A reason – another reason – why the child support system might be a negative thing:
The submission says: “Parents are saying they don’t want money. They would be happy to forgo maintenance payments if it saves their child from having to spend half the week with a parent who does not really want to parent them, but whose main objective is to avoid child support.”
It makes it very difficult for courts to tell which parents are genuinely interested in raising their children, and which aren’t. Which means that kids who have one very dedicated parent and one uninterested one end up spending time with the uninterested one; or, if the balance goes the other way, they lose time with one of two interested and caring parents.
The solution proposed by the National Council for Children Post-Separation is a disturbing step backwards, to a presumption of fathers being nothing more than bill-payers who get to see their kids every second weekend – which is all the more depressing when there’s an obvious solution – don’t have a separate child support agency. Don’t give separating couples this extraordinary weapon to use against each other. Support mothers through Centrelink. Have a decent public education system. Those fathers who earn money but won’t support their kids, well, they’ll fund the single parent pension by paying taxes.
Or at the very least, lock child support payments such that they can only be spent on the child. The perception that people are directly funding their ex-partners and not their children is one of the biggest reasons they fight so hard against it.
From PostcardsfromSplitsville.com
The idea that people desperately trying to see their kids more are indistinguishable to the court from people just trying to get more out of or pay less towards their ex, is really very disturbing.
I agree with the idea of a system where the money is spent for the sole purpose of the child, either directly or indirectly.
My slut ex-gf had a brat. The father paid a ridiculous amount of money each fortnight. As soon as that money ended up in her bank account, it was used to purchase DVDs, CDs, alcohol and clothing for herself. Very little actually went towards the kid. What shitted me off was that if she ran out of money, she would call up his parents (who were very wealthy) and ask for more, or claim he didn’t pay it. From what I gather it may have been a private arrangement bypassing CSA, but I dunno.
Even if it was legitimate arrangement, it shows that the system doesn’t work as there is no guarantee that the money will ever be used primarily for the purposes of looking after the child, or secondarily towards general legitimate living expenses.
It bothers me that the system is so biased. The parent paying the support has loads of responsibilities but no rights, yet the same doesn’t apply to the receiving parent.
Fuck this country.
It looks like you want to provide a financial incentive for couples to divorce. Parents can now be free from financially supporting their children if they separate and leave it up to the state to support them. Sheer genius! To make things fair, why not make the state can responsible for the upkeep of all children, whether or not their parents are divorced? It’s enough to make any socialist go weak at the knees.
Surely we haven’t reached the stage where the state is responsible for every bum that doesn’t want to support their children. Anyway, if the state has to pay because a parent refuses to, why shouldn’t it be reimbursed from the defaulting parent? Most parents spend enough on their own kids without having to fork out extra tax so some drop-kick deadbeat non-paying parent. Given the ridiculous rate of divorce, the extra tax would be enormous.
Kids are almost always better off being brought up by their natural parents in a loving home. The secularist project has turned “family values” into term of derision. The sexual revolution further destabilised the family unit. Divorce has been normalised, with no acknowledgement that it is usually a disaster for the children concerned. All this is in pursuit of personal happiness of adults at the expense of the happiness of children. And now you are putting up a suggestion that further lessens the responsibility of parents, freeing them to repeat their mistakes at no cost to themselves.
If parents split up, they should be the last people considered in the equation, well behind the interests of their children. If one parent has to contribute to the upkeep of their children, they have done their job when they pay. It is ridiculous to let them off the hook because they are not getting access, or because they are concerned that the money isn’t being spent correctly. There are other ways of dealing with these situations besides rewarding the irresponsibility of those who don’t want to pay for their own children.
SB, is the only reason you’d feed and clothe your children because the state is forcing you to? You’re tempted to quit your job and live on the pittance that is welfare?
Whilst I don’t agree with SB’s right-wing drivel I do agree that we shouldn’t make it the state’s responsibility to foot the bill because a parent doesn’t want to cough up to help support their child.
The system does need to be refined quite a bit – I’ve seen it fail people but I don’t think putting mothers on single parent pensions does them or their child any favours – I’ve seen what the single parent pension has done too.
Mothers are put on the single parent pension all the time. Why is it adequate for some mothers and not others? Shouldn’t it be adequate for ALL?
The existence of the CSA simply divides government attention between “deserving” mothers (those who get the extra CSA cash) and “undeserving” ones (those who don’t).
Putting on my foster carer hat, one of the most interesting aspects of the child protection system is the way non-custodial parents – ie the parents the children have been taken away from – have no financial responsibility towards them once they are out of their care.
