A report released this week called ‘Opening the black box of child support: Shining a light on how financial abuse is perpetrated’ is part of a wider advocacy campaign called ‘Fix Child Support’. The much needed study sheds light on a system that not only doesn’t work for single mothers, it actually supports and perpetrates financial abuse.
Of course, none of this is news to women who have been victims of financial abuse by an ex-partner and tried to use Child Support payments to help with the care and education of their child. Unfortunately, the politicians and policymakers who set up these systems in decades past were highly unlikely to be women, let alone single mothers, or the victims of financial abuse.
Child support is a system designed to share the financial burden between separated parents. The Child Support Agency calculates the level of payments based on the amount it costs to care for and educate a child, and the differences in income between the two parents. There are various ways in which private agreements and the Government’s Child Support Agency can be used as shown below.
Figure 1: Types of child support payments showing increasing levels of control by the Child Support Agency.
About half of Child Support clients use Private Collect. Most Agency Collect payments are organised by the paying parent. When the paying parent continues to be late or skip payments, the other parent can request that the money come directly out of the paying parent’s income. This can be very difficult to achieve, despite some parents using late payments as a form of ongoing financial abuse.
Often, these men’s ability to abuse their ex-partner has been reduced because they have left, so child support is weaponised. Some men tell the children their mother is taking all their money and making them poor, or that the mother can afford to give them certain things because she has all his money. This emotional abuse adds another level of control at men’s disposal.
The 2024 survey responses of 675 single mothers, who make up over 81 per cent of single-parent households, were used to write the report. Apart from emotional and financial abuse, the findings show that using the system can expose single mothers to post-separation violence. Many women struggle to use the system due to threats of violence, and some are threatened if they try to move to higher levels of Agency control as shown in Figure 1. The women revealed it was often safer not to pursue any payments or try to recover debts through the system, leaving them choiceless.
The researchers, advocates and social welfare organisations involved in the study highlighted the way violence and poverty intertwined with each other. They also noted the financial and system injustices these single mothers faced, and instances of abuse using child support were growing.
The report sheds light on the ten myths they say form the foundation of the system. These are:
- Violence stops when partners separate, and other forms of violence are not as harmful as physical violence.
- Seeking an exemption when there is family violence is a helpful step that will be easy to navigate and not re-traumatising.
- Parents will not hide or minimise their income.
- Parents will give the amount of care they have committed to on the child support agreement.
- Child support assessments are fair and balance the costs of care and the ability of parents to pay.
- Parents are free to agree on the type of payment collection that suit them both.
- Private collections of money between parents who have a workable co-parenting relationship will work well, and will not be used to hide payment outcomes.
- Payers will pay on time and pay the amount due.
- Debt collection will be both effective and easy to navigate.
- Collections and shortfalls of payments will not impact women’s financial security through Family Tax Benefit Part A.
The study found all of these were false, and that there is a lack of understanding about how the system works, especially for those who use private payments. Alarmingly, the report states that the system allows harmful behaviour to go unnoticed, and that the system does not collect evidence of the damages it perpetrates. This means it looks like a harmless administrative service.
‘Policy and service blind spots and loopholes allow harmful behaviour perpetrated through the child support system to go undetected and unaccounted for.’
‘The lack of evidence on the harms that the system enables in turn perpetuates the myth that child support is a benign administrative process.’
The authors of the report make four recommendations:
- Delink family payments from child support.
- Co-design family violence processes in the child support system.
- Move all collections back to the tax office.
- Make all payment debts owed to and enforced by the Commonwealth.
While the system was set up at a time when less was known about family violence, it is no longer acceptable that the Government uses a system that perpetuates financial abuse. The report states:
‘Despite the vulnerability of women caregivers, the child support system is used by men to control women … and create financial duress. How the system can respond has not yet been reckoned with’.
As our society grapples with the extent of violence against women, it is time we looked at the systems that men use to abuse women. Now is the time for action to support single mothers and their children. It’s time to contact our local members and let them know single mothers and their children deserve the best support to ensure they are safe and have the ability to flourish.