The Japan Custody Battle

I questioned Minister Wong (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) and officials regarding the devastating issue of Australian children being abducted to Japan by one parent and entirely cut off from their Australian families due to Japanese domestic law.

While I understand the need for diplomatic language, my priority is getting these kids back to their families.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Chair, can I just use the rest of my time to get into the second bracket? I’ve only done five minutes.  

CHAIR: Well, you’ve been very efficient, so, yes.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Minister Wong, this goes to something we’ve discussed before and that I think you’re quite supportive of, but I won’t pre-empt it.  

Senator Wong: That worries me!  

Senator ROBERTS: When you’re worried, I’m worried! For those not familiar with this scenario, many Australian children have been taken by one parent to Japan, who’ve refused to return the Australian child to Australia, contrary to the wishes of the other custodial parent or an Australian court order In Japan, the non Japanese parent is often denied access to their child or even contact with that child—a terrible situation. Sometimes contact is limited to a small number of written letters or emails per year. This is because of Japanese domestic law. Minister, what is the current state of negotiations between Australia and Japan to set this situation right?  

Senator Wong: Sorry, I’m just trying to find my brief on this. I’m hoping someone from my office is going to text me on this fairly shortly. I don’t have anything in front of me, and I’m hoping that someone who can talk about Japan, not just consular, might come to the table, please. Ms Adams: I can, but I just want to hear the—  

Senator ROBERTS: I’ll repeat the question. What is the current state of negotiations between Australia and Japan to set this situation right?  

Senator Wong: I want to respond to the word ‘negotiations’. You might recall—I think we had this discussion previously, and I assume Ms McGregor can go to this—that this is a domestic legislation for Japan and that we have been advocating or supporting the changes to their domestic framework and working with them, including through, from memory, the chief justice of the family court, who went to Tokyo to share our experience on joint custody arrangements et cetera. I can’t recall what the legal term is. My recollection is that the legislation has passed. Am I right?  

Ms McGregor: It’s come into effect.  

Senator Wong: That is the legal system changing, which we are supportive of. Then there has also been representations we make on a consular basis for the non-custodial parents. And you should know that I have raised this issue, including the sensitivity and distress of these issues and the distress that many parents feel, with my counterparts over a number of years, because I’m sure they’re in contact with you. There are obviously parents who are very distressed, but Ms McGregor can probably more directly go to the consular issues.  

Ms McGregor: I can confirm that Japan’s joint custody reforms came into effect on 1 April 2026, and we very much welcomed that step. We’re doing a range of things to assist Australian parents who are facing child abduction and custody issues in Japan. We continue to provide consular assistance to affected Australians and—  

Senator ROBERTS: Excuse me, this is wonderful news, but how many Australian children are being held in Japan, contrary to international law, and how many Australian parents have raised this as an issue, if you could include that in your statement?  

Senator Wong: Can we just reframe that for us? I don’t mind you saying that, but, rather than making the assertion ‘contrary to international law’, why don’t we give you whatever we can about how we deal with the people we have dealt with without us being drawn into having to make a legal—  

Senator ROBERTS: Okay, I’ll rephrase it.  

Senator Wong: No, it’s only because obviously we have to make representations, so we use language carefully.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m not a diplomat.  

Senator Wong: No, you can say what you want, Senator, but I’m just saying—  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m happy for you to rephrase it. I just want these kids back.  

Senator Wong: If you don’t mind, Ms McGregor can assist.  

Ms McGregor: I think we can speak about this in terms of numbers of consular cases involved. DFAT is currently providing consular assistance to 16 parents with respect to 23 children on these issues of parental abduction and child custody. Since 2004, we’ve provided assistance to the parents of 90 children in similar cases. Obviously, we can’t comment on individual cases, but we do a lot of work, particularly to keep parents updated with periodic updates on our advocacy and on developments in Japan. Most recently, we sent out one of those updates in May. Alongside that, we continue to engage Japan to explain the sensitivity of this issue to ensure that they’re aware of the distress of parents and also to encourage progress in this matter. A lot of our work has been focused on supporting the effective implementation of those reforms, and we do that by sharing family law expertise and maintaining regular engagement with Japanese stakeholders, as well as like-minded governments. And the minister mentioned in particular the visit of the Hon. Justice Victoria Bennett of the Federal Circuit and Family Court. She visited Japan. She shared experiences of family law and reform with parliamentarians, judges, bar associations and academics. We’ve had other visits such as that over a number of years.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for that comprehensive answer. Minister, the Japanese Prime Minister recently came to Australia on an official visit. Was this issue raised with the Japanese Prime Minister or did you see no need to because the legislation in Japan is pending?  

Senator Wong: I will check what I can share with you on that. Obviously it’s the Prime Minister’s bilateral, not mine—so, meetings between the leaders—but generally the track for raising this and keeping it— 

Senator ROBERTS: Bubbling?  

Senator Wong: Actually, demonstrating to Japan that this is an important bilateral issue we have interests in and want to keep trying to progress, that has been me to my counterpart. I’ve had a number of Japanese counterparts and it’s one of the issues we make sure we continue—at my level and through our diplomatic track— to make clear to them that this matters to us. I’ll check about Prime Minister Takaichi, but just to be clear with you, it would be me to Minister Motegi—and, previously, Minister Kamikawa et cetera—rather than leader to leader, in general.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Are you aware that some law firms in Australia have run seminars to show Japanese parents how to take their Australian children permanently out of the care of the other parent? It’s not in the best interests of the child.  

Senator Wong: No, I wasn’t aware of that.  

Senator ROBERTS: This organised child stealing—use whatever diplomatic language you want—is still happening, to some extent, with the financial support of our welfare system. Should a non-custodial Australian parent be forced to pay child support to a Japanese parent where the child is being held in Japan, contrary to the wishes of the Australian parent, other family members and a court order? Are you aware of that? I’ll be asking questions in another committee—  

Senator Wong: This is on a law firm site, is that what we’re—  

Senator ROBERTS: Sorry?  

Senator Wong: Where is this information that you’re quoting?  

Senator ROBERTS: My staffers advised me.  

Senator Wong: I’m not trying to—I’m saying, is this something a law firm in Australia is—  

Senator ROBERTS: Yes.  

Senator Wong: Right.  

Ms Lawson: We’d be interested to have that information so we can have a look at it.  

Senator ROBERTS: Last question—two questions: What can you offer to devastated parents in Australia to end this situation of standing by while child stealers thumb their noses at the other parent? Are you expecting any changes now that the legislation in Japan has changed? Can you do more?  

Ms Adams: We haven’t been standing by. This issue has been—  

Senator ROBERTS: No, I’m not saying you have been.  

Ms Adams: Well, you did. Excuse me, but I thought that’s what you just said in your question just then. But we know we’re not standing by; we’re continuing to advocate on the particular cases and on the systemic issue. It’s been a high priority for the embassy as well as the foreign minister for many years now. We’re continuing to work on effective implementation of the—quite historic, in a Japanese context—legislation that recently passed.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Last question: how keen do you think the Japanese administration is to resolve this? Will they implement the law fully?  

Ms Adams: The change in the law was carefully debated and very intensely worked through in the Japanese system over many years. It is actually a historic change to introduce shared custody as a new concept in Japanese family law. We have every expectation that it will be fully implemented.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you.