Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I stand to support the government’s Child Support Legislation Amendment (Reform of the Child Support Scheme—New Formula and Other Measures) Bill 2006, a most dramatic move, and to reject the amendment put by the member for Sydney. The amendment, it seems to me, is very much of a simple kind. It does not in any way alter or change a word in the legislation. It seems that these pious amendments have become fundamental to this parliament, when in fact the opportunity obviously exists for the opposition to assist the government in complex matters—if they have the capacity to do so—by putting forward real and true amendments that represent a change to the legislation. This government would always consider them if they were for the better. It is probably worthy of comment in that regard that I had the misfortune to serve for 13 years in opposition in this place and was charged with a number of duties during that period on behalf of the Liberal Party. For a long period, I was the Deputy Manager of Opposition Business and obliged to sit in on policy decision making and question time.

I got a shock the other day when the Leader of the Opposition was the first person in this House to ask a question about North Korea and the indicated explosion of a nuclear device. I said to one of your colleagues, Mr Deputy Speaker, ‘That’s the best question he’s ever asked in this place, because it was the question of a statesman.’ I have to say that the next day the first question on that matter came from this side of the House.

It was always the case within the Liberal Party during their term in opposition—maybe to the longevity of the Hawke government, in particular—that if the government had a good idea we supported it wholeheartedly. You might remember, Mr Deputy Speaker, when I stood shoulder to shoulder with Con Sciacca on the excellent initiative of the Keating government, Australia Remembers—which was the ceremony to celebrate 50 years since the end of the Pacific war. I could not find any criticism of the government, and my principal reason was that the remaining veterans deserved the applause of the Australian people as delivered by the incumbent government.

This initiative before us today is one that does not need a pious amendment. If there are issues within it that could be improved by a substantive amendment, it should have been put forward by the opposition; otherwise, they should get with the government on initiatives that are good for the country—as, the record shows, was the practice of the Liberal Party in opposition. Just to be agin everything is not, I think, appealing to the Australian people.

To the best of my recollection, when the original child support legislation was brought into this place—by, I think, Mr Howe, who might have been the deputy leader of the Labor government at the time—the Liberal opposition supported the proposal. We had every opportunity to go out and describe some of the inadequacies of that legislation and to start a fear campaign, but of course we recognised that there was an obligation to fix the arrangement, which was pretty unsatisfactory. The original change to the Family Law Act was introduced by Senator Lionel Murphy, and it actually required the Family Court, before requiring maintenance, as we once knew it—and I might refer to my knowledge of that a little bit more—to add up all the welfare payment opportunities that existed, which were of course provided by taxpayers typically with viable families. After that, if a bit more money was needed, it would be by way of a maintenance order delivered by the courts to the non-custodial parent.

Living in the north-west of WA as I did at that time, and employing people in the hotel industry, it was not unusual to have a barman snatched from behind the bar and taken off to jail because he had not paid his maintenance. Of course, one of the reasons he was in the north-west was that he was hoping to escape that liability. I was a bit put out about this because I would have to go and do his shift behind the bar. Further to that, I was often called upon, if they were able workers, to settle the amount and hope that I might get it back some day. One of the more dreadful aspects, nevertheless, was that the maintenance bill went on while they were in jail. So when they came out they owed more money than they did when they went in. It was a pretty unsatisfactory arrangement, and Mr Howe came to this parliament with something that was better than that.

Nevertheless, its inadequacies and, more importantly, its unfairness in a modern society have become very apparent. It took a long time for those members who had significant constituencies of such people—and there is a demographic and a geography about it, for the reasons I pointed out a minute ago—to address the problems. The circumstances are that it was based on principles that do not stand up in modern society, one of the first being—and I think there is still a bias in this regard—the principle that the female partner is necessarily the best equipped to look after children. That can no longer be sustained. I have, within my broader family, a very successful niece whose husband has been the houseparent virtually throughout their married life. They have three very nice kids. We can all remember the time when once the female was considered the carer and the person who was at home. It certainly applied during my childhood. My mother never had paid work, and I do not think my father would ever have approved of it.

Times have changed. Consequently when a marriage has unfortunately broken down, liability for the future maintenance of children should be equally shared. Of course, as we also know, those in a broken marriage should not be consigned to isolation in terms of their relationships for the rest of their lives. It frequently, and properly, happens that they make new relationships, and it is unfair for one party to be denied that opportunity because, under the terms of the payments they must make, they cannot afford to start a new family or to marry someone who already had a family. They would also be disadvantaged.

All of those problems were only compounded, unfortunately, by a very rigid system and an excessive empowerment of a bureaucratic agency with powers of garnishee. Imagine garnisheeing the bank account of a person whose small business is trading in motor cars, a person who buys and sells them to achieve a profit and, from that profit, makes payments to the Child Support Agency. If, because he gets behind, they take all this money out of his bank account, he can no longer trade motor cars and then he has nothing. He is like the poor devil, historically, who was put in jail for failure to pay maintenance and when he got out of jail the amount of maintenance was even higher. It does not say much for the mentality of the public servants that they could not understand that.

