Between 30 and 40 per cent withdraw before the process is complete, with the existing document exchange requirements identified as one factor that can deter parents from proceeding. This bill will make these processes fairer and safer for those involved. Relevant information will still need to be shared so that people have a fair opportunity to respond, but Services Australia will have greater discretion about how that happens. The information needed to make a proper decision can be provided without automatically handing over every personal detail sitting on the original document.

Child support and the family tax benefit are connected, with the family tax benefit taking into account the child support payments that a parent is entitled to receive. But problems can arise when a paying parent has not lodged tax returns on time or across several years. During that period, their child support assessment may have been based on an estimate of their income, but many payments may have been made far short of where they should have been. They now owe more child support that they need to find a way to pay back while continuing to pay their current obligations.

For the parent waiting for that money, however, another obligation calculation can then occur. If they have been collecting child support privately, their family tax benefit can also be retrospectively reassessed. They can end up facing a family-tax-benefit debt based on child support that they were entitled to receive but may never eventually have received. Our government is changing that. For parents using private collection arrangements, collection of certain family-tax-benefit debts will be paused for three months. That gives them time to work through their options and the time to potentially apply for an exemption or a special circumstances waiver, or they can move to agency collect and ask Services Australia to pursue the outstanding child support on their behalf.

The bill will also improve that process where someone moves from private collection to agency collection. If a child support debt has only recently been raised because someone finally lodged old tax returns, Services Australia can be asked to collect it even where the underpayment itself goes much further back. The normal provision applies to debt raised during the previous three months or nine months in exceptional circumstances. That could make a substantial difference to someone who has spent years receiving less child support than they were entitled to. Paying parents will also be able to elect to move into agency collect, giving them a clear pathway to meet their obligations to the shared cost of their child.

Finally, the third schedule deals with parents and children overseas. It will make it easier for parents living in certain overseas jurisdictions to apply directly to Services Australia if they would likely be entitled to receive child support under Australian assessment. Having a child living in another country does not remove an Australian parent's responsibility for that child.

Labor went to the last election promising to close loopholes that allow financial abuse through Commonwealth systems. This bill delivers on that commitment. It is another example of the work our government has been doing to improve the economic security of Australian families. We expanded paid parental leave to 26 weeks and added super on top of the leave payment. A family having a child today can receive almost $30,000 through paid parental leave, more than double what the entitlement was when Labor came to government. We changed parenting payments so eligible sole parents can receive it until their youngest child turns 14 rather than losing access when the child turns eight. When we came to government in 2022, an eligible sole parent with a child aged between eight and 14 could receive $651 per fortnight through JobSeeker. That same parent can now receive $1,087 per fortnight through this arrangement. Around 20,000 single primary carers have benefited from the change since September 2023. We have cut childcare costs for more than one million families, and our government has invested more than $4.4 billion in responding to family, domestic and sexual violence.

For sole parent families especially, facing financial insecurity affects not just the parent but the welfare of the young people they are responsible for. If child support does not arrive, the cost of raising the child does not suddenly reduce to match. It has to come from somewhere, and disproportionately that is felt by women who already face barriers to employment and equal pay. I think again about the people who have sat down with me in Melbourne to talk about their child support assessments. These parents wanted clarity around calculations to understand their obligations and to have someone to listen to their concerns. I will continue to do that. People should be able to understand decisions that affect their finances, and, if assessment is wrong, there needs to be a fair and clear way to address it.

But once we work our way through the assessment, the tax returns, the care percentage and the collection arrangements, we cannot forget that at the end of all these steps there is still a child that must be cared for. These kids are not responsible for the disagreements or separation between their parents, and they should not have to carry the financial consequences when support that is owed to them goes unpaid. Our government is working to make the child support system fairer and improves the way it works. For the one million Australian children who rely on the system, that work must be done, and by this government it will be done. I commend the bill to the House

For too many families, a system designed to support children has been used to control, intimidate and financially punish the parent often caring for them. Government processes can compound that abuse. Child support is a legal responsibility. It is money for children. It pays for food, housing, uniforms, activities and everyday needs. It should never be a bargaining chip or a weapon after separation. Unfortunately, all too often it is. With almost $2 billion in unpaid child support across Australia, reform is long overdue in this sector. Having formerly worked as a barrister in the family law system, I appreciate all too well how this system is often weaponised.

I welcome the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026. It must be the first step, but it should be followed by deeper reform. That's why I will be moving a second reading amendment that addresses the gaps in this legislation and outlines the further action needed to close the loopholes within the child support system that are exploited by parents that are not complying. The test of these reforms is simple: are children receiving the money they are owed, the money that they need; and, in circumstances of domestic and family abuse, are victim-survivors safer through the implementation of this legislation?

My Warringah office regularly hears from single parents struggling with rising costs while trying to cover child support. The financial control often continues long after separation. The difficulty for many parents once they are alone in raising their child, if they have the other parent not complying with the provision of child support for the costs of that child, is that it becomes a really incredible struggle. Unfortunately, recovering child support that is due adds to acrimony and tension and is often a dangerous situation.

We know financial control often continues long after separation. Last year, I convened a domestic and family violence roundtable with frontline services in Warringah. They described women facing financial insecurity, housing instability and complex government systems after separation, and that is just not good enough. A Warringah resident wrote to me about this bill. She said: 'For many women who have left a marriage involving some form of abuse, financial or otherwise, any dealing with a former partner is wrapped in fear. It is often easier to do it alone and carry the burden, and men like my ex-husband rely on that, which means they avoid that responsibility they owe to their children.'

Parents are left weighing the risk of retaliation against the need to secure child support. Some are pressured into the Private Collect system, where parents arrange payment directly. Others stop chasing payments altogether, because another confrontation feels too dangerous and threatening. As a former family law barrister, as I've said, I've seen how ongoing financial disputes around child support in particular and often the resentment around having to pay it impact the cost of restarting after a family breakdown. Often, it can also be a toll of juggling different financial priorities and pressures for the payee parent.

But then there's also the pressure on the parent to whom the child support is owed, because they have that greater care of responsibility of the child and they are having to meet those costs in real time. What we have to remember overarchingly in this system—and I urge parents and parties to try and focus on this aspect—is that children need support regardless of the separation and regardless of who they're living with. Their needs don't change. That is the ultimate intent of this system.

At the end of 2025, approximately $1.95 billion was outstanding in the agency collect system alone. Around 83 per cent of recipient parents are women. More than one million children depend on child support, and government figures identify almost 100,000 parents and carers in the scheme who have experienced or are at risk of family and domestic violence. The government's own survey of separated parents found that more than half of the surveyed Private Collect recipients were underpaid by an average of around $2,000 a year. That means children are going without the necessary supports for them to go to school, to learn, to participate in activities, to be healthy, and to be housed and clothed appropriately.

A quarter received no child support during the year at all—that is just unacceptable. Nearly one in five said they agreed to Private Collect to avoid conflict or violence from a former partner. It's clear the Private Collect system really has major flaws, because, whilst it's chosen to avoid conflict, it doesn't result in payment of child support. Nearly one in five said they agreed to Private Collect to avoid conflict or violence from a former partner—that is a telling statistic. In Swinburne University research examining women's experiences of abuse, 80 per cent of respondents to the relevant question reported that their former partner had replaced physical abuse with financial abuse and control through child support.

These are patterns of coercive control. Payments can be withheld, tax returns can be delayed for years, income can be minimised through businesses, and, all of a sudden, everything is a cash economy and not reported. Those that suffer are the children. Repeated objections and disputes through the system can force a victim-survivor back into contact with a perpetrator or a former partner, which consumes time and money but just adds to the stress and the trauma of trying to rebuild a life post a traumatic relationship.

