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New Zealand Herald
Child Support Dodgers Foiled
The loophole enabling liable parents to dodge child-support payments by crossing the Tasman will be closed as part of a deal between Australia and New Zealand on welfare and closer economic relations. Under the same agreement, New Zealand will pay Australia an extra $24 million this year to meet the cost of providing social security and dole payments to New Zealanders living there. That brings the total reimbursement to about $154 million this year. It will rise by $18 million next year. Unofficial estimates have put Australia's annual social-security bill for New Zealand-born residents as high as $700 million. From next July, Australian authorities will collect child-support payments owed by New Zealanders living there. Officials were unable to give exact figures yesterday, but estimated that "thousands" of parents were avoiding child-support obligations and that Inland Revenue was losing about $10 million a year. The agreement is part of efforts to expand CER and will be reciprocal, with authorities here tracking and billing Australians who owe child support at home. The fairness of reciprocal welfare payments has been a sore point in Canberra-Wellington relations for years because many more New Zealanders live in Australia than vice versa. Prime Minister Jenny Shipley yesterday described the figures as a "satisfactory settlement," particularly given that Australia had the extreme option of cancelling reciprocal social-security arrangements... |