Indeed, it is possible – as I have seen first hand – for a parent to request their child enter the system *voluntarily* (thus ensuring they are still the legal guardian of the child, only without having the day-to-day responsibility for their care) – and still be able to receive a parenting payments from Centrelink! I’m not sure whether this loophole has been fixed and if it hasn’t it bloody needs to be.
But I have always wondered why it is up to both the state and federal governments to provide 100% of the cost of the care for guardianship children. Surely forcing the non-custodial parents to fork out as well – as happens in the ordinary system – might at the very least be another way of driving home the message that having children is not a right, it’s a responsibility – and a big one at that.
If someone is only spending time with the children to avoid paying child support and the children are not enjoying themselves, go get family law orders that the children live with the ‘good’ parent. You’ll be more likely to get such orders if the other parent is truly being a bastard to the kids and only having contact with them for the money.
The point is that it’s hard to tell. If money wasn’t involved, then parents would only push for time looking after the child if they were actually going to care.
The CSA is based on the idea that if parents can get away with not supporting their kids, they won’t. That’s a truly disturbing view of the world.
“The CSA is based on the idea that if parents can get away with supporting their kids, they won’t. That’s a truly disturbing view of the world.”
Unfortunately, it is a statement of fact that – in a small number of cases – some parents do not want to support their children. Before anyone blows their lid, the vast majority of parents don’t need or want government intervention into this area of their lives, and the Child Support Scheme, and CSA, encourage those people to make their own arrangements. However, there are a small proportion of parents who will NOT pay, no matter what. I’ve sat across from a father earning six figures (which was more than twice my salary at the time) and heard him say that he shouldn’t have to pay one cent towards his son because the kid had recently managed to get an boilermaker apprenticeship at a princely $160 a week wage. I’ve seen parenting orders where access arrangements were so in dispute that the court was forced to specify to the minute on an exacting and complicated yearly schedule the time that each parent had the children. I’ve dealt extensively with parents who would argue with you that the sun was shining, let alone what they should pay for their own children. If I had a dollar for every time I had a parent say to me that “I don’t mind child support but -” then I would be a very rich man. I ended up equating those words with “I’m not a rascist, but -” because every time it would be followed by the most transparent excuses for why everyone else should pay for their kids, but not them.
So, the fact is, a CSA is necessary, for the small proportion of parents who otherwise would never see a cent. For most others, it can and is helpful, if with nothing more than providing a yardstick for what could be a reasonable amount of child support for the separated/separating parents to negotiate about. In a lot of cases, the CSA ends up collecting the child support because it just isn’t being paid otherwise, despite the stated intentions of the parents. It’s a sad commentary on our society, but the CSA is needed, despite its own efforts to get itself out of parents lives whenever possible.
And for the record, no; the taxpayer population should not have to pay for the upkeep of children where the parents have the capcity to do so. That’s the reason the Child Support Scheme was created in the first place; to remove the financial impost from the general taxation base as much as possible.
I hate that the CSA can, and often is, used as a weapon by the parents against each other, to say nothing of the way the children themselves are used in the same way. It’s one reason why I found a new job elsewhere; thirteen years of witnessing that every working day left an awful taste in my mouth. However, those that want every cent of child support to be accountable as being paid directly on the children miss two things: 1. the bureaucracy necessary to monitor that would be immense; the CSA would have to expand by two orders of magnitude at least and the intrusion into parents’ lives would be appalling, and 2. in a lot of cases it is very hard to say whether child support money has been used for the benefit of the children. Paying the mortgage/rent – not directly for the kids, but it puts a roof over their heads. It’s similar for utility bills and other basic cost-of-living expenses. School fees. Extracurricular activites. Internet. Petrol or public transport for the parent to get to work – not directly on the children, but the kids would be worse off if the parent was unemployed. It becomes increasingly harder to draw a clear line. Yes, there are times when the money being spent clearly isn’t for the benefit of the children, but for any family, there are a large group of regular expenses where it can’t definitely be said that the expense is solely for the benefit of the parent, and not the children.
For what I think of the CSA it’s all here in your previous entry on them.
http://anonymouslefty.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/non-provocative-discussion-starter/#comments
However, those that want every cent of child support to be accountable as being paid directly on the children miss two things: 1. the bureaucracy necessary to monitor that would be immense; the CSA would have to expand by two orders of magnitude at least and the intrusion into parents’ lives
Considering the CSA lay threats and harass people who pay, I don’t see why its a problem going back the other way.
The money paid needs to be accountable, I’m sure there is plenty of others out there in my situation.
