House of Reps proceedings 16 February 1988 part 2

House of Reps proceedings 16 February 1988 part 2

Title: CHILD SUPPORT BILL 1987
Date: 16 February 1988
Speaker: Crawford Ms M.C. (FORDE, ALP, Government)
Interjector: Mr McGauran
Source: House

Ms CRAWFORD (Forde)(4.42) --The Child Support Bill 1987 is, as the honourable member for Bradfield (Mr Connolly) has rightly pointed out, part of a package of three Bills in which the Government intends to reform Australia's current system of child maintenance. As such these Bills are part of the Government's commitment to ensuring that by 1990 no child need live in poverty. That commitment is very much part of our Government's social justice strategy and, hence, it is extraordinary to hear a speaker from the Opposition discuss our having no social conscience and having lost out in terms of the kinds of people whom we were supposed to set out to help. This is very much part of our commitment to social justice and very much part of the Government's philosophy of looking after the marginalised in our society.

Marriages do break down and governments can do very little about that. However, what governments can do and what this particular Government is doing is attempting to alleviate the circumstances in which very many of our children find themselves after those marriages have broken up; in particular, the very straitened financial circumstances in which spouses and children of marriage breakdowns find themselves.

The main features of the Bill are to ensure that non-custodial parents share the cost of supporting their children according to their capacity to pay. It is simply an acknowledgment by us, as a community, that all parents have a responsibility to the children whom they parent. Hence, their capacity to pay for the raising of those children is very much part of their commitment to their children and to this society. It is our Government's duty to ensure that that commitment and that responsibility is met by both custodial and non-custodial parents alike.

This Bill also ensures that adequate support is available for children of separated parents. Within the forces of the Bill we are hopeful that financial support and other support will be given. As well we look to Commonwealth expenditure being limited to those people for whom it is necessary to ensure that their needs be met. Let us face it, we have already pointed out that numbers of people in the community will not have the benefits of non-custodial parents. For example, widows are one group who are supporting parents and, hence, the savings that are made through the Child Support Bill will hopefully be channelled to those sorts of people and government expenditure will be used on those people who are most in need.

We also hope by this Bill to encourage parents to participate again in the work force. As part of that strategy we have also had a program of child care places and of training programs that are aimed particularly at women who find themselves in the position of being supporting parents and who have, until recently, been unable to participate in the work force due to the demands of child raising. Child care places, more money in the home through regular maintenance payments, and training programs provided by this Government will help to ensure that they and their families will be able to participate within the economic structures of this country.

As well, the Child Support Bill will encourage the arrangements, which will be simple and flexible, and also respect personal privacy. Hence, those people on whom demands are made in the non-custodial parent area will have guarantees that their privacy will be respected.

The establishment of the Child Support Register also will mean that it is administered by the Child Support Registrar who is the Commissioner of Taxation, as has been pointed out. This will make a collection system that is not dependent on voluntary payments. Currently more than 70 per cent of non-custodial parents do not pay regular maintenance. This contributes to the reliance of their families on the social security system for support. There are now more than 250,000 sole parent families and 450,000 children in Australia who are totally reliant on pensions and benefits from our Government. Hopefully, the Child Support Bill will mean that their dependence will be reduced and that they will be able to enjoy a higher standard of living as their maintenance payments become more regular and their non-custodial spouses recognise the responsibilities that are involved in child raising.

The first stage of the new child support scheme will increase the number of sole parent families receiving regular maintenance payments and help. This will help ensure that court orders for child maintenance payments are enforced. Currently, the reality is that court orders for maintenance payments are not being enforced. The Bill will help ensure that those people who have made commitments will follow them through rather than walk away from them, as is currently the case. It will also mean that these maintenance payments are made on a regular basis. Many honourable members, in their electorate work, will know and recognise that maintenance payments, if made, often tend to be of a very erratic and irregular nature and are not able to be accommodated in the sole parents' family budgets and, hence, no reliance can be made on that in terms of quality of life or lifestyle.

