Pelican:
I am NOT being a "male chauvanist" but simply pointing out a simple but very dangerous problem existing with current procedures to compel "some" males to honour their "alleged" responsibilities!

I have the utmost sympathy for a mother who is deserted by an irresponsible father of her child, and I am NOT simply advocating mass DNA recording, as I myself am stongly opposed to these veiled methods of tracking the population, ....however when the current system allows an innocent/gullible sexual participant to be persued endlessly to provide a financial meal-ticket to an errant/deceitful/lying mother who should realistically be supported by the system that has encouraged her to procreate, instead of passing the buck!

The issue of establishing paterity at this time can involve a lot of expense to the "alleged" father, as he is required to "foot the bill" for the tests, ....that is if the mother of the child is prepared to present the child for examination/testing ( which in the case of her being an "errant" mother is highly unlikely, as she would have too much to hide!)

I am suggesting that something needs to be done to deter this attitude of (in some cases) irresponsible copulation and UNECCESARY pregnancy resulting in a further burden on society by some individuals that are either promiscuous or simply looking for an easy meal-ticket!

I myself have been happily married to my wife for 51 years and we have produced 4 children all of whom have gone their own way in life!
We have had our bad times too over the years, however we were taught that life has it`s ups and downs and if you make your bed you have to lie on it!....During all those years we got very little from "the system", and from memory I think that the best we received was about 4 pounds a quarter for Child Endowment!

It is time we stopped pandering to selfish indolent younger generations and made them accept responsibility for their own actions, instead of them looking for somebody else to blame for the situation they have created themselves!

Cuphandle I am in agreement with you on personal responsibility. I was being tongue-in-cheek about the national DNA database and I know that is not what you were advocating.

It is a problem and I don't know the answer. I tend to shudder at the idea of mandatory DNA testing but obviously if fathers were able to access it legally in the case of child maintenance payments it certainly would solve the issue of paternity. I would ask why a father would suddenly raise doubts over his paternity later rather than sooner and only when money was involved.

"It is time we stopped pandering to selfish indolent younger generations and made them accept responsibility for their own actions, instead of them looking for somebody else to blame for the situation they have created themselves!"

I agree. Both the mothers and fathers have to take charge of their responsibilities.

Perhaps we need to perform a reality check with the paternity fraud hysteria which currently abounds. One paternity fraud (Magill) in Australia does not make for a tsunami, though I have not yet learnt of the DNA results for the nineteenth century Australian statesman (allegedly a lady's man) who was recently dug up.

Professor Michael Gilding, Director of the Australian Centre for Emerging Technologies and Society, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne has stated that despite the rampant exaggerations, misattributed paternity is occurring at about 1% and no more than 3% in the Western world.

“The problem with these (exaggerated) figures is self-evident. They come from a small, self-selecting part of the population .... By definition, the clients of these laboratories have grounds to question the biological paternity of their children.... unmarried mothers who want to enforce child support from reluctant fathers ... men who have doubts about their partners or ex-partners.

“There are at least three parties that have promoted this particular urban myth or pseudofact. First, there are the fathers' rights activists.... Fathers' rights activists have mobilised around DNA paternity testing as part of a broader campaign against what they regard as an unjust socio-political system biased in favour of mothers in disputes about child support and custody.”

Until the advent of the Family Law Court, the majority of non-custodial parents were defaulting on child support. Perhaps the legislated corrections have now swung too far the other way, however during the early ‘90s, nearly half of Australia’s lone mothers and their children lived in poverty – second only to the US.

An official census during 2002 revealed that 83% of Australian lone parents remained female. That figure may have reduced somewhat since then, nevertheless, the Herald Sun on June 23, 2008 reported there is currently a billion dollars outstanding in child support.

This revelation, in my opinion is not something defaulting parents can be proud of and is clear evidence that the child has been and continues to be the pawn.

It appears that: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Dickie: "83% of Australian lone parents remained female. That figure may have reduced somewhat since then, nevertheless, the Herald Sun on June 23, 2008 reported there is currently a billion dollars outstanding in child support."

That $1 billion figure is for the entire life of the scheme, all 20 years of it, so it is really about $50 million per year. Given that a number of those cases are uncollectable for various reasons including death of one or more parties, a further portion are due to miscalculation by the Agency, a further portion are due to deliberate manipulation of the system by custodial parents (as you rightly point out, those are mostly mothers), I reckon the figure is relatively trivial at less than $2.50 per Australian each year. Why is there such a hue and cry to collect it, given the triviality of the amount?

Just a little thought. If the uncollected amount is only $50million per annum, that means that the previous Government's commitment of $143 million over 3 years to the enforcement of collections is only $7 million less than the total that would have been uncollected if no one had bothered.

In fact, given the conspicuous failure of the previous National Compliance Manager (Angela Tillmans, now CEO of the CP League of Qld) to actually get anyone to comply I have to wonder whether the new one (Bruce Young, formerly Qld State Mgr, soon for the chop, no doubt) will do any better. Therefore, the $143 million is a total loss to be added to the $150 million that would have been uncollected anyway. Must make Joe Hockey all proud-like to have come up with that one.

What a shame the new Joe, Mr Ludwig, is just as incapable of using a calculator as the old one.

That's some creative accounting you've done there Antiseptic. Here's what Joe Ludwig said (verbatim):

"The latest numbers are concerning.

"Examination of the compliance statistics since the 2003/2004
financial year shows that just under half of child support payers
whose payments are collected by CSA fully met their obligations.

"According to the Child Support Agency’s estimates, in the past four
financial years there were more people who didn’t pay up and fully
meet their obligations than those who did.

"Child support debt is growing. In the past two years it has grown
by over $50m a year, at an average annual rate of 5.6%.

"Total child support debt has just reached a billion dollars. About
one fifth ($231m) relates to overseas debt.

"$255m, over a quarter of this debt, is over 4 years old. Some debt
dates back nearly 20 years to the start of the scheme. By any
commercial standard, that is now debt which is very hard to
recover."

The following Daily Telegraph commences with:

"THE amount of unpaid child support owed by 254,000 deadbeat dads has cracked $1 billion and the Government is employing private investigators to get it back."

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23912830-5001021,00.html

And excerpt from the following link: "In the 10 months to May 22, investigators from the agency's minimisation program found 4186 parents - mainly fathers - who were not paying the right amount of child support because their incomes had not been calculated correctly."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/more-parents-try-to-evade-child-support/2008/05/25/1211653847228.html

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2006/s1666732.htm

I'm not yet aware of any reports which support your claim that:

"a further portion are due to deliberate manipulation of the system by custodial parents (as you rightly point out, those are mostly mothers)"

Could you supply me with a link please Antiseptic?