“CSA lay threats and harass people who pay”? Only people who don’t pay have to be told what the consequences of that can be. It should be noted that’s not threats and harassment, it’s giving a person fair notice of what CSA will be required to do if the child support isn’t paid, and is legally as well as ethically required of CSA. I understand that may feel differently on the receiving end, but there’s nothing more personal to it than an overdue tax notice from the ATO.
And feel free to lobby for a CSA that’s 100 times it’s current size for the dubious benefit of investigating how single parents spend their money. That’s a political winner, sure enough. No privacy issues there at all.
Look, I do understand the feeling that “it’s my money, it’s supposed to be for the kids, why can’t we enforce that?” It’s human. As I pointed out, though, there are some serious implications of going down that path, not least of which is who defines what expenses are for the benefit of the children. Any list drawn up will have very limited extended applicability; i.e. what’s reasonable for one set of circumstances won’t be for another. There will be a very short list of things that cannot possibly be justified, i.e. alcohol and drugs, but quite frankly if someone is spending all of their child support (and presumably other income) on drugs and grog there are much bigger issues to be concerned about.
Also put the shoe on the other foot: say you receive Family Tax Benefit Part A. Do you think the average taxpayer has a case to ask the Federal Government to investigate, every fortnight, how you spend that money? Please contrast to your position about child support, and explain the logical inconsistencies without resorting to “but it’s my money”. (Your FTB(A) is my money.)
I know of one instance, among the many thousands of people I had contact with, where I know for sure that the child support was, on one occasion, spent on drugs. One. Among twenty to thirty people a day over thirteen years. I was sickened I had to hand over the money, but the legal reality was that the person was entitled to it under the relevant statutes and I had no ability whatsoever to not give her that money.
What I’m saying is that the actual number of instances where the money is not spent on the children is (a) completely subjective because there’s no data whatsoever, (b) in my experience unlikely to be anything more than a very small fraction of a percent, (c) in the vast majority of cases reasonably argued as for the benefit of the children anyway, and (d) require extraordinary resourcing and intrusion into the lives of parents to actually monitor.
None of which answers the fundamental point: taxpayers already support single parents. Why should we be running a SECOND government agency set up to get extra money for those parents who happen to be able to point at someone else.
Why do we have the government enforcing this inequality between children of single parents?
Particularly when it has the side-effect of making bad parents fight for custody, and good parents hate each other.
“CSA lay threats and harass people who pay”? Only people who don’t pay have to be told what the consequences of that can be. It should be noted that’s not threats and harassment, it’s giving a person fair notice of what CSA will be required to do if the child support isn’t paid, and is legally as well as ethically required of CSA. I understand that may feel differently on the receiving end, but there’s nothing more personal to it than an overdue tax notice from the ATO.
That’s bullshit, I was two weeks late because I’d misplaced my invoice. I was abused and threatened, with legal action and talking to my boss etc. I pay on time all the time, and because I was late I get this shit?
Nothing personal, ethically responsible? The CSA agent was a complete fucking bitch and treated me like a criminal talked down etc. It’s not like I am a problem in the system I was just an easy target for that fucking scum.
You talk about FTB??? I don’t get FTB my ex does, she also gets $1000 tax free from me per month. She gets centrelink payments, she is living with her new guy who has a job.
In the last year she has bought a large plasma tv and gone on a Japan holiday.
This is someone who could easily get a job, being a qualified teacher but doesn’t need to. Between the Centrelink payments and my money she can just take from society.
It’s not that hard for the payee to fill out a reconciliation of the money they recieve.
If there is discrepancies then they get audited for receipts etc. Just like the ATO does with your tax.
That is no more intrusive then the ATO and a lot less intrusive then those CSA pricks have been to me.
Also before you jump on me, I am not trying to get out of paying. I just want it to go to my daughters not a parasite to society. I wish I could more access then the lousy every 2nd weekend I get.
I pay for things on top of the my CSA for my daughters, (ie guitar lessons) as I know that is solely being spent on them.
Anthony, if you feel you’ve been treated badly, there’s a complaints line. Call it.
Jeremy, I’m surprised you’re taking this position again. My own view is that a CSA is not enforcing an inequality; the purpose is to try to ensure that where there is capacity for parents to support a child, rather than those funds coming from the public purse, that happens. To take your view would be more inequitable than the alternative and places the burden back into the court system, which was highly ineffectual (50 cents a week in one case I saw), expensive to the participants and the judicial system, and the enforcement of payment of such orders was non-existent.
“Happen to be able to point at someone else”? Yes, the child’s parent. How unfair.
