Romany, I give you the best of wishes and all the best for the future.

Pynchme:"Child support doesn't support mothers; it helps pay to raise the children."

What a lot of rot. Its principal purpose is to offset the cost to the Government of supporting mothers who choose not to work. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that CS payments received reduce the amount of Centrelink benefit such mothers may receive. In latter years there has also crept in an ideological "punishment" theme, promoted by those such as the website you've quoted.

Pynchme:"one wonders how they think they'd be paying less for their children if they were living in a family situation."

If they were living as an intact family, they'd have only one rent to pay, one set of clothes to buy, one set of toys to own - the list goes on. In addition, they'd actually get to see their children daily and might even be able to develop a proper relationship with them directly, instead of through the maternal gatekeeper. I know you're not stupid, so this must be a bit more of your "telling lies for women". Can't help yourself, can you?

Let's examine the figures you gave, in the light of the CSA's own figures that less than 2% of all CS is untransferred in any given year and on their own merits.

"41% of single parents [including the 9% who are men] receive no [CS]"

And what are the reasons for that, do you think? Could it be that 41% of separated couples simply don't want the CSA involved at any cost so their cases don't get counted? My own ex, now that she has managed to get off her bum and use the education I was expected to pay for has decided that the CSA is a terrible organisation and must be taken out of the picture.
Could it be that when both parents work, there is no compulsion from Centrelink to register with CSA to offset the cost of supporting the mother and the parents just get on with working things out, leaving the CSA in the dark where it belongs?
[CONT]

Let's look at your next offering:
"• 40% pay $5.00 or less a week"

As the $5 minimum applied only to those who could demonstrate no income other than Gov't benefits, that would mean that 40% of all payers [91% of whom are men, remember] are unemployed. This at a time when the population unemployment level was at all-time lows of less than 5%. That the CSA creates unemployment among men would seem to be a reasonable conclusion to draw. How does that benefit their children? Take your time...

"• 16.2% pay between $5-40 a week
• 22.3% pay between $40-$100 a week
• 21.4% pay over $100 a week child support"

IOW, the CSA deals mostly with the low-paid, while those with money make their own arrangements. No surprises there. Those figures represent at best 18% of the payer's gross taxable income [assuming one child only], so anyone paying only $40 per week must be on at least a partial benefit and even those paying $100 a week are earning less than the average full-time wage

"The number of men manipulating
and minimising their child support responsibilities
contributed to a corresponding number of women
and children living in poverty"

Where is the evidence for this little piece of hate-mongering? The figures you quoted indicate clearly that the outcome for low-paid men is overwhelmingly deleterious, with 40% of all payers ending up on the dole as a genuine alternative to working 40 hours and ending up with less than the dole's meagre allowance.

In fact, all that your quotes do is demonstrate that the CS scheme and the corrupt organisation that administers it are irretrievably broken, even with the Howard Government's reforms.

Thanks for showing us the work of the grrrls hate sites, though, it contrasts markedly with the rationalist approach of most of the men's sites.

Good work Antiseptic,

I think the NSCM relies on the emotive arguement, that because of the figures they quoted, it must mean fathers are minimizing income.

Now from my understanding many intact couples who can do it, minimize their income to save on paying taxes and anecdotal evidence suggests that the wife could be driving a BMW and be receiving the family tax benefit.

The NCSMC is a group of radical feminists who are committed to a world in which the only role of fathers is as a payer of money to the mother. They are of the firm view that the only parent is the mother and that a father, in seeking to have time with his children, is doing so solely to reduce the amount of such money the mother may receive.

Of course, in the world of the NCSMC, mothers are magically exampted from any requirement for self-support - that's men's work. Women are such helpless victims, the poor things, and it's all because those terrible men knocked them up, no doubt as a result of rape or alcohol, either way it couldn't have been their own doing...

Meanwhile, in the real world, unemployment among CSA-registered payers of CS remains at a level many times higher than the general population and women who choose not to work continue to impose an enormous cost burden on the productive members of the community.

Also in the real world, men are continuing to commit suicide at the rate of about 30 a week, very frequently as the final outcome of actions by these same women and the CSA. That's all right though, after all, they're only men, the dole cheques will still arrive for the women and "their" children, so all is right with the world...

Anti, I don't know if NCSM is a group of radical feminists or just a group of self centered narcassitic women.

There was one woman from the CWA who said that separated men should not be allowed to have another relationship, because it would affect their ability to provide for the previous relationship.

So I guess in the view of some women, men are little more than sperm donors and pay packets.

Pynchme wrote 'adequate level of support'. What does adequate mean?

One womans version of adequate could mean the difference between buying a new pair of shoes a week, compared to once a month. Or is adequate the difference between a cheap red and a Grange?

Now I do know there are parents male and female who do go without, in order to provide for their children.