Under Private Collect, family tax benefit can be calculated as though assessed child support has been received, and a parent can lose family assistance from the government on the basis, or the assumption, of money that, on paper, should have been received but has never been paid. And then the Commonwealth—just absolutely appallingly, I think—pursues that parent for that debt that arises to the Commonwealth. I've urged the minister and the government to change the system so that that debt under the family tax benefit is pursued directly against the parent owing the child support, not against the parent that has not received the child support and is now being made to incur a debt, because, too often, it is single mothers that the Commonwealth pursues for that debt. My understanding is it's seen that they are more likely to comply than the parent that is refusing to pay the child support owing.

Single Mother Families Australia has highlighted that the maintenance income test reduced family payments to around 300,000 single-parent families by $810 million in 2021-22. We don't know how much of that reduction was based on child support that was never paid. The Commonwealth Ombudsman, in a June 2025 report titled Weaponising child support: when the system fails families, found that Services Australia lacked the policies, the strategies and the training to proactively identify and respond to financial abuse. It made eight recommendations, and therefore the government has the evidence to act and go even further than this bill.

I've pressed for reform in this sector since 2021 and the family law inquiry, when we raised mounting debt, weak enforcement and children's financial security to the government. In October 2024, I attended the parliamentary launch of the black-box report, alongside women with lived experience and advocates, because the problem with this debt arising to the Commonwealth through the overpayment of the family support payment is that it impacts credit ratings and it impacts single mothers' ability to put a bond down to rent, to have housing, to have a job. The consequences of this system are far reaching. The black-box report documented how the design of the scheme enabled the abuse that they described, and I wrote to the then minister for social services, calling for action. The risks were acknowledged, but change has taken far too long.

I want to recognise Terese Edwards and Single Mother Families Australia, along with Women's Legal Services Australia and the many women who have spoken publicly about this problem, often at considerable personal risk in sharing their stories and experience. Their persistence had finally brought this issue to the parliament and the government for action. The government has now committed $182.6 million over the forward estimates to a safer and more effective child support system. I welcome that investment, but major reform—further reform than this bill—is long overdue.

The bill, in a sense, makes a few practical changes across three schedules. First, it gives the Child Support Registrar greater discretion to refuse harmful applications for assessments or changes of assessments, because we know that repeated applications can be a tactic of harassment and control. Services Australia must recognise and stop that pattern.

Second, it removes mandatory requirements to exchange documents in certain processes, and it allows the registrar to decide what information needs to be shared and how. These decisions need to be informed by clear reasons, fair review pathways and trauma informed training. This is, of course, relevant where you have domestic and family violence and coercive control, where the sharing of personal information adds to the risk and danger.

Third, it improves options for agency collect and for recovering arrears after retrospective reassessments. Government has greater enforcement capacity than a parent facing threats. Government has to be able to step in here.

Fourth, it allows a three-month pause on recovery of certain family tax benefit debts. A pause offers breathing space, but the government must stop pursuing these debts based on money never received. I don't think this is a good enough measure. The fact that you're pausing it does not mean you are transferring the liability to the parent that actually owes the child support, and that's who the government should be pursuing. It can do so through garnishee orders, through the ATO and other means. Fifth, it allows parents in specified overseas jurisdictions to apply directly to Services Australia for child support.

I support these measures, but there are still substantial gaps, and my second reading amendment calls attention to the three immediate priorities. First, the ATO needs stronger monitoring and enforcement of persistent non-lodgement of tax returns with better data matching and information sharing with Services Australia. Failing to lodge a tax return should never become an effective strategy for concealing income and reducing child support owing. Information sharing must also expose deliberately hidden income with appropriate safeguards.

Second, more agency collect cases must be able to use automatic employer withholding so child support is deducted from wages and transferred promptly. Parents should be able to move safely and easily from private collect when payments break down, and the agency should pursue arrears, not the victim-survivors.

Third, the system must recognise the reality of children completing secondary school. Where a young person turns 18 during the break between school years and is continuing full-time secondary education, child support should not fall away because of a calendar cut-off. For a student turning 18 between year 11 and year 12, the cost of their final school year continues regardless of their birthday, so I want the government to examine how care is assessed. Overnight arrangements do not capture every school run, every medical appointment, every day-to-day responsibility. The formula should better recognise actual care giving and costs relating to children.

Finally, the family tax benefit must reflect financial reality. If assessed child support has not been paid, government should not reduce assistance or recover a debt as though it has. We should also examine whether the maintenance income test itself is fair to families relying on these payments. A three-month pause is not a lasting solution.

We will know the consequences of these reforms and whether or not they're working when fewer children are left without financial support, when arrears begin to fall, when abusive applications are stopped and when parents can seek help without exposing themselves to further harm. I call on the government to report publicly on these outcomes, not simply count the number of applications processed or the legislative changes passed. We want to know: How much unpaid child support is actually recovered? How quickly are debts enforced? Are victim-survivors safer? Are family tax benefit debts being avoided? That will be accountability and a measure of success.

I return to the words of the Warringah constituent, a woman, who said to me that it was easier to carry the burden alone than deal with her former partner who frightened her. No parent or child should be left in that situation, so I welcome the bill and support it but I urge the government to finish the job and close the loopholes.

I move the second reading amendment as circulated in my name:

That all words after "House" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

(a) there is almost $2 billion of unpaid child support in Australia; and

(b) just over 100,000 parents and carers in the child support system are recorded as having experienced or being at risk of experiencing family and domestic violence; and

(2) notes that:

(a) the bill is the single biggest reform to the child support system focused on safety, preventing harm through the system, and ensuring children receive the money they are entitled to; and

(b) further action is needed to close loopholes that are exploited by perpetrators, including by:

(i) improving the Australian Taxation Office's surveillance and enforcement regarding non-lodgement of tax returns by perpetrators;

(ii) increasing the number of agency collect agreements that can access the automatic garnishment of wages to make more timely deductions and transfers; and

(iii) extending a child support assessment for a young person undertaking full-time secondary education where their 18th birthday falls before 1 January between school years".

Is the amendment seconded?

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

I rise today in support of the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026. Whatever the circumstances, the breakdown of a family can be deeply challenging for parents and children alike. For families that have experienced domestic, family and sexual violence, it is also one of the most dangerous moments, and the trauma being experienced does not simply stop because the relationship has ended. As a government, we have a responsibility to ensure that our systems which are set up to help and support both parents and children cannot be used for insidious purposes. We have a responsibility to ensure that a government service cannot be used as a new tool for a domestic abuser to inflict pain and suffering on their victims. Even when violence may not have been part of the relationship, we have heard far too many stories that demonstrate the ability for some parents to weaponise the child support system. It is abhorrent, and this bill takes important steps to stop it.

The child support system is there to help both parents navigate this new dynamic, regardless of whether the relationship is amicable or not, and to ensure that both parties are given fair and reasonable treatment that is in the best interest of the child. At the end of the day, child support is there to ensure that children are not left financially worse off. It ensures that parents take financial responsibility and helps give their children a decent quality of life regardless of which parent they live with. The system supports about one million Australian children and it is absolutely vital for their security, for their financial stability and for their future. It helps families meet the costs of education, health, housing and food, which reduces poverty and financial hardship. According to the Australian Council of Social Service and UNSW's poverty in Australia report, 34 per cent of people in sole parent families and 39 per cent of children in those families were living below the poverty line in 2019-20. That's a devastating figure. So, when we hear that there is $2 billion in unpaid child support in this country, it is clear that the system is not working as it should.

Before I get into the changes that the bill will make, I want to share some local stories which demonstrate why we are making these changes. Given the sensitive nature of these cases, I have chosen not to provide the names or any identifying information of those impacted, but each case is one that has come through my office in this year alone.

One mum told me that she left her former partner 10 years ago, when her child was an infant, due to violence and drug use. Because her former partner was a sole trader, the agency would generally assign him a provisional income estimate. According to her, at the end of the financial year, he would report that he had earned no income, and his payments owed would be zeroed. As a result, she said she received little to no child support over that decade despite her former partner appearing to have significant business assets and maintain a comfortable lifestyle. She has repeatedly been asked to provide the agency with her former partner's contact details, which is information she does not possess, because of court orders aimed at protecting her and her child. She has also been asked to prove that the income he is notifying the agency of is incorrect, which is an onus that should not belong on victims.

