Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026

Ms WITTY (Melbourne) (10:41): Between 30 and 40 per cent withdraw before the process is complete, with the existing document exchange requirements identified as one factor that can deter parents from proceeding. This bill will make these processes fairer and safer for those involved. Relevant information will still need to be shared so that people have a fair opportunity to respond, but Services Australia will have greater discretion about how that happens.

The information needed to make a proper decision can be provided without automatically handing over every personal detail sitting on the original document. Child support and the family tax benefit are connected, with the family tax benefit taking into account the child support payments that a parent is entitled to receive. But problems can arise when a paying parent has not lodged tax returns on time or across several years.

During that period, their child support assessment may have been based on an estimate of their income, but many payments may have been made far short of where they should have been. They now owe more child support that they need to find a way to pay back while continuing to pay their current obligations. For the parent waiting for that money, however, another obligation calculation can then occur.

If they have been collecting child support privately, their family tax benefit can also be retrospectively reassessed. They can end up facing a family-tax-benefit debt based on child support that they were entitled to receive but may never eventually have received. Our government is changing that.

For parents using private collection arrangements, collection of certain family-tax-benefit debts will be paused for three months. That gives them time to work through their options and the time to potentially apply for an exemption or a special circumstances waiver, or they can move to agency collect and ask Services Australia to pursue the outstanding child support on their behalf.

The bill will also improve that process where someone moves from private collection to agency collection. If a child support debt has only recently been raised because someone finally lodged old tax returns, Services Australia can be asked to collect it even where the underpayment itself goes much further back. The normal provision applies to debt raised during the previous three months or nine months in exceptional circumstances.

That could make a substantial difference to someone who has spent years receiving less child support than they were entitled to. Paying parents will also be able to elect to move into agency collect, giving them a clear pathway to meet their obligations to the shared cost of their child. Finally, the third schedule deals with parents and children overseas.

It will make it easier for parents living in certain overseas jurisdictions to apply directly to Services Australia if they would likely be entitled to receive child support under Australian assessment. Having a child living in another country does not remove an Australian parent's responsibility for that child. Labor went to the last election promising to close loopholes that allow financial abuse through Commonwealth systems.

This bill delivers on that commitment. It is another example of the work our government has been doing to improve the economic security of Australian families. We expanded paid parental leave to 26 weeks and added super on top of the leave payment.

A family having a child today can receive almost $30,000 through paid parental leave, more than double what the entitlement was when Labor came to government. We changed parenting payments so eligible sole parents can receive it until their youngest child turns 14 rather than losing access when the child turns eight. When we came to government in 2022, an eligible sole parent with a child aged between eight and 14 could receive $651 per fortnight through JobSeeker.

That same parent can now receive $1,087 per fortnight through this arrangement. Around 20,000 single primary carers have benefited from the change since September 2023. We have cut childcare costs for more than one million families, and our government has invested more than $4.4 billion in responding to family, domestic and sexual violence.

For sole parent families especially, facing financial insecurity affects not just the parent but the welfare of the young people they are responsible for. If child support does not arrive, the cost of raising the child does not suddenly reduce to match. It has to come from somewhere, and disproportionately that is felt by women who already face barriers to employment and equal pay.

I think again about the people who have sat down with me in Melbourne to talk about their child support assessments. These parents wanted clarity around calculations to understand their obligations and to have someone to listen to their concerns. I will continue to do that.

People should be able to understand decisions that affect their finances, and, if assessment is wrong, there needs to be a fair and clear way to address it. But once we work our way through the assessment, the tax returns, the care percentage and the collection arrangements, we cannot forget that at the end of all these steps there is still a child that must be cared for.

These kids are not responsible for the disagreements or separation between their parents, and they should not have to carry the financial consequences when support that is owed to them goes unpaid. Our government is working to make the child support system fairer and improves the way it works. For the one million Australian children who rely on the system, that work must be done, and by this government it will be done.

I commend the bill to the House