House of Reps proceedings 16 February 1988 part 7

House of Reps proceedings 16 February 1988 part 7

Title: CHILD SUPPORT BILL 1987: Second Reading
Date: 16 February 1988
Speaker: Harvey Mrs E.R. (HAWKER, ALP, Government)
Interjector: Mr Blunt; Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER
Source: House

Mrs HARVEY (Hawker)(9.15) --It is a pleasure to support the Child Support Bill, which is the latest in a long line of Labor Government reforms and programs aimed at assisting families. I must say that I have been very interested in the Opposition's argument this afternoon and this evening in relation to this Bill. One thread that has been common to all the Opposition contributions has been support of this Bill. Honourable members opposite see it as responsible, good and overdue and some of them have even congratulated this Government for having finally done something about the burgeoning supporting parents payments and the abrogation of responsibility by non-custodial parents.

Even though honourable members opposite of course agree with this Bill they are not going to stand up here for 20 minutes and say how good we are. What has the Opposition done? It has moved an amendment which not one Opposition member has spoken to. Not one member of the Opposition has explained or rationalised the amendment or told us why they want it. Honourable members opposite, in order to use up their 20 minutes, have indulged in the usual knee-jerk ramblings in which they indulge every time the words `marriage', `separation', `children' or `family' are mentioned. Honourable members opposite stand up and indulge in phoney and patronising--

Mr Blunt --It is better than empty rhetoric.

Mrs HARVEY --Wait a minute, I am getting to the point.

Mr Blunt --You are stuck with your empty rhetoric now.

Mrs HARVEY --I am getting to the point. Honourable members opposite have used phoney and patronising arguments about mothers, motherhood, separation, marriage and so on. I find it rather bizarre that the honourable member for Bradfield (Mr Connolly), in his opening contribution, somehow sought to supposedly illustrate by way of this Bill some perceived discrepancy between Government rhetoric and Government action in this area. I would have thought that this Bill more than any other is concrete proof that there is no discrepancy between rhetoric and action on this side of the House and that we actually do something about what we believe in and the things that need to be redressed.

There are many people in this country, particularly in the Opposition, who feel a warm inner glow when talking about the family and its sanity. However, what policies does the Opposition have to assist families? Let us look at the Opposition's policies. I presume that it still has the policies that it had at the last election. I do not believe that there are any new policies. What about the $11 billion spending cut the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) is advocating? What effect will that have on families and on services such as child care, community health and education which are so vital to young families? What effect will that have on equal opportunity for the children of those families? Does the Opposition health policy still involve families paying for the first $250 of their health costs? I have not heard any contradiction of that policy, so I assume that it is still part of the Opposition's health policy. That too is damaging to young families. Does the Opposition still deny certain women equal employment opportunity? If the Opposition does, it is denying mothers the opportunity to gain employment and to earn an income to support their families.

What has this Government done for families? Certainly in the last couple of weeks there seems to have been a myth around that it is out of touch with its constituency and that it is doing nothing or has done nothing to look after the interests of the low income families which are supposed to be its base. Let us look what we have done in the last five years. We have created one million jobs. What better thing can a government do for a family than to create a full time income for a member of that family? As has been pointed out many times, the one greatest cause of poverty in this country is unemployment. We have created one million new jobs. As the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) has pointed out, that is twice the job creation rate of the rest of the world and four times the job creation rate under the Fraser Liberal Government. As far as health is concerned, we have introduced Medicare so that two million children are now covered.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER(Mr Mountford) --Order! I remind the honourable member for Hawker that the terms of this Bill are fairly narrow. I ask her to come back to the Bill.

Mrs HARVEY --Mr Deputy Speaker, I was just pointing out the difference between this side of the House and the other side of the House when it comes to implementing policies about families. I could go on to talk about the family assistance supplement whereby one million children of low income families are getting real cash assistance. I could talk about our equal opportunity legislation for education and employment for women and children.

Today we are discussing the Child Support Bill which, as I said earlier, is the latest in a long line of Labor Government reforms and programs aimed at assisting children. There has been a feeling in the community over the last few years, with which I agree to a certain extent, that it has been too easy to get a government pension or benefit, that unemployed people could get a benefit without seriously looking for work and that single parents could get a benefit without seriously pursuing other sources of income. In other words, the social security system and the support of the taxpayer have been taken for granted. The generosity of the taxpayer has been abused. Inevitably, over the last few years this has led to an intolerable blow-out in welfare spending.

