House of Reps proceedings 16 February 1988 part 9

House of Reps proceedings 16 February 1988 part 9

Title: CHILD SUPPORT BILL 1987: Second Reading
Date: 16 February 1988
Speaker: Lavarch Mr M.H. (FISHER, ALP, Government)
Interjector: Mr Sciacca; Mrs Sullivan
Source: House

Mr LAVARCH (Fisher)(9.43) --I doubt whether there is a family law practitioner in Australia who has not been affected by the hardship, the desperation and the feeling of hopelessness which accompany separation and the breakdown of marriage. The failure of a marriage is an emotional trauma for the parties of the marriage. Unfortunately, as well as the emotional fallout, many parents are thrown into financial hardship. It was my experience as a family law practitioner that many non-custodial parents had no idea of the cost involved in raising children. Often the parent had little to do with the day-to-day care of the children and certainly nothing to do with the purchasing of the basic necessities of food and clothing. Further, there is a general linking in most parents' minds of the access rights to children and maintenance, the custodial parent often believing that a failure to pay maintenance removed the right of access. Conversely, non-custodial parents who do not have or exercise access rights contend that there is no obligation to maintain their children.

As a result of these two perceptions, as well as an inflated misunderstanding of the level of supporting parent benefits, the percentage of non-custodial parents paying maintenance is very low. The Bill before this House is part of a package of legislation designed to ensure that the legal right of maintenance is converted into an enforceable duty of both parents. Parties to a marriage have always been liable to maintain their children. Currently there exists a system of enforcement which, unfortunately, has not resulted in a large number of custodial parents receiving adequate maintenance, if any maintenance at all is received.

The current situation in Queensland, I believe, would be typical of the rest of Australia. In Queensland a custodial parent must seek a court order before any enforceable obligation is imposed upon the other party. That, however, is the easy part. After a court order is made, either by consent or by determination of the court, the enforcement is placed in the hands of the clerk of the court of the Magistrates Court having territorial jurisdiction over the matter. For many reasons the enforcement procedures are not effective. Alarmingly few orders are complied with and seemingly few defaulters are successfully pursued by the court registries.

Further, if the non-custodial party takes proceedings for collection of arrears, the general practice is for an order to capitalise the arrears for a period of no greater than one year and, of course, enforcing even a second order remains a problem. The new scheme proposes to remove the collection function from the State agencies and give it to a newly created child support agency. The agency will be a section of the Australian Taxation Office.

For non-custodial parents paying pay as you earn tax, the deduction of maintenance will be compulsory and automatic. For other cases enforcement powers will be given to the agency and payments will be required to be remitted on a monthly basis. Maintenance payments will then be passed on to the custodial parents by means of the social security system in conjunction with the family allowance payments.

The scheme will cover people who separate after the enactment of the Bill: social security pensioners and beneficiaries; and parents of children of de facto relationships where the child is born after the scheme is introduced-except in the State of Queensland. The Queensland Government has refused to refer power to the Commonwealth over children not deemed to be children of a marriage pursuant to the Family Law Act. The effect of this action is that only in Queensland will there remain a confusing and complicated situation of courts competing for jurisdiction over custody and maintenance matters. The most serious consequence of the Queensland Government's action remains in the field of custody disputes involving children of de facto relationships and disputes involving children of a first marriage who are living within a family of a second marriage. In these cases the Family Court, the Supreme Court of Queensland, and the Magistrates Court all have jurisdiction in certain circumstances. I fail to see the logic of retaining a complicated system when all other States have now adopted a one court approach to the problem.

As well as the custody disputes maintenance questions will remain unnecessarily complicated for Queenslanders. Although the scope for confusion will be reduced by the fact that a majority of single parents arising from a de facto relationship will be social security beneficiaries some will not and will have to take maintenance action under the Queensland Maintenance Act. Court orders under this Act made by the Magistrates Court or the Supreme Court may not be able to be collected by the child support agency unless the Queensland Government displays a more co-operative attitude. We have heard a lot in Queensland since the election to the premiership of Mr Ahern; we were going to have a new era of co-operation and consensus and the inevitable conflict between the Queensland State Government and the Federal Government, as a matter of course and regardless of merit, would be a thing of the past. I can think of no finer example of a ludicrous situation than the Queensland Government standing alone for no logical reason and refusing to co-operate with the Federal Government. It would be a perfect example of how the Queensland Premier and the so-called new Queensland Government could show that they were willing to co-operate with the Federal Government in order to benefit Queenslanders.

Mr Sciacca --It is no different from the previous Government.