She lives in constant fear of her ex-partner finding her address and her contact details, and the stress of her situation has a significant impact on her life and her mental health. When raising this with the Minister for Social Services, the minister agreed that the agency's reported reliance on the information she provided about her former partner was unacceptable, and I was really pleased that, after raising this particular case with the minister, payments were restarted. Dishearteningly, the payments ceased again only two months later, and she was forced to start all over again. In her words, she said to me, 'I feel this system fails young single parents with abusive or criminal tendencies in their ex-partners.' Sadly, this is not an isolated case.

Another mum contacted me about an abusive former partner who owes more than $5,300 in child support and pays less than half of the monthly child support assessed. This particular parent, I have been advised, is more than three years overdue in providing his tax returns, and because he has multiple children in the system the debts being recovered have to be split between multiple parents based on the size of the debt owed to each child. Hers happens to be the smaller of the two debts. She said: 'While he owns a house, a car, a boat and many other luxuries, my daughter solely relies on me financially and emotionally. In the current cost-of-living crisis, the task is onerous and it is draining.' She called the practice of withholding child support a 'form of neglect'.

Reading these sorts of emails from vulnerable people in my community is simply heartbreaking. Another advocate reached out to me about multiple women whom they are supporting who are survivors of domestic violence struggling with little to no child support as their former partners have not submitted tax returns. One mum was surviving on only $50.

Clearly, this is a systemic issue, and I want to stress that it is not only women who are impacted. I was recently contacted by a father who raised concerns about the way a parent's earning capacity is assessed, as well as concerns about business structures that allow a person's taxable income to be considerably less than their financial capability. He called for improvements to the fairness and efficiency of the scheme. These are just a handful of examples. It is a problem that we must fix. The child support system cannot be allowed to be used as a weapon against children. It cannot be allowed to be yet another tool that domestic abusers use to hurt their victims.

Reviews by the Commonwealth Ombudsman, the parliamentary joint committees, the Inspector-General of Taxation and key advisory bodies recommended changes to strengthen the system and improve outcomes for families. This legislation is the first step in responding to those recommendations, and I want to acknowledge the incredible work by the Minister for Social Services on this really important legislation. I know she is passionate about this issue and about addressing domestic violence more broadly, and I want to thank her for making these changes here today.

At the last election, the Albanese Labor government made a $183 million commitment to fix every part of the child support system. It's part of our government's more than $4.4 billion investment to address family, domestic and sexual violence by strengthening protections against economic abuse, improving the collection of child support and enhancing the financial safety and wellbeing of children and separated families. We want to make the system safer—in particular, for women and children experiencing domestic violence.

As with the first case I mentioned, many women fear their former partner finding their information, such as where they live or work and their phone number. Right now, a parent seeking a change of assessment may have to provide bank details and home and work addresses. The law currently requires complete copies of these documents to be provided to the other parent. If you're terrified of being found, having to do this might just stop you from asking for the change. Abusers know this and they use it as a weapon. We're closing that loophole and we're replacing it with a new alternative information exchange model that gives Services Australia decision-makers discretion over how to exchange relevant information. This might include redacting documents or providing written or verbal summaries.

At the same time, we're giving Services Australia discretionary powers to refuse to accept certain applications if they are satisfied that proceeding would cause harm. They can also dismiss an objection without involving the other parent where they are satisfied that the objection has little or no prospect of success or would have no more than a marginal impact on the child support case. This will put a stop to vexatious applications which require significant engagement with the other parent to resolve so that they can't be used as a tool to harass or intimidate someone. That's good news for victims, protecting them from unnecessary harm while also ensuring that agency resources aren't routinely tied up in vexatious complaints. This is done by disincentivising them.

Schedule 2 of the bill deals with the interplay of child support and the family tax benefit. At the moment, a parent can end up with a family tax benefit debt because their former partner has not lodged an accurate tax return. Without a tax return, child support and family tax benefit are calculated using an estimated income. If the former partner later lodges tax returns showing a higher income, both amounts are recalculated retrospectively. This can leave the receiving parent with a significant family tax benefit debt through no fault of their own. If Services Australia collects the child support, the family tax benefit debt can be offset against the backdated child support owed.

But under a private collection arrangement, the government may not know whether that backdated child support has been paid. This can leave the receiving parent with a debt owed to the government when they may not have actually received the additional child support needed to cover it. This can create significant financial stress and an unfair administrative burden through no fault of their own, and this bill makes a number of changes to address situations like that. Parents who remain in a private payment arrangement will have collection of family tax benefit debts paused for three months. This gives them time to receive the backdated child support and time to decide whether to ask Services Australia to collect it on their behalf. They will also have the opportunity to apply for an exemption or special circumstances waiver for the family tax benefit debt. We'll ensure that parents are fully informed of the benefits and the protections of agency collect at the time that they enter the system. Parents who move from private collection to agency collect will be able to ask Services Australia to recover child support debts raised in the previous three months, even if those debts relate to an earlier period. At the same time, it will allow paying parents to choose to move their child support case from a private arrangement to agency collect.

Finally, schedule 3 will help children living overseas in certain jurisdictions to receive child support from an Australian parent. This will help prevent Australian parents from using the system to avoid their responsibilities simply because their child lives overseas.

I'll also flag that there are further changes to the child support scheme coming. These changes will mandate employer withholding in suitable circumstances and implement automatic overseas travel bans for paying parents with $10,000 in unpaid child support—two very important and necessary changes. We'll also give the ATO more resources to prosecute more people who refuse to lodge their tax returns to avoid paying child support and improve data sharing between Services Australia and the ATO to catch people who underreport. And we'll ensure that Services Australia staff working on child support cases are more experienced, including more staff with family and domestic violence training.

While these changes respond to recommendations from several reviews, I want to point out that the bill has also been shaped by the very personal stories of real people, like the ones I shared earlier. These are not bureaucratic changes. They are changes with a human face, with real people who are being hurt by a system that can be weaponised against them. I want to thank each and every person who has shared their individual story with me and with other local members across the country. It is your voices that we have listened to, and it is your voices that have driven change. We hear you and we see you and we will keep doing everything we can to end violence against women and to end the loopholes which enable financial abuse and coercion in Commonwealth systems. These changes make the child support system safer and fairer. They protect children and their families, and they work to ensure that children in our communities are receiving the support they deserve.

I rise to support the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026 and to second the amendment move by the member for Warringah. The idea behind child support is pretty simple. When parents separate, they both keep paying towards the cost of raising their kids.    Nearly a million Australian children are in the child support scheme, which is close to one in five kids in the country.

When it works, it does a lot to keep children out of poverty. Research cited by Single Mother Families Australia found poverty in single mother families could fall by about a fifth if child support was paid in full and on time. But too often it isn't. Parents can choose agency collect, where the agency, Services Australia, collects the money from the paying parent and passes it on. Or they can choose private collect, where they sort out payment between themselves. Around $2 billion is owed through agency collect and almost 230,000 paying parents are behind. We really don't know what's owed in private collect, which is about half the scheme, because nobody tracks it. When the Department of Social Services surveyed receiving parents in private collect, only one in three said they got their child support in full and on time every time.

For people who've left a violent relationship, child support can become another way for the abuse to continue. The scheme keeps separated parents financially tied to each other for years, and a former partner who wants to keep control has plenty of ways to do so. They can stop lodging tax returns so their income can't be properly assessed. They can underestimate their income or pay late or not at all, or lodge application after application so the other parent is always having to respond. Swinburne university surveyed single mothers and found that 80 per cent of those who'd experienced family violence saw child support as a continuation of that violence. So I'm glad this bill has 'financial abuse' in its title. It's taken a long time to get here. Victims, advocates and researchers have spent years building the evidence. The Commonwealth Ombudsman's 2025 report Weaponising child support showed where the law was failing families. And many women have told their stories over and over to get this on the agenda, and today I want to acknowledge their courage and their persistence.

