Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026
Mr REPACHOLI (Hunter) (13:13): Picture a parent sitting at a kitchen table after the kids have gone to bed. There are school expenses to pay, groceries to buy and another electricity bill on the way. Then they open an email: another objection, another demand for paperwork, another round of explaining themselves.
For some separated parents, the relationship has ended, but the pressure hasn't. And a government system that was meant to help their children has become another way for an ex-partner to make life harder. That should concern every person in this chamber.
Child support should help pay for school shoes and put food on the table. It should never be used as a weapon to punish an ex. That's why the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026 matters so much.
Across the Hunter, people work hard to look after their kids. Plenty of separated parents are doing the right thing. They pay what they owe, share the responsibility and make arrangements work, sometimes under very difficult circumstances.
Separation is rarely easy. Most parents understand that children still need both adults to act responsibly. Unfortunately, some people use the system to punish the other parent.
They withhold money, drag out disputes and use paperwork to keep a fight going long after the relationship has ended. The person left dealing with it has bills to pay and kids to look after. They can't put the weekly groceries on hold while someone decides whether they meet their responsibilities.
That's why this legislation is needed. At the last election, the government committed to closing loopholes that enable financial abuse within Commonwealth systems. In this year's budget, we announced an additional $182.6 million to make the child support system safer and more effective.
This bill delivers the first stage of that reform. It tackles harmful applications and objections, improves protection of personal information, strengthens collection arrangements and improves access for families in certain overseas jurisdictions. These might sound like administrative changes.
For someone living with abuse or relentless conflict, they can make a real difference in their lives. I want to spend some time on an issue men have raised with me both as the member for Hunter and as the Special Envoy for Men's Health. Blokes have spoken to me about feeling worn down.
They believe repeated claims, constant objections and processes are being used to cause them harm. Some describe spending more time answering paperwork than getting their lives back on track. They talk about the pressures on their finances, their work and their mental health.
They talk about feeling that nobody is listening because they are men. To those blokes I want to say clearly: you are being heard. I can't determine the facts of someone's case from a conversation or an email, but I can listen, take their concerns seriously and support changes that address genuine misuse of the system.
There are men out there who are behaving badly. There are women out there who are behaving badly as well. There are also good mums and good dads doing their best in very difficult situations.
We know women experience a disproportionate share of family and domestic violence, and protecting women and children must remain a priority. We also need to listen to men who experience abuse, take their concerns seriously and make sure they can get the help they need. Everybody deserves to be safe.
We can recognise the serious harm experienced by women and children while also recognising that men can experience abuse. Listening to one doesn't require us to shut the other out. That is the approach I want to see in practice—people treated fairly, concerns properly assessed and children kept at the centre.
We also need to be clear about what a vexatious application means. A claim isn't vexatious simply because the other parent disagrees with it. An unsuccessful claim isn't automatically a dishonest claim.
People must be able to raise genuine concerns and challenge an assessment they believe is wrong. Someone experiencing abuse must be able to seek help without the fear that speaking up will be used against them. But a legitimate process can be misused.
Repeated applications and objections can become a way to harass someone, force ongoing contact and keep them tied up in responding to matters with little substance. Schedule 1 gives Services Australia greater discretion to deal with the harmful use of the scheme. It allows certain applications to be refused where proceeding would cause harm.
It also allows objections to be dismissed without involving the other parent where they have little or no prospect of success or would have no more than a marginal impact on the case. These powers need sound judgement. Decisions should be based on the circumstances and evidence, with proper attention to fairness and safety.
A person raising a genuine issue deserves a fair hearing. These provisions concern child support applications and objections. They don't settle every disputed allegation in a separation or replace the role for courts in parenting matters, but they are a start.
They're a first step on problems that have been left unresolved under previous governments. We're listening and taking action. To the blokes who've raised this with me: this doesn't answer every concern, but your experiences matter, and this is a process.
Schedule 1 also changes how personal information is shared. Currently, parents can be required to exchange entire copies of documents provided during relevant processes. These documents may contain sensitive personal and financial information.
For someone trying to rebuild their life safely, this can be very frightening. People shouldn't have to choose between seeking a fair assessment and exposing information that could put them at risk. The bill allows a more careful approach, including redacting documents or providing written or verbal summaries of relevant information.
Decision-makers can provide what's needed to address the matter while protecting sensitive details. That's a sensible change right there. Fairness requires access to relevant information.
It also requires thought about the harm that unnecessary disclosure could cause that person. This is also why we have a Special Envoy for Men's Health. The role is about listening to blokes, including those who feel they've been overlooked, and bringing their concerns into the decisions we make.
