About 40 percent tax means you must be on good coin, or have been out of the workforce for a few years, or have a massive Hecs debt like me... But the child support agency wanted 58% of my NET income. Hecs wanted 8% of my gross (on good coin), income tax was about 30%. All in all, hero to zero. Not worth it after putting fuel in my car.

Spent all weekend trying to organise contact with my kids, was too upset to post anything yesterday as the idea was approved most of the day then denied. Maybe not next holidays but the ones after that. Yeah, um, OK, well if thats what the children want...

If you have a point to make, make it, don't refer to a book that none of us has an interest in purchasing.

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dear savlon,

I HAVE made every possible point in my book.

If you don't want to be informed then don't

but DOTA, FCOL give me strength, Lindsay Jackel and Uncle Buck and all those that TOOK the $75,000 per annum on offer from Howard in the Cash for Comment deal.

You surely must be joking if you want to HELP those screwed by the CSA

Peter Hume:"You still have not shown how the argument would not equally apply to the fact that women biologically cause sexual desire in men, therefore there is a moral justification for forcing women to provide satisfaction of that interest?; or that women ‘acted out of their own interest at the time’ in causing sexual desire in men … so therefore coercion is justified?"

I'd say that's a red herring in regard to my proposal, which holds both parents equally liable for costs, as well as placing some direct burden on all those other parties who may benefit in the future by the existence of children now.

Given that there is mutual benefit to the initial contract implied by the consent to have sex and that a foreseeable potential consequence for both parties is the production of children then in the absence of an explicit agreement there is an implied obligation on both parties to make arrangements to maintain those progeny that may arise.

By linking payments to the children, not simply placing them in the "consolidated revenue" available to the parent with majority custody, my proposal extends the concept used in the Aboriginal Communities of the NT to all single-parent households. There is extensive evidence that children suffer abuse and neglect at far higher rates in single-parent, especially single-mother headed households and especially in such households with very low incomes.

Peter Hume:"The fact that poorer people can’t afford to buy as much stuff as richer people is because they are poorer. The solution is to earn more money, not forced redistribution schemes. "

Once again, I agree in principle, but that will never fly. If genuine change is to be brought about, then a schema that takes cognisance of Treaty obligations is necessary.

The current scheme relies for legitimacy on its compliance with such obligations, so that is a minimum requirement. To achieve that, it is likely that some redistribution is required. Further, if the burden of CS is removed from those fathers who are poverty-stricken, as eloquently expressed by Patthebogan, then a barrier to their workforce participatiuon is removed. If parents on higher incomes wish to spend more than a minimal amount on their children, then they should do so. Perhaps they may even be able to employ some of the low-skilled men who would be likely to become available to work?

The "privilege not to work" is not at issue. Under my proposal, the parents would both have an obligation to support themselves at least as great as the one they bear now. All that would change is the "poverty trap" created for many low-skilled men who become fathers, either willingly or not, and their children. The situation for their mothers would not change, except that their incentive to coerce the father through the CSA would be gone and they would have more spare time to look for work since the fathers would be taking a larger share of the custodial burden.

Overall, I suggest that the taxpayer would be better off under my proposal. Apart from the $500million or so that the CSA wastes on itself, there would be a saving in community services budgets, which are disproportionately spent on the most poverty-stricken parts of the community and in the cost of supporting litigious mothers in court.

I agree with you 100% about the rest of the subsidies, like day care, pension, etc. Apply the money direstly to the children via special-purpose accounts and the justification for such things is greatly reduced.

At present there is a strong linkage in public policy between "single mothers and their children", but that is not a necessary linkage, merely an historical hangover and a convenient political position.

I understand that you think it’s a red herring, but the point is, you haven’t shown why. You may disagree with my argument: you but you haven't refuted it. You have not shown why anyone should be liable for any costs, other than those who voluntarily undertake to raise the child.

Nor have you shown that there is any problem with sole parents not being able to afford to raise their own children themselves.

Nor have you shown why, if there is such a problem, it should not be solved by those parents earning more money.

Nor have you shown why, if they have a problem with doing that, it would not be better solved by abolishing the many laws, taxes and occupational restrictions that prevent such people from working.

The whole thing is a big non-problem. It is caused entirely by governmental intervention, meddling with people's freedoms, in an attempt to win votes, by people trying to get something for nothing, but using force to take it from others. It's completely unethical, and creates unnecessary division and hostility.

The last thing we should be doing is copying the disastrous welfare policies that have been inflicted on the Aboriginal community. There is no need whatsoever for governments to try to administer the fine details of family life. It’s a dreadful idea. People naturally and spontaneously form themselves into families for their mutual benefit, without any help from government. How do you think the human race got here?

The fact that children are better off with the father’s contribution is not an argument in favour of compelling fathers to pay for them. It’s an argument in favour of requiring mothers to do what is necessary to obtain the father’s consent for such payments.

The essential ethical defect of your argument is the idea that sole parents, most of whom are women, should not have to do anything in exchange for money. Why not? Why shouldn’t they have to provide some kind of valuable consideration in exchange for the valuable consideration they are receiving?

Australian men are cast in the role of third-class citizens, mules and asses whose job is to support the two privileged classes of women and children, who can and do despise men’s contributions as required.

In consenting to have sex, there is no implied contract to pay for any resulting children. That’s the whole point. Such a contract is a complete fiction. It’s ethically no different to saying that in causing sexual desire in men, a woman forms an “implied contract” to have sex with them, and they may justifiably use violence and threats to enforce ite. It’s moral nonsense. You still have not got past the original problem that your argument is that biological causation gives rise to moral justification for violence. It doesn’t.

As for the childless, don’t blame them! Especially not those who, out of prudence, have delayed having children until they can afford them. Why should they be forced to pay for people who want to raise children, but couldn’t be bothered turning their minds to how they are going to provide for them? It is true that the childless benefit from human society, but so does everyone else. That’s not a justification for forcibly taking income from some people, and handing it out to others who are exempt from the social obligation to provide from *consent-based* value in return.

Current policy is an unethical and illogical program of negative eugenics: penalizing the most diligent, prudent and productive people, to pay for the least.

But let me ask you this way: Suppose all compulsory child support were abolished, including CSA and sole parents pension. What would be the problem with that? Why should not those who want to raise a child earn the money themselves by providing services to others for payment