Mr LAVARCH --That is quite so, as the honourable member for Bowman correctly points out. For the remainder of my time I wish to turn to the general principles on which the Bill and the amendments to the Family Law Act and social security Acts are based. There has been some community debate about the wisdom of enforcing maintenance obligations far more vigorously than at present. Some groups, such as the Lone Fathers Association, contend that strict enforcement will lead to increased tensions and possible violent reactions by non-custodial parents, especially when coupled with access difficulties. Others submit that it is unrealistic to expect teenage fathers of children from a casual affair to pay maintenance for a child with whom they have no social contact.

I shall answer those criticisms by saying that the existing division between custody, access, and maintenance is a correct one. Children are the responsibility of their parents. They have the right to be properly maintained and parents have a right to be part of their children's lives, even if a marriage or a relationship goes wrong. But the concepts are separate as financial disability should never be a bar to a parent being part of a child's upbringing. Equally, lack of interest in a child should not excuse a parent from having responsibility for the life which he or she has created.

In my view, the role of government should be to ensure that, as a society, we do not allow children to be victims of the follies or difficulties of their parents. This does not mean that government replaces the parent or the parent's responsibilities. The end result of this package will be that government support can be more ad- equate and the level of child poverty will be reduced. That is the aim-not to aggravate non-custodial parents but to ensure that those who have the ability to pay maintain their own children, and they should do so.

The next stage of this package concerns the determination of a formula to apply in calculating the amount of maintenance. I will be interested to see how such a formula can be developed as from my experience it might be difficult to develop a catch-all approach. Nonetheless, the reforms already encompassed will immeasurably improve the system. I do not agree with those who argue that deductions should occur only when the non-custodial parent has defaulted or has refused to pay maintenance voluntarily. This seems to be the particular point at which the Opposition amendment is directed and the concern of a number of Opposition speakers who say that there is a large number of defaulters but there is always a group of responsible parents who have made legitimate agreements between themselves and they are working, the payments are being made. The argument goes on: why should the bureaucrats get their sticky fingers in this situation and become part of a situation that is clearly working?

Mrs Sullivan --It's expensive.

Mr LAVARCH --From my experience very few cases fall within that category. Generally, over time, even if there is an initial willingness to pay maintenance, it seems to dissipate as time goes on. As a result of that we must put into place a system that basically will cover the field rather than try to pick out individual cases at this stage. Of course, some parents are responsible and comply with their obligations, but the question is: Will people in that position be in some way disadvantaged by this particular Bill in the form of legislation which is encompassed? I do not believe they will.

Firstly, the payment by deduction is necessary for co-ordination with the social security system. Everyone, including the non-custodial parent, the responsible parent, will benefit if our social security system is properly targeted. Everyone will benefit if their taxes are spent properly. Hopefully, that will reduce the burden on the entire community, including the responsible non- custodial parent. Secondly, within the legislation there exist very strict privacy protections in relation to the information which an employer receives and which an employer can give out. Therefore, that aspect is also covered.

Thirdly-and this point seemed very much lost on the honourable member for Richmond (Mr Blunt), who asked: if there is no social security element in it, if they are not receiving a benefit and the system is working well, why should the bureaucrats become involved?-there is included in the Bill a clause which expressly allows the parties to opt out in exactly that situation. That situation is, in fact, covered.

In the situation where the parties to this agreement have sat down, worked it out and said, `Okay, everything is working fine; the level of maintenance payments being made is adequate', the custodial parent can agree to opt out of the system. That is in clause 23 (4) of the Bill. That particular point, at which the honourable member for Richmond took great umbrage, is covered by the proposed legislation. I suggest he might, as a good starting point, actually read the Bill on which he is proposing to speak.

Mr Sciacca --He has not read the Bill.

Mr LAVARCH --As the honourable member said, it looks as though the honourable member for Richmond has not read the Bill. A responsible party not affecting the Government in terms of payments will not have to be involved in the system. That is catered for. That is the great point upon which this amendment is based. If that is the great concern of the Opposition, it has absolutely been covered already by the Bill.

It must be remembered that children are the beneficiaries of this scheme, not the parents as such. In my opinion, the balance must favour a certain system rather than an honour system, which simply has not operated effectively here and has not operated effectively overseas.

Finally, it is useful to view this scheme in the overall context of the Government's commitment to fight poverty. Marriage break-up is a significant cause of poverty, with some 450,000 children within single parent families living below the poverty line. This package will increase the resources to these particular families. It will maintain the incentive for such families to become more self-supporting by not affecting current income tests. It will make parents financially responsible for their children.

