Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last night I received an email from someone; I am calling him Andy. He wrote despairingly about child support, poverty, and male suicide; issues that should be of great concern to us all.

Andy begins:

Hi Everyone, I am writing to you because I have reached the end of the line in trying to resolve my personal issue, the same issue that affects thousands of parents around the country. I am a paying parent in a child support arrangement administered through CSA. While I am willing, I would like fairness! Like so many other paying parents, I have for a number of years now experienced the bullying and completely unfair treatment exhibited by a government department that displays more of the characteristics of a debt collection agency than one where the lives of both parents and children are involved and affected.

Andy woke one morning to sunrise and a life turned upside down—no children, bank account drained followed by a demand for child support payments. He understands he has a parental responsibility, but in this case it was one financial injury piled on top of another, on top of the emotional pain of being separated from his children.

I hear many stories just like this one where children are used as financial pawns. It is wrong and it is damaging for both the parents and the children. Andy questions the fairness; one parent can take the children, either out of the country or to another state, as part of a premeditated plan, withdraw all the family money, leave no rights of appeal for the remaining parent and then claim child support. The CSA has the curtain of existing laws to shroud itself against the reality of unfairness.

Andy also says he cannot call during work hours because he is working. He never gets the same person anyway, so he deals with everything by letter. Actually, in this day and age, having a copy of everything is not a bad idea. But what he really struggles to comprehend is how legislators or a government agency can think it is at all 'fair and reasonable' to take almost half of his post-tax fortnightly income and give it to the person who took away his children?

After the calculations done by the CSA, Andy, who actually has a well-paying job, ends up living on 225 bucks a fortnight. It cost him $8.40 a day to get to and from work on the train, leaving him with $140 a fortnight. It is no wonder so many highly productive men just give up the ghost. Well, actually, some men take their life and become a ghost. I am not being flippant. This is the one of the final chapters in some cases, and the stories are impossible to tell without an overarching deep sadness for the plight of so many men who are going through a similar journey in life.

I have referred many men to local help groups like Men 4 Life and Dads in Distress where people—a friend, a dedicated social worker, a counsellor—volunteer to help men through the phases of anger, grief, notions of suicide and depression as they deal with the consequences of marital breakdown. Andy has contacted members of parliament before, and they have said there is not enough interest. Well, Andy—not your real name—there is interest in this parliament. I would ask all MPs to reach out to their communities, listen to their Andys or Anitas, and let us collectively find a solution. (Time expired)

See this speech in context