Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Amendment Bill 2011. The bill seeks to amend the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988 to achieve two objectives. Firstly, it proposes to broaden the powers of the Child Support Registrar to delegate powers to perform his or her duties under the act to persons outside the department to enhance efficiency. Secondly, it amends the number of criminal penalty provisions to ensure that the offences contained therein can be successfully prosecuted, thus achieving the object of those offences when they were initially legislated and also protecting the integrity of the Child Support Scheme.

The Child Support Scheme has identified that having the ability to outsource debt collection activity to external service providers on occasions should increase the successful collection of outstanding child support liabilities. This is similar to arrangements employed by Centrelink that that agency currently delegates to external service providers to collect outstanding liabilities in certain instances. The proposed amendments to certain criminal provisions under the act relate to the obligations of an employer when they are required by the Child Support Agency to withhold moneys from an employee to be paid to the agency when there is an outstanding child support liability. The government argues that the current offences relating to employer withholdings are somewhat ambiguous, as the offence provisions create an obligation and provide a penalty but do not specify whether the offence is created by an act or an omission. The proposed amendments will make it clear that an offence is committed when an employer fails to deduct or remit child support payments. Importantly, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions has been consulted in the making of the proposed amendments.

Child support is an important part of our system of supporting children following the breakdown of relationships, and we can no doubt rely even more on child support in the future. Why, might we ask? It is quite simple. The Gillard Labor government has ripped some $50 million out of family relationships services. Services in place to support parents and kids and help families stay together have been hit hard by a weak and directionless government—in this case, those $50 million coming from family relationships centres and also from the important work of marriage counselling in Australia.

Family relationships services are important. They play an important role in preventing relationship breakdowns and in keeping families together. When you take $50 million out of that system, a cut that will hit those families beginning on 1 July this year, people will suffer, families will suffer and, regrettably, kids will suffer. Helping families stay together is important. Instead, Labor spends more time and energy on what happens after the relationship has broken down. And, of course, the Greens do not seem to have any positive policies on this. It is a regret that the government has trillions of dollars to spend, yet a relatively small amount of money is not being spent on such important services so far as many families are concerned.

The coalition will not oppose this bill in the House. These seem to be technical and mechanical measures that will make the operation of the agency and the Child Support Scheme more efficient.

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