In most cases, yes. If the other parent breaks a parenting order, you generally have to make a genuine effort at Family Dispute Resolution before you can apply to the court about it. The Family Law Act 1975 sets that out in Section 60I. The Act makes one narrow exception for recent, serious breaches, and the path you choose, enforce the order or change it, shapes what happens next.
Is it a parenting order, or just a parenting plan?
This matters first. You can only enforce a parenting order that a court has made, including Consent Orders. A Parenting Plan is a written agreement between parents, not a court order, so breaking it is not a breach the court can act on directly.
If you only have a Parenting Plan, the path is different. There is nothing to enforce, so the usual route is Family Dispute Resolution to agree new arrangements. If you need those arrangements to be binding, a court can turn them into Consent Orders, which then carry the same weight as any other parenting order and can be enforced the same way.
What counts as breaking a parenting order?
A parent contravenes an order when they do not comply with it and have no reasonable excuse. That covers intentionally failing to follow it, making no reasonable attempt to comply, and, for the parent the child lives with, not positively encouraging the child to follow it.
Division 13A of Part VII of the Family Law Act 1975 sets out the contravention rules and what the court can do about a breach. The Act does not put a fixed limit on what a reasonable excuse can be, but it spells out two clear examples: the person did not understand the obligations the order placed on them, or they believed on reasonable grounds that breaching it was necessary to protect someone's health or safety, including the child's, and the breach lasted no longer than that protection required.
Who proves what also matters. The parent bringing the application has to prove the breach on the balance of probabilities. If the other parent raises a reasonable excuse, it is then for them to prove it. Where the court is weighing a serious penalty such as a fine or imprisonment, the higher criminal standard, beyond reasonable doubt, applies.
Keep following the order while you act
Until a court changes the order, you have to keep following it yourself, even if the other parent is not. If you stop following the order because they did, you are in breach too, and that rarely helps your position if the matter reaches the court. If the breaches are making the arrangement unworkable, that is a reason to seek a change, not a reason to walk away from your own obligations.
Two paths: enforce the order or change it
There are two different things you might want. If you want the court to enforce the existing order and respond to the breach, that is a contravention application. If the arrangement no longer works and you want different terms, that is an application to change the order.
Both are parenting applications under Part VII, so both generally trigger the Section 60I requirement to attempt Family Dispute Resolution first. Changing a final order has a further hurdle: a court will not reconsider settled parenting orders without being satisfied there has been a significant change of circumstances, a threshold now set out in Section 65DAAA of the Family Law Act 1975.
So do you have to mediate first?
Usually, yes. Section 60I of the Family Law Act 1975 requires a genuine effort at Family Dispute Resolution before a parenting application is filed. Since 10 June 2025, the court must not accept the application for filing unless you file a valid Section 60I certificate or the court grants an exemption.
That certificate comes from an accredited Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner after you attempt mediation. It is separate from the Genuine Steps Certificate, which the party signs and files, and which initiating parenting applications also require. The two documents do different jobs, and we cover how the two certificates compare in its own article.
The pre-action procedures involve more than attending mediation. They also expect you to write to the other parent setting out the issues still in dispute and the orders you would seek, and to give them a reasonable time to respond, which the rules put at no less than 14 days.
When you can skip it: recent serious breach
This is the exception built for exactly this situation. Under Section 60I(9) of the Family Law Act 1975, you may not need a Family Dispute Resolution certificate where your application relates to a contravention of a parenting order that was made within the last 12 months.
On top of that, the court has to be satisfied there are reasonable grounds to believe the other parent showed a serious disregard for their obligations under the order. So the same breach that sends you to court can also be the reason you do not have to mediate first, but only when it is both recent and serious.
Qualifying is not automatic. You carry the job of persuading the court that the exemption applies, usually in a sworn affidavit, before your application is accepted. The exemption is also tied to the breach itself: it covers an application made in relation to that contravention, not a general wish to skip mediation on some unrelated issue.
The Act does not define a serious disregard, and it does not define urgency, which is a separate ground. Whether a breach clears the bar is for the court to weigh on the facts. A single missed changeover is unlikely to qualify. A parent who repeatedly withholds a child against a fresh order is a far stronger case.
The other ways to be exempt
The recent-breach ground is one of several exemptions. Section 60I(9) of the Family Law Act 1975 also lets the court accept a parenting application without a certificate in the situations below, each on the court's assessment of the facts rather than as an automatic right.
- The application is for Consent Orders, or is a response to the other parent's application.
- There are reasonable grounds to believe there has been, or is a risk of, child abuse or family violence by a party.
- The matter is urgent.
- One or more people cannot take part effectively, for example because of incapacity or living too far from a service.
- Another situation set out in the regulations applies.
How you actually claim an exemption
You have to ask the court for the exemption. In practice you file an Affidavit, Non-Filing of Family Dispute Resolution Certificate, setting out the ground you rely on and the facts behind it. A registrar then decides whether the exemption is made out.
If the exemption is refused, the parenting part of your application is rejected for filing, and you will need to attempt Family Dispute Resolution and obtain a Section 60I certificate before you can re-apply. If you also sought financial or property orders, those can still go ahead on their own.
Why mediation is often the faster fix
Even where you might qualify for an exemption, Family Dispute Resolution is frequently the quicker route to a result that holds. A contravention finding enforces the order and can penalise the breach, but it does not redesign an arrangement that has stopped working.
In Family Dispute Resolution, the practitioner assigned to your matter does not take sides or put forward a solution. They help each parent shape and reality-check their own proposals, and test how those would work for both households and for the children. An agreement reached this way can be written up and, if you need it to be enforceable, turned into Consent Orders.
If you do go to court on a contravention, Division 13A gives the court a graduated set of responses. For a first or less serious breach without a reasonable excuse, that might be remedial orders or a bond of up to two years. The court can order make-up time for the parent who missed out, vary the order to stop the problem recurring, require a parent to attend a post-separation parenting program, or order one parent to pay the other's costs. A fine or imprisonment is reserved for the most serious or repeated breaches.
A breach feels like grounds to go straight to court. Usually it is not, unless it is recent and serious enough to meet the exemption. The first move is a genuine attempt to resolve it, which is often what fixes the problem the breach was a symptom of.
This article is general information only. It is not legal, tax, or financial advice and does not take account of your personal situation. The law changes, some measures mentioned may be proposals that are not yet in force, and fees and figures can change over time, so check anything that matters and get advice for your own circumstances from a family lawyer, an accredited Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner, or a qualified tax or financial professional before acting. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 000. For confidential support with family violence or concerns about a child's safety, contact 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732.