Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I should have said at the outset that I do welcome the minister’s announcement today. Any of us, as members of parliament, would have custodial parents coming through our electorate offices with stories of not being able to receive payments from the non-custodial parent, and I am sure that we have all heard the stories of non-custodial parents pretending to have no income and, frankly, dodging their payments. So I do think the Minister for Human Services has made a step in the right direction.

I wonder if the minister could indicate how many staff in the Child Support Agency are currently dedicated to investigating non-custodial parents who are avoiding their legal obligations and avoiding the payment of child support. I know that the majority of investigations at the moment are deskbound, rather than the staff going out and doing proactive investigations, but I am just interested to know what sort of an increase this is and how big a change this is going to make in tracking down non-paying non-custodial parents.

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