Tolley Anne: Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) — Third Reading 
Tolley Anne: Child Support Amendment Bill (No 4) — Third Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5385] 
ANNE TOLLEY (National—East Coast) 
: 
 I must confess to being a little sad to have to oppose a bill that purports to address the difficult area of ensuring there is adequate support for children in this country. This issue is at the very heart of National’s values and I know the belief is shared across the House that every child has the right to parental support and every child has the right to receive support from a mum and a dad no matter what the adults’ arrangements might be. I support the moves in the bill that will allow better scrutiny of liable parents. As Judy Turner said the Social Services Commitee heard some excellent submissions from people who came with stories that showed that the machinations of various liable parents meant that the only ones they were really hurting were their own children. I regret that the bill was not even able to expand its focus in order to look at the circumstances of both parents of a child or children. 
But the aim of the bill is to increase the amount of child support. Again that is an admirable aim and the Minister said tonight that the aim was to get more liable parents paying their child support. But the philosophy of this Government in backing this bill in the very narrow form that we have in front of us tonight is that if penalties are written off more people will pay their child support. We have $1.1 billion outstanding from liable parents. I was astounded to read figures obtained from the Minister and released yesterday by our welfare spokesperson Judith Collins. Those figures showed that the amount in arrears has more than doubled and the total amount owed including penalties has almost tripled since the year 2000. Yet the number of liable parents has not grown exponentially. 
So we have before us the example that the same numbers of parents more or less have not paid their child support and allowed their arrears to accumulate and this Government brings a bill before Parliament that says that if it wipes off those penalties and arrears then those people will start paying child support again. I cannot support that philosophy and throughout the process I asked for that to be substantiated by officials and by Government members on the Social Services Committee. They have been unable to do so. In this third reading before the final passing of the bill I hope Government members will stand and explain that philosophy to the House. How does it work when we have people who are deliberately not paying their child support and are told not to worry about the debt? How does it encourage them to pay child support when the Government is saying they do not need to worry about the debt because the Government will write it off? 
One of the reasons the Government has given is that the penalties become so overwhelming that people just cannot see a way out of the situation so they skedaddle to Australia. The chartered accountants came before the select committee with a very practical piece of advice as to how we could address the accumulation of those penalties. They suggested that instead of a rate of 2 percent accumulating on those arrears we reduce it to 1 percent. The officials rejected that advice. But I thought it made sense because there was still a punishment for not paying child support but not at such a rate that huge amounts of arrears were accumulating. Maybe I am cynical but I have to question whether the advice was rejected because 51 percent of the money paid in arrears and penalties on arrears is now kept by the Government and only 49 percent makes its way back to custodial parents whereas in 2003 70 percent was paid back to custodial parents and only 30 percent was kept by the Government. 
There is very good evidence to show—and as I said the figures that Judith Collins released yesterday also show—that more and more liable parents are ducking their responsibilities and refusing to pay. Of course we know that the amount owed by expats in Australia has ballooned to $280 million - odd. That figure is four times what was owed in 2003. Yet the Government brings in a bill to try to get those parents to pay what they owe which does not really address that issue in any practical way other than saying they do not have to worry about paying the penalty and debt they owe because the Government will write it off on their behalf. 
Finally I echo what Judy Turner said in her speech. There was a wide range of submissions and some excellent submissions made to the committee. The most disappointing thing for me during the passage of the bill has been that this Government has had 7 years to address some of the issues around the Child Support Act 1991. Some of the issues were laid before the select committee in great detail and all the Government has done is alter the maximum and minimum amounts of income to set the formula in 2001 and not much else. A huge opportunity has been missed. 
The committee heard about some excellent ideas being used throughout the world because other countries are grappling with ways to ensure that parents take responsibility and make provision for their children. In Australia they have shared parenting arrangements. In Canada they have a system that treats all parents quite consistently. We heard about shared custody and the “cliff-face” of a child support system where there is a 40 percent cut-off that causes parents to fight over how many nights they can each have the children because there is a huge financial advantage if one goes beyond that 40 percent. It takes the focus away from the welfare upbringing and support of the child and puts it on the issue of who will pay what money. 
We heard from chartered accountants that if we were really trying to dig into some of these very clever ways that some liable parents use to get around the law we would use the adjudication unit of the Inland Revenue Department. They said it was an underused body and has a depth of commercial experience. The unit is used to dealing with the sorts of trusts and financial set-ups that people use to hide their assets. We also heard—mainly from fathers—about the agony of being charged with liability for children who were not theirs. 
I am sad to be opposing the bill but it just does not cut the mustard. A huge opportunity was missed to explore in greater depth that whole area of child support.