Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The child support payment has become a tool of violence used to economically abuse women. According to a survey that Swinburne University of Technology conducted last year, eight in 10 women have reported the deliberate withholding or nonpayment of child support. Today I will share some of the story of a constituent using the pseudonym Sam, who has sought support from my office with her experience of financial abuse, to demonstrate the failures in the current child support scheme. Sam has been a victim-survivor of ongoing intimate partner violence for 12 years, and she's had more than six DVOs taken out against the father. She commenced family law proceedings in October last year. Since these proceedings commenced, the level of violence Sam is experiencing has increased exponentially. Sam's been representing herself in the legal system as she's not able to afford a lawyer. The father has been overreporting the percentage of care for the children and underreporting his income to receive the family tax benefit and child support. Because of the false reports, Sam must pay a large amount of child support to the father. The weaponisation of child support in Sam's case is prolonging her legal case and is forcing her to continue to bear the burden of proof to Services Australia and the courts. Unfortunately, Sam's case is common.

The Greens support the calls by frontline services and advocates for urgent reforms to close the loopholes, including introducing accountability measures to ensure that annual tax returns are accurate and lodged by prescribed dates. We also need family law reforms that recognise persistent underpayment of child support as a component of family violence. It is well past time for the government to close the loopholes and to stop the weaponisation of child support and the suffering of legions of women in Sam's situation.