More news..

source: http://www.psnews.com.au/Page_psn20011.html

Child Support audit
finds reforms lacking

An audit of the “most significant change” to the Child Support Scheme since its inception has found the Child Support Agency could have better managed the reforms which affected one third of the scheme’s clients.
The audit, Child Support Reforms: Stage One of the Child Support Scheme Reforms and Improving Compliance, found it was difficult to determine if the reforms had achieved their desired results.
The report covers stage one of the reforms, which are to be undertaken in three separate stages.

Unable to measure success

Auditor-General, Ian McPhee said the reforms were being implemented to address concerns about the fairness and adequacy of the Child Support Scheme (CSS) and to assist women and children with financial support following separation or divorce.
Mr McPhee said a compliance program was also considered necessary to complement the Child Support Scheme Reforms (CSSR).
He said an Improving Compliance program was designed to address the growth in child support debt and to encourage parents to comply with policy and make child support payments on time.
The Auditor-General said while the reforms were lead by the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the day-to-day management was undertaken by the Child Support Agency (CSA) in partnership with other Departments.
“As is common with the delivery of any major policy reform, the planning and implementation of stage one of the CSSR experienced some difficulties,” he said.
“Many of these issues, however, could have been better managed, or in some cases avoided, if weaknesses in both whole-of-Government and individual Agency governance and project management arrangements (such as risk management, communication and performance monitoring and reporting) had been adequately addressed.”
Mr McPhee said the CSA’s inexperience in implementing policy reform and its lack of a “robust project management framework” had contributed to the difficulties, as had the absence of Agency support agreements and insufficient risk management practices.
He said the Improving Compliance program was track to meet just one of three key outcomes.
He highlighted a lack of strategic planning and inadequate financial planning management practices for the poor results.
“The effects of these shortcomings include that some compliance risks to the Child Support Scheme remain unaddressed, and some individual projects have been unable to achieve their collection targets,” the Auditor said.
Mr McPhee made six recommendations, saying the CSA had “taken some steps” to improve operations, including a reorganisation.
The audit report was available from www.anao.gov.au

-------------

I will comment after reading the report

In the news

source; Bigpond News

Child Support Agency shamed

Tuesday, December 29, 2009 » 11:33am

The national Child Support Agency has been slammed after a crackdown found parents owe more than $1 billion in payments.

A new report by the Auditor-General revealed almost 400,000 parents are not receiving proper child support.

That was because the other parent's income estimates were not being checked against their tax.

The Child Support Agency was also criticised for employing expensive private detectives to catch 'dead-beat' parents.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't you just love how the news is reported? Who are the 400,000 'not receiving proper child support' and who are these 'other parent's'? Could some of these parents who owe be considered the custodial parent? It's quite possible due to increasing shared care and the main custodial parent now having to work a minimum of 30 hrs a fortnight. Could these parents be the ones underestimating their income?

Have to wonder who these 'expensive private detectives' are targeting? Obviously not those underestimating.

Not so much

How long before these figures are taken into consideration by the CS formula?

The Sydney Morning Herald
12 March 2009

Cost of kids not so high after all
By Adele Horin

The cost of raising children is not nearly as high as parents have been led to believe, a study reveals. Far from a child costing $10,000 a year, as previous research indicated, the price is more like $1300.

Michael Dockery, an associate professor in the school of economics and finance at the Curtin University of Technology, says children may even enhance their parents' wealth.

"People now believe they'll be millions of dollars out of pocket if they have children," he said. "It's nonsense."

If children were a "cost", parents would end up less wealthy than comparable couples without children. But his study, based on 3168 couples, found this was not the case. When the net wealth of the parents and the child-free was compared - housing, shares, superannuation and savings - the parents were only marginally worse off, suggesting a child "cost" only $1300 a year.

When wealth accumulation between 2002-06 was considered, couples with children were a little better off.

Dr Dockery said couples with children were more likely to be home-owners and to have a bigger house.

Previous Australian studies have shown that a typical family will spend $537,000 on raising two children from birth to 21. Dr Dockery claims the cost is more like $55,000.

Dr Dockery disputes the logic of seeing children as a cost. The price people were prepared to pay for fertility treatments showed children were regarded as a "very large net benefit".

He also takes issue with studies that used the amount of money parents spend on children to determine their cost. "There seems little justification for considering expenditure on children to be a measure of their cost, any more than going to a restaurant can be considered a cost to the patrons." Restaurant-goers saw their night out as a benefit, not a burden.

