Who is protected by an AVO?

• The mandatory (standard) conditions included in an AVO automatically cover you as the protected person.
• The court can and usually will extend this protection to include any person who is in a domestic relationship with you.
• Domestic relationship has a very broad meaning and includes:
  • marriage, de facto and intimate (close personal) relationships;
  • anybody who lives or has lived in the same household with you;
  • anybody who has a relationship of dependence with you. This means anybody who depends on your care or whose care you depend on;
  • your relatives by blood or marriage; and
  • anybody who is your kin according to the Indigenous kinship system.
• Apprehended domestic violence orders must specifically protect any child who is in a domestic relationship with you unless the court thinks there are good reasons for this not being done.
  • The court must tell you what those reasons are.
  • The court can make an AVO allowing contact under a Parenting Order to continue between the children and the named person.
  • If the court feels that the children’s safety is threatened it has the power to amend the Parenting Order as well as preventing contact through the AVO.