The Child Support Bill also provides for a more adequate level of maintenance payments to be set in the court maintenance orders made after the start of the separation. What this will mean and what has been pointed out is that those maintenance orders will be set at a level which will not take into account social security payments and, hence, will be made in relation to the non-custodial parent's capacity to pay and that is right and true, as it should be. This is a question of justice-social justice.

Mr McGauran --Everything is social justice, isn't it?

Ms CRAWFORD --It is, indeed. We are hoping to create a very just society. It will also be of help in terms of redistribution of income, in terms of relieving the burden on taxpayers. As some have already pointed out, we are currently paying $1,757m in support payments to families. If this situation can be alleviated, it will give the Government more income to expend on those people who are very definitely and urgently in need.

The child support scheme will also look at the new separate income list for pensions and benefits to be taken into account as the maintenance payments received are taken into account. This should also help to ensure that people's incomes will be looked at more regularly and that there will be a greater marriage between our government agencies, which are operating within the Family Court, and the social security area. This means that co-operation must be ensured between the Commonwealth and the States, between government agencies, and also between those agencies that are delivering.

It is important that we recognise and see all of this as a total package in which all of these children can hopefully be helped out of poverty. The people who will be affected are those who separate after the scheme; those who have not lived together but whose child is born after the scheme has been introduced; social security pensioners, regardless of their date of separation; and, of course, where spouse maintenance has already been collected by a State agency. The duties of that State agency will be taken over by our child support agency. I think it is important to recognise that while we are making demands on current social security pensioners, the activity test will ensure that they make reasonable effort to obtain a court order for maintenance. If that is impossible, of course, they will maintain their full beneficiary status. We are looking for people to take responsibility for themselves.

The Department of Social Security will continue to disburse this child support payment, as employers will be required to make the necessary deductions. An Opposition member has pointed out that some employers will be unwilling to do so and/or will find themselves in a position of not knowing what their rights and duties will be. However, they too are taxpayers and will, of course, enjoy the benefits that will accrue to all of us from a very large saving in this area, not to mention the buoyancy which will come from a large group of people being removed from poverty and being able to move back, hopefully, into the work force and pursue their lives with dignity. In the long term, the Government is committed to achieving a system which is much more accessible and predictable. This will achieve results of adequate private support for children in accordance with the capacity of their parents to pay and, of course, the capacity of the Government to provide for those children who do not have private support.

Such a Bill demands changes in community values and expectations. An indication of that, I feel, is the support which the Opposition has also given to this Bill in recognising that we, as a community, must all share the load for our children. It is the responsibility of all of us to maintain those children who have been brought into the world; they are, after all, our future. It is also important for us to recognise that, if equality of opportunity for children is to become a reality, they must be removed from poverty. This Child Support Bill is in fact a very important step in that direction, and I commend the Bill to the House.

Title: CHILD SUPPORT BILL 1987
Date: 16 February 1988
Speaker: Tuckey Mr C.W. (O'CONNOR, LP)
Interjector: Mr Howe; Ms Crawford; Mr McGauran; Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER
Source: House

Mr TUCKEY (O'Connor)(4.53) --Mr Deputy Speaker, it is worth remarking that, although the Opposition supports the Government in its attempts to address this very difficult area, the Opposition, too, has a responsibility to raise the issues as it sees them. It is worth also remarking that the honourable member for Forde (Ms Crawford) drifted into some rhetoric which could hardly be supported by the facts. One might remind her that it was in the hard-core Labor voting areas in Adelaide in which swings of 20 per cent were recorded. If that is not a message from Labor's voters as to their dissatisfaction with the arrogance with which those opposite have treated them in recent times, it is time that they left office, because they have lost all their political skills.

