Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

At a time when 83 per cent of one-parent families are led by single mothers, when family violence and financial abuse remain endemic, when billions of dollars of child support owed to children goes uncollected and unreceived, the government has introduced a technical bill that makes small, piecemeal administrative adjustments to the child support system while continuing to ignore clear, consistent and longstanding recommendations for real reform. This legislation does nothing harmful but it is deeply inadequate and it represents yet another missed opportunity to fix Australia's broken child support system. Once again, the government is tinkering around the edges rather than doing what is urgently needed to keep women and children safe and financially secure.

In Warringah, my electorate office is regularly contacted by single mothers trying to navigate the child support system. Many have left violent relationships to protect themselves and their children. They are working full-time, part-time, whatever they can fit in, caring for their children and they are at financial and emotional breaking point. They are doing everything asked of them yet we hear the same story again and again: their former partner does not lodge tax returns. As a result, child support assessments are delayed or manipulated. Meanwhile, family support payments are made calculated on the basis of tax returns and incomes pursuant to those tax returns. So on top of everything else they have to deal with, they are often then facing the prospect of an overpayment of the family tax benefit because former partners, when they eventually lodge their tax returns, change the basis on which the payment was made and the assessment. These parents are told at that point by the Commonwealth that they owe a debt to the Commonwealth, not because they did anything wrong but because the system allowed their former partner's non-compliance to be weaponised against them. And rather than the Commonwealth assisting and actually pursuing former partners for child support payments owing, the Commonwealth pursues the single parent—too often the woman—struggling to make ends meet. This is revolting and it is a deep flaw in the system. The government is on notice about it yet it has been going on for months and nothing has been done.

In 2024, 83 per cent of one-parent families were headed by women. Around 60 per cent of those mothers reported violence prior to separation. Single-parent families experience the highest rates of poverty, housing stress and material deprivation in Australia. The child support system is decades old and was not designed with coercive control or financial abuse front of mind. Yet, today, financial abuse is one of the most common forms of domestic violence.

As a former family barrister, I saw firsthand how child support becomes a weapon—withholding of child support, making it difficult—and the only ones who suffer in those situations are the children. Payments are withheld by former partners to exert pressure. Tax returns are delayed to trigger reassessments and disputes escalated to maintain control. Too often, the financial insecurity of a primary carer becomes leveraged by the former partner, and too often the system facilitates that leverage. Approximately one-third of parents paying child support have fallen behind. Billions of dollars in child support debt remains outstanding, and it is the children who bear the consequences. The Commonwealth does nothing to assist those single parents in getting those child support payments back.

This bill makes a series of technical amendments. It aligns child support periods with existing administrative practices within Services Australia. It retrospectively validates previous decisions. It provides a legislative framework for urgent social security payments. It clarifies employment income assessment rules. These are administrative clarifications that close technical gaps. They do not reform the child support system and certainly do not address the financial control and coercive control that is facilitated by the current system. It does not protect victims-survivors from financial abuse, and it doesn't fix structural flaws long identified by experts and frontline organisation. The government itself—members of the government—have described many of these amendments as 'clarifying' and 'upholding' existing arrangements. That tells us everything about what we are doing here, which is tinkering. We are preserving the status quo even though the government knows the status quo is failing women and children.

What's so deeply frustrating is that we know what needs to be done. In fact, in question time, I asked the minister for a national royal commission into domestic violence and femicide so that we can actually analyse all these questions and look to the question of why, when so many levers are known and when we know change needs to happen, it is not actioned by government. I would say I got a fairly inadequate answer by the minister, who basically said to me: 'We've got this. We know what needs to be done. We've done plenty of state based inquiries, and we're getting on with the job. We're doing this.' Meanwhile, multiple independent reviews have laid out clear reform pathways. There are many clear levers we know that need to be done to assist. Yet what we see from the government is no royal commission to properly investigate everything and create accountability and still no action on key recommendations that we know will make a very big difference.

One of those incredible reports that had a lot of important recommendations was Opening the black box of child support: shining a light on how financial abuse is perpetrated. That report drew on the lived experience of 675 single mothers. It made clear that violence is not incidental to the child support system. It had key recommendations, including moving all child support collection back into the ATO, because the ATO is best placed to pursue the $3.7 billion in outstanding child support debt, and making all child support debts owed to and enforced by the Commonwealth. Rather than asking single mothers to pursue former partners when there's been domestic violence for owed child support, it would be for to the ATO to pursue those debts, and those debts could then be balanced against any debt owing in relation to overpayment of child support payments. Other recommendations included paying primary carers first and pursuing non-compliant payers second, and, importantly, if you're not going to change who is recovering these amounts, abolishing the maintenance income test and delinking the family tax benefit from child support.

These are not radical proposals. They're evidence based, and they're supported by organisations like Single Mother Families Australia and women's legal services. Yet here we are, in 2026, many months since that report was provided to the government in its last term, with a bill with technical amendments. We still do not have that systemic reform that is needed—that so many single mothers are crying out for.

In 2024, two years ago, I attended the parliamentary launch of the black box report alongside advocates, front-line workers and women sharing lived experience. It was sobering, and it was clear that reform was urgent. I wrote to the then minister for social services calling for action. The response acknowledged the seriousness of unpaid child support and the risk of financial abuse, it committed to ensuring systems do not exacerbate harm and two years on—nothing, crickets, no changes to the system. More women and children have been left subject to this foul and controlling system. That is why there is that deep frustration and disbelief that, despite all the good, well-meaning assurances, we are still failing to see this government enact the more significant changes that will make a real difference to single parents.

I want to acknowledge Single Mother Families Australia and their CEO, Terese Edwards. She has been working passionately. Many in this place have met with her. The work of the organisation consistently demonstrates the scale of the problem. Nearly 300,000 families lose approximately $810 million annually in family payments due to child support income that may never be received. The maintenance income test is harsher than income tests applied to wages or investments. How wrong is that for a system! It contradicts commitments to women's economic security.

To the government: an effective child support system must be safe, certain and accountable. 'Safe' must mean that victims-survivors are not forced to engage with abusers to secure payments of child support; it must be certain, meaning children receive financial support regardless of administrative delay; and it should be accountable, meaning debt recovery targets those who owe, not those already carrying caring responsibilities. This bill doesn't move us meaningfully towards that road map, and it maintains a system that is structurally flawed.

I will continue to call for a national royal commission into domestic and family violence and femicide because the intersection between violence, poverty and policy failure is undeniable. While we have a piecemeal approach of state based inquiries but no ultimate accountability at the federal level, our institutions are not adequately protecting women and children. Billions of dollars have been spent on programs and reviews, yet domestic violence rates remain unacceptably high, financial abuse of single parents remains normalised and accountability remains fragmented.

We can't keep funding responses without interrogating the system. We need structural reform and accountability, and I really urge the government to get on with the job of implementing those meaningful structural reforms that will genuinely help single parents.

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