Moroney Sue: Child Support Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Child Support Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 09 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9170. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour): I rise to speak to the third reading of the Child Support Amendment Bill. It is with sadness that I echo what speakers on this side of the House have said by and large—that Labour is sadly in the position of finding itself unable to support this bill. Despite the fact that we have got to the third reading and the issues have been well debated there has been no ability for the National Government to beable to think about the concept of putting children at the centre of its policy development. This bill is yet another example of its inability to do that despite the fact that the bill is called the Child Support Amendment Bill not the “Parent Support Amendment Bill”.This bill is supposed to be about ensuring that children whose parents have split up have financial support and the ability to participate in life as any other child should be able to. That is what should be at the centre of this legislation but the National Government has got itself into the trap of thinking that this is actually all about the parents. It has actually addressed this issue by making the mistake of climbing into the battleground between the parents and that is precisely what this legislation ought not to do. It ought not to take sides with regard to the parental responsibility in this regard.This legislation should be in the interests solely of the children and the fact that the Government members on the Social Services Committee quite specifically voted against recording that as being an object of this piece of legislation I think speaks volumes. But it is not just what the objects of this bill say or more important what they do not say. It is also played out in the detail of this bill.I want to talk specifically about the implications for women not because this bill is about women but because the majority of children who should be at the centre of this legislation are in fact in households that are headed up by women and women alone. Therefore the implications for and the effects on women are the effects on children when it comes to this bill because far and away the majority of children rely on a household led by a woman to actually fulfil their financial needs.So what do we find the implications for women to be? Well this legislation does have significant implications for those women because on average women earn less than men and are more likely to be primary caregivers. One of the major things that this bill does is reapportion the financial situation depending on whether there is a shared-care arrangement and it lowers the threshold for what can be deemed a shared-care arrangement. So all that is required now is for the non-custodial parent who mainly is the male in the exercise to have the children for the weekend and then they can actually get a financial benefit from that. That means that the households where women are leading—where they are looking after the child and paying most of the costs for most of the time—actually lose out. They actually end up with less available finance to support that child.This legislation was an opportunity to get it right. It was a review that was needed because things have changed since this legislation was first brought in and it did need review but sadly the Government has got it so wrong. It is penalising women and in turn it is penalising the children for whom they are the primary caregivers and custodial parents and that is not in the best interests of the children.