Don’t blame a child support agency for parents fighting; they’re capable of doing that all on their own, thanks. The child support system encourages parents to make their own arrangements whenever possible and where to do won’t increase the cost to the taxpayer (such as a “gentlemen’s agreement” for a low amount, resulting in higher Centrelink benefits). The number of parents entering into private arrangements – i.e. opting out of CSA collection or never registering at all – has steadily increased for the past decade. That speaks heavily against the Scheme making “parents hate each other”.
I won’t take the position that the child support system doesn’t provide weapons for parents to hit other with; of course it does, if people are so inclined. But don’t blame the weapons for making the fight happen.
“My own view is that a CSA is not enforcing an inequality; the purpose is to try to ensure that where there is capacity for parents to support a child, rather than those funds coming from the public purse, that happens.”
And to save the public purse, it’s enforcing an inequality. Single parents without someone to chase? You can live on nothing. Single parents with someone to chase? We’ll chase ‘em. (Whether or not they want to raise the child equally with you.)
“The child support system encourages parents to make their own arrangements whenever possible”
Yes, but the weapon in the hands of the custodial parent is so overly powerful that they don’t have to be reasonable.
“To take your view would be more inequitable than the alternative “
My basic view is that there shouldn’t be a CSA at all. That bad parents are bad parents; they can be taxed as single people on high incomes without kids. That all kids, regardless of who their parents are, deserve a good education and food and shelter provided by a parent or, if there is none willing, the taxpayer.
Failing that, parents should be able to opt to make their payments directly to expenditure for the child. I don’t agree that would be as impossible and administratively difficult as you suggest.
But the truth is that most parents want to support their own children. The reason the CSA is so controversial is that it’s not about supporting children, it’s about giving money to an ex. And that’s why it permanently poisons relationships between former partners – to their children’s detriment.
Tim I did complain, sent a email and I didn’t hear anything back.
But the truth is that most parents want to support their own children. The reason the CSA is so controversial is that it’s not about supporting children, it’s about giving money to an ex. And that’s why it permanently poisons relationships between former partners – to their children’s detriment.
Exactly, CSA is no help in regards to access, they tell you to seek legal advice. All they care about is extracting the money.
How hard is it for the payee to fill out a reconciliation of the money they receive?
If there is discrepancies then they get audited for receipts etc. Just like the ATO does with your tax.
How is that intrusive?
I really can’t agree that it’s enforcing an inequality. That inequality is of nobody’s doing except the mother. The alternative is tax everybody in Australia more heavily to make up for the parents that won’t support their children. That’s the greater inequality. I don’t believe the single parent’s pension (or whatever the current version is) is designed with “and after the average person gets $X back in child support, they will be this much better off” in mind. Whatever the shortcomings of the amount, it’s unrelated to child support.
I won’t argue the toss on how much power the custodial parent (which isn’t the current term, but I forget what it is because it’s something so PC it has no meaning) has. The system is largely predicated on the basis that the parents agree, or something else happens. If one parent doesn’t agree then, when the legislation specifically says “the parents must agree”, that’s that. I have no doubt the balance point will shift further – it’s come a long way since the scheme was first introduced, but it will move more.
I fundamentally fail to see how ignoring the fact that a child has two parents that can, and should, contribute towards their upkeep, makes for a more equitable society. What you say about the basic levels of upkeep is what should happen now. The child support system replaces some of the taxpayer-stream of income with income directly from the parents. If it goes over that level, why shouldn’t a child benefit from having wealthier parents than the norm?
Your statement that you don’t see why it would as difficult as I suggest contradicts your statement on your earlier post (that Anthony linked to) where you said “It doesn’t require that money to be actually spent on the kids. I understand why it doesn’t ask for such evidence – it would be unworkable…” There are provisions currently where the paying parent can elect to have up to 25% of their payment be directly for a defined list of items (school fees, clothes, I forget what else). I’ve already stated the rest of my argument.
I agree that there’s a lot of ill feeling about child support because it is giving money to an ex. I don’t see a viable alternative. It can’t be given to the child; they’re children. It can’t be held in trust; the children should benefit from the money today.
At this point, I’m ending my part of the conversation; this is much too much like the conversations I had repeatedly while working there, and got oh so VERY tired of having. I’ll just make one final point that blaming the scheme for ill feeling between the parents is largely a matter of perception – those parents that shift their mode of thinking into accepting that, directly or indirectly, the money benefits the children, don’t have anywhere near the level of difficulty. However, that requires a degree of trust that is usually badly compromised for the relationship to have ended in the first place. Much of the angst could be avoided if more separated parents could trust each other to be good parents to their children, irrespective of their relationship with each other.
Jeremy,
Ultimately fathers and mothers have a responsibility for their children. Sometimes, for various reasons, they cannot pay. But if they can then they should. It’s the same as our progressive taxation system. The more you are able to pay tax, the more you do.
