Third attempt to remove a father’s name from the birth register dismissed as an abuse of process (SACAT, 2026)

What happened

The two children were born in 2015 and 2017. Each birth was registered within a month. The registrations were made after the Registrar received a birth registration statement signed by the applicant and by her then partner, with their names placed over the descriptors "mother" and "father".

In November 2025 the applicant asked the Registrar to remove the former partner as "father" and record him instead as a "donor". She provided a statutory declaration saying the conceptions were deliberately timed around her ovulation, that the relationship involved domestic violence and coercive control, that she had not understood herself to be entering an equal parenting partnership, and that the former partner had been largely absent from the children's lives. She said she was not seeking to change the children's surname or to stop their existing limited contact, only to have the Register record what she said was the truth. On 24 December 2025 the Registrar refused, because "donor" is defined in the Act as someone who provides reproductive material for an insemination procedure, and the children had not been conceived that way. A Tribunal member reviewed that refusal and affirmed it on 9 April 2026.

The next day the applicant lodged fresh applications, this time asking that the father particular be deleted altogether under section 42(1)(b) of the Act. On 23 April 2026 the Registrar refused again. He said the details recorded at the time of birth remain the most reliable information until someone proves they are wrong or a court or tribunal orders a correction, so the burden lay with her; that she had accepted the former partner was the biological father and that conception was natural, so he is the father for the purposes of the Act; and that events after registration, such as a parent's absence, do not generally change what the Register says. Her review of that refusal was dismissed on 4 May 2026 as misconceived under section 48 of the SACAT Act, with her filing fee refunded. She did not appeal either Tribunal decision to the Supreme Court, and told the Tribunal she considered the second Tribunal decision was the correct outcome.

On 7 May 2026 she lodged a third set of applications with the Registrar, again seeking deletion of the father particular. She said the new basis was that the Registrar's 23 April decision had made an affirmative finding about father status without identifying the most reliable information supporting it. On 12 May 2026 the Registrar wrote that the matters had already been considered and finally determined by him and by the Tribunal on review, and that he did not have power to make a further decision. Because the earlier review had been dismissed under section 48, the third review went to the President of the Tribunal to decide whether to give leave for it to proceed at all.

What each side wanted

The applicant argued the third application was a new application on a new basis: that deciding who the children's father is went beyond the Registrar's job under section 42(1)(b), which is only to bring the Register into line with the most reliable information available; that the Act does not define "father"; that a signed birth registration statement is self-certified and is not reliable enough to support a finding of fatherhood; and that her later statutory declaration was more reliable than the birth registration statements. She asked the Tribunal to send the matter back to the Registrar with a direction to delete the former partner's name pending further evidence, and did not suggest she would be producing any such evidence. The Registrar argued this was simply a second application for deletion, that he had already considered and rejected that request, that no new evidence had been produced since, that it is not his role to gather evidence about biological parentage, and that the Register is not changed unless he is satisfied a correction is needed or a court or tribunal directs it.

What the tribunal decided

On 15 June 2026 the Tribunal dismissed the application, lodged on 12 May 2026, as an abuse of process under section 48(1)(c) of the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2013. Written reasons followed on 7 July 2026. The President also refused Presidential leave to re-agitate the question of removing the former partner from the Register, given there was no fresh evidence about the children's parentage.

No money was ordered to be paid by either side, and no change was made to the Register. The filing fee refund mentioned in the reasons was ordered in the earlier, second review, not in this one. The Tribunal noted that if the applications had gone any further it would have been appropriate to serve the former partner and ask for his views, but no review had reached that stage.

Why the tribunal decided it that way

A review under section 34 of the SACAT Act is a fresh hearing in which the Tribunal stands in the shoes of the original decision-maker and reaches the correct or preferable decision. The President held that because that review is broad, anything the applicant wanted to say about the Registrar's second decision, including the statement she objected to, could and should have been raised in the second review. Once that review was decided, the only way to challenge it was an appeal to a single judge of the Supreme Court, which she did not bring. A complaint about one sentence in the reasons also does not create a separate right of challenge: what gives a right of review is the decision itself, here the refusal to delete the name.

On the substance, the President found the Registrar had not made the sweeping biological finding the applicant said he had. Describing the former partner as the father "for the purposes of the Act" was a statement about the legal effect of the Register, which already names him as father. The Tribunal set out why "father" carries its ordinary meaning of the paternal parent under this scheme: section 18 speaks of "the father and mother", the Regulations define "parent" as including the mother and father, and the Act and Regulations require a birth to be registered with the name of the child's father.

On section 42(1)(b), the "most reliable information" the Registrar relied on was the birth registration statements signed by both the applicant and the former partner, supported by her own later statutory declarations saying the children were conceived naturally with him and that he was not a donor within the Act's definition. The Tribunal did not accept that her 2025 declaration was more reliable than those registrations. The Register is built from the information given at registration and from credible later information showing an error; it is not the Registrar's job to investigate biological parentage, and nothing in the Act says a parent's details are left blank while such investigations run. The President also found no legislative or other basis for blanking the father particular pending future evidence, and accepted that it is sound decision-making for the Registrar to decline to reconsider the same application when no new evidence has been produced.

Because the same relief had already been refused twice and no fresh evidence was offered, the President refused leave and dismissed the application as an abuse of process. A dismissal of that kind means another proceeding of the same kind about the same matter cannot be started in the Tribunal without the leave of a Presidential member.

What this means if you are in a similar position

If you are in a similar position, this decision shows how a tribunal treats repeat applications about the same decision. A review is a wide re-hearing, so the time to raise every argument you have, including about the wording and reasoning of the decision, is in that one review. If you think the tribunal got it wrong, including because you left an argument out, the path is an appeal to the court within time, not a fresh application to the original decision-maker on a slightly different footing. Lodging the same request again, dressed as a new basis, can be dismissed as an abuse of process, and that dismissal then makes it harder to bring anything similar because leave is needed first.

It also shows how the "most reliable information" test works for the Register of Births. Entries made from signed registration statements stand until someone puts better information in front of the Registrar, and the onus is on the person asking for the change. The Registrar does not go out and gather evidence, and the decision confirms there is no halfway option of emptying a field while evidence is sought. Statements about how a relationship worked, or about a parent's absence afterwards, were treated as beside the point for what the Register records.

In disputes with a government agency about its own records or decisions, the step most people take first is a clear written application or complaint to the agency itself, setting out exactly what they want changed and attaching the documents they rely on, before any application to a tribunal for review.

How to apply: our step-by-step guide to a SACAT application. More decisions: SACAT cases and other civil disputes.

Source: YUT v Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages [2026] SACAT 89 (read the full decision). This summary was prepared from the published decision for general information. It is not legal advice, and the tribunal’s own reasons are the authoritative record.