Chhour KarenKAREN CHHOUR (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker for allowing me the time to stand here today and give a small contribution. I'd just like to thank everybody that submitted to the Social Services and Community Committee over this bill. It can't be easy sitting in front of a group of strangers and sharing your stories and sharing your concerns about things that are going on in your personal life. So I really appreciate the people that came in and let us know what they were feeling. I felt very humbled by that and I don't take that for granted. Some of the things that were brought forward to us we cannot address because they were outside of the scope of the bill but that does not mean they are not important and they may be addressed later on.I have some concerns about this bill and I did share them in the last few readings but in saying that I will be supporting this bill and ACT will support this bill because most of this bill is fantastic. It's helping children that are in situations that are bad enough already without having to be disadvantaged even more. Sometimes I think we forget that child support is not just about money. It's not just about a parent not paying their fair share and it's not just about another parent feeling like they're getting the raw end of the stick. Sometimes a child can be stuck in the middle of this argument and child support tends to be used as a weapon in some of these situations. If we can make it more simple and fair and easier for both parents then maybe the child will not suffer so much in the middle of these disagreements. I really appreciate the introduction of the grace period because parents that have just broken up or separated are going through many emotions. Sometimes they don't even really want to admit that something's gone wrong. They think that everything's going to be OK again and they tend to stick their head in the sand and then they realise I'm behind. What am I going to do?" So I appreciate the fact that Inland Revenue and the House took that into consideration and are allowing a parent to have that moment to take that breath to understand that they need to meet these obligations. I also appreciate the fact that Inland Revenue spoke to us on this matter about their taking more time and effort to speak with these people and help them to understand the process rather than victimising them and chasing them and making them feel like they're villains. I don't think many parents would not want to support their children. Sometimes it's just there's a fog that's come down on them and they don't know how to get through it so I appreciate that.Having the compulsory deductions I think is a good step forward. It takes that pressure away from a parent to have to organise these things and they just know it's going to be done and they know their child is going to be cared for. The introduction of the four-year period is fantastic because when it gets to that stage like somebody mentioned in another reading sometimes you can get letter after letter after letter and you just once again stick your head in the sand and don't want to face up to the fact that you've got that far behind. So I think four years is a reasonable amount of time.There is much more that could be done with child support but what we've done here is a great step forward and I support this bill."