Lee Melissa: Child Support Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLee Melissa: Child Support Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 09 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9164. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MELISSA LEE (National): I would like to start out by saying that the care and welfare of children is implicit in this bill the Child Support Amendment Bill. This bill is not about caring for children or about how parents should be caring for their children; it is about the administrative process of how child support is collected. This child support scheme is a backup arrangement where parents fail to reach an agreement over the financial support of their children. The child support scheme is not the default position that it has become in many many cases.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.MELISSA LEE: Before the dinner break I was actually saying that this child support scheme is a backup arrangement for when parents fail to reach an agreement over the financial support of their children. This Child Support Amendment Bill will provide for fairer assessment calculations of child support payments that take into account a wider range of individual circumstances.The comprehensive new child support formula will better reflect many of the social and legal changes that have occurred since the introduction of the current scheme. There will be more emphasis placed on separated parents sharing the care and financial responsibility for their children and a wider recognition of the care of children because both parents are often working. I think it is unfair to assume that only one parent is solely in charge. As Metiria Turei tried to point out earlier she seemed to think that it is only women who are in fact the carers of children. Sometimes you will actually find that in modern society it is the fathers who stay home to look after the children and in fact it is the mothers who end up becoming the liable parent.The incomes of both parents need to be taken into consideration. This bill will do that. Both parents’ incomes less a living allowance for each parent will be introduced in the formula with costs of raising children being apportioned according to each parent’s share of the total net income.The child support formula will use a new scale of costs expressed as income percentages providing a more equitable system of financial support with regard to the expense of raising children after allowing for likely tax credits. These percentages will vary with the number of children and the age of children with the percentage being higher for children over 12 years of age. Costs seem to rise dramatically with teenagers. Those of us who have teenage children will recognise the fact that they end up costing us a lot of money.It also takes into account that non-parent carers may be eligible to receive a proportion of a child support payment if they provide at least 28 percent of the ongoing daily care of a child. Sometimes that is in fact the case for a lot of parents who tend to work and where there are no persons to actually look after their children at home. It is often upon the grandparents or maybe a family member to actually take on the responsibility of raising children. This is a great bill. I commend it to the House.