QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Minister for Social Services) (14:27): I want to thank the member for Brisbane for her question. I know how deeply she cares about kids getting the support they need. In most cases when people break up or a marriage ends, both parents are very happy to cooperate to make sure that the interests of the kids are put first.

But, sadly, in some families that's not the case. We know that some parents hide income to prevent paying child support. Some parents even misuse personal information that they get from the child support system to continue to victimise or harass former partners.

We know that this is particularly the case where there's been domestic violence in a relationship. Some parents simply pay nothing. They know that they owe, but they don't pay.

There's about $2 billion of unpaid child support debt in this country, and that's just the debt we know about. We know that there are about 200 cases where parents owe more than $150,000. There's even one case where the parent owes more than $2 million.

That's obviously not fair, and it's terrible for the kids involved. We won't tolerate it. That's why in the budget in May we announced a $183 million package to reform every part of the child support system—its safety, its accuracy—to make sure that we are able to enforce compliance.

This morning I introduced the first bill to deliver on that commitment. That bill does three important things. It fixes processes that have been weaponised against former partners.

It creates new protections against unexpected debts in family payments. It makes it easier to access the Australian child support scheme for children who are overseas and who have an Australian parent. We're also better resourcing the Australian Tax Office and Services Australia to make sure that more kids get all the support they need, in full and on time.

In coming months, we'll be introducing more legislation to continue to deliver on our commitments. That second tranche of legislation will include automatic travel bans for anyone who's got a child support debt of more than $10,000 who's recently travelled overseas. If you can afford to go to Bali on a holiday, you can afford to pay your child support debt.

And we'll be using employer withholding more often to make it simple—so child support is paid automatically in the same way as superannuation or pay-as-you-go tax. That will reduce conflict in the system and make the system much easier to use for everyone involved. These are the biggest changes to the child support system in many decades, and I urge all members to support this legislation.