Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank all members for their contributions on this bill. It has been very reassuring and rewarding to listen to the contributions, because it has been plain from each contribution that each member considers that the best interests of the child should always be paramount when we are talking about issues relating to the Child Support Agency and the legislation which governs the actions of the Child Support Agency. Obviously, post separation after divorce is a period of enormous conflict and difficulty for families, and often there is ongoing conflict between parents. But, at every stage, as parliamentarians, as a community and as a country we should be thinking about what is best for the children in those circumstances.

I would like to make a few remarks about some of the issues that have been raised by my colleagues. The member for Menzies mentioned family relationship services. I want to reassure the member for Menzies that the government is fully committed to the Family Support Program and to funding services that help families to find alternative and meaningful ways of resolving their family law disputes. Total funding for the Family Support Program is well over $200 million per annum. That includes an annual investment of more than $90 million per annum for mediation services under the Family Support Program, which supports separating families to resolve issues around children's matters. Last year the government announced that some funding from within the Family Relationship Services Program would be redirected to provide legal assistance and advice to help separating families resolve disputes with targeted legal assistance delivered by organisations like community legal centres. That included reallocating $48.4 million from the Family Relationship Services Program over four years, with a total investment of $51.8 million, to help separating families resolve disputes with targeted legal assistance. Early indications show that this new approach to providing legal assistance for couples attending family relationship centres has been very positive. The government has consulted extensively within the family relationship services sector on these changes to their funding arrangements and, further, the government has decided to defer the measures that apply to family relationship centres until January 2012 to assist in transitioning to the new funding arrangements.

I also want to reassure the member for Murray about the difficulties that she raised in relation to grandparents caring full time for their grandchildren. She is absolutely right: it is a terrifically difficult thing, thinking you have raised your children, to then go back to packing school lunches, signing notes, taking kids for inoculations, going to weekend sport and helping with homework—starting all over again all of those responsibilities of day-to-day parenting. It is a very challenging role and can be quite overwhelming for many grandparents, which is in part because those grandparents do not always know about the supports that are available in the community to help them with the very important role that they have taken on.

On 8 December last year I announced that grandparent advisers will be introduced in some Centrelink offices to support grandparents. I have been fortunate enough to meet with one of the grandparent advisers in the Sydney region. The new advisers will provide one-on-one support to grandparent carers by helping them apply for government support such as family assistance and income support payments. They are doing a terrific job. The feedback on the grandparent support officers has been very positive as well. The government believes it is vital that the children of separated parents receive both the emotional and the financial support that they need from both of their parents. While, as other speakers have said, most parents do the right thing and pay their child support in full and on time, unfortunately not all parents meet their obligations, as other speakers have said.

The first of these amendments will firstly enable the Child Support Registrar to delegate powers and functions to external service providers. Secondly, the bill amends several criminal penalty provisions to ensure the offences in those provisions can be prosecuted successfully and, thirdly, the Child Support Program has identified that the outsourcing of debt collection activity on occasion should increase the successful collection of outstanding child support liabilities. This approach is currently used by Centrelink for the collection of outstanding liabilities. Even though the Child Support Program envisages only limited use of the new powers, they are necessary to strengthen the Child Support Program's focus on the collection of child support payments and debt reduction. The changes to the legislation will also enable the Child Support Program to use the expertise of external providers for specific collection activities; for example, there are times when you might need a forensic accountant to help for a short period of time. Now that the parliament has passed legislation to integrate Centrelink, Medicare and the Child Support Program into a single department of human services, it is appropriate for the Child Support Program to have the same powers as Centrelink so that a debt collection agent may concurrently pursue debts relating to mutual customers of the Child Support Program and Centrelink. The amendments in this bill will allow that to happen.

The second group of amendments relates to certain obligations on an employer to deduct and remit child support payments to the Child Support Program. As both the previous speakers have mentioned, the current offences, relating to employers withholding payments, are somewhat ambiguous and a literal reading of the provisions would mean that an employer could be penalised for actually complying with the section. That makes it very difficult to prosecute employers under those provisions. The proposed amendments will make it clear that it is an offence when an employer fails to take a certain action. That will improve the prospect of successful prosecution of employers who fail to deduct or remit child support payments for the benefit of children. Of course, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions has been consulted in the making of the proposed amendments. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.

Proceedings suspended from 18 : 2 3 to 18 : 30

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