One of the great achievements of this Government has been the whittling down of the welfare bill. The number of unemployment benefit recipients has fallen demonstrably, largely due to this Government's highly successful job creation strategies and also to the application of strict eligibility criteria as regards collection of the unemployment benefit. The age pension bill has been reduced because of the assets test. Now the Child Support Bill and the proposal that non-custodial parents will be obliged to pay financial support for their children will lead to a huge reduction in government expenditure on support of those children. It has been estimated that $7.6m will be saved in 1987-88 and $120m in 1988-89, going up to $193m in 1989-90.

The moral rationale behind this Bill was, I think, very capably presented by my colleague the honourable member for McEwen (Mr Cleeland) when he pointed out that separating parents will not now be able to assume that the Government or the taxpayer has prime responsibility for supporting children. Family law judges will not be able to take the availability of the supporting parents benefit into account when determining maintenance. As the honourable member for Moore (Mr Blanchard) pointed out, this move restores equity to the burden of both parents to support those children. Also, of course, it will lead to an improvement in the emotional relationship among supporting parents so that a lot of the resentment that is caused by an unequal sharing of the support burden will be lessened.

I would like to address some remarks to the comments made by members of the Opposition. I said earlier that the honourable member for Bradfield used this Bill as an example of some perceived discrepancy between our rhetoric and our actions. As I think I have proven, we are the ones who are acting on principles. Honourable members opposite simply are the ones who are full of empty rhetoric. When my colleague the honourable member for Forde (Ms Crawford) was speaking earlier in the debate she used the words `social justice' and said how this Bill was an integral part of our social justice strategy. The honourable member for Gippsland (Mr McGauran), who sits opposite, called out at the time, `Social justice is a cliche. You don't understand what it means'. I would like the honourable member for Gippsland some time to tell us his definition of social justice. Perhaps in this context his definition of social justice is the attitude expressed by some of his National Party colleagues in Queensland who are on record as having said that there should not be any sort of supporting benefit and that the children of single mothers should not get any benefit because, supposedly, it encourages immorality or promiscuity or whatever. In other words, it is an example of the attitude that the sins of the fathers and mothers should be visited on the children. Is that the definition of social justice of the honourable member for Gippsland?

The honourable member for Gippsland and, more recently in this debate, the honourable member for Moreton (Mr Donald Cameron) referred to much overdue reforms needed to the Family Law Act. I remind the honourable member for Moreton and the honourable member for Gippsland that there are two Bills dealing with amendments to the Family Law Act sitting on the table in the Senate at the moment. They are being held up by members of the Opposition on technicalities and trivialities. These are Bills which would enable family law matters to progress more expeditiously through the family courts. For example, it would enable magistrates to hear undefended cases in the family law area. Those two Bills are being held up in the Senate at the moment by the Opposition. So let us have no more of this nonsense from the Opposition that reforms in the family law area are moving too slowly. It is the Opposition that is holding up what we are trying to do at the moment.

The honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) told us that his main concern was children-little children, he called them. But did he go on to address the question of children, which is what this Bill is all about? No, he used the opportunity to indulge again in cheap, maudlin moralising about marriage and family law and how we are, allegedly, destroying marriage. In terms of the legislation, it is taken as read that the parents have separated, that there is a single supporting parent. We are not here to moralise about marriage breakups or anything like that. We accept that these things happen and that there are children who are in need of support. That is what we should be addressing in this debate, not using the occasion to come out with tired old cliches and to moralise. The honourable member for O'Connor and to some extent the honourable member for Moreton stooped to blaming the Labor Government for the breakdown of marriage. What this Government has done, what the Labor Party has done in the area of family law over the last 12 years is to drag family law out of the nineteenth century. We are not encouraging people to separate. We are saying to people that if their marriage is intolerable they do not have to stay in it, they do not have to put up with a miserable situation in which the children are suffering, they can separate with dignity, without trumped-up charges. That is what we are saying. We are not encouraging people to separate. We are saying that they can separate if they want to with a bit of dignity and civility.

As other members on this side of the House have said, this Bill is an integral part of our plan to eradicate child poverty. It is an integral part of our plan to reduce government expenditure, and I would have thought that at least the Opposition would be in favour of that. As the honourable member for Forde pointed out earlier, it is an integral part of our social justice strategy.

Debate continues.....part 8