before their marriage.

Spouses (including a husband and wife) are to be treated as two separate persons for the purposes of the construction of a will, trust, or other instrument in relation to a gift or other disposition of real or personal property to the spouses, unless a contrary intention appears.

An instrument executed after the commencement of this section is void to the extent that it purports to attach any restriction on anticipation or alienation to the enjoyment of property by a woman that could not have been attached to the enjoyment of property by a man.

Nothing in this Division affects the generality of Division 1.

If a married person makes a payment or allowance to the person’s spouse to pay their joint household expenses or for similar purposes, any property bought with the payment or allowance and any money not spent from the payment or allowance is, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary between the person and his or her spouse, taken to belong to the person and the person’s spouse as joint tenants.