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Senator BROWNHILL (New South Wales-Deputy Leader of the National Party of Australia) (5.55 p.m.) --I cannot possibly suggest that this inquiry has been enjoyable or easy. The remarks I make are spoken more in sorrow than in anger. They are certainly remarks born of frustration at a system that appears to be intransigent, insensitive and inappropriate to modern and postwar Australia. Child support is a vexed question in every country, and it is certainly a difficult and disturbing issue for separated parents in Australia. When one discovers how the system operates, it is little wonder why it is so appalling.

This inquiry arose out of many concerns expressed during the first inquiry of the Joint Select Committee on Certain Family Law Issues into the Family Law Act. The family law committee report said: The Committee considers that the Government as a matter of urgency must address the anomalies currently inherent in the Child Support Scheme so that both parents share an equitable burden of the cost of supporting their children after marriage breakdown.

When I was trying to get an inquiry into the Family Law Act I thought the child support scheme should have been included in that inquiry. The Attorney-General at the time, Michael Duffy, talked me out of it, and I can now see why. This was a big inquiry in itself, even compared with the Family Law Act inquiry.

As far as this inquiry is concerned, history now records that 1,000-plus submissions were received for the family law inquiry, but they were but the tip of the iceberg of discontent. This inquiry broke all records for a parliamentary committee, with over 6,000 submissions documented. This alone is strong evidence of a system that is in chronic need of review. This disquiet was further confirmed by the committee's hotline, which logged an estimated 150,000 calls over two days and that is quite an amount of concern in the community.

The report is both an historical document and a progressive agenda for reform. It cannot be adopted overnight, but I hope the government will demonstrate some genuine commitment to relieve some of the more obvious inequities in the present system. It has to be said that there are no absolutes in relation to child support. It has been suggested that the issue is the balance point between separated and intact families, between children of first and subsequent families, between custodial and non-custodial parents, and between parents and taxpayers generally. That sums up precisely the complexity of the problems with which the committee was confronted.

At this stage I should record my sincere thanks to the secretariat, whose task has been long, onerous and stressful in writing this difficult report: Jane Vincent, who is the secretary now; before her, Robina Mills; Matthew Mason-Cox, who was taken on for a short period; David Wallace, the legal adviser who has been with us for a long time now; Susan Cardell; Lesley Cowan; and Debbie Devlin. I thank them for all the help they have given us in trying to get together this report and trying to help people out in the community.

Many of the 163 recommendations ought not to have been necessary had the federal government taken appropriate care when establishing the Child Support Agency. Indeed, recommendations 1 to 3 say in simple terms that the existing legislation is unreadable and needs to be rewritten so that it can be understood, that the government ought to find out why many custodial parents are not receiving child support and that the government needs to determine what it wants from the agency. The recommendations throughout the report highlight issues that are so basic to any government program, the wonder is that they have taken so many years to be identified. For example, recommendation 7 states:

The Joint Committee recommends:

. that the CSA establishes, as a matter of priority, national policies and develops the necessary guidelines and manuals to ensure uniform practices are observed in all areas of the CSA administration and in accordance with the child support legislation.

People might well ask why manuals and guidelines were not in existence at the start of the scheme. They might well ask why uniform standards are today the subject of a recommendation to a government department that has been in existence for six years.

The committee discovered that there is a strong notion that non-custodial parents, predominantly male, must be made to pay; and there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the system and the agency encourage that philosophy. The committee believes the government must adopt a more even-handed approach to child support and establish its priorities to ensure adequate support is made available to all children; that parents share the cost of child support according to their capacity to pay; and that Commonwealth government expenditure be limited to the minimum that is necessary.

It would seem to me that the need to reduce Commonwealth expenditure has, over time, forced unfair financial constraints on parents, especially the non-custodial parent. The committee was provided with ample evidence of this many times. Part of this, I believe, is the inappropriate location of the Child Support Agency within the Australian Taxation Office. To my mind, the philosophy and administration of the child support scheme should more appropriately lie within the Department of Social Security.

However, I think it was interesting to observe the formal arms-length approach both the Child Support Agency and the Department of Social Security took to their child support responsibilities. Some staff within the Child Support Agency appear to have developed a persona of considering clients as an obstruction to their work: custodial parents were whingers and non-custodial parents were tax dodgers. The committee was told it was routine for certain officers to simply not answer phones for one morning a week to allow them to get on with the other administrative matters.

