Status of Children Act 1978

This Act may be cited as the Status of Children Act 1978.

This Act shall come into operation on a date to be fixed by the

Administrator by notice in the Gazette.

This Act applies to a person, whether or not the person:

and whether or not the person's parents have ever been domiciled in the Territory.

In this Act, unless the contrary intention appears:

marriage includes:

and married has a corresponding meaning.

parentage testing procedure means a medical procedure prescribed, or included in a class of medical procedures prescribed, for the purposes of this definition.

prescribed court means a Territory court, a court of the Commonwealth, a court of a State or another Territory or a court of a prescribed overseas jurisdiction.

proof means proof on a balance of probabilities and

proved has a corresponding meaning.

Registrar means the Registrar within the meaning of the

Birth, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1996.

(1) If a child is born to a woman while she is married, the child is presumed to be a child of the woman and her husband.

(ii) a purported marriage to which a woman is a party is annulled; and

the child is presumed to be a child of the woman and the former husband or purported husband.

(c) within 3 months after the resumption of cohabitation, they separated again and lived separately and apart; and

(d) a child is born to the woman within 44 weeks after the end of cohabitation but after the dissolution of the marriage,

the child is presumed to be a child of the woman and the former husband.

(4) For the purposes of subsection (3), a marriage dissolved by a decree of dissolution shall be deemed to have been dissolved on the making of the decree nisi under the Family Law Act 1975 of the Commonwealth in relation to the marriage.

If:

(b) at any time during the period beginning not earlier than 44 weeks and ending not later than 20 weeks before the birth, the woman cohabited with a man to whom she was not married,

the child is presumed to be a child of the man.

fertilization procedure means:

(b) the procedure of fertilizing an ovum outside the body and transferring the fertilized ovum into the uterus whether or not the ovum was produced by the woman into whose uterus it is transferred.

(a) is, where the person is living with another person of the opposite sex as his or her spouse on a bona fide domestic basis although not married to the other person, a reference to that other person; and

(b) does not, in that case, include a reference to the spouse, if any, to whom the person is lawfully married,

and married woman, in those circumstances, has a corresponding meaning.

(a) a pregnancy referred to in section 5C, 5D or 5E, whether the pregnancy occurred before or after the commencement of the Status of Children Amendment Act 1985 and whether or not it resulted from a fertilization procedure carried out in the Territory; and

(b) a child born as a result of a pregnancy referred to in section 5C, 5D, 5E or 5F, whether the child was born before or after the commencement of the Status of Children Amendment Act 1985 and whether or not it was born in the Territory.

(2) Nothing in this Part affects the vesting in possession or in interest of property that occurred before the commencement of the Status of Children Amendment Act 1985.

A woman who gives birth to a child is, for all purposes, the mother of the child, notwithstanding that the child was conceived by the fertilization of an ovum taken from another woman.

(1) Where a woman who is the de facto partner of another woman undergoes, with the consent of the other woman, a fertilization procedure as a result of which she becomes pregnant, the other woman is taken to be a parent of:

(3) In a proceeding in which the operation of subsection (1) is relevant, a woman's consent to the carrying out of a fertilzation procedure in respect of her de facto partner is to be presumed, but that presumption is rebuttable.