Yes, it means some mothers or fathers will get more than others but nothing is perfect and forcing all mothers or fathers to be on the pension and let the other parent not contribute towards their own children is not right either.
I don’t want to see a system devoid of all responsibility.
I want to see a system where the interests of the children are put first.
I have serious doubts that making money the determining factor over whether parents see them is compatible with that.
I have serious doubts that the government chasing extra money for some kids in order to reduce demands for it to provide more for others is compatible with that either.
If we’re going to have a CSA, I don’t agree that non-custodial parents making payments into funds only accessible for actual spending on the children would be unworkable or overly complicated (I have revised my former view).
The whole “responsibility” approach seems to be about punishing parents for splitting up – or, to be more precise, punishing one parent to the advantage of the other.
All things being equal, there is a profound wrong in taking a parent’s children away and then, to add insult to injury, making them pay unaccountable money to the former partner for the privilege. That’s the direct effect of the present system for many, many parents.
“I have serious doubts that making money the determining factor over whether parents see them is compatible with that.”
It is never a factor at all, let alone the determining one. Witness the many so-called deadbeat dads who continue to get time with the kids despite not paying child support.
“The whole “responsibility” approach seems to be about punishing parents for splitting up – or, to be more precise, punishing one parent to the advantage of the other.”
Nah, just about getting parents to contribute equitably to the costs of raising their own children. They did that before they separated, so why shouldn’t they continue afterwards?
“It is never a factor at all, let alone the determining one. Witness the many so-called deadbeat dads who continue to get time with the kids despite not paying child support.”
The point of the original submission was that some parents who don’t actually want to spend time with their kids or raise them fight to do so to avoid paying child support. And custodial parents, in their own words, “would be happy to forgo maintenance payments if it saves their child from having to spend half the week with a parent who does not really want to parent them, but whose main objective is to avoid child support”.
“They did that before they separated, so why shouldn’t they continue afterwards?”
I suspect in most cases they do, and that if anything the involvement of the CSA – and the powerful stick it gives one parent – is what poisons that arrangement.
“The point of the original submission was that some parents who don’t actually want to spend time with their kids or raise them fight to do so to avoid paying child support. And custodial parents, in their own words, “would be happy to forgo maintenance payments if it saves their child from having to spend half the week with a parent who does not really want to parent them, but whose main objective is to avoid child support”.”
OK, but it is impossible to know what motivates a dad to seek to spend time with his children. There is no way to know that a reduction of child support is the reason behind it, save in that small minority of cases where the bloke is stupid enough to admit it.
And the ladies who would happily forgo child support if it meant not sending the kids to their dad’s need to be made aware that they are not sending the kids to their dad’s in exchange for the child support money. They are under a misapprehension if they think that the receipt of that money forms part of the reason why they are sending the kids across.
A complex problem and not easily solvable.
Your solution of ‘Support mothers through Centrelink’ and the argument in support of that ‘Mothers are put on the single parent pension all the time’ (in a later comment) reduces the individual obligation that is required.
I have no children (by choice, and by taking advantage of the numerous forms of birth control available). Why should I sacrifice the same amount? I know that is a selfish point – children are the future and we all should take some responsibility. I have no arguments with my tax contribution providing a safe environment, quality education and the social structure to provide a safe environment for children to grow in for *all* children.
How about this as an alternative – if you divorce (or separate) and have children you have an additional percentage of tax applied. The parents are both given a percentage of the single parents pension relative to the amount of time they are allowed to spend with their children. This additional tax is used *solely* for the single parents pension (and not as general revenue). Additional funds (as required) are taken from general revenue.
Obviously the proportion allocated would not be linear (if you see your children every second weekend a 1/7th allocation would not be appropriate – it doesn’t take into account the overheads of food, transport and additional schooling costs) but some equitable allocation could be decided.
It would also ensure that everyone is treated equally – regardless of if you became a single (or primary) parent due to divorce, separation or death. It would also ensure that the majority of the cost was applied to the user (in this case the parent of the child) with a suitable safety net to protect the children.
It doesn’t negate the opportunity to negotiate for a purely financial basis (and I don’t think you will come up with a solution that does). The ‘best’ parent (for a child) is not always the parent the courts find in favour of – there is a bias in favour of the mother (something you indicate in your phrasing in the original post) but at least this method would cost both parents equally (in terms of percentage of income) and reduce the cost on others (regardless of if they are childless, like myself, or are in a happy family environment and more concerned about their own children).
Pingback: Well, we’re living in a “deadbeat” country « An Onymous Lefty