ABSTRACT
The Family Law Act 1996 is the most common jurisdiction for such applications, and is by far the most versatile. It applies to spouses, unmarried cohabitants and ‘associated persons’. It provides for orders to: (a) restrain one party from ‘molesting ‘the applicant or a child living
with the applicant’; this covers a multitude of situations, but the usual wording of the order is ‘assault, harass, pester or otherwise interfere with’ (a ‘non-molestation order’);
(b) exclude the respondent from the home or part of it or a defined geographical area (typically ‘200 metres’) containing the home (an ‘occupation order’);
(c) require the respondent to permit the applicant to enter and remain in the home or part of it.
