Property mediation after the family violence reforms: raising the bar, not lowering the door

Mediation House | Elasmo Legal Group

In June 2025, the Family Law Amendment Act 2025 changed how courts, and by extension mediators, must weigh up property settlements. For the first time, family violence sits explicitly in the list of factors a court can consider when assessing what each party contributed to a relationship and to the welfare of the family. A month before that, from 1 April 2025, new Family Law (Family Dispute Resolution Practitioners) Regulations reshaped how accredited FDR practitioners screen parties, issue section 60I certificates and keep their records.

Taken together, these changes are the most significant shift to Australian family dispute resolution practice in some years. My view is that they are overdue, and that mediators who treat them as a compliance exercise rather than a practice shift are missing the point.

Why this matters beyond the paperwork

Property mediation has always relied on a basic assumption, that both parties can negotiate from a position of rough equality. Anyone who has sat in a room with a controlling ex-partner knows that assumption often does not hold. The 2025 regulations tighten screening obligations and require clearer documentation of how safety was assessed before a matter proceeds. That is a welcome correction. A mediator's first duty is to work out whether mediation is appropriate at all, not to get parties into a room and hope for the best.

The property settlement changes cut the other way too. Courts must now expressly consider the effect of family violence on a party's ability to contribute, financially or otherwise, to the relationship. Mediators do not decide cases the way judges do, but we do help parties test what a court might find. A mediator who is not fluent in how family violence now factors into contribution arguments cannot do that job properly.

The disclosure point deserves more attention than it gets

The duty of disclosure has moved out of court rules and into the Family Law Act itself. Hiding assets or income is now squarely a contempt matter. In practice, this gives mediators a firmer footing to insist on full financial disclosure before substantive negotiation starts, rather than treating disclosure as something to chase mid-session. It also gives the party who has been kept in the dark, often the more vulnerable one, a clearer statutory basis to push back.

An opinion, plainly stated

Some practitioners have grumbled that the new screening and recordkeeping obligations slow matters down. I do not accept that framing. A mediation that skips proper screening to save an hour is not efficient, it is a mediation that risks producing an agreement one party did not freely make. The reforms ask more of practitioners before the table is even set. That is the cost of taking family violence and power imbalance seriously, and it is a cost worth paying.

The task now for firms like ours is training, not just compliance. Practitioners need to understand contribution arguments under the amended Act, not merely tick the screening boxes the regulations require.

Sources: Family Law Amendment Act 2025, key changes; Family law (property) changes from 10 June 2025, Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia; Property Mediation, how the process changed since the FLA was amended, Mediation Institute