In conclusion, I believe that this Bill, in relation to the amendments to the Family Law Act and the social security Acts, is a viable and vital part of the Government's package towards the problem of child poverty. I commend the Bill to the House, and I ask the House to support it.

Title: CHILD SUPPORT BILL 1987: Second Reading
Date: 16 February 1988
Speaker: Sullivan Mrs K.J. (MONCRIEFF, LP)
Source: House

Mrs SULLIVAN (Moncrieff)(9.58) --Mr Deputy Speaker, I recognise the sincerity of the honourable member for Fisher (Mr Lavarch) in the point he was making. I must say that nothing he said persuaded me that it is not desirable that there be an option in this maintenance arrangement. I accept the point he has made-that, whilst people may enter into satisfactory maintenance agreements, over time they may become less satisfactory. I do not take that as a rebuttal of the Opposition's amendment. I believe the right should always be there, if a maintenance arrangement became unsatisfactory or there was good reason to believe it would become unsatisfactory, to have resort to the government agency that this Child Support Bill provides.

In many cases there are many advantages in having the government agency. For one thing, it removes the notion of dependency and a notion that has grown up of an almost optional favour element in paying maintenance. It forces people to face the reality of parenthood and their responsibility to their children and it certainly would protect a lot of people who at the moment live in a parlous state in this country because of the disinclination of a very large number of parents to face the financial responsibilities they have to the children they parented.

The supporting parent's benefit was introduced just prior to my initial election to this Parliament. However, from the time of its introduction it has attracted a great deal of public comment, the most noisy of it being unfavourable comment. The critics of the supporting parent's benefit have basically concentrated on the female nature of the recipients of it. It was, of course, the Fraser Government that extended the supporting parent's benefit to fathers who were full-time carers for children. It has, nevertheless, had an overwhelmingly female clientele. Criticism that has flowed to the female recipients of the supporting parent's benefit has rarely flowed to the unmarried fathers of those children.

I think it is worth noting that 85 per cent of recipients of the sole parent's benefit are divorced or separated. It is also worth noting in the context in which so many people choose to put it-a context of immoral young females-that only 4 per cent of all supporting parents are teenagers and that they are not exclusively female; there are some male teenagers who are on supporting parent's benefits.

Although I was not here when the supporting parent's benefit was introduced-as I said, I came into Parliament shortly afterwards-I was here when we debated the Family Law Bill and I do remember some aspects of that debate that I think are relevant to this matter. In the course of this debate there have been some attempts to re-canvass the Family Law Act. That is not my intent; that is an occasion for another day. When we inserted into that Act a requirement that the Family Court take note of other income or benefits that were payable, the clear intention was to alleviate an injustice which then existed. The overall intention of the Family Law Act was to alleviate injustice and the hypocrisy of the previous situation. The debate on that particular aspect which has created a lot of the difficulties that we are debating tonight centred on an unfairness to men, which was that the forerunner of the family allowance, the child endowment, was not taken into account by any courts in any maintenance arrangements and that, if a maintenance arrangement was made, it could on occasions cause hardship to the father, whereas a woman could be receiving child endowment, which of course was tax free, and the courts ignored that sort of payment.

Our intention was to get the Court to take account of all the sources of income or benefit to make fair maintenance arrangements. It was not our intention that the Court should shovel off onto the social security bill a whole lot of parents. That was never our intention. It was an unintended consequence, if you like. It was the Family Court's marrying of that section of the Family Law Act and the supporting parent's benefit that has had far-reaching effects well beyond the financial aspect. This magnification of a different concept of marriage and marital breakdown has led in this society, I believe, to a different concept of marital and parental responsibilities. It has all become just a little too easy. I am not one who wants to turn back time on that and I would hate to see the reintroduction of fault as either a ground for divorce or for the awarding of custody or maintenance.

The beneficial role of the supporting parent's benefit in a desperate marital situation, I believe, is an important safety net. I am aware of many women with young children who are subject to violent marital situations. It may be emotional violence; it may be physical; it may be a combination of both. I believe it is important in that situation for the dependent partners to the marriage, the mother and the young children, to have that safety net-a bolthole, if you like.

However, the drawback is that it makes it all a little too easy. There is no pressure on the mother and father to try to sort things out. In a situation of violence there is no immediate pressure on the father to take stock of himself. From cases that I have observed, it is some time before the father starts to miss his children and to suffer the emotional trauma that so many young fathers do when their marriages break up, much to their surprise, as a rule. The situation has gone too far down the track by then. The supporting parent's benefit, being used in the way it has been, has become too easy an out from sorting out marital problems.

