Australia's Child Support Scheme
Much promised, little delivered?
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September 1995
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Abstract
The Child Support Scheme was established in 1988-89 with the central aim of overcoming the extremely low rate of payment of child support by non-custodial parents. Today, it is debatable whether the collection rate has improved to the extent claimed by the government. It is also apparent that the way in which the legislation has been implemented has resulted in serious problems for custodial and non-custodial parents. The author outlines these deficiencies but argues that the problems in effecting the legislation should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the basic legislative conception of the scheme was sound, and the scheme, through a number of reforms could be made to operate far more effectively than it has to date. Issues addressed include: collection rate, collection enforcement, delivery of payments, split between bureaucracies, client relations, discrimination against Stage One children, and discrimination against non-custodial parents.