Men's health reaches beyond the doctor's surgery. It includes the pressures that people face every single day in life and whether they feel anyone is listening. Separation, financial pressures and ongoing conflict can take a serious toll.
A bloke may still turn up to work, still coach the kids' footy team and still tell his mate he's fine while struggling badly underneath. Sometimes the first sign is that he stops answering his messages. Sometimes he pulls away from people.
Sometimes he tells himself that asking for help will make him look weak. We need to keep challenging this. Talking to a mate, seeing a GP or getting professional support is a sensible thing to do when life is getting on top of you.
You don't wait until the engine has seized before checking what's wrong with the ute, do you? We need to give our own wellbeing a little bit of attention too. But we can't tell people to seek help and then ignore avoidable pressures being created by government systems.
Better support also means making those systems work fairly and safely. A fairer child support system can reduce conflict and uncertainty. It can give parents more room to focus on their children and their own wellbeing.
Supporting a man's mental health also means being straight with him about what his responsibilities are. Being angry with the next partner doesn't make it acceptable to withhold support from your child. The same applies to every single parent.
Your relationship may have ended, but your responsibility to your child or children hasn't. Schedule 2 tackles another serious problem: the way child support and the family tax benefit interact. Consider a parent who has a private collection arrangement.
They're budgeting around the child support that they actually receive and the family assistance available to them. The paying parent hasn't lodged tax returns for several years. When those returns are finally lodged, their child support liability is recalculated.
It turns out more child support should have been paid. The receiving parent's family tax benefit can then be reassessed as well, leaving them with a debt linked to additional child support they haven't actually received. Think about that in terms of the kitchen table.
You've been stretching the budget to cover the kids' needs. Then the debt arrives because someone else lodged their tax returns late. The extra child support is owed to you, but it's not in your bank account.
The school expenses and electricity bills are still there. That's a real problem, and this bill takes practical steps to address it. For parents who remain on private arrangements, collection of those family tax benefit debts will be paused for three months after they're raised.
That gives them time to consider their options and take the right action. They may pause the additional child support, move to agency collect or seek an application exemption or special circumstance waiver. This bill allows parents who are moving to agency collect to ask Services Australia to pursue child support debts raised in the previous three months, including newly raised debts relating to older periods.
That distinction really matters. A debt may have been raised recently because of late tax returns, even though the underpayments happened years ago. These changes create a pathway for government to help recover it.
The three-month pause is breathing room. It doesn't mean every debt automatically disappears. Parents need clear information about what options are available to them and what happens next.
Schedule 2 also allows paying parents to choose agency collect. They can provide a more structured arrangement, clearer payment records and less need for direct negotiation between former partners. Private arrangements can work well when both parents cooperate.
When an arrangement is being used to exert pressure, people need a practical way to change that. Schedule 3 improves access to the Australian child support system for parents in certain overseas jurisdictions, allowing direct applications. A child doesn't stop needing support just because they live overseas.
An Australian parent shouldn't be able to treat distance as an excuse to walk away from their responsibilities. These changes make access easier for eligible families and reinforce the straightforward principle that children deserve support from their parents. This bill is the first stage.
A second bill will bring further measures aimed at improving on-time payments, strengthening debt collection and enforcement, and supporting better information-sharing. There's more work to do. Families will judge these reforms by what happens when they contact Services Australia, lodge an application or need help recovering the money their children are owed.
Implementation matters. Staff need the guidance and support to recognise misuse, protect sensitive information and explain decisions clearly. Parents need to understand their options without needing to become experts in legislation.
For families in the Hunter, success will mean less time caught in unnecessary conflict and more certainty about meeting children's needs. To the mums carrying the bills while payments don't arrive: your concerns matter. To the dads who feel worn down by the misuse of the system: your concerns matter, too.
To every parent doing the right thing: these reforms should help build confidence that responsibility and fairness really do mean something. I'm the father of two beautiful girls. Like parents across this chamber and across the Hunter, I want children to grow up safe, supported and able to enjoy their childhood.
They deserve adults who put them first. They deserve a system that helps those adults meet their responsibilities and steps in when someone uses it to cause harm. This legislation is much needed.
It responds to people who've spoken up, including the blokes who've raised concerns directly with me. It takes practical steps towards a safer and fairer child support system. Remember, these kids are loved.
They need to be loved. They need our support. They need our help.
They need help from both parents. They need to be cared for. And they need to feel that they're being listened to.
I know there are some parents out there who have gone through some unfortunate steps and have ended up not being together anymore. Remember, you once loved each other. Remember that, and remember that for your kids, because what's really important is making sure the kids are first and foremost so they have the best chance at life.
I commend this bill to the House.