This bill gives the Child Support Registrar power to refuse applications that could cause harm and to dismiss objections that have little chance of success or wouldn't actually change anything. It also ends the rule that parents must swap documents once one of them applies for a change of assessment. At the moment, a mother's application and supporting papers go straight to her former partner. The minister says that 30 to 40 per cent of applicants pull out, and it's partly because of this. The bill makes it easier to move into agency collect and harder to be pushed back out of it. It also fixes the problem with the family tax benefit. Right now, when child support in private collect is reassessed upwards for a past year, the system assumes that the money was actually paid. Often it wasn't, and the receiving parent ends up with a debt for money they never got. The bill removes that assumption. The bill also allows parents living in some overseas jurisdictions to make child support applications directly to Services Australia instead of going through an authority in their own country.

The groups that have so far made submissions to the Senate inquiry that is currently underway broadly support this bill. One common theme is that how these reforms are implemented will determine whether they're effective, and also that there is so much more to do.

The amendment moved by the member for Warringah, which I'm seconding, identifies priority issues for the government to action. Just over 100,000 parents and carers in the system are recorded as having experienced or being at risk of family and domestic violence. For them, it's important that the remaining loopholes are addressed. The amendment points to two loopholes that perpetrators exploit and one gap that affects families more broadly. The first is tax returns. Child support is based on income, so a parent who doesn't lodge a tax return can keep their real income hidden for years. Single Mother Families Australia reports that more than 80,000 paying parents have failed to lodge tax returns in recent years. When those returns are finally lodged, the receiving parent can be hit with a recalculation going back years. The Australian Taxation Office needs to do more to detect nonlodgement and enforce lodgement.

The second loophole is collection. When child support comes straight out of a paying parent's wages, it's much harder to withhold. More agency-collect cases should have access to automatic deduction from wages so the money is taken out and passed on promptly. The minister has said that the next bill will do this, and I urge the government to bring it on as soon as possible. There's also a gap for young people finishing school. Child support can end when a young person turns 18, even if they're still in year 12. The amendment calls for the assessment to continue for young people in full-time secondary school whose 18th birthday falls before the end of the school year. No family should be losing support halfway through a child's final year.

Closing these loopholes would make it much harder for one parent to use the system to keep wearing the other one down. But there's a second way people are being worn down, and neither this bill nor the amendment addresses it. It's the system itself. Decisions arrive in piles of letters that are impossible to understand. People wait an hour on hold, and no-one can explain the calculations. I've been contacted regularly by both mothers and fathers in my electorate who are battling the system.

After I spoke in this place last about systems abuse, a woman in my electorate wrote to me. She works full time and has full-time care of her two children. She said she was exhausted having to fight the system to obtain a reasonable amount of child support, but her reason for writing was the paperwork. This year she's received 24 letters from the agency, and 16 of those arrived in a rush at the end of the financial year and came to more than 60 pages in total. Two of them told her there were debts. Her former partner owed more than $5,000, and she owed more than $2,000. But nowhere in those 60 pages did it clearly explain why or which of those 16 letters went with which decision. If she contacts the agency, she generally spends up to an hour on hold just to speak to someone. The last time she called, she was cut off after half an hour of waiting. This is ridiculous.

Another woman living in Curtin received 49 letters from the agency in a fortnight. Each one covered a different period and a different amount. Some seemed to use her income from two years ago and her ex-husband's current estimate, which was much lower. None of it matched what she saw when she logged into the system, and no-one from the agency was able to explain it to her. How incredibly infuriating would that be?

A teacher in my electorate asked the agency to collect her child support for her. Her former partner was told to stop paying her directly, and the money started coming out of his pay, but the agency didn't pass it on. Six weeks later, she still hadn't received a cent. Each time she called the agency, it took over an hour, and calls could only be made between 8.30 and 4.45, which is pretty hard when you're in front of a classroom. The agency couldn't tell her whether it had the money. It said that even if it did, it would take 28 days to process. If it didn't have the money, it would investigate, and that would take at least another 28 days. Add on the time for her former partner's employer to send the money through, and she was looking at four months without any child support. Again, this is ridiculous.

One father told me that he'd raised concerns about his former partner's income with the agencies again and again, by phone and by email over several years. He never saw any meaningful outcome and, in the end, he didn't know where else to turn.

A mother who cares full-time for her son, who has additional needs, spoke to me. She lives on the minimum wage. Her former partner earns more than $200,000 a year. She was told she'd been overpaid $236 in child support. She agreed to pay it back at $5 a month, and the agency confirmed the plan in writing. Then, without warning, the system took the full $236 from her next payment. When she rang, she was told the system recovers money as fast as it can, and the decision couldn't be reversed. That month, she couldn't pay her bills. She put it to me that it seems insane that the person who has almost full care of a child has to be the one jumping through hoops constantly.

For most people, this is frustrating and exhausting. For someone who has left a controlling relationship, it's worse because the two kinds of wearing down feed each other. The other parent often doesn't actually have to do much; the process does the rest. The letters, phone calls and deadlines all land on the parent who's already doing most of the caring.

One woman told me she'd left a violent relationship with her two boys after police and support workers told her to get out fast. Since then, her former partner has moved between jobs, and his child support has gone up and down. After his last change of assessment, it dropped to $44 a month. It took her two full days to put her own change of assessment application together. She was then told she needed yet more documents and later advised to withdraw her application altogether because her former partner didn't have a job. That's how people end up among the 30 to 40 per cent who withdraw their change of assessment applications.

Another mother has full care of her son and works full time. Her English isn't strong enough to understand the complicated information the agency sends her. Her former partner claimed he was caring for their son when he wasn't, so she lodged an objection. She later found out her objection only covered one decision, each decision covered a different period and each needed its own objection within 28 days.

This bill will help some of these women. Removing the document swap should mean fewer people give up on a change of assessment. But none of them will get fewer letters, shorter waits or clearer explanations because of it. The system is designed to serve the system, not to support the people who need it. So, alongside this legislation, I'd ask the government to fix the way the system treats people. Start by measuring the load we put on parents as well as the outstanding debts. That means how many letters they get, how long they wait on the phone, how long it takes for a first payment to arrive and how many people withdraw applications and why. Publish it so that we can see whether things are improving. One decision should come with one letter that explains what changed and what you can do about it. If a payment plan is going to be overridden, people should be told before the money is deducted. Parents with jobs need to be able to get through to Services Australia. Callbacks would help, and so would some contact hours outside the working day. Where family violence has been flagged, there should be one contact person at Services Australia so that parents don't have to explain everything from the start each time.

This is a good bill. It accepts that a government system can be used to hurt people, and it closes some of the gaps. But there are still loopholes to close, and the way the system treats people needs to be fixed alongside them. The next tranche of reforms needs to come quickly. Families can't afford to wait. I commend the amendment and the bill to the House.

I rise to speak in support of the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026. At its heart, this bill is about something very simple: when parents separate, their children should be supported. Children should have what they need to grow up safely, to learn, to participate in their community and to have the opportunities every child deserves. Where a parent has a responsibility to financially support their children, that responsibility should not disappear because a relationship has ended.

The Child Support Scheme supports around one million Australian children, yet there is almost $2 billion in unpaid child support across Australia. Just over 100,000 parents and carers in the system are recorded as having experienced or being at risk of experiencing family and domestic violence. Behind those numbers are families trying to make ends meet. There are groceries to buy, rents to pay, school uniforms to purchase and medical appointments to attend. Child support is not simply an administrative process. It is part of the economic security of separated families. When payments arrive on time and in full, they help children access the essentials they need. When payments do not arrive, somebody still has to cover those costs, and too often that responsibility falls entirely on the parent who is already doing the day-to-day work of raising the children.

