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Member for Hume Alby Schultz has once again called for the Australian Government to promptly adopt the recommendations of Patrick Parkinson’s child support taskforce report after to date collating and analysing 650 case studies of families affected by the current system.
Mr Schultz said at last count, more than 12 per cent of complaints contained in his case studies related to the hardship brought about by unreasonable child support calculations.
“This is particularly true when it comes to second families, who are the ones most damaged by the current formula,” Mr Schultz said.
Mr Schultz said it was vital that the Government act quickly to implement the new formula recommended by Professor Parkinson.
“The future of thousands of Australian families is relying on these changes being made and being made soon,” he said. “We can’t just sit on our hands and let this suffering continue.”
Mr Schultz said in addition to the matters already addressed by the Parkinson report, there remained serious concerns about the culture of bias and attitudes of many staff members within the Child Support Agency.
“Out of 500 cases that I have looked at I can confidently say that almost 43 per cent of people who have complained to me have been outraged at the way they’ve been treated by staff at the Child Support Agency,” Mr Schultz said.
“And what do you expect when the Child Support Agency is placing its most inexperienced and poorly qualified staff on the front line to deal with angry and upset parents.”
Mr Schultz said it was common for complaints to centre on serious lapses of professionalism and often downright rudeness.
“This includes people being told ‘too bad, you’ll just have to sell your car or your house so can pay your child support’ and ‘we don’t care that you can’t buy nappies for your new baby because we’ve taken your maternity payment’.
“And then you’ve got staff members threatening single mothers that if they don’t demand the full amount of child support from their child’s father, they will lose their Family Tax Benefit. No room for compromise, no encouragement for people to enter private agreements. No sense of compassion from these people whatsoever,” Mr Schultz said.
“These standover tactics are outrageous and bordering on breach of duty of care and I will be seeking a meeting directly with the Prime Minister to sit down and show him the sorts of things that are going on inside the Child Support Agency.
“You just have to look at what’s happened recently with a Child Support Agency staff member being sacked for invading the privacy of national celebrities. There are serious problems with the Child Support Agency and I will not back down and I will not give up until a full and thorough investigation is conducted.”
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