The reality is that the hard-core Labor voting areas are finding it very difficult to make ends meet, particularly financially, under the policies of this Government. The examples are everywhere. This Government's basic principle of self-congratulation, its defence of institutions such as Medicare whilst ignoring the problems of individual people who are suffering under those arrangements, its commitment to a philosophy, is in fact far in excess--

Mr Howe --Mr Deputy Speaker, I take a point of order.

Mr TUCKEY --Is it starting to hurt, Minister-a little bit of advice to your backbench?

Mr Howe --Mr Deputy Speaker, if the Bill had something remotely to do with health insurance, we would be interested in the honourable member's comments on health insurance, but the Bill is about child support and I suggest that he be directed by you to address the Bill.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Mountford) --I am sure the honourable member for O'Connor will come back to the text of the Bill.

Mr TUCKEY --Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. This Bill is a welfare measure, in part, and an attempt to relieve the poverty of children, many of whom are the children of people who have voted Labor all their life in the anti- cipation that their life would be better under a Labor Party government.

Ms Crawford --And it is. It is going to be under this Government.

Mr TUCKEY --There you are; those opposite are back to a policy of self-congratulation when the statistics are against them and the voting public is against them. I will go back to what we are here to discuss, because, as I said, I personally welcome this particular Bill. I will make some remarks which I hope the Government will consider very carefully because, in fact, both the administration of this Bill and the other efforts that the Government proposes to make in this area are fraught with difficulties. It is a great dilemma for legislators, and I use that word in the broadest sense. It is not easy. As the Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe) said in his second reading speech, this is one of the steps to keep the promise of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke). I quote from the second reading speech:

This Government is committed to ensuring that by 1990 no child need live in poverty.

In truth, if that were a promise of this Minister, as compared to a promise of the Prime Minister, I would feel more confident for those children in poverty, because the record of the Prime Minister's promises is that people are best promised that they will not get the money because it is more likely that they will: when the Prime Minister promises us a fall in taxes we usually have higher ones, and so on. Nevertheless, I hope that on this occasion, in the interests of these children, the Prime Minister will be able to keep his promise; and I genuinely believe that the Minister would like to do that, provided that his colleague the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh), over a period of time, is prepared to let him. These are the problems that we have.

This is a Bill about helping children, and again I commend the Government for setting out to help children. The great tragedy of marriage breakdown and, in many cases, of deliberate single parenthood is that children suffer because people take very selfish decisions totally related to their own circumstances, whether it be that they have found a new love or they can no longer tolerate their partner, or that it seemed a good idea at the time. Many of these decisions are taken by adults and the big losers are the kids. Of course, this contribution that is being made is a very minor contribution to overcoming those sorts of problems. To the extent that legislators are able, one of our major responsibilities is to try to recreate some of the older moralities that placed an obligation on people to keep their families together.

Ms Crawford --Oh, rubbish!

Mr TUCKEY --The honourable member for Forde scoffs at the idea that there should be some obligation to keep a family together.

Mr McGauran --Of course, there should.

Mr TUCKEY --Of course, there should in the economic interests and in the interests--

Ms Crawford --I did not say that.

Mr TUCKEY --The honourable member is another selfish person who sees the rights of the adults as superseding the rights of those kids who go into poverty and suffer. She scoffed, and she knows that she scoffed. That is a tragedy. It is a tragedy for kids. It is equal to the tragedy of some very young people being convinced, sometimes by social workers, to take little children home when they have neither the resources nor eventually the interest to care for them. They are carting kids into poverty when, of course, there are other very carefully selected parents who might have adopted those children. That cannot be generalised about, but they are the sorts of tragedies that occur.

I am again raising the question: What does this Government or this Parliament propose to continue to do to protect the children? The figures that we read-800,000 children in poverty, 400,000 of those the responsibility of single parents-are the Minister's figures; Those 400,000 kids are suffering a degree of poverty purely and simply because their parents decided not to stay married or, in fact, decided never to get married. It is a very significant part of the administration and, if you like, the policing of this legislation that the bureaucracy-I guess, the tax man-and the Government have provided in this legislation and its regulations that both married and unmarried people will be treated equally. But the task for the Minister is to ensure that his bureaucracy does not take the easy option. I predict that that could have long term consequences.

