I don’t know if it’s because there’s a lot of people in parliament who have been cheated on, or whether there’s a lot of parliamentary wives and husbands who hold way too much sway over their political spouses, that prompted the Australian government to introduce the “mistress laws”.

Regardless of the reason however, after passing into law back in April it seems the mistress laws are here to stay.

The basic idea behind these new laws was that if you were together with someone for two years in a de facto relationship, you now had a financial bounty over your head.

Naturally it didn’t take long for Australia’s cougar population to line up and start suing. Sadly if the first case involving the laws is anything to go by, these new laws are just going to be instant jackpot payouts to naive delusional women.

When I first wrote about the laws (The Australian Government’s alliance with golddiggers), I saw this bitter retaliation from scorned females coming a mile away. I even wrote up a list outlining several possible ludicrous scenarios that the mistress laws would facilitate.

Back then they were just a series of extreme and what I thought exagerated potential cases however now I’m not so sure.

The first case involving the new laws was heard in Melbourne and involves your usual corporate high flyer with wife and some hopeless woman who falls for the ‘he’ll leave her any day now’ routine.

“I gave him the best years of my life.”

“He always told me he would look after me, then he left me. I had committed myself fully to him for all those years and it just came to a dead end.”

The affair went on for over 20 years and if you thought my article title was a bit harsh read how the mistress describes her affair:

“I saw our relationship as a loving companionship.”

“He got a lot of relaxation away from the stresses of his business life. When he came to me he did not have to worry about business.”


…relaxation hey. When most couples talk about being together it’s usually a mutual thing. Stating a guy comes to you to indulge in escapism paints a pretty specific picture.

Still too harsh? The article continues;

Mary accompanied Tom on several overseas and interstate trips and she often joined him at dinner functions.

“They had a mutual commitment to each other and Tom promised he’d look after her. But he was married and still is married.”

“I provided him with a lot of moral and emotional support.”


Just how dumb do you have to be to fall for the oldest worm dangling excuse in the book? Of course ‘Tom’ promised to look after you – he was banging your brains out love.

If you’d asked him to promise to make you the next queen of England just before you opened your legs he’d have probably promised that too.

And what’s this nonsense about moral and emotional support?

What better way to show your moral support by having an affair with a married man… and emotional support? Since when did ‘Hay I come to you for sex’ equal emotional support?

Talk about glamorising sleeping with a married man geez.

But Oz… that still doesn’t explain the harshness!

Though Mary worked and had her own home, Tom also gave her a monthly allowance running into four figures.


Woman gets allowance for travelling overseas and to dinners with guy to provide ‘emotional and moral’ services support.

…what does that sound like to you?

Tom ended the affair this year.

Mary said she was devastated at being dropped.

Then she learned of the law change and her legal team sent a letter of demand - quoting the new legislation - to the man.

“It settled (out of court) within weeks,” her lawyer said.


In four sentences we pretty much cut to the reason this case went to court. Woman gets dumped and new laws allow her to see it as cha-ching in just a few short weeks.

That’s not quite how she puts it though;

Now I am beginning to come to terms with life again. The money provides me with a security in my later years.

This is also about giving our relationship a validity. It is a recognition that I have added something of value to his life.

He behaved like a gentleman toward me throughout our relationship - except at the end - and now he has been a gentleman again by doing the right thing.


What better way to validate an affair then by having both parties names suppressed by court order. And nothing says “I’m a gentleman” more then paying out your mistress a hundred grand after receiving a letter of demand from lawyers.

For someone who was working, owns a house and received a minimum of twelve grand annually, is a once off $100,000 payment really going to bankroll retirement security?. Sure it’s not just about financially screwing over the guy who dumped you love?


These new mistress laws are clearly there to be abused and I suspect we’re going to see many more of these types of cases in the near future. To be honest I’m surprised this first case wasn’t a whole lot messier. I really can’t wait for one to come along where the husband doesn’t just cave into financial demands within a few weeks.

At the end of the day there’s no moral high ground to take if you’re knowingly somebody’s mistress yet these laws attempt to instill a sense of moral decency in whores/escorts/mistresses or whatever you want to call them. That I believe is a dangerous message to send out.

I mean honestly, if the sum total of 20 of the “best years” of your life is a measly hundred grand, clearly your life wasn’t really going to amount to much anyway. Why we’re all of a sudden legally and financially rewarding adultery and cheaters I have no idea.

Note: When first published I misread “four figure” allowance as five figure allowance and after reader DB brought it to my attention, made some changes to the article in accordance.

1. Theophanus case proves protectionist laws are flawed
2. Chinese company sues UK blogger using Australian laws