Tabled: 20 July 2015

The House Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs was asked to inquire into child support by the Minister for Social Services. The terms of reference asked the Committee to inquire into:

• the methods used by the Child Support Program (CSP) to collect payments in arrears and manage overpayments,
• the flexibility of the CSP to accommodate changing circumstances of families,
• the alignment of the child support and family assistance frameworks,
• linkages between Family Court decisions and child support policies, and
• how the scheme could provide better for high conflict families

Within the terms of reference the Committee expressed a particular interest in:

• assessing the methodology for calculating payments and the adequacy of current compliance and enforcement powers for the management of child support payments,
• the effectiveness of mediation and counselling arrangements as part of family assistance frameworks, and
• ensuring that children in high conflict families are best provided for under the child support scheme.

The report contains 25 recommendations in total. The Committee found that the CSP is generally functioning as intended: evidence to the inquiry indicated that in approximately 75-80 per cent of child support cases, parents are meeting their child support obligations and have established friendly or cooperative post-separation relationships. As such, the challenge faced by this inquiry was to try and find ways to improve the system for people who are experiencing child support problems while not disrupting the areas in which the CSP is working well.