Marriage is, we say, a relationship or contract voluntarily entered into and ideally for life, but our birth is involuntary and the parent-child relationship is inevitably for life. Our great concern ought to be what is happening to children in this country. I have made many speeches on this subject over the past decade. The statistics on the number of children being reared in single parent families on social security, or just families on social security, are alarming as far as I am concerned. We here both reflect and set standards for our society through our laws. In this specific case the Family Court's action took the intent of the Family Law Act far beyond our intent, and the reform that has led to it has been too slow.

It alarms me that there are so many children growing up believing that the wherewithal for life comes out of the letterbox-the cheque that is delivered by the mailman. There are so many children-half a million or more-who see the act that puts a roof over their heads, food on their plates and clothes on their backs as a payment from government. They are not learning the basic lesson of life, which I know both sides would want them to be learning; that is, that one survives in our society essentially by one's own efforts but that we have social security for those who are put in an unfortunate situation.

The other dimension of this problem is that we have an enormous number of children who, being reared in one-parent families, are growing up without a concept of the joint parental responsibilities that come with marriage. It is my belief, from my own experience in my days as a teacher, that those children are better off in that situation than in a very unhappy family situation. But the best situation of all, of course, is the ideal role model of two parents with the children, both male and female, seeing mothers and fathers playing their role in relation to the mutual support of the other parent and the vital support of the children.

This is overwhelmingly a female problem. As I have said, the figures show-I quote from the Women's Budget Statement, last year's Budget Paper No. 6-that in the category of widows' and sole parents' programs there were 419,303 children in this country being reared by women on their own; that is, widows as well as sole parents. In total, 556,616 children were being reared by women who were the income recipients, whether from an invalid pension, a supporting parent's pension or whatever. That is an enormous number. We do not need to debate this, and I do not need to elaborate at length; we know that families in that situation-one parent, social security dependent-are living in poverty, and that they get locked into it. The child who is being reared by a mother in a sole parent situation is almost inevitably in a worse position than the child being reared by a father.

We have here an historic situation relating to the education and training of girls and the expectations they have of adult life. In the 1970s we had a sudden legacy of the undereducation, undertraining and underaccess of women to employment opportunities in this country when we had a rapidly escalating rate of divorce. It was in the 1983 Federal election campaign that former Senator Ryan so successfully used her slogan referring to the feminisation of poverty. She did not invent it, but she certainly made it very effective. It is rather regrettable that it has taken five years for us to face the full extent of it.

I want to relate some very stark and pretty brutal figures on what this amounts to in the context of what we are discussing tonight. In 1985 less than 30 per cent of sole parent pension recipients-remember that 90 per cent of them are women-had extra income and two-thirds of them were receiving less than $31 per week. More than 70 per cent, in other words, had only a pension. Statistics provided by the Australian Institute of Family Studies in 1986 showed that in the average case where the woman was a sole parent and the man was living alone, the man-that is, the father-was $175 a week better off than the woman after payment of tax and after maintenance. An Australian Bureau of Statistics survey found that the mean income of a female sole parent was less than 35 per cent of that of a married couple who were parents and that the mean income where the man was the sole parent was nearly 64 per cent of the married couple's income. The dramatically worse position of mothers rearing children compared with either men or married couples is very stark. It has also been demonstrated that 56 per cent of female sole parent incomes are in the lowest 10 per cent of income units, whereas only 3 1/2 per cent of married couples' incomes fall into that category.

A survey on the economic consequences of marriage breakdown showed that 77 per cent of female sole parents were worse off than they had been at the time of separation by a factor of $78 per week. In contrast, 75 per cent of un-repartnered men who were living alone were better off financially than they had been prior to separation by $72 per week. Those figures have been around for a long time and have been quoted over and over again. Former Senator Ryan had them at her disposal in 1983 when she referred to the feminisation of poverty. We cannot separate from a debate on this subject the general subject of the situation of women in society today.

Some progress has been made in the education of girls, but the general subject of access to education for women as distinct from girls has not improved very much at all. I believe that we have made virtually no progress in the education of girls and boys about responsible adult behaviour and responsible parenting, and our progress in child-care is too slow because the Government refuses to look at all the options available. The worst effect of this is that single parent women have an extended dependence on social security so that they are even less employable when they are older and their children are less dependent on them. I welcome the progress that has been made through this Bill, but I believe that a very wide range of other issues has to be addressed before we will truly alleviate the problem.

Debate interrupted.