Anyone using the Child Support program can be the victim of weaponisation. However, academic research, Parliamentary Committees and complaints to our Office indicate it overwhelmingly impacts separated mothers. We are being told of cases where former partners are weaponising Child Support by, for example, deliberately not making payments or not lodging tax returns, lying to reduce their income, lying about care arrangements and being abusive or violent to stop the impacted parent from asking for help.
In Australia, about 1 in 2 divorces involve children under 18 years of age.5 When parents divorce or separate, one or both can apply for Child Support to help with the costs of raising the children under 18 years of age. The receiving parent can ask Services Australia to collect Child Support for them (Child Support Collect) or have this paid directly to them by the paying parent (Private Collect).
The Ombudsman has formed the opinion that:
• under sections 15(1)(a)(ii) and (iii) of the Ombudsman Act 1976 (Cth) (the Act), the actions of Services Australia outlined in this report are unfair or
unreasonable in addressing the weaponisation of Child Support
• in some aspects, the action of Services Australia may reflect legislative
provisions, but those legislative provisions are unfair and unreasonable
• under sections 15(2)(d) and (f) of the Act, because of this, the Government, the Department of Social Services and Services Australia should, as soon as
practicable, consider the recommendations in this report and work towards
implementing them.
We are of the view that, while aspects of the current legislative framework should be amended, the current legislative framework does not prevent Services Australia from implementing the recommendations.
Services Australia is not doing enough to actively deal with the weaponisation of the Child Support program. While its approach is well-intentioned and welfare focused, it is not helping to get the money owed to parents when their kids need it the most. The agency is not actively identifying financial abuse or using its enforcement powers as effectively or proactively as it could. This passive approach is unfair. It allows some paying parents to manipulate the system to avoid their financial responsibility in
raising their children, largely without consequences.
Services Australia is actively recovering Family Tax Benefit Part A debts from receiving parents, whether those parents have, in fact, been paid the Child Support they are owed. This is unfair and places those parents at a double disadvantage – in effect amplifying the impact of the financial abuse they are suffering through the actions of their former partner.
Source: Weaponising-Child-Support-when-the-system-fails-families.pdf