George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, I rise to inform the House about the committee's current inquiry into the child support program.

The committee launched the inquiry in April this year, following referral by the Minister for Social Services. Under the terms of reference, the inquiry is considering the design and operation of the child support program, including the assessment and change of assessment processes; enforcing the payment of child support liabilities; dealing with high-conflict families; supporting victims of family violence; mediation services; and the emotional toll of child support disputes.

From the very start of the inquiry we were determined to make ourselves as accessible as possible. We wanted to ensure that ordinary, everyday Australians with an experience of the child support program could contribute to the inquiry. To achieve this, we launched an anonymous online questionnaire, we planned and held community statement sessions and we received confidential written stories from individuals about their experiences. We have also received 128 submissions and held 13 public hearings across Australia. We have heard from many groups, including those representing mums and dads, legal services, psychologists, social workers, academics, government agencies and members of the public.

As we are considering the shape of our report and the recommendations we will make to government, it is worth pausing to look at the inquiry so far. Too often, we focus on the report as the only outcome of an inquiry and we sometimes forget how important the inquiry process is to those who contribute to it.

I now turn to some of the innovative features of the inquiry process. Our questionnaire has been a runaway success, with over 11,000 responses received. Each response shares the experiences, suggestions, frustrations and hopes of individuals who have a connection to the child support program. We have already published three snapshots of responses to the questionnaire online. Over 100 individuals have also spoken to the committee at a series of community statement sessions. We asked people to register online and then used a randomised process to invite a sample of people to speak to us either in person or over the phone about how the child support program does or does not meet their needs, and how it could be improved. We have also received over 100 written stories from individuals who wanted to share their personal and sometimes traumatic experiences in detail.

Our aim was to set up a variety of ways for individuals to safely and respectfully contribute to the inquiry either publicly or anonymously. While many contributions have been accepted confidentially to protect the privacy of those involved, every story forms part of this inquiry and will help us to compose our findings and recommendations in the report.

These innovative inquiry features are all part of our community engagement strategy which we designed at the start of this year to ensure that we could gather evidence from a wide range of people in a sensitive way. The Child Support program assists people in some very difficult stages of life, and we wanted to engage with these people without causing additional stress or anxiety. I would like to thank each and every person who has contributed to the inquiry process.

The committee looks forward to delivering its recommendations and report in the New Year—recommendations that will improve the Child Support system and the experiences of people interacting with the system. However, we should not measure the success of an inquiry only by the final report, but also by how well we listen to and engage with the Australian public, and let their firsthand experiences inform our work.

I am proud to chair the Social Policy and Legal Affairs Committee that is actively working to improve how we engage with the Australian public. Finally, I would like to thank my deputy chair, the member for Newcastle, who is present in the chamber, and all committee members—I note the member for Moreton is also here—for their diligent work in the inquiry.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the committee secretariat under the leadership of Dr Anna Dacre. I particularly want to single out Thomas and Peter for their hard work as part of this inquiry. It is something that hopefully will make things better for all of those engaged with the Child Support system. Thank you.