For 17 years, Anne* lived in poverty as she tried to raise her two young sons alone.
Their father left when the children were seven and one, and cut all contact. Anne tried every tool available to her but her former partner refused to pay child support and she was plunged into poverty trying to make ends meet.
Her sons, now 24 and 17, are owed just under $200,000 in support payments from their father, but his debt won’t show up in any credit ratings report.
“To financially secure my children I have been forced to be in debt and can’t get even a small loan,” Anne said.
“I and they have lived with the consequences of poverty for so many years.”
The debt owed to Anne’s children is part of an estimated $3.7bn owed or unaccounted for in child support payments (an amount dictated by independent assessment) though either private agreements or arrangements set by Services Australia or the courts.
Desperate, Anne wrote to the minister who had responsibility for child support under former governments over a decade – first Scott Morrison, then Alan Tudge and finally Christian Porter.
She wrote about the failures in the system and the real world impacts on single parents caught up in it.
“I received no responses,” she said. “I call them [the] ‘Bermuda Triangle’ – Australian children’s voices go in ... but nothing comes out.
“So far there hasn’t been a leader brave enough to have a serious look at the Child Support Scheme as it’s so gendered and they fear a backlash. It generally gets swept under the family law monster of issues, never to be discussed again.”
The loopholes in the Australian child support scheme are once again under the microscope, with researchers, advocates and those with first hand experience in Canberra to meet with ministers and demand change.
The latest research shows the rate of poverty in single parent households is more than three times that of coupled parents. Rates of severe and extreme poverty were also higher.
Prof Kay Cook, a researcher at Swinburne University of Technology, led a new report looking at how the child support system was “weaponised” against women, particularly those fleeing abusive relationships.
It found nearly four in five single mothers were experiencing “some form of violence at the time of separation” but, despite this, only one in 10 women applied for an exemption from seeking child support on the grounds that it would exacerbate the violence.
Under the current system, failing to apply for child support or officially seeking an exemption from it leads to up to 70% of family assistance payments being cut.
The report also found that non-custodial parents were also able to “weaponise” the support system through minimising their income, withholding tax returns, falsely reporting their care time with children and deliberately withholding payments.
Child support dictated how much government support single parents received, with the calculation made on how much was owed rather than what was actually being received.
Cook, along with advocates Terese Edwards and Toni Wren from Single Mothers Family Australia and advocates Rosie Batty and Jess Hill, will launch the latest research on Tuesday in Canberra, where women will share their lived experiences with MPs and ministers.
The report, titled “Opening the black box of the child support system”, recommends the government make immediate changes, including placing the responsibility for child support collection with the Australian Tax Office, making chasing non-payment and false income reporting easier.
It also calls for family payments to be delinked from child support by eliminating the maintenance income test, to ensure women fleeing violent and abusive relationships do not have to maintain a connection with their partner in order to receive government support.
As part of its commitment to tackling gender-based and family violence, the government launched a review into all commonwealth payments and how the system could be improved to prevent further victimisation.
Advocates also want the government to enforce payment debts as part of their response. Bill Shorten, Amanda Rishworth and Stephen Jones have agreed to meet with the group to discuss the situation.
*Not her real name.