I have heard this directly from people in my electorate of Aston. One constituent—let's call her Sarah—contacted me about her experience of trying to recover child support owed for her children. In mid-2025, Sarah discovered that her husband had not paid child support for some time. The unpaid amount had already grown to more than $4,000. Sarah had to contact child support services herself before the issue was properly addressed. Even then, it took several months and multiple phone calls before payments were reinstated. Because her husband was unemployed, the payments that followed were intermittent and very small, around $60 at a time. The debt continued to grow, eventually exceeding $5,000.

Then, tragically, Sarah's husband died suddenly in May this year. Child support services attempted to recover the outstanding debt from his estate, but there were no funds available. After several attempts, the matter was closed. The debt remained, but there was effectively no way to recover it. Sarah and her husband had been separated, although they had never divorced. Following his death, his superannuation fund did not recognise her as entitled to his death benefit. There was also no Centrelink payment or other mechanism to replace the child support her children would otherwise have received. As Sarah explained to me, she had gone from trying to recover money already owed to her children to having no prospect of recovering that debt and no future child support. She was left carrying the entire financial responsibility for raising their two children.

I recognise that recovering a debt where a person has died and left no assets is complicated. There is no simple solution to every circumstance a family might face, but Sarah's experience highlights something important. A child support debt is not just a number on a government record. It represents money intended to support a child. It represents food, clothing, housing, education and the ordinary costs of growing up. When that money does not arrive, the costs do not disappear; they fall on somebody else. Sarah's story reminds us why an effective child support system matters. Calculating what a parent owes is only part of the job. Children need to receive the support they're entitled to. It also reminds us that families can find themselves in circumstances where the existing system does not provide all the answers they need. We must keep listening to those experiences as we continue to improve the support available to families.

This bill is an important part of that work. The government has committed an additional $182.6 million in the 2026-27 budget to make the child support system safer and more effective and to help more children receive the support they are owed. The reforms address vulnerabilities in the system, including situations where processes can be used to harass a former partner or where a parent can be left with a debt despite not receiving the child support that was supposedly paid.

The bill contains three schedules. Schedule 1 addresses the harmful use of child support processes. Currently, a parent can make repeated applications or objections that require their former partner to respond, even when similar applications have previously failed. For someone acting in good faith, this might be frustrating. For someone who has experienced family violence, it can be much more serious. Repeated applications can mean repeated contact, repeated requests for personal information and repeated disruption to a person's life. Where the process is deliberately misused, it can become a form of harassment.

This bill gives Services Australia discretion to refuse certain applications where proceeding would cause harm to a person. It will also allow certain objections to be dismissed where they have little or no prospect of success or would have no more than a marginal impact on the child support case. These changes recognise that safety must be considered when government systems operate.

The bill also changes the way information is exchanged during certain child support processes. Under the current rules, entire copies of documents provided by one parent may have to be shared with the other parent. These documents can contain contact details, employment information and financial records. For someone who has experienced family violence, disclosing that information can create genuine safety concerns. A parent may need to seek a reassessment of child support because they believe the amount being paid is incorrect, but they may hesitate because they fear that information about their workplace, finances or whereabouts could be disclosed. That can leave a parent and their children without the support they are entitled to. The bill replaces the mandatory approach with a more flexible model. Services Australia decision-makers will be able to redact documents or provide written or verbal summaries of relevant information. The aim is straightforward: parents must have a fair opportunity to respond to information relevant to their case, but they should not have to disclose irrelevant personal details that could put them at risk.

Schedule 2 strengthens protections for parents dealing with Family Tax Benefit debts arising from child support reassessments. Under current arrangements, when a paying parent lodges overdue tax returns, their child support liability may be recalculated retrospectively. This can create an additional child support debt for previous years. At the same time, the receiving parent's Family Tax Benefit may be reassessed, leaving them with a debt of their own. The problem is that the receiving parent may not have actually received the additional child support. For parents using agency collect, the system can account for the child support actually paid. Where parents have private arrangements, however, Services Australia does not have the same visibility over whether the additional money has been received.

This bill provides important new protections. For parents who remain in private arrangements, collection of a resulting Family Tax Benefit debt will be paused for three months. This gives them time to consider their options, including pursuing the outstanding child support, moving to agency collect or seeking an appropriate exemption or waiver. The bill also allows parents moving from private arrangements to agency collect to request collection of certain outstanding child support debts raised in the previous three months, even if the debt relates to an earlier period. This matters because a debt may have accumulated over several years but only become apparent when overdue tax returns are lodged. The bill also allows paying parents to move their cases to agency collect. That is important because direct financial contact between separated parents is not always appropriate or safe. Around a quarter of child support parents with a family and domestic violence indicator are paying parents. The reforms recognise that both receiving and paying parents may need protection from unwanted contact and that having Services Australia manage payments can provide an additional layer of separation.

Schedule 3 improves access to child support for eligible parents living overseas. Under these changes, parents in certain overseas jurisdictions will be able to apply directly to the Australian child support system. A child's entitlement to financial support should not disappear because they live overseas. Where an Australian parent has a child overseas and refuses to meet their financial responsibilities, the Australian system should not inadvertently make it easier for that parent to avoid those responsibilities. The measure will be accompanied by a grant to a non-government organisation to assist sole mothers in the Philippines whose children's Australian fathers have refused to provide support. Again, the purpose is practical. It is about helping children receive the financial support they are entitled to.

These reforms sit within the government's broader commitment to supporting families and responding to family and domestic violence. Since 2022, this government has expanded paid parental leave to 26 weeks and introduced superannuation on those payments. It has extended single parenting payments to eligible parents whose youngest child is under 14, expanded childcare support and invested more than $4.4 billion in responding to family, domestic and sexual violence. These policies address different challenges, but they share an important principle: government systems should help families achieve greater security not make difficult circumstances harder.

There is more work to do to improve child support collection and compliance. This bill is the first stage of a broader reform program, and further measures will seek to ensure payments are made more reliably. That matters because the costs of raising children do not wait while a dispute is resolved. The grocery bill still arrives. The rent still has to be paid. Children still need school supplies, health care and opportunities to participate in their community. Sarah's experience in Aston brings that reality home. Her children still had all the ordinary costs of growing up, even as the child support debt grew and the prospect of recovering it disappeared.

No single reform can prevent every hardship a family might face. But we have a responsibility to identify where systems are failing and make practical improvements. That means listening to the people who use those systems, the organisations supporting them and the independent bodies that identify weaknesses. It means recognising that financial abuse can continue after a relationship ends and that government processes must not provide another avenue for coercion or harassment. It means remembering that the purpose of the child support system is not simply to calculate a payment; it is to help ensure children receive the financial support that they need. When parents separate their circumstances change, but their children's needs do not disappear. Children still need a safe home, food, healthcare, education and the chance to participate in community life. The child support system cannot resolve every difficulty that comes with separation, but it must be fair, effective and safe, and it must do what it can to ensure parents meet their financial responsibilities.

As a local member of parliament, I know that people do not expect government systems to be 100 per cent perfect. They do expect us, though, to listen, to take problems seriously and to act when we can make things a bit better. For families who rely on child support, these are not abstract policy questions. They are questions about whether there is enough money at the end of the week, whether children can participate in school activities and whether a parent can navigate a government system without putting themselves at risk.

This bill takes practical steps towards a child support system that is safer, fairer and more effective. It addresses known vulnerabilities and provides greater protection around sensitive information. It introduces new safeguards for parents facing family tax benefit debts and it improves access to child support for eligible families overseas. Most importantly, it keeps the focus where it belongs: on the children. For these reasons, I support this bill.

I rise to speak in support of the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026. For too long, our child support system has allowed money owed to children to slip through the cracks, and too often that has been by design rather than by accident. This bill is an excellent step in addressing the systems abuse that I know is experienced by many victim-survivors of domestic and family violence across the country.

