Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Child Support and Family Assistance Technical Amendments) Bill 2024 as brought to the House by the wonderful Minister for Social Services. Australia's child support scheme began in 1988, and I think the minister would be old enough to remember 1988, when Expo 88 was in Brisbane. I think this building opened in 1988, and I actually married a Canadian that year. Two out of those three things worked out alright! When we separated, we didn't have children, so we didn't have to consider child support.

Child support ensures that children from separated families are financially supported by both parents in line with each other's financial capacity and the consideration of how much of their time is spent caring for the child. The guiding principle of the child support scheme has always been to promote the best interests of the child—something that's sometimes forgotten. But this amendment reflects that consideration. Decisions around the appropriate level of financial support can often be a lengthy, stressful, emotional and expensive undertaking for parents. It's not uncommon, when love turns to hate, for there to be children outside of that whole process, children who are obviously the expression of love from the start of the relationship. Hope distils, and then you often up with—and we see this as members of parliament—adults who have become quite hopeless at dealing with their children. It's vital to ensure that the processes are fair. It's also crucial to ensure that the outcome of the assessment and the collection of child support are fair. Child support must not be used by parents to carry out post-separation abuse or financial control. I repeat: it should be all about promoting the best interests of the child or children.

The bill before the House today contains a technical amendment which ensures that the child support scheme operates as the Family Assistance and Child Support Legislation Amendment (Protecting Children) Act 2018 intended. Due to unclear drafting of the legislation at the time, the protecting children act limited the circumstances where interim periods could apply, rather than broadening them as intended. Interim periods have been a longstanding and key component of the Australian child support system. When concerns are raised about legislation, it's vital that good governments act swiftly to resolve them.

In this case, during the 2023 Administrative Appeals Tribunal proceedings, concerns were identified by Services Australia regarding the operation of the interim period provisions. A subsequent Federal Court ruling in February this year found that the 2018 amendment did not operate as intended. The intention was to strengthen the interim period provisions; however, it unintentionally limited the circumstances where an interim period can apply. The Albanese Labor government is committed to quick action on legislative reform through this bill, which will clarify when interim periods can be applied.

To work out child support payments and family tax benefits, each parent's percentage of care for the child or children is assessed. This is usually based on each parent's actual care of the child. However, sometimes there is a written care agreement in place; it might be a parenting plan that both parents have agreed to, or it's not uncommon for it to be a court order when they couldn't resolve it themselves. In these cases, the percentage of care and the percentage payment a parent has to make can be based on the written arrangement for an interim period. Interim periods are important as they promote compliance with written care arrangements. They can also ensure that a parent withholding care does not financially benefit from higher family tax benefit payments and, conversely, that the other parent is not worse off with higher child support payments and lower family tax benefit payments.

Currently, an interim period can only apply at the start of a new child support assessment or family tax benefit claim when the breach of the care arrangement occurs at that point. The original design of the 2018 amendment was to ensure a greater period of time before a child support assessment is recalculated when there is a dispute about the care of the child. In some cases, the short interim period, which was 14 weeks at the time of the original amendment, meant that a child support assessment could be changed while the parents were actually working to reach a parenting agreement. Therefore the amendment focused on an increase to the interim period when one parent was exercising their rights under a parenting order and undergoing a dispute resolution process. This amendment will provide clarification on the usage of interim periods. As the minister said, passage of this bill is essential to ensure child support legislation clearly outlines where interim periods can apply. The permissible length of the interim period will increase to 52 weeks, and, after this time, the percentage of care will be based on the actual care being provided by the parents.

The application of an interim period can also have a positive effect on resolving complicated family disputes. For an interim period to apply, the parent with reduced care must demonstrate their efforts to comply with the care arrangements. One bit of parenting advice that my Canadian wife gave me is that we should always lean in when children are doing the right thing, and that includes adults as well in this situation. This can take the form of trying to work with the other parent towards reinstating the care arrangement or working with a dispute resolution service. It can also mean starting legal proceedings or keeping the police up to date with developments, such as a child being taken without consent.

The limited time—the 52 weeks of an interim period—also balances the opportunity for parents to comply with written care arrangements to ensure that child support goes to the parent caring for the child. It's important to note that the amendment in this bill will not affect the existing rules that apply to protect children and parents at risk of domestic and family violence. Decisions made for written care arrangements are made in the best interests of the child. If a care arrangement has changed due to information about family violence or child protection issues such as neglect, Services Australia can enforce child support and family tax benefit payments based on actual care percentages. In these cases, no interim period would apply. The bill also provides direction to ensure that decisions made since the 2018 amendments are legally valid and in line with the intended policy in order to minimise the impact on parents and carers if the decision is disrupted.

The amendment under discussion today is just part of the Albanese Labor government's commitment to strengthening the child support scheme. An estimated 1.2 million parents and one million Australian children have child support arrangements in place. It's a source of much conflict. The member for Blair, who has spoken on this bill, and I did an inquiry into this over a decade ago, and it's still an issue.

In the last budget, the government committed over $5 million of funding to implement recommendations from the Joint Select Committee on Australia's Family Law System. I was a member of that committee, and one of the committee's recommendations was the establishment of the Child Support Stakeholder Consultation Group to provide information to the government on issues affecting families. That committee also recommended the development of the Child Support Expert Panel, which includes people with expertise in child support research, family law and expenditure. Part of the panel's role is to design a methodology for reviewing the child support formula when expenditure data, like the ABS's living costs in Australia survey, are made available. This will ensure that child support payments are at an adequate level of financial support. Further initiatives include review and compliance with child support scheme to ensure vulnerable single-parent families are financially supported and to gain an understanding of how to support parents with caring responsibilities.

The bill is technical, but it's nevertheless an important piece of the child support system. It will ensure the child support scheme operates as initially intended in previous amendments. It has my full support, and I commend it to the House.

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