OK straight away now you all know I am a father...

It would be poor form to air one's dirty linen too much on the issue, but without said dirty linen it lacks context. Still, I'll try.
The child support agency is a branch of the tax department, and is only concerned with how much money they can get out of separated fathers. Custody and access have to be chased up through the family court, after several experiences I notice it is almost exclusively run by and for women.

The child support agency thrives on animosity, answers to nobody, keeps a lot of men out of the workforce, deprives children of resources, and interferes with people at a low point in their life.

I should point out, the child support agency does not give the money to the mother or children. I am told that centrelink force the mothers to give the details to csa before getting the pension, but this never happened to me when the kids lived with me.

There has to be a better way, maybe inquisitive rather than adversarial. Perhaps it could be all sorted out at the one place and time. Maybe the mechanism needs to be more flexible for different circumstances. I would be interested to hear if there are any ideas how to make it a little bit fairer on fathers and children?

As anybody who has read my posts would know, I'm 100% with you on this. My proposal is for a levy to be introduced to cover the approximately $2.6 billion that the CSA claims is the amount it transfers between parents each year. Of course, 75% of that is done via "private collect" so the CSA doesn't actually have any role at all, yet the Agency continues to expand, increasing over 30% in total staffing over the past few years.

Only $5 per week per taxpayer would replace the whole lot and save the $500 million or so that the Agency costs to run. Let a competent organisation like the ATO run it rather then the "jobs for the girls" recipients in charge of the CSA.

The Centrelink nexus is also a major part of the problem, since it fosters dispute and disharmony between parents at a time when emotions are already high and causes on-going problems that are often not well understood by either parent when they sign up for the scheme

The two above posts are clearly from males who desire to have no financial responsibility for the children they have had a 50% hand in bringing into this world. They are your offspring and you have a legal and moral obligation to them to help with the cost of their upbringing. If you do not want this responsibility then you should have abstained from the act that lead to their being on this earth in the first place.

The CSA came about as a result of legislation that passed through parliament of representatives elected by the adults of this country (that means you too, by the way). Interestingly the MAJORITY of those elected representatives are MALE. If you want change then you need to take the idea up with the current representatives.

The idea that a levy should be imposed on every tax payer in this country to pay for YOUR legal and moral obligations to financially provide for the offspring that you helped to create should be strenuously opposed. These are YOUR children, not the children of every taxpayer.

Additionally you should stop stating that the CSA is only in existence to get money from fathers. This is not the case. The CSA exists to ensure that NON-CUSTODIAL parents pay their legally obligated amount of money to the CUSTODIAL parent. There are plenty of MOTHERS who are also the NON-CUSTODIAL parent. Therefore you need to ensure that your comments are GENDER neutral.

Also your comments fail to provide the information that many CUSTODIAL parents NEVER see any money from the NON-CUSTODIAL parent as the NON-CUSTODIAL parent takes all and every opportunity to dodge their obligations to their children. I am one such parent.

Tired

Tired:"The two above posts are clearly from males who desire to have no financial responsibility for the children they have had a 50% hand in bringing into this world. "

As anyone who has read my posts would know, my children enjoy equally-shared time with both parents and are free to come and go from both houses as they please within the constraints of organisation. They do that in spite of the CSA, not because of it.

Elimination of the CSA would be good for all concerned, except perhaps the few nasty women who seek to use it to punish their exes and the misandric employees who infest the Agency.

Hahaha thats clear is it? An ill-informed sexist assumption if ever there was one!
Feel free to attack the idea, not the person.

Must I be gender neutral, when pointing out the only males involved in any way at all, were myself and my ex's lawyers (to show its all fair and balanced). How would I be gender neutral in pointing out my experiences as a custodial parent have been greatly different from the mothers'? Yes it would be the politically correct thing to be neutral, but much as you would like it to be the case this hasnt been my experience.

I find it quite offensive that such a serious issue should be trivialised as a few cranky blokes that dont want to meet their obligations. For the record, I have 2 ex's. One deals with me in a polite and reasonable (finally...) way, the other took the kids to NZ and joined some kind of cult. She never told me for about a year where they lived, and GAVE HER HOUSE to the cult.

My main issue is that because I am being persecuted by the CSA for one ex, without resorting to crime I have no way of supporting the other ex.
The ex that deals with me rationally and sensibly hasnt involved the CSA, and she knows if I have money I would give her some without her even needing to ask.
As an Australian, born and bred here, I am greatly offended that our weak government will do the dirty work of NZ. Once again, there is no concern for meaningful contact with the children, and it lacks gender neutrality as it wouldnt be acceptable if the father behaved like that...

Another male but one who is the prime carer. I'm strongly of the view that CSA does far more harm than any good it does. It perpetuates conflict between parents who already have a difficult enough time dealing with the job of parenting when apart.

I makes one parent responsible for decisions made by the other which they often have no say in.

It does not make parents equally responsible, when I was doing shared care I was still required to pay a substantial amount of money to my ex to support her choices which had little to do with the real responsibilities of child care.

It is in my view sexist in it's practical dealings with parents regardless of what the brochures might say.

Time to break the forced financial ties between seperated and divorced parents to get that source of conflict out of the way.

An alternative would be to make parents who can't sort it out for themselves contribute (at a fixed rate) to a pool and be reimbursed from that pool for costs associated with care when their children were in their care. That could end up being another costly government department but for those who value making fathers pay more than they value childrens welfare it does that without many of the drawbacks of the existing system.

R0bert