In my time representing Wentworth I've met with countless parents who are at their wits' ends—parents, mostly mothers, who feel powerless against a system that seems rigged against them, whether through the Family Court or through the weaponisation of child support. These parents, more often than not, recognise this as systems abuse. It is often a continuation of the abuse experienced within a relationship or family long past the point of separation or divorce. I don't want to share these stories publicly here today, out of respect for the individuals and their children, but I know they reflect the findings of countless inquiries, studies and reports that the child support system is one of many used to facilitate such systems based abuse.

In a 2023 Swinburne University study of 540 separated mothers, 80 per cent said that their former partner had used the child support program to commit financial abuse, with the main tactics being deliberately not paying child support, at 81 per cent, and minimising how much needed to be paid, at 80 per cent. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services found that the child support program is being widely manipulated and weaponised by perpetrators to carry out financial abuse, and the main victims are often women. Finally, the Commonwealth Ombudsman's data from June 2025 reflects the same story. Of 279 complaints received about the child support program between November 2024 and February 2025, 32 per cent said they were affected by the weaponisation of child support, and 73 per cent of these were separated mothers—nearly all of them the receiving parent. The Ombudsman further found that the agency's approach allowed some paying parents to manipulate the system to avoid their financial responsibility, and this bill is important work in stopping this.

I commend the government for its intent in this bill and for its dedication in examining the ways that systems, from taxation to super and child support, can be manipulated and abused. I acknowledge that the bill has been referred to a Senate inquiry, with a public hearing due this week and the report due in November. I do hope that the bill will not pass the House until that report has been received, and I wish, frankly, that the House wasn't being asked to debate the bill while we are still awaiting those hearings and recommendations.

Regardless, it is time to turn to what the bill will do. It closes longstanding loopholes in the child support scheme. It is aimed especially at improving debt recovery, thereby minimising the exposure of parents and children to ongoing domestic and family violence. We know that debt recovery is one of the most significant issues facing child support in Australia. Unpaid debt totals roughly $2 billion owed by more than 150,000 parents. That is $2 billion spread out into families who need this money now, particularly in times of high inflation, and cannot get it.

Schedule 1 recognises the way in which the child support scheme can be used by perpetrators of systems abuse to continue to harass victim-survivors. It gives the registrar discretionary powers to refuse applications for a new child support assessment where the application could cause harm to the payee and where the registrar is satisfied that the payee does not want the application to proceed. I note that, in its submission, the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence Commission pointed to the absence of a definition of 'harm'. I understand the intention is to rely on the definitions commonly used in family law settings, but I urge the minister and committee to consider whether a specific definition of 'harm' is needed. It should adequately capture the forms of domestic and family violence, as well as systems abuse, that could be assessed incorrectly by someone unfamiliar with the tactics that perpetrators commonly use.

Schedule 1 also makes another important change. It removes the current mandatory requirement for documents to be exchanged between parties in change-of-assessment and objection processes. This was a recommendation of the Commonwealth Ombudsman in its 2025 report. As that report noted last year, and as the ABC coverage that followed made clear, procedures at Services Australia can unintentionally disclose sensitive information to ex-partners.

As the Ombudsman, Iain Anderson, noted, the fear of sharing information like a home address or workplace can lead people pursuing unpaid child support to withdraw from the process altogether. A case featured in the Gold Coast Bulletin in 2021 showed this clearly. A mother was told that she would have to hand over all of her bank statements to her ex-partner if she wanted to challenge the payments, and she was worried that this might reveal her location. When she raised this fear with Services Australia, she was sent a letter referring her to domestic violence helplines. That is not helpful.

The Law Council goes one step further in its recommendation to the committee: it recommends that a party should be able to redact any details that would disclose their location from material provided to the registrar, whether through these processes or otherwise. This seems sensible. We should be taking every step to ensure that victim-survivors who are still required to interact with their ex-partners through the Child Support Scheme have minimal contact and, most importantly, minimal risk of being identified and located.

Schedules 2 and 3 close further loopholes. Schedule 2 closes a gap that has left many parents out of pocket after a period of private collect, and follows another recommendation from the Ombudsman. Sometimes a child support assessment is retrospectively increased for a period when the payee was collecting privately—that is, directly rather than through the agency. In those cases, the payee will have a greater ability to ask the registrar to collect the additional child support or debt. This includes debts that fall outside the usual three-month timeframe—or nine months in exceptional circumstances. It also allows the recovery of certain Family Tax Benefit debts to be paused for three months where the debt was caused by increased child support for a past private collect period. That way, parents aren't hit with an FTB debt before they've received the child support themselves. Schedule 3 amends the act so that parents living overseas in reciprocating jurisdictions can apply directly to Services Australia to collect child support for their children, rather than going through the authority in their own country.

These are sensible, targeted changes. They recognise that child support is not a private bargaining chip, nor is it another tool for those who seek to systematically abuse a co-parent through protracted contact or refusal to pay what is owed to their child. It is money that belongs to children, and the system should make sure they receive it. There is much more in this space, as the member for Warringah's second reading amendment notes, and I look forward to further reform. But I do commend this bill to the House.

I just want to note that, when speaking to people who have come to my office about this issue, I was incredulous that there are people in our community who are owed money by their former partners for looking after their children but who just can't get it and that the system has not been able to delivery a fix for that. It seems like a basic right, but we have $2 billion worth of outstanding child support that is not going to the children who need it. That is a problem. The bill I commend goes some way to addressing this, but we need to continue to pursue this issue, because, until children and families are receiving the child support they need, this is just being used as a way to shirk responsibilities and abuse partners and families in a continual way.

I rise to make my contribution to the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026. Raising a child is not easy. Any parent will tell you about the daily cost of raising children. Food, housing, health care, education, school uniforms, after-school activities—all these everyday essentials have a cost. And these are just the financial costs. There is also the time, the energy, the worry, the stress—and, of course, the love, kindness and care—that come with being a parent. In situations where there is a parental separation, the Child Support Scheme is intended to make sure that children continue to receive financial support. When child support is paid in full and on time, it helps with the cost of raising a child, and it makes a big difference to a child's life. It helps to reduce poverty and financial hardship for families and children.

But, for too many families, this support is not being paid in full and on time. When that happens, it can have a big negative impact on the children. The reforms in this bill work to ensure that children receive the support they deserve. The reforms respond to calls for changes to the child support system from the Commonwealth Ombudsman, parliamentary joint committees, the Inspector-General of Taxation and key advisory bodies. My constituents in Tangney have asked for changes to the system so that we can have improved outcomes for their families. I have had constituents speak to me about problems with the system and share their personal experiences as to how they are affected.

A few months ago I had a Tangney constituent reach out to seek assistance after her former partner and the father of her child owed more than $50,000 in unpaid child support. This is a significant amount of money, and it has been causing strain on the family. In addition to all the daily life essentials, their child has additional needs. In this situation, there's often additional stress and costs, and this family is no different. The mother is maintaining her full-time employment while also providing full-time care to their young child, who often requires increased care structures and support.

In this constituent's case, child support payments only happened occasionally and the amount was minimal. Repayments would typically follow enforcement from the agency or be made when it suited the father—for example, if he wanted to travel. This pattern means that the debt persists with very little reduction. My constituent is frustrated and stressed by this lack of action. The child support debt has a big impact on this family. This mother's experience is part of the almost $2 billion of unpaid child support in Australia. Around 100,000 parents and carers in the child support system are recorded as having experienced, or being at risk of experiencing, family and domestic violence.

In the most recent budget, the government announced an additional $182.6 million investment into the child support system to make it safer and to help more children get the support they are owed. Our government is committed to preventing the weaponisation of the child support system and to protecting parents and children from financial abuse. We are delivering on this commitment through reforms to improve every element of the system, from the initial assessment through to payment and compliance. The reforms include measures to help parents navigate the system more easily, keep parents and children safer and help ensure payments are made on time and in full. These reforms deliver on the government's 2025 election commitment to addressing financial abuse in the Commonwealth system, to closing loopholes which enable financial abuse and coercion.

