I'd like to see a realistic study into the entire cost to society of the so called Child SUpport Scheme and then a look if it's worth it.
- the direct financial cost to the community of parents who reduce earned income to provide the best CSA outcome for themselves - it might be cutting off the nose to spite your face but people do do that. Both payers and payees.
- the cost of kids growing up in homes where no one earns the income - what kind of modelling is that?
- the cost of keeping conflict between the parents going over the childs childhood and the harm that does to children.
- the cost of kids not see a parent as much as they could because the other parent loses income if they do.

I've been a part time parent (with an ex pushing for the 2 day a fothnight thing) and am now the prime carer and I'm quite convinced that any benefits of the child support scheme are far outweighed by the cost to us all resulting from the hardm done by it.

R0bert

I am familiar with three cases of marriaqge break up close to our family, and the common thread is the determination of the fathers to protect theit assets and income. Case one, a family friend, maintains a close relationship with his children and is suppportive, but after the breakup his first concern was that his ex souldn't access his assets. Case two, another family friend, congratulated himself that the family company structure had him being paid 'wages' which minimised tha amount of support he had to pay for his ex and young child. Case three, one of our full-time employee's resigned and chose to work elsewhere for a much lower cash income when the CSA arranged to garnishee his wages. These are all nice blokes, but they all seemed to regard child support as something they should control, and did not see it as an obligation. Our dealings with the CSA were fine (tho we had no choice but to co-operate in the garnishee, so had to be involved in matters we did not feel were any of our business) but I don't think there was any mediation or discussion with the father. Perhaps that would have helped.

Candide, I agree with you about income-minimising antics of fathers, usually those earning good incomes who ahve the ability to salary package in order to hide assets to an extent. I cannot fathom why, if a father is prepared to support his children when married to a certain level, that when he leaves, he wants to reduce that support and make things difficult for those children - it's bad enough that their worlds are turned upside down by divorce, let alone making it difficult for them financially by changing their living standards.

I also agree with the sentiments that, if you have a first family, then why go on to have another family to the detriment of the first? When you ahve children together, you plan how you want life to be for them, you make decisions jointly on what you can and can't afford. With divorce, the first family get absolutely no say in things that affect them, in decisions that are going to impact hugely on their lives, in terms of fincancial, and social impact. There is lots said about wanting joing parenting decisions in divorce, where everyone has a say in what happens to those kids - how come they then don't have a say in those big decisions such as - can dad really afford to have a second family when the obligation to the first family exists initially? These things need to be discussed as they do impact hugely.

R0bert, off course there is such a study produced by PIR Independent Research Group. Result – the direct cost to Australia for every dollar collected by the CSA = $2.80 for every $1 collected. The indirect cost blow out to around $5 per $1 collected.

aspro, the death toll is already at a stage that it can’t be ignored, buts it’s amazing what a little bit of spin and fudging can do to avoid the truth of 5+ men killing themselves every day.

After decades of concerned people lobbying for recognition of epidemic adult male suicide, a paltry $42 Mil was provided for a National Suicide Prevention Strategy. A large chunk of this money went to the CSA. Trevor Sutton (CSA Assistant General Manager) informed me that this money will ... "identify and support clients at risk of self harm". Yet, Trevor Sutton (same written message) repeats the CSA rhetoric that "there is no reputable data that proves the proposition that child support is a contributing factor in suicide amongst men". The same organisation awarded rare suicide prevention funding shows no commitment to investigate its own client suicide numbers.

Of course, while the CSA refuses to investigate their own records, the opportunity to attain 'reputable' date will never come!

Regard ‘capacity to earn’
3 days after the courts granted shared parenting to my child the CSA investigateded my capacity to earn and enquired about my work history and qualifications.

In fact my ex had just left a full time teaching position (she holds a Masters Degree in Education, + second degree in Arts) to go on a welfare holiday on the North Coast. During this conversation with the CSA I informed them of my ex recently leaving her job and asked for an assessment of HER capacity to earn.

Their immediate turnabout confirmed the fact that as a shared-custody parent I would continue to experience anti-father gender bias from the CSA. I was suddenly confronted with total resistance to the same investigation when the subject was a mother and not a father.

CSA is a Diabolical, Failed, and Oppressive system!

Candide and Lote,

You both miss the point, sure there are fahters out there who reduce their income, and there are mothers out there who also reduce their income.

I looked at salary packaging and because of the way CSA assesses it, I end paying more in child support than I would save in tax. So salary packaging does not work.

I worked overtime and a second job just to keep our heads above water when I was married. One monthly telephone bill wiped out all the extra money I earnt from overtime. I would have been better off declaring myself bankrupted.

You are saying that men do not have a right to developing a relationship after the first one fails! This is extremely sexist and judgemental. If a woman expects that she and the kids should have the same standard of living, then she should have stayed married or go out to work doing the overtime and the second job as well.

If you are saying that men should put the first family first, then if you do not expect women to do the same thing and avoid becoming involved in another relationship then you are extremely bigoted.

There is a huge disparity between what the father can earn, compared to what the mother can earn before child support is affected. What happened to equality?

Interestingly if the mother enters another relationship there is no reduction in child support payments, even though her actual living expenses are reduced.

Is it rational that after leaving a job that the former employer has to continue paying you a portion of your previous wage?

Scrapnmafia, wrote "have less holidays,etc."

Boy! Scrape I'd love to be able to afford to take the kids away on a holiday when I have them. There is not single bit of new furniture in my rented house. The TV's are so old they have valves instead of new technology. Even this computer is recycled. I go without buying food to pay the bills. So don't give me hard luck stories of how tough mothers have it.

No-one said anything about not being able to develop a relationship - the comments were in relation to having more children :)