In my electorate the problem is people having payments demanded on the basis of the average profit potential of their farming enterprise, even though the land may be in total drought and the bank has taken their chequebook back and put a big stapler through it. Farmers in my electorate have had settlements demanded on the basis that their farm a couple of years ago, or five years ago, in a bumper season made a lot of money. That is a silly proposition, and there needed to be a much better response. To a very significant degree, that particular problem is being addressed with this new legislation. I find it very encouraging, as someone who has had—as many of us in this place have—traumatised people in their electorate office saying, ‘How do I manage?’

I have often made the point that in our earlier debates there was a view that this was a male-female dichotomy. If I go back through the correspondence I have received on this matter, the majority of it is from females and, more particularly, from the mothers of non-custodial fathers, who frequently have an inner knowledge of the marriage breakdown and are outraged about how their sons are being treated. I also receive correspondence from women who have fallen in love with a non-custodial parent and have found themselves on the breadline while they try to carry on a new relationship.

All of these matters, to a degree, have had to be addressed by the taxpayer. You cannot get the perfect formula and the perfect distribution of cost, but it has always been argued that this is a process to guarantee the maintenance of children. That can only be applauded. And yet we have had some peculiar views at the legislative and bureaucratic level about the cost of raising children. It appeared that the richer you were the more expensive each and every child was. It appeared that, if there was one child or four children involved, the cost individually was always the same. Most of us who have raised a number of children know that is not the case. My notes say that kids get more expensive when they are teenagers. You ought to try some that are 30 or 40 years old! There is always a demand on parents. I hold the opinion, by the way, that in the Australian context you provide for your children so that they can provide for theirs. As we know, in countries adjoining us the reverse applies.

We looked at all these matters, and we had to come up with better solutions. Cases are brought to our electorate offices of a supporting parent earning—because they have that ability—three times the salary of the non-custodial parent, then receiving a very high percentage of the non-custodial parent’s salary, calculated before tax. This is patently unfair and silly. To say that children’s needs increase in proportion with a parent’s salary is also silly. Clearly there is a fair and reasonable cost, and if you are a high-wealth person then there are decisions that you can make when it comes to education, and even quality of clothing, I guess. I am not sure that kids who get designer clothes to wear to school are necessarily any better off than those that do not, other than when facing the sort of peer pressure that might arise.

After taking all these things into account, what have we done? We have created a new formula for calculating child support. The new formula is based on new Australian research on the cost of children—surprise, surprise—and better reflects community values around shared parenting. It better balances the best interests of parents and children. The formula treats both parents’ incomes and living costs more equally and takes account of the fact that older children cost more. It also ensures that children from first and second families will be treated more equally. What could be fairer than that?

Then there is a proposal for ensuring a minimum payment—and it is a very small amount of money—for all children. It commences at $6 a week. I know that is not much, but there will be circumstances where that is all the non-custodial parent, male or female, might be able to pay. The FaCSIA fact sheet says:

Parents who deliberately minimise their income to avoid paying child support (payers who claim to have very low incomes, but actually have higher real incomes or resources) will have to pay $20 per child per week, unless they can prove their incomes are in fact very low.

I hope the bureaucracy will be a little careful when they are assessing farming families in this regard.

We are looking more sensibly at the treatment of second jobs and overtime. One of the more stupid things in the past was: the harder you tried to raise an income, possibly to support a new family, the less you got and that money may have been passed to a person who did not need it and whose children did not need that level of support. We are also taking account of stepchildren—in most cases, the children of a secondary relationship. We are taking note that they represent a liability and somehow an adjustment has to be made. In some cases, because of the generosity implied in some of the formula for payment, the taxpayer is going to have to be a contributor—but certainly not to the level of the original Murphy family law arrangements.

There is also a modification to the change of assessment rules. The current change of assessment processes and rules for parents are confusing and are not widely understood. Under the changes being introduced, the rules under which a parent can apply to have a change of assessment of their child support liability will be made much clearer. There are other measures in this bill, but I have used up most of my time. I am sure that I can rely on my colleagues to make those points.

In closing, I must refer to the establishment of the family relationship centres. I am already getting good reports about those centres. It is an excellent measure. I wonder what the next speaker might say when I quote my mother—someone whom I admired and who had a great influence on me. She was from the Irish side of the family. She explained to me that, in her era, there was, unfortunately, nowhere for a married woman to go if she was having relationship problems. In fact, even if you went home to your mother, she was pretty keen to get you re-established in your own relationship because she did not really want to have to support you and your children in her household.

I know that this is a simplistic argument, but the point my mother so often made was: the reality of the irredeemable fight tonight—something I guess most of us in this room have experienced—is often hard to establish the next morning but, if you walked out that night, it is irretrievable. Consequently, I think that, when people are having relationship problems, it can be a good thing to keep them in the field of counselling and negotiation rather than have them go to a lawyer, who will profit from the disagreement. That is not to excuse family violence or other acts that cannot be tolerated, but too many marriages break down over a simple argument or maybe a simple mistake made by one party—even to the extent of that word ‘adultery’. (Time expired)

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