In my time, both as a police officer and now as the member of parliament for Tangney, I have unfortunately seen the human impact of financial abuse and coercion—threats, using the system against another parent, using the child support system to delay, not pay or underpay child support. I have had constituents talk to me about the very difficult situation parents are put in financially upon separation and being caught up in a system that needs to be improved.

The bill is the first stage of the reform program towards a more modern child support system. This bill does several things. Some parents use the processes within the Child Support Scheme to harass the other parent by, for example, lodging applications that are not done and objections to annoy and abuse the process rather than resolve a genuine issue. These amendments provide discretionary powers for Services Australia to refuse to accept certain applications if they are satisfied that proceeding would cause harm to a person. They can also dismiss an objection without involving the other parent if the objection has little to no prospect of success or if it would have no more than a marginal impact on the child support case.

Currently, when a parent lodges a change-of-assessment application, both parents need to submit their personal information, including their contact details. This information is then exchanged with the other parent. Personal and sensitive information may be shared. This deters some parents from seeking a change. At worst, this can also create a physical safety risk. This requirement will be replaced with a new model. Services Australia decision-makers will have discretion on how to exchange relevant information. This could mean redacting documents or providing written or verbal summaries of information.

These amendments also address the link between child support and the family tax benefit, which can be weaponised by one parent. Currently, when a parent can receive child support from their former partner for the benefit of their child, they apply for that support and then their family tax benefit is adjusted to account for this income. When a paying parent does not submit tax returns for an extended period of time, their child support liability must be based on income estimates. If that parent then submits multiple years of tax returns, their child support liability will be retrospectively recalculated. This often results in the parent owing more child support than they actually paid. The receiving parent's family tax benefit entitlement may then also be retrospectively reassessed, resulting in a family tax benefit debt for the receiving parent. When this happens, it is especially challenging for parents in private arrangements, because the government does not have visibility of when additional child support is paid to the receiving parent, nor can it deduct the resulting family tax benefit debts from that amount.

These reforms help create processes to ensure that parents entering the system are provided more information about private arrangements and the protections that are available against family tax benefit debts when it is the agency that collects the child support. For those choosing to remain in a private arrangement, other relevant measures include pausing the collection of family tax benefit debts for three months after those debts are raised. This gives parents the opportunity to consider their options and take action. Paying parents can also choose to move their child support case to agency collect.

The proposed changes also address some of the issues around child support for overseas payees. Parents in certain overseas jurisdictions will be allowed to make direct applications through the Australian child support system, making child support assessment easier to access for people outside of Australia. There are many children born overseas to an Australian parent. The government will not facilitate an Australian parent escaping their responsibility to a child born overseas. This measure is accompanied by a grant to a non-government organisation to assist sole mothers in the Philippines who have a child with an Australian who has refused to support their child. The reform in this bill built on the government's $4.4 billion investment to tackle family, domestic and sexual violence by strengthening protection against economic abuse, improving the collection of child support, and enhancing the financial safety and wellbeing of children and separated families.

The reforms in this package have been intentionally chosen and carefully designed to address known problems in the system. Child support makes a difference to children every day, and these reforms help make the system safer, fairer and more effective.

We cannot support the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026 in its current form. Its stated purpose is to prevent financial abuse within the child support system. We support that purpose, but the legislation before us gives the registrar broad discretion to refuse application, weakens guaranteed access to source documents and leaves important details to regulation and rules that we have not seen. Those are substantial concerns. They go to whether a parent can obtain a fair assessment, challenge false information and understand why decisions have been made against them.

Children deserve financial support. They also deserve the opportunity to have a safe and loving relationship with both parents. This bill must protect both. Parents are more than willing to pay child support and take responsibility for their children. They want to contribute financially but they also want to attend the school concerts, help with homework and have a relationship with their children. They want to be a parent, a mother, a father. Where there is no justified reason or safety concern, one parent should not be reduced to a source of financial support while being deliberately excluded from their child's life. Their obligation to support their child remains, and so does the importance of protecting that child's relationship with their parent.

Where a parent deliberately prevents another parent from exercising agreed parenting time for control or financial gain, that conduct must be recognised as harmful. The child loses a relationship. The parent loses time they cannot recover. They may then face increased child support liability because the actual care has been reduced alongside the expense of trying to restore that care. The same standard must apply where a parent engages in that conduct against another parent. This bill does not create the existing link between care percentages and child support but it risks making manipulation of those arrangements harder to expose and challenge. The reform intended to prevent the weaponisation of child support must address abuse by receiving parents, as well as by paying parents.

One of our central objections is the proposed discretionary powers to refuse application. The proposed section 98FA would allow the registrar to refuse to proceed with a change of assessment application where the registrar reasonably believes that proceedings would cause harm to the party, the child or any other person. 'Harm' is not defined in the bill. The reasonable belief requirement matters, but it does not answer the practical questions: What evidence will be required? How will competing accounts be assessed? How will a genuine attempt to correct an inaccurate assessment be distinguished from an abusive application? And why does the bill not expressly require the registrar to consider whether the application could proceed safely through redaction, protected communications or another less-restrictive process?

A parent seeking to expose hidden income, incomplete financial information or an adjust assessment should not have a legitimate application stopped without clear findings and adequate reasoning. Refusing to examine an application can leave an inaccurate assessment in place. That can cause harm too. Proposed section 30C also creates a power to refuse certain initial assessment applications where the prospective recipient does not want the assessment and the statutory harm conditions are met. That power has a particular protective purpose. Nevertheless, both refusal powers require clear safeguards on an evidentiary basis and meaningful review. We cannot support board discretion without sufficient accountability.

Our second objection concerns access to evidence. The bill removes mandatory exchange of source documents in relevant change-of-assessment and objection processes. The information may instead be communicated through oral summaries, written summaries or selected redacted documents. Protecting confidential addresses and sensitive personal details is appropriate, but parents must still be able to examine and answer the substance of a case against them. Consider a mother who provides selected messages suggesting that the father failed to collect his child while leaving out the messaging that she cancelled the arrangement. Consider an account of a missed parenting time that omits the father's repeated requests to see his children, or consider financial information that presents selected transactions while leaving out records that would materially change the assessment.

Information can be misleading because of what has been omitted. If one parent receives only a summary, they may have no way of identifying the missing context. The agency may not know what is missing. The other parent may know, but he cannot properly challenge it, because he has not seen the evidence being relied upon. This creates an obvious risk for unfair decisions. Relevant source documents or sufficient redacted—extracted must be available where necessary to resolve disputed facts. Materially disputed evidence must be checked. Both parents must have a meaningful opportunity to respond.

Our third objection concerns the dismissal of objections. Proposed section 84A allows objections to be dismissed where they have little or no prospect of success or would have no more than a marginal impact. A matter that appears marginal to an administrator may have consequences for future assessments, care thresholds or family assistance payments. The legislation must require that those consequences be considered. It especially requires reasons for summary dismissals, yet it also says that failing to provide those reasons does not invalidate the dismissal. That in itself is an inadequate safeguard. A parent should not have to pursue a review simply to obtain a proper explanation of why their objection was rejected.

Our fourth objection is that important details remain outside the bill. Regulations may prescribe kinds of information excluded from disclosure. We do not have those proposed exclusions before us. Proposed section 39AE also leaves substantial details of the retrospective recovery scheme to a legislative instrument including criteria calculations affecting arrears and recoverable overpayments. These provisions affect what parents owe, what they can recover and what evidence they can challenge. Parliament should see those proposed regulations and rules before being asked to approve this scheme. Core protections belong within the act.

Finally, the legislation needs to express safeguards addressing the deliberate obstruction of a child's safe relationship with a parent. Where there is no credible evidence of family violence, abuse or other legitimate reason to restrict contact, control and financial gain must never justify that obstruction. Genuine safety concerns must be taken seriously. Protections must not depend on a criminal conviction, but disputed allegations must be assessed through fair process, with evidence, reason and timely review. The Family Law Act recognises the benefit of a child's relationships with their parents where safe. Child support reform should also support that principle.

