I’m afraid you are going to have to do better than remark that we don’t have a sole parents pension and refer me to absent authority.
--

I explained above and referred you to FREE Chapter in book at www.ablokesguide.com but let me summarise:

it started as lone mothers pension back in Middle Earth time, became sole mother, then sole PARENT after Barry Williams made his stand as a single dad [and sat on the CSA forming committee in 1988, so you can blame Bazza for a lot of the problem].

The word pension had the wrong vibes so in 1998 or so it became Parenting Payment but Costello did his welfare to work gig in 2006 or so and mums simply get Newstart [same as dad] and of course all the other things like Family Tax Benefit A and B, but as Parenting Payment was about about 10% more than what dad got for Newstart [but still had to support himself, pay min CS and kids while on "visitations"] they called it ENHANCED Newstart.

The deal is simply no form to fill in per fortnite if there are any kids under 6. If not mum has to do her Newstart return every fortnight, but being a mum of course ....... [fill in the dots].

To everyone above firstly to savlon, I already told you we simply return to 1987 situation if CSA zapped [and CSA own figures say the average payment per kid was $60 pw (in 2010 dollars) BEFORE CSA was born, but CSA can't even crack the $40 pw barrier].

to be cont

cont

As for the "they orta change the law", I am sure you mean legislation, well that IS the problem with CSA they do NOT have any intention of obeying the law, SO the way to keep them in check was to continually haul them before a court and quote the legislation to judge and he say you win.

RObert, have you read s 65 of CSAAct? - the whole COAT gig is simply advisory with NO QUESTIONS to be asked according to the CSAAct. The sure indication is no rules of evidence is stated in Part 6A, ie it is simply intended as advice on "how you might go in court under Part 7", but CSA [Mr Reithmuller to be exact] has made it more Draconian than Spanish Inquisition.

As I say Howard overcame that [with help of Cash for Comment droogs at $75,000 pa] by changing legislation to LOOK LIKE there was no longer access to a court, so with retirement of blokes like myself, Kelso et al the blokes now simply ACCEPT no access to courts, so CSA just becomes:

"It is a creature of its own creation. It is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. It is bureaucratically .. it is eating itself".

that famous quote coming from Bell J in Gilmour case back in 1996.

Oh wise old judge Justice Bell. I even asked if I could quote him and he said I could.

Robert, I have no stake.

Several people here have openly stated "their" stake. They have had decisions go against them. They then extrapolate that those decisions are because of "gender bias". Using the same twisted logic, when a decision goes against a woman that must mean there's a gender bias against the woman. Embittered people usually don't think logically regarding the source of their embitterment - - - in this case the CSA.

I repeat, women (not "only" men) have CSA decisions go against them. A fact that the protagonists here never seem to mention. That says it all. Acknowledgment of that fact (without prompting from people like me) would show their gender bias claims are based on "opinion" only.

There's one thing I've found in life - - - - "opinion" and facts are usually two different things, especially when people feel embittered, cast aside and unable to readily rectify a "perceived" injustice.

benq:"I have no stake"

The problem with your view is that it is based entirely on your perception that my view is just sour grapes. You have no evidence for your view, I have a great deal of evidence for mine as do the hundreds of thousands of other men who have had to deal with this poor excuse for a dog's breakfast.

On one of the very first occasions I had to deal with the CSA, I rang up to inquire about a letter I received which was informing me that I had a debt of $1200 for 2 months worth of child support, which was surprising because I was unemployed at the time and we'd only been separated for a month. As soon as I said "I'm puzzled by this", I got a tirade including "we're used to dealing with people like you", "don't you care about your kids, you deadbeats are all the same" and more in the same vein. The woman was not even remotely interested in hearing that her dates and income information were wrong or in hearing that I was unemployed, just in making threats and abusing me.

That was the start of a 10 year nightmare of dishonesty, threats, abuse and complete incompetence and unaccountability. I will no longer deal with the Agency on the phone - that's a recipe for disaster, since the CSA person can say "he said" and then you have no way of proving otherwise. All dealings are in writing or in a recorded meeting. The CSA is not keen on recorded meetings. I have ha staff refuse to hold the meeting on two occasions as soon as I brought out the recorder and had decisions reversed when I brought out the recording showing where she said she'd do one thing and then did another.

[cont]

At the same time, the Agency demands that I respond by phone to their letters and ignores responses via their website made within their own deliberately shortened timeframes.

I routinely receive letters from the Agency dated a week or more before the date of franking. The usual thing is to ask for a response within a week of the date of the letter, which is prima facie reasonable, then sit on it for 5 days before sending it, so the effective notice time is 0 - I am expected to respond to complex matters via phone on the same day I hear about them. I have checked with my ex and she does not experience this. She claims her letters arrive within a day or so of their date.

I could go on for many pages on this subject.

You're going to have to do better than just trying to "poison the well" by claiming sour grapes, I'm afraid. A small tip, if one person is complaining about a perceived problem, it's possibly his problem. If a lot of people who have never met are all complaining about the same problem, it's probably really a problem.

If, as you claim, the CSA is not inherently discriminatory then the only explanation is that it is so incompetently run that it has no chance of fulfilling its assigned role.Either way, it has to go. It makes the environment department look good when it comes to mismanagement.

benq, "Several people here have openly stated "their" stake. They have had decisions go against them." that's not quite what people are saying.

In my case it's a combination of the pattern of complaint against CSA that I've heard from others and the blatent difference in the treatment I've seen first hand from CSA compared to that given to my ex (in one case in the same meeting but also over time). Not about a decision but the treatment on the way to a decision.

It's not just about decisions going against men, it's about an organisation that treat's men and women differently regardless of who has the custody.

How often have you heard women expressing the view that they have been discriminated against by CSA on the basis of gender? Their complaint is normally about CSA's failure to do what they say they will do.

Don't be so quick to attack (and misrepresent) the concerns of others, if you have no stake in this then it's unlikely that you have the first hand knowledge of how CSA operates in practice to so readily dismiss those concerns.

R0bert