I raise the question of the ease with which a bureaucracy can track down people who have signed a marriage contract. Having put their names on the dotted line they are clearly identifiable, as compared with those in some casual relationship, not even a de facto relationship, where children are the issue and there is the minimum co-operation from the custodial parent as to naming the non-custodial parent. I have a nasty feeling that identification of the non-custodial parent will become all too hard for the bureaucracy and that it will tend to concentrate its efforts on people who apparently have made the mistake of getting married. If that becomes a further disincentive to marriage and a traditional family lifestyle, it will be a major tragedy of this legislation.

I am not saying that the legislation should not be considered because of that problem; I just call on the Minister to ensure that out there in the real world great care is taken to be even-handed in pursuing the non-custodial parent of a casual relationship to ensure that that person too makes a contribution. If that is not done we will lose a lot from this legislation. The word will get around-it is around at present-that it is silly to get married today. I deplore that trend, because I think it is part of the problem of the generosity of government.

It is worth drawing to the attention of those honourable members present that when the supporting parent's benefit was first introduced by the then Treasurer, the present Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mr Hayden), he was able to explain to the Government that this was a very narrow area of difficulty and privation. He was able to identify an amount of $40.6m with which he could fix the problem. There was an area of problem. As I have said, there is a huge dilemma. I personally believe that in some cases a little more economic pressure would not only hold marriages together over rocky periods but also assist those marriages over a longer period to become good marriages-in certain circumstances, I am equally prepared to admit that. I have a case going through my office at the moment of a woman who is under physical threat-threat of murder. I meet women who have been injured and who quite clearly could not tolerate their marriages. Nobody-not I or anybody else-could expect a woman to remain in a marriage in those circumstances simply because no financial assistance was forthcoming from the Government.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, as Treasurer at that time, recognised that problem and brought before a sympathetic Parliament a measure to help a person in those circumstances, a measure costing $40.6m. Of course, when we consult the expenditure details now, we find that that figure has changed dramatically. For instance, the supporting parent's benefit and allowances this year will be paid to 179,000 recipients at a cost to the Government, to the taxpayer, of $1,509.8m, or 6.7 per cent of the total social security outlays. Widows' pensions and allowances, which also cater to a degree for broken marriages, total a further $1,111.5m, or 4.5 per cent of total social security outlays.

It is a huge problem for government and a huge problem for the community. When government stepped into people's lives it literally changed their moral values. Their moral values had been influenced over time by the economic fact that someone coming home to mother was a severe economic problem for the community. When government removed that problem the community said, `Thank you' and we have had this massive growth in recipients. But the losers have been the kids.

This measure to some small degree will start to give some assistance back to those children and consequently we welcome it, but that does not alter the fundamental fact that, unless over time we can convince people to stay in their marriages, no amount of money that this Government or any other will be able to find will fix the problem for the kids. We are well aware now of the back-pedalling in so many areas. The Minister thought it was wrong to raise matters of health, but they are all related. These children get support in that area too. This is a measure by which the Government will spend a little more. There has been no such measure in the health portfolio since I have been the shadow Minister. Every step the Government has taken has been either to increase taxation or to reduce some service to people. I will deal further with that on the appropriate occasions.

Another point I make is that the costs of measures such as this eventually result in taxation. It is quite pointless people believing that if they pay no or little income tax they are not contributing to taxation revenue. This year the Budget Papers show us that $7,000m will be collected in consumer taxes. Sales tax applies to all sorts of items, including tinned pet food, and very few people escape that tax measure. Another $7,000m will be collected in fuel taxes. In this day and age very few people do not consume that commodity at some time in a vehicle or with some other device. The fact is that most people are paying taxation.