As well, when couples chose to have children they understood they would have to switch their expenditure from dining out to nappies and child care.

"They value having the children more than the lifestyle," he said. "To argue they are worse off makes no sense."

Dr Dockery cautioned against using his research to calculate child support because the situation for sole parents was different. But he said the family payments system had helped make children "cost-neutral" and the emphasis on benefits for "working families" needed to be changed to help all people.

New Formula

Is the new Child Support formula working? There's certainly no outrage about it, so perhaps it is.

One thing it hasn't accomplished is targeting those who rort the system or the gender bias that has been longstanding. You know the rorters, parents who demonstrate a low income but are asset and lifestyle rich. For example, a mother in a shared parenting situation who is a company director, buying a house, who enjoys regular interstate and overseas holidays, spends money freely on luxuries, expensive clothing and dines out more than the average person can afford to. Yet her taxable income falls below the child support threshold, so pays no child support. The father on the other hand lives hand to mouth, sometimes having to borrow money to pay his bills because his child support expenses take a considerable slice out of his income. Monies that further enhance the lifestyle of the mother.

Take a case like this through the CSA and all the mother has to do is claim she is being supported by her new partner to ensure no change in assessment. Reverse the roles and the father would be accused of failing in his financial duty towards his children, most likely investigated and made to cough up cash under the 'capacity to pay' legislation.

Isn't it about time the legislation is changed to look at the combined assets of relationships on both sides of the divide? After all. in family law, company income and combined assets of a couple are considered to be theirs and to be divided accordingly if they separate.

Capacity to pay = slavery.

All payers of the Child Support Scheme come under the 'capacity to pay' umbrella. If one is paying child support at a rate assessed by the CSA and their income drops without a reason accepted by the CSA, then the CSA may determine the rate of child support is to remain. The CSA may also investigate a person they believe has a "greater capacity to financially support their kids" *.

Most people have the capacity to earn more money, for many at a cost. It may cost time at home, weekends, social life, relationships and/or health. For others it may cost them time with the children they pay child support for, missing out on a school play or the child's regular sporting events.

Without doubt there are people whom do rort the system and should be hunted down, but there are probably just as many whom genuinely experience an income drop beyond their control, or choose a lesser income for their own personal reasons. Some of these reasons may be to spend more time with their family or new relationship, care for an ill loved one, to reduce stress, a desire for a lifestyle change or due to having achieved their financial goals and not needing to work so hard. Whether or not your family is intact, we all have a right to choose how much we want to work and earn. For a few these rights are denied.

If the number of people on Australian websites and forums, claiming to have been unfairly assessed by this capacity to pay legislation is an indication of a more widespread problem, then it brings into question the workings of it and the power of the CSA Officers whom determine peoples income capacity. It appears the CSA doesn't always weigh up the capacity to pay against the personal cost to maintain an assessed amount. Choosing instead the almighty dollar and the savings to the government by forcing people to maintain their assessed child support amount.

It is irrelevant if there are thousands, hundreds or just one person whom has been unfairly treated by the CSA. If their determination is you have a "greater capacity to financially support your kids" is in opposition to reality or self fulfillment, that you must pay the assessed amount, then such a determination can only be viewed as enslaving you to a minimum income to pay the amount of child support assessed and for self support. In effect, in opposition to human rights and what all western society considers abhorrent, the CSA commits you to slavery ** under the capacity to pay legislation.



* http://www.csa.gov.au/schemereforms/eBulletin3.aspx

** Wikipedia definition- "Slavery is a social-economic system under which certain persons—known as slaves—are deprived of personal freedom and compelled to work."

Who's side are they on?

There are a number of websites on the net and forums within, dealing with CSA and child support issues. One such website is the FamilyLawWebGuide. It's intentions are honourable, but the so called experts whom moderate it are questionable. I have had minimal dealings with the site and from my own experience, it seems if one questions the advice of the experts or points out their shortcomings, you are likely to receive a warning. I was given warnings, was told I was a smartalec, arrogant and impudent. In all, three moderators requested my being banned from the site. The head moderator sent me a courtesy email stating I was suspended for 5 days because my postings were not in the 'spirit of co-operation'.

