Her barrister then stood up and withdrew the child support application. After the hearing I made known to the barrister that it was the end for me paying child support as I had paid far in excess of what I had to pay and the orders had expired upon the hearing before the judge as they had been formally set aside by the judge at commencement of the hearing. So, that was the end of it. When later the children came into my full-time care I didn’t seek any child support from the non-custodian mother.

There was this man who made clear he could not afford to pay child support but was ordered by the Courts, including the High Court of Australia to pay child support. After the High Court of Australia ordered this again, the Child Support Agency refunded him the monies he had paid as after all he was held not to own any monies!
Now lets see, this man was self employed and as such allocated himself some monies as to wages to avoid having to pay child support and had the business paying for all his further needs, making it tax deductable. In the process he became a multi millionaire.

Actually, I published earlier this year a book about it and it included the refund details by the Child Support Agency!

As a “CONSTITUTIONALIST” I am well aware that the Framers of the Constitution made clear that the legislative powers of the Commonwealth over children should not be as to reduce them to slaves.
Hence, I view the child support does precisely this, albeit unconstitutionally.
My view is that Child Support should be abolished.
there is a lot more to it but too much to set out in the posts.

DearMr Gerrit
I see you appear to have been delt the raw prawn however I don't agree with abolishing child support as it is the inocent children that miss out. I do however think that the idea of a set amount per child, regarless of their social status in life is a better way.
You see when a family breaks down the children go with the mother in most cases. If the mother finds hereself in a wealthy relationship the kids become better off yet the fartther, under the current system, can't improve his situation due to the ever increasing child support that is adjusted to his wage.

I also belive that if the system was on a level playing field where the father (in most cases being the non custodial one) had to pay an affordable set amount he would then be in a position to either enjoy his time with his kids when he gets them, buy things for them out of his spare earnings, or perhaps even start a fresh life knowing he won't be screwed if he works longer hours or betters himself.

I had a youg lass working for me recently where her defacto partner had 2 children he was paying maitinance to. When they rented a house together as a couple, his child support was calculated from their combined income. Even if this was wrong at the time, it didn't stop her from comming to work in a distressed manner and then her partner gave up his job as the system was placing to much strain on their relationship. This failed soon after however their were no additional children involved.
I have no doubt that if he had been made to pay a set amount per child/age they would have enjoyed their loving relationship to this day.
rehctub

Celivia, sorry I've been away for a while.

As I understand it FTB and other child related government payments require a CSA assessment to have been done. CSA will not accept any agreement based on a smaller amount than their assessment so if you have a private agreement for a different amount you are at risk of the other party later claiming you are defaulting.

CSA seem to have internal performance measures which encourage making the maximum assesments they can (managerial performance pays based on money transfered, organisational reporting based on the same measure). Those kind of measures create a temptation to bias assessement in favor of payee's rather than actually taking circumstances into acount. Their assessment process is in some ways adverserial in nature and may have flow on's. Someone who chooses to minimise their paid employment for lifestyle reasons is unlikely to want to admit to that in an official assessment in case that impacts on other government handouts.

R0bert

Rehctub, I proved that despite over the years only having had $300.00 on child support I managed to survive. Sure, I moved into the country as to be able to afford buying a home but nevertheless I did and 2 of the 5 children were full time homes schooled by me! Not uncommon women would claim that because I was a man I had it better because I could do my own court cases, do my own repairs on the property, etc, and as such it was easier for me to do without child support, but the truth was that travelling with up to 5 children to attend court, etc was in itself very expensive, besides the harm to the children. As such the 300-dollars I received then over an about 15 year period hardly was making me rich as the paperwork and travelling to the Courts did run into thousands of dollars. I did it however as to make a point that while the Child Support Agency doesn’t hesitate to (unconstitutionally) take possession of monies held by a non-custodian father in a bank account they have a different conduct when it comes to a non-custodian mother.
If child support were to be abolished it will not really make one difference to the children themselves. It will stop the “rich-father” hunting by some women to allocate the person having the best income to be the desired father so the more on child-support can be obtained.
No man will know for certain if he fathered a child as he is unknown if his wife had an extra matrimonial affair with an other man at the time of conception. Hence, I view paternity testing should be compulsory at birth of any child.
At times inheritance can make a considerable issue, and while some of my children are not my biological children, that is what I accepted myself, and my will expressly provides for equal division of my estate to all children! It was my decision to do so!
No one conned me in that regard!
Continued

However, I do not accept any man to be conned in that regard.
Abolish child support and many conflicts now occurring would disappear as with the decades of having been involved assisting people in Family Law matters far too often child-support was a major if not the major issue.
In my previously published books I have set out an alternative scheme as to have monies being paid into the government coffers and this money is then paid out on a need basis for any child. As such, every child should have the same financial support and not that a child who’s non-custodian parent is on the dole or otherwise can swindle the taxation department about not earning an income then is denied appropriate financial support where as other non-custodian parents who are honest end up paying huge amounts of child support that not only denies them to have a reasonable existence but also undermines any proper ability to have access (contact) with their child(ren)
Child support is a curse!
My view is not of letting children starve to death, to the contrary, to provide for all children support and not just where some non-custodian parent can be held to pay while certain millionaires can get off not earning enough! If child support is that important then why is the Government tolerating children who’s non-custodian parent cannot or will not pay child support to go without?
More then likely the real issue is that the Government pretend to care about children, while in fact using Child-Support for its own benefits (too much to include in this posting, while children without child support are at times going hungry.
Because-I-know-what-it-is-to-be-a-single-parent, as-I-did-it-for-so-long, I-know-what-it-is-about, and-my-views-are-based-upon-experiences.
Marriage is a contract and if one of the parents wants to hop out then I do not accept that the parent ending up to be the non-custodian parent should be financially crippled while the custodian parent can start setting up another life again.
Increasing “child endowment” and getting rid of the “child support” in my view is the way to go!

Dear Mr Gerrit
Sounds like you and I are on similar grounds here and I would like to know some of your books as I too have several (what I consider to be fairer) way of supporting children.
For starters I beleive that all monies paid for children including child support by non-custodial parent, family assistance payments etc should all be paid into a consolidated revenue account run by the government. Then every child should be provided with three meals a day from the tuck shop, uniforms for school all provided free of charge. You see the way the system works now is the the less you contribute the more you reveive by way of hand outs which quite simply sucks. Until we have a system that recognises that all children are equal we will forever have the situation whereby people are forced into breaking the law and as always there is a winner and a looser with the winner being the lawyers and the looser being the children.