Child support: Stop bullying dads. It’s not fair

SYSTEMATIC errors, corruption, and bullying tactics are putting fathers, who are 90 per cent of the parents paying child support, at risk, writes Corrine Barraclough.

Fathers are bearing the brunt of paying for child support, and this has a drastic affect on their quality of life, sometimes leading to depression and even suicide. (Pic: iStock)

IT’S NOT only Centrelink that’s inefficient, incompetent, and hounding money from struggling Australians — the Department of Human Service’s child support wing (formerly called the Child Support Agency) is also under fire.

Systematic errors, corruption, and bullying tactics are putting lives at risk, most of them men, who are 90 per cent of the parents paying child support in this country.

Charmingly, sections of the media like to refer to them as “deadbeat dads”. Of course, the alternative term for them is human beings.

In February, headlines flowed about the monumental mess of the Centrelink debt recovery scandal.

At the time, Human Services Minister, Alan Tudge said the government had already announced changes to the system to improve its fairness. Lawyers examined the legality of Centrelink wrongly issuing and forcing payments of false debts. Labor MP Linda Burney asked the Australian Federal Police to determine whether Tudge broke the law by disclosing personal information of a welfare recipient to the media.

Now, a furious finger is being pointed firmly at CSA.

A spokesman for growing movement, “Child Support Australia — Time for Reform and Fairness”, Keith Owen, tells News Corp that “as an accredited Men’s and Family Counsellor, I have personally known about some of the issues men face in the context of relationship separation and divorce for many years.

“However, I was not prepared for the information I have recently gleaned through research our group has done with respect to how the (agency) does its business. Originally I was concerned about the number of people who were suicidal in our group. I spend a lot of my time helping them out, sometimes contacting the police due to potentially suicidal behaviour.

“When I contacted Alan Tudge MP directly, I was given a spin response that they do not keep statistics on suicide and homicide. I later learned they do in fact keep these statistics, but choose to keep them hidden. It’s now over one year later; we are still chasing an answer.”

News Corp understands that at least 250 letters have been sent to MPs across the country calling for action.

The system of child support must be fair to both parents, fathers and mothers alike. (Pic: iStock)

Many personal horror stories connected to the agency are restrained by the Family Law Act, which restricts publication of court proceedings. But there is enough information in the public domain to understand the scope of the problem.

“This is about tragic impact on human lives. We’ve done our own calculations,” Owen continues. “The actual suicides figures are shocking; around 28 each week. Clients of the (agency) are almost twice as likely to suicide than the national average.”

Owen says that fathers are being told that if they do not settle debts immediately, ex-partners will be advised to reduce visitation rights. It’s outrageous, and for someone on the edge, this could tip them over.

“A total of 23 per cent of our members said a threat was made if they said they wanted to make a complaint, 35 per cent said when they requested call recordings they were told they ‘weren’t available’.”

In light of the recent furore over its own debt collection practices, Centrelink remained cagey about revealing specific number of false debt notices, telling the Senate inquiry it didn’t have the resources to work it out.

Now, there are tremendous concerns around information being provided to tax authorities by the agency on which the ATO acts without corroboration of the facts.

“One man I spoke to recently had spent $40,000 in the Family Court getting a DNA test ordered,” Owen says. “It was found he was not the father of the child in question. The court ordered that all government departments were to be informed and remove the man as the father. Several months later the mother went back to the CSA, re-registered the case and the CSA started forcibly collecting from him again. Having spent all of his money fighting the initial case, he lacks the funds to fight any further.”

Imagine the impact this disgraceful systematic failure is having on individual lives.

Picture an entire process so flawed that its focus is harassing and intimidating people to pay up — and shut up.

Remember, these are not people on elite salaries, snapping up investment properties on taxpayer’s time or racking up dodgy expense claims. These are vulnerable Australians at breaking point. These are men drowning in financial hardship, often homeless, living in their car or barely surviving day-to-day couch surfing with friends.

Owen adds, “These aren’t bad fathers; they want to support their children but they want the system to be fair. People shouldn’t be bullied into paying what they simply don’t have.”