I point out that there are 800,000 families in poverty, and one of the reasons for that is taxation. The tax burden on poorer people is something they cannot carry. As long as we keep ticking up expenditure in the area of welfare for one group of people we gradually make another group decide on the welfare option. The Government, following an initiative of the Fraser Government, has increased the assistance given to some of those people under the family allowance supplement, or FAS, and the Government is to be congratulated on that.

Any effort to stop people who, through low wages and a huge tax burden, have got to the point of opting out of being wage earners-any move we make in that regard-is desirable. The honourable member for Forde scoffs at that remark. I do not know what her mental processes are. I will repeat for her what I just said so that she can scoff again. I said that any measure that will keep people from taking the welfare option over the work option is desirable. If the honourable member for Forde thinks that is funny I will publish this speech in her electorate and we will have a poll on it. How far does she, with her social mentality, think a nation such as ours can go if everybody takes the welfare option? Does she think we are going to get the money from big public companies who include tax as part of their costs of production and declare their dividends after tax? Does she think they will be the contributors? No; they will charge ordinary consumers for their tax. The whole process dominoes down to the ordinary consumers.

One might wonder, in light of the attitude of the honourable member for Forde, like that of many aspirants on the Government side in this place-whether they be aspirants to the Ministry or new additions to the Ministry or to the back bench-what has happened to the old Labor traditions of common sense, earned through a working cla

I raise another matter of practical administration which I hope the Minister will choose to answer. I note that employers again carry a very substantial burden in the administration of this legislation. I do not know a solution to that. I do not criticise the Government for asking employers to do so. I think it is pretty tough that they face fines of up to $5,000 for failing to do the Government's work for it and I hope that the penalties will always be applied very leniently and only in cases where there is a deliberate attempt to defraud the Government or otherwise ignore the Government's request.

I see that an employer will get notification from the Child Support Registrar that he must deduct these additional amounts of money from an employee's salary, but I have not been able to discover in the legislation how the Registrar will necessarily know that a person who has these responsibilities is the employee of any employer. The reason I say that is that it has no doubt been presumed that each and every new employee, at the commencement of employment, will fill out the relevant form which entitles the employer to deduct tax at less than the maximum rate. I refer to the application for a concessional rate. I have done the calculations in respect of the ID card. A profit can be made by someone choosing to work under a false name and to pay a higher rate of tax. Depending on the levels of maintenance being contributed and, of course, the salary involved, there will be cases of employees opting not to fill in the form and deciding that it would be cheaper to pay the tax. Some others would prefer to pay the tax. We have to remember that there is great hatred in respect of some of these arrangements. I think the Government should apply its mind to that little administrative difficulty, because it is there and it will contribute to these sorts of problems.

Of course, there are other problems and other great dilemmas. It is not always the case that the non-custodial parent makes the choice to break up. I support the demands that we are making for equality. The courts of our country-and it is their decision, not one for this place-should look more closely at the ability of either partner to support children. It seems to me that in many cases male non-custodial parents should be given better consideration. I think they could prove to the court that they could fulfil this role, and I would not expect the court to rule in their favour unless they could. It appears to me that it could be simple if they had the funds available.

Heart-rending cases of wives and husbands whose marriages have broken up have been brought to the attention of my office and, no doubt, the offices of most honourable members. Invariably the partners think that the other has done them wrong. As I said, this is a very difficult problem. I think the courts have to look very closely at who is best able to support children, because the children are paramount. The courts have to give up some of the prejudice that we have all had about the roles of men and women and decide who-and I think the economic factor is very important-is best able to look after the children.

The reality is that these days many pressures are put on people in receipt of lower incomes because they do not have enough money. My late mother used to say that when poverty comes through the door love flies out the window. It is our job to ensure that we do not impose further poverty on Australians. We have to consider every mechanism which will enable us to hold together the traditional marriage structure, which I believe is the best solution. It is a much better solution than any legislation passed by this Parliament will ever bring.

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