Yvonne:"whether your wife left the father of her children just for financial reasons, which if true suggests that you made a poor choice for the mother of your children, but probably is only half of the truth, is of no consequence to your children."
If she then relies on her status as a "single mother", whilst denying the right of the "single father" to have a role, of course her decision "is of consequence to [her] children". Why should the male parent(especially one who is showing willing to be part of his children's lives) be the only one expected to be disadvantaged by her decision? If I make a decision I expect to have to live with the consequences. Why should she be exempted from that obligation and be allowed to pass it on to the father?

Romany: "

Antiseptics entire views on the deficiencies, power balance, shortcomings, violence, cupidity and lack of parenting skills of the entire female sex are couched in terms of his own experiences"

You're partly correct, in that I believe my own case is an example of where things can go wrong. If she could do it, with no special skills other than those she acquired in the process, then anyone can do it, which means my case is not a "special" one, but approaching the norm. Therefore. I recount it as an illustrative example of the ways in which the system can produce bad outcomes. I make no attempt whatever to suggest that all outcomes are bad, so your stupid comment is shown to be precisely that, stupid.

Romany: "Thousands of children in Australia are growing up in disadvantaged homes due to an inadequate and malfunctioning CSA agency. THAT is the point."

And thousands of women are not working to their capacity in caring for those children, while thousands of men are hounded to work beyond theirs to pay for the women's idleness by a corrupt and incompetent CSA. Perhaps those women should consider their own work ethic instead of riding on the back of their kids to a free lunch?

The OP said:

"Just had a reassesment [sic] and they used the benift the new formula provided in order t survive and took it to pay for more demands that the ex re-assesed to place on me."

OP was simply confirming another case of what I forecast in my book that under Parkinson's Curse, the CSA would EXPAND the Part 6A COAT [with another 1,000 blood sucking lawyers] to trump the Part 5 assessment.

There is a minor setback after our Privacy hearing last week [judgment pending] which will essentially STOP the COAT practices [allegedly under s 161] to get info from ATO/bank/accountant, so the COAT will now rely upon a shi* fight between the PARENTS to get them to APPLY for a COAT [ie RICAT is now a dead parrot]

If you CONSENT to provide info to CSA you lose your right to protection under PAct

so trolling is used by the FLIndustry to stir up the shi*, and I do not think the OP intended that but the rest of you sure helped

OR look at it another way

SPOUSE MAINTENANCE has not changed one bit since 1975 under the FLAct, so why is nobody complaining that certain "deadbeat husbands" done the dirty?

get the picture?

back in 1987 it was same for CHILD MAINTENANCE under FLAct

ie it simply "worked", no Public Service Quango and about one Mee & Ferguson [1986] case per annum for the blood sucking lawyers.

Droogs, the ONLY reason for upsetting a perfectly working child maintenance regime was that there was no money/power for blood sucking lawyers [and Hairy Legged Lesbians looking for Power Jobs]

it is simply KISS

Antiseptic, I think it highly commendable that you are an actively involved father who parents his children.

MY personal experience with the father of my eldest child was that he wanted to have very little to do with his son when the marriage was intact. This disinterest miraculously changed when I left the marriage. He even promised me he would do everything in his power to ensure he would get sole custody and access would only occur at his discretion.

My ex is a medical specialist with enough financial clout to get high quality legal support.

I borrowed money from my mother and with a lawyer of my own decided to call his bluff and suggested that I would prefer to share parenting equally, but if he was going for sole custody I wouldn't fight it. I couldn't afford it.

What happened? Well, over the consequent 15 years, though only living a few streets away he has seen his son on average 6 PART weekends a year. His newly discovered need to parent, dwindled very rapidly. The many times that I would be with his little bag packed at the front of his door for access, only to find out that he hadn't bothered to cancel were numerous.

This man is onto his third family and currently on a four week trip through Europe with his new woman and his 2 step children who he playing daddies with and financially supports. His own two children from his previous relationships are not. They are financial burdens with mothers who are 'emotional basket cases'.

Children and the threat to financially disadvantage them is hard for a custodial parent. You want the best for your child, the thought arises that maybe you were selfish to leave.

That's my experience. A child used to punish the other.

Yvonne: "Children and the threat to financially disadvantage them is hard for a custodial parent. You want the best for your child, the thought arises that maybe you were selfish to leave."

Believe me, it's just as hard for a "non-custodial" parent, which was my status for some years as the mother was determined to protect her own financial interests by limiting the kids' time with me, which had the double effect of reducing me to penury through completely unsustainable CS arrangements. Double win for her, total loss for me and the kids.

I'm really sorry that your child doesn't have an on-going relationship with his father, who sounds like a fair mongrel. There are good and bad parents of both genders. My main beef is that the structures of the State are set up overwhelmingly to advantage "custodial" parents at the expense of the other, in my view on purely ideological and politically expedient, not rational, grounds. A truly rational system would make both parents equally responsible for all aspects of their children's well-being and take away the link between time in care and financial benefit. At present, a custodial parent, especially one who chooses not to work, has significant incentives to limit contact with the other parent and in my own experience at least, does so.

If an assumption of equal care were in place, with a mechanism to penalise those who act as "maternal gatekeepers" as well as those fathers who choose to forego their responsibility we might get closer to a fair system.

Antiseptic, now you are talking.

It has always been my contention that if two adults cannot come to an agreement together as to the care and future plans for their children, as parents are normally expected to do, but need to resort to an outside agency like the family court, then the children need to be separately represented. Robustly represented. Not only legally.

As it is, it is a case of he says, she says, he does, she does. Both parties have their own personal agendas. There are reasons why these people no longer like each other and probably cannot stand the sight of the other.

Where children live, the financial provision and how parenting is shared then needs to be decided by outside agents making the best outcome for the children as the focus.

It has also always been my contention that most of the financial arrangements for children need to be separated from the needs of adults. Whether a parent is then not working is not of concern to the other parent.

The family court, with our adversarial legal system, has no place in determining the future wellbeing of children. It always ends up that the person with the best legal presentation wins.

Children, whether, from separated parents or not, seem to be increasingly connected with a source of income. The baby bonus only highlights this.

If Australia can afford a baby bonus, why not use that money to provide one good meal for each school going child, at school, instead? That would be good for all kids, rich and poor.

Why not use that money to provide school uniforms instead? Or totally free access to any GP or specialist doctor? Why not pay for the resources at school for all children?