DVO conditions in QLD explained, including ouster and no contact

DVO conditions in QLD come in two layers, and which conditions are included can decide whether an order is one you can live with or one that changes where you sleep tonight.

The first layer is on every order and is not negotiable. The second layer is added depending on the circumstances, and that is usually where the argument is. Most people arrive at court worried about whether an order will be made at all, when the conditions that go in it will have more effect on their life.

The standard condition on every DVO

Queensland Courts describes every DVO as having a standard condition that the respondent must be of good behaviour and not commit domestic violence against the aggrieved or any other person named on the order.

Put simply, you must be of good behaviour towards them and must not commit domestic violence against them. Where other people are named on the order, the same applies to those people.

A further part of the condition surprises people. You also cannot get someone else to do the thing you are not allowed to do, so asking your brother to drop off a message would be a breach of the condition rather than a way around it.

The standard condition is the minimum, and nothing else has to be added for an order to bind you.

Ouster conditions and leaving a shared home

An ouster condition removes you from a place. Queensland Courts describes an order as being able to restrain a respondent from staying in a shared residence, which means what it says.

If an ouster condition is made, you cannot be at the premises, whether to sleep or to collect things, even if the lease is in your name or your tools are in the shed. Whether you pay the rent makes no difference to whether the condition binds you.

An ouster condition can turn a court date into a housing problem in the space of an afternoon. If one is being sought against you, deal with it first, and organise somewhere to go before you walk into court rather than after.

There is usually a related question about how you get your belongings. That is something to raise on the day and have dealt with properly, rather than improvised later by turning up at the house.

No contact conditions and what counts as contact

Contact is wider than most people assume. It means contact in any form, including a phone call, a text, a message through a friend, an email, a comment on their social media post, or turning up at a place you know they will be.

None of that needs anger, an argument or any intention to cause harm. If the condition says no contact and you make contact, that is a breach.

Decent people are often caught out because the condition binds you alone. If they message you and you reply, you have breached the order and they have not, and their invitation makes no legal difference to your position. Our article on breaching a domestic violence order explains why that is and what police have to prove.

Conditions about approaching places

An order can restrict you from approaching the other person at home or at work, and Queensland Courts also identifies conditions about attending a child's school or day care centre.

These can reach further than they first appear. If the school on the order is also the school your other child attends, or the workplace on the order is in the same building as your own job, a condition drafted quickly can create a problem nobody in the courtroom thought about. Read the addresses on the draft order and say something on the day if one of them is going to be unworkable.

People named on the order besides the aggrieved

Relatives, associates and children can be named, and where they are, the conditions extend to them.

That widens who you have to keep away from, sometimes including people you are close to. It also means a breach can happen through someone you were not thinking about as part of the order at all.

Weapons and weapons licences

The Queensland Police Service states that a respondent will not be allowed to possess any weapons or a weapons licence for the duration of a protection order. Queensland Courts describes a temporary order as suspending a licence and a final order as cancelling it, with a period of up to five years during which you cannot hold another.

If firearms are part of your work or your recreation, that needs to be on the table from the first conversation rather than discovered afterwards.

Cool down and return conditions

If what you have is a police protection direction rather than a court order, the Queensland Police Service lists the available conditions as standard conditions plus cool down, no contact, ouster and return conditions.

A cool down condition keeps you away for a defined short period. A return condition deals with going back to premises, usually in a controlled way. If you are not certain whether you are holding a direction or a court order, our page on police protection orders sets out how to tell.

Negotiating the conditions of a DVO

People often spend their preparation deciding whether to fight the order and no time at all on what is in it, even though in many matters the conditions are the more useful thing to discuss. Whether an order is made may be close to settled on the material. Whether it carries an ouster condition, or whether a no contact condition has a carve out that lets parenting handovers work, is frequently still open.

If a condition would cost you your job, your home or contact with your children, raise it clearly and early, with a workable alternative rather than just an objection. Our page on responding to a domestic violence order covers the options at a mention.

Breaking any condition is a criminal offence

This applies to every condition on the order, including the ones that seem minor.

The order itself is civil and does not give you a criminal record, but a conviction for disobeying it does. Keep that in mind whenever a condition feels unnecessary or petty.

If a condition stops working later

Conditions can be changed. An application to vary an order is free to file, and the respondent is one of the people who can bring one. What the court weighs is whether the change would adversely affect the safety, protection or wellbeing of the protected person or anyone named on the order.

Until a court changes it, keep complying with the condition exactly as written, because filing an application does not suspend anything.

If conditions are being sought against you in Cairns

Conditions are often drafted quickly in a busy list, and they run for years. A few minutes of careful thought before they are made can save you an application to change them later.

We act for respondents in domestic and family violence matters in Cairns and across Far North Queensland. Conditions that would affect your home, your work or your children are worth raising before your court date rather than after.

If conditions on a domestic violence order in Cairns would affect your home, your work or your children, speak with us before they are made.