The Child Support Scheme has been reported on many occassions to have been exploited by single mums. These single moms (or residential parents) try to extort money via the Child Support Scheme from their ex-partners.

Is the Child Support Scheme fair on non-residential parents? (Non residential parents are the parents who do not live with the child).
Do you think that the Child Support Scheme should be changed in any way to be improved? Is the government doing enough to support the children and single parents after divorce?

In the Australian construction industry, and for that matter much of the remote mining one.
Men by agreement spend a great deal of their life away from home, paying for that home and a far better lifestyle for the family.
After the stress breaks the relation ship, and it does quite often , the man pays always both with the loss often total of the children.
And in cash, we must one day truly see being female does not always say they are right.
Australia must at least try to be even handed and fair in this area ,it never has in my lifetime.

I don't believe that the scheme is "fair" for anybody.
Least of all the kids it claims to help.

- The adversarial nature of the whole process perpetuates conflict between seperated/divorced parents.
- The lack of respect for privacy in CSA's processes goes completely against what we have come to expect in other areas of our lives.
- The failure of the system to take into account the reasons why family arrangments are the way they are is a serious flaw. The parent who has had fought tooth and nail to take the children from the other parent gets just as much as the parent who has been left with the kids by a parent who does not want them.
- The capacity to earn provisions CSA seem to care so much about are too open to the biases of the assessor and don't seem to take into account the changes in someones lifestyle and living arrangements following seperation. Nor do they take into account when someone is just plain lazy.

I'm currently a residential parent (12 to 13 days a fortnight) and still supposed to be a payer (no requirement on the ex to increase her income when she ceased shared care).

I'm not game to persue a change of assessment because my son does not need to get dragged into another conflict between mum and dad. He does not need to be told that dad is trying to take money away from mum.

Nor do I have confidence that I would be treated fairly by CSA in that process. CSA won't allow us to reach a binding agreement for less than what they assess.

In my view the harm and cost to children and society from this scheme far outweighs any benefits that may result. It encourages adversial behaviour when we should be providing a framework that lets parents work together for the well being of their kids.

R0bert

The current CSA is definately discriminatory, and biased in all matters AGAINST the payer. (NOT gender, financial)

The reason the perception is that this department is gender-discrimanatory is simply that, as stated previously, it is mostly the fathers who work the most, to provide the most.

Unfortunately, the CSA is bound by legislation - or that's what they would have you believe. The silly thing is, that they CAN and quite often do make exceptions - but only if you are the "hard done by custodial parent".

It is the FAMILY COURT which is gender biased beyond all understanding, they will constantly and consistently award custody to the maternal parent - even though there is no legal justification (other than she's the mother). This means that the CSA can continue to inflict financial agony on the non-custodial parent.

Generally, the non-custodial parent is forced to set up a new home, with all facilities for the children...even though the custodial parent is granted 10-15% more in the settlement so that they can have a home for the children. There is no logic in this, as BOTH parties have to ensure a home is provided.

Shared Parenting or Joint Custody is SUPPOSED to be the norm, but the courts still don't care. Plain and simple: just because a relationship breaks down, does not mean that one parent is any worse than the other (with obvious exceptions when there has been violence or abuse) The BIG issue here is that if the Family Courts (and subsequently) the CSA were to adhere to the shared care scenario, most of them would be out of a job....so they keep doing what they are doing; keep causing more and more agression between parties; and thereby ensuring that their jobs remain "needed"

There is bias, discrimination, and predgiduce in the system, and until it is done away with, EVERYONE who has the trauma of associating with the CSA will continue to suffer - most of all the children, who are not seen as human beings, but more as Fianancial Tools of War.

You would be surprised at the number of fathers who come to a mate for help.
Not the best way to handle the problems but that trust just has to be respected by handing it on to a trained counselor or legal help.
Right now wifes who only months ago would not hear a word said about a hard working husband now?
Fighting to try to see dad never sees his kids again!
We may well do more harm than good in bringing girls up to think they are princesses, that only males need have good manners.
Australia needs to reinvent the way it handles relationship break ups and we all need to remember children are no ones property.
Family court? cute but it is in no way related to justice.

Scrapnmafia, I'm not convinced that significant gender bias does not exist in CSA but do agree that the drive to maximise money transfered is a big part of the problem.

Current brags on the web site focus on how much money is transfered. Some years ago (not sure if it's still the case) CSA executives had as part of their performance pays a measure based on money transfered. It appears to be a major performance target for the organisation so there is a drive to maximise assessed amounts regardless of fairness.

One thought that did occur to me to reduce the conflict between parents would be to break the link between CSA payers and payees. If we must keep the scheme then at least break the direct link between parents.

Each Parent would be assessed and pay into a pool. Parents are paid out of the same pool for the time children are in their care.

The existing system keeps the parents tied together financially and impacted by choices made by the other party over which they have no control.

The linking between payers and payees provides a means to get at the other parent and to feel got at.

Removing the finacial linkage from the process might take some of the emotianal weight out of the system.

That might be a viable starting place to reduce one of the more obvious parts of the system which harms kids.

R0bert