It would appear to me that neither the DSS nor the Child Support Agency had any real concept that they ought to be providing a service--I repeat: service--for people. Indeed, it was almost outside their job description. Astonishingly, those departments believe on balance their operations to have been at the least adequate. The Child Support Agency quoted in evidence its success rate at raising the amount of maintenance that is now paid comparative to what was paid prior to its establishment, but even that argument basically, I believe, is flawed.

The Department of Social Security was similarly satisfied, although it had sufficient modesty, I would say, to acknowledge that there were problems with the scheme. In the report we noted: . . . despite departmental assertions to the contrary, particularly from the Department of Social Security, it was clear to the Committee that there were significant problems with both the Scheme itself and the operations of the CSA.

The report is possibly not as critical of the government agencies as I would personally have preferred. Having established there are problems, it is important that we now find workable and effective solutions. The committee makes a number of recommendations that place enormous demands on the Child Support Agency--an office clearly lacking in staff resources and training to cope with the task that it was assigned. I am not convinced that under existing financial constraints the agency has the capacity to respond to what we have proposed.

The committee makes many recommendations that ought to have been part of the original establishing guideline. For example, there are no appropriate training strategies, no proper office procedures, no real understanding of the needs of the agency's clients, and no true understanding of the rights and responsibilities of both service provider and client, and staff of the Child Support Agency had little appropriate phone counselling techniques and no understanding of the need to identify themselves and to involve themselves with any particular client to provide continuity. In fact, the committee felt so concerned about this aspect that we specifically recommended that `the CSA introduce dedicated case officers, with assigned responsibility and accountability for individual clients'. I think that is an absolute must because that was repeated to us many times by the clients.

The committee makes further recommendations in respect of recruitment of staff with experience and qualifications in client service oriented disciplines so that the current Tax and Finance oriented staff culture is changed. The committee also highlighted evidence of quite inappropriate and discriminatory time frames for lodgment of forms and appeals. There was sufficient evidence to suggest that Child Support Agency clients have frequently been given incorrect advice and had unfair time constraints placed on them. We heard and read ample evidence to suggest there has been little or no attempt to develop appropriate work ethics in the Child Support Agency and there has never been any real attempt to provide understanding and genuine commitment to assist.

There are many faults in the current system and many proposals for change. Whether the committee will ultimately be successful in its quest to improve the existing system, only time will tell. The regret is that it has taken six years, several government reports and now this report to propose change; and if we do not start now, the task will simply get harder. There have been obvious savings in social security outlays since introduction of the scheme, but if that savings success is at the expense of the non-custodial parents who are literally going bankrupt meeting their maintenance commitments the scheme cannot be said to be operating effectively.

Apart from the treatment of clients by the Child Support Agency, an enormous number of complaints about the scheme were formula related. That has been mentioned by many people. Senator Neal tried to explain it a moment ago, and it is pretty hard to explain. The majority of the non-custodial parents who wrote to the committee believe the formula is too harsh and inflexible and does not take into account such issues as second families, existing financial commitments or changes to income. Those are only just a few of the concerns that people had.

Not surprisingly, the Department of Social Security, which was charged with the responsibility for modelling various formula changes, suggested that it could see no need for change. The committee did not agree with that and we have made a number of recommendations to repair the imbalance between custodial and non-custodial parents. We have made a number of other recommendations in respect of reassessments, departures, variations and revisions to bring more flexibility and equity into the system. There are recommendations relating to fringe benefits, money from business, superannuation contributions and other sources that to date have not been taken into consideration. While this will not eradicate all the complaints, it may well reduce them to more manageable levels.

In summary, as I said at the beginning, it was a difficult subject to grapple with and my personal view is that it is beyond the ability of any one parliamentary committee, no matter how dedicated it or its secretariat is in wanting to achieve meaningful outcomes. It is damn difficult to get the proper result for everyone. I have grave concerns that what we have proposed is beyond the capacity of the departments involved and that, unless there is a major commitment to attitudinal change and a real desire by government to effect change, we will simply get more of the same tampering at the edges. That, I believe, just will not be good enough.

The Child Support Agency is beyond minor repair. It is in need of major surgery. Whether the government is up to the task, we will wait and see. I commend the report to the Senate. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.