These same FLWG moderators whom requested my being banned , I found amongst other traits, to be sometimes vulgar, rude, inciteful and lacking in expertise. A read through members posts, (if not deleted), reflect views that reiterate a number of my own, plus views the sites moderators are pro-government, self indulgent, overstepping in their authority, lack humour, deny free speech, etc;

The power of the moderators is such they can ban someone without giving a reason or warning. To a point I don't have a problem with this power towards people whom merely sign-up to post offensive and slanderous rubbish. But should someone be banned because they question the validity of the moderators floundering knowledge? Or suspended because they oppose the moderators views? I think not.

No-one questions the FLWG site more than the person whom runs the blog, exposethetruth08. It is stated in the blogs title page;
"This blog was set up to comment on the sham website www.familylawwebguide.com.au and the injustices that they commit, the lies they tell and to correct the misleading statements they perpetuate."

This blogger I believe has some serious personal issues with the moderators of FLWG. It is apparent they are very bitter, vindictive and angry. Exposethetruth08 goes to great lengths and no doubt does some serious web surfing to find anything condemning the moderators, freely naming names and makes outlandish assumptions. No doubt there is some truths to be found within the blog, but it is also obvious s/he has little respect for the truth, as much of the blog is devoted to slander.

This blogger doesn't stop at just the moderators, anyone whom posts on the FLWG is potential for targeting. I, amongst others were attacked by exposethetruth08 and I gave her a piece of my mind. In response, exposethetruth08 dedicated a whole blog post to me and slandered my name with not even a whiff of truth in the rantings. Everything said about me opposes the blogs opening statement, there's nothing but lies, misleading statements and assumptions. If the attack on me is typical, then the blog has no credence whatsoever. In my view, exposethetruth08 blog is far more a sham than what it claims of the FLWG.

So whose side are these people on? Obviously, not for the good of all or even a few if their use of these sites is to push their own views, display power and/or to denigrate others, all under a veil of good intentions. In both, narcissist personalities get in the way of moral and ethical dispensing of the truth and facts both claim to be advocating.

I'm sure there are many more sites in cyber space just like these, with people all too eager to delete you at the hint of you questioning their so called expertise, knowledge or assumptions. Not to mention a fast and fatal response if you send any criticism their way. What they don't seem to realise is they become their own worse enemies, turn away many a reader/participant and have people like me discussing their failings.

Recording CSA telephone conversations.

Published in the NSW Law Society Journal of March 1998, page 51, an article by barrister Tom Molomby covered the issue of telephone conversation recording by a party to the call. In part it reads:

" At one time some believed that the federal legislation extended to the recording of a phone conversation by a party to that conversation. That was no doubt an available interpretation. However, in recent years decisions of the Full Courts of the Supreme Courts of South Australia and Western Australia have held that "interception" in s.6(1) of theTelecommunication (Interception) Act 1979 does *not include* the recordingby a party to the conversation."
Green v The Queen (1995) 124 FLR 423 at 430-433 also (1995-6) 85ACrim R 229, 135 ALR 181, T v Medical Board (SA) (1992) 58 SASR 382 at398-339.

It is because of these rulings and others, that allows the CSA to record conversations between its officers and customers. It also allows you, the customer, to record your conversations with them via telecommunication equipment with recording capabilities*. What you cannot do is 'intercept' a conversation, that is record somebody elses conversation you are not party to via any means.

The advantage of recording your CSA conversations is, if needed, something permanent to refer back to without having to go through the time consuming FOI and the outlandish expense of transcripts. This could be very handy in the event you have been given conflicting or wrong advice, have been coerced, had a privacy breach or a myriad of other errors the CSA officers have been known to make.

These rulings also mean of course, you can record your telephone conversations with anybody, friend or foe. If you make recordings with the intention to maybe use them in court, then that would depend on whom you sit before and arguement by the other party whether or not they would be allowed as admissable evidence. If it's for your myspace page or similar, I suggest you check the legalities and remember, once public they could be put to uses you didn't intend.

As to informing the other party you are recording theirs and your conversation is debatable, I have not found conclusive proof you need to inform them, that's not to say you shouldn't by law. Perhaps as a courtesy and to cover yourself, one should at least inform the other party on the first occassion you will be recording the current and any or all future conversations. In doing so make sure you record their acknowledgement. With the CSA or any other authority, I suggest you put it in writing.


* There are a number of devices you can utilise to record your conversations. Modern mobile phones often have limited ability as too many cordless base stations with memo/answering capabilities. VOIP telephony is probably an obvious choice if your connection is 256k or better. Most softphones, eg, Xlite, have recording capabilites. With voip handsets, check the user manual. The advantage to recording them on your PC is you can burn them onto a CD.