In closing, this bill needs substantial further work. We need clear limits on the refusal power. We need proper written reasons, access to relevant evidence, safeguards against materially misleading omissions and scrutiny of the proposed record regulations. We also need recognition that abuse of the system can be committed by either parent. Until those deficiencies are addressed, we cannot support this bill in its current form. Children deserve a system that protects their financial wellbeing, their safety and their relationship. Parents should insist on legislation that does all three.

Many Australians navigate co-parenting arrangements. My own household is one of them. Listening to the contribution from the member for Farrer today, it seems he would suggest that my situation is the common Australian situation and the situation for all Australians. My husband and I are raising our boys alongside their father and his wonderful partner. We share costs, decision-making and care. It is a true partnership: four adults prioritising the youngest people in our family. I must say, not a day goes by when I am not thankful and incredibly conscious of what a privileged, fortunate position my boys and I are in. Co-parenting is hard, even when all adults involved put the children at the very centre of decision-making.

But we know that my situation is not the situation for many people living in Australia who are raising children. For many in our community who rely on formalised child support arrangements, raising children can become an absolute nightmare if one parent chooses to weaponise a system created to support our littlest Australians. The member for Farrer hasn't been in his seat very long, and I'm sure as his time goes on he will experience exactly what those of us on this side have experienced, which is that I can't think of a fortnight that goes by in my office in Griffith without a local constituent coming in for assistance with navigating the complexities of the child support system.

Some have been suffering in silence for years, trying with all their might to fight for themselves and their children while their ex-partner weaponises the very systems we have in place to help them. I've spoken with single mums who are at the end of their tether trying to keep their children fed, healthy, happy and housed, all on their own. It's hard enough for single parents to keep the bills paid and food on the table, let alone paying for uniforms, sport, health care and so much more. My electorate office team and I have seen constituents whose ex-partners have gamed the system to harm and harass, have used the system to access personal information about them and have not been held accountable, while the single parent is left to raise a child on their own with no support.

Single parents deserve assistance with supporting their children and deserve support and guidance from the system in place to assure this. The Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026 does this by delivering further measures to improve on-time payments, strengthen debt collection, and address weaponised and financial abuse in the system. These are some of the most difficult conversations I have in my work as a local member. Parents arrive at my office carrying folders of correspondence, records of missed payments and years of decisions that they have struggled to understand. They have spent countless hours on the phone trying to explain what has happened, trying to get someone to listen and trying to get the support their children deserve. Some are frightened that taking the next step will provoke another round of harassment. Others are simply exhausted from having to prove over and over again that they are telling the truth.

For these families, child support is far more than an administrative process. It is about financial security, dignity and the ability to provide their children with the opportunities every parent wants for them. That is why I welcome this bill, which is the beginning of a much broader reform.

The child support scheme was established by the Hawke Labor government in 1988. Its purpose was straightforward: children should continue to benefit from the financial resources of both parents, regardless of whether their parents live together. Nearly four decades later, that principle remains just as important. Today, the scheme supports about one million Australian children, with approximately $4.3 billion in child support liabilities assessed each year. For most families, the system works as intended, but for too many others, the process designed to support children has become another way for an abusive former partner to exercise control. There is a staggering amount of money that children are missing out on. Whilst I hear the member for Farrer saying that parents want to do the right thing, the reality is and the facts show that that is not always the case. More than $2 billion in unpaid child support has accumulated across Australia. There are more than 100,000 parents and carers in the scheme recorded as experiencing or being at risk of experiencing family and domestic violence. These figures expose the need for change. They tell us we need a child support system that does more than calculate what a parent owes. We need a system that makes sure the money reaches children, protects families from abuse and holds those who deliberately avoid their responsibilities accountable. That is what the Albanese Labor government is committed to delivering.

In the latest budget, our government announced an additional $182.6 million for a safer and more effective child support scheme. This bill forms part of that commitment and represents one of the most significant reform programs since the child support scheme was established in 1988, and there is reason for that. For the first time in many years, we are undertaking a comprehensive program of reforms across the system, from the initial assessment of child support through to its collection, payment and enforcement. We are looking at the processes that can be misused to cause harm. We are looking at how assessments are calculated and how payments are collected. We are looking at barriers that prevent parents from recovering unpaid debts. We are examining how Commonwealth agencies can better identify and respond to financial abuse. This bill represents the first tranche of legislative reforms in a much larger program. It addresses some of the most immediate opportunities for financial abuse and coercive control, with further legislation to follow. The reforms have been informed by the experiences of separated parents, the work of advocates and recommendations from the Commonwealth Ombudsman and Tax Ombudsman.

Financial abuse can take many forms. It can involve deliberately withholding child support payments, hiding income or failing to lodge tax returns. It can involve repeatedly lodging applications and objections, forcing a former partner to respond to the same claims again and again. It can involve exploiting government processes to gain access to someone's personal information, even putting their physical safety at risk. These behaviours can continue long after a relationship has ended. A parent might have escaped an abusive relationship years earlier yet still find themselves being harassed through the child support system. In June last year, the Commonwealth Ombudsman published a report on the weaponisation of child support. The report found serious shortcomings in the way Services Australia identified and responded to this form of abuse. These findings reinforced what advocates, legal services and parents have been telling us for years. I want to acknowledge Terese Edwards, chief executive of Single Mother Families Australia, for her longstanding advocacy on these issues. I want to acknowledge the many community legal centres and family violence services that work with parents navigating the child support system. Women's Legal Services Australia welcomed the government's budget commitment, saying:

This is a landmark commitment, and we congratulate the Albanese government for acting on the evidence.

The organisation has raised the need for further investment in specialist legal services, and that is an important part of the ongoing conversation. National Legal Aid welcomed the investment too, stating:

These reforms are an important part of keeping families safe in Australia.

I thank these organisations for their work and their willingness to share their experiences and the experiences of families they support.

The first schedule of this bill addresses is the deliberate misuse of child support processes. At present, a parent can repeatedly lodge applications to change an assessment or to object to decisions. Even in cases where there is a clear pattern of harassment, Services Australia has limited powers to stop those processes from continuing. Each new application can force the other parent to gather evidence, respond to claims and revisit painful circumstances. This bill gives Services Australia new discretionary powers to intervene, allowing Services Australia to refuse certain applications where proceeding would cause harm. These powers recognise that harm extends beyond physical violence. It can include psychological harm, intimidation, mental distress and conduct that affects a parent's ability to care for their children. The safeguards are important too. Parents will retain rights to challenge relevant decisions, including access to independent review through the ART. The intention is to protect people from deliberate harassment without preventing genuine applications or removing procedural fairness.

The bill makes another important change to the sharing of personal information. Currently, parents involved in certain assessment and objection processes can be required to exchange entire documents. These can include bank statements, employment information and other sensitive personal details. Imagine a parent who believes her former partner is understating their income. She wants a reassessment so her children receive the child support they are owed, but pursuing that reassessment could require her to disclose information about her workplace, financial transactions or daily activities. For someone escaping family violence, that information could place them at risk. No parent should have to choose between seeking a fair child support assessment and protecting their personal safety.

Under this bill, Services Australia will be able to share relevant information in safer ways. Decision-makers will be able to redact unnecessary personal details or provide written and verbal summaries. The other parent will still receive the information needed to respond fairly to the case, but they will no longer have an automatic entitlement to every document regardless of its relevance or the risks involved. This is a practical change with the potential to make an enormous difference to the families that need it.

The second schedule tackles another problem that has caused considerable hardship: the interaction between child support and the family tax benefit. This is an issue that can be difficult to explain, but its consequences for families are very real. Under the current arrangements, a parent who privately collects child support can be treated as having received the full assessed amount, even if the other parent has not paid it. Now imagine a parent who has failed to lodge their tax returns for several years. Their child support assessment has been based on provisional income figures. Years later, they finally lodge those returns. Services Australia recalculates their income and determines that they should have paid thousands of dollars more in child support. That money has never reached the parent who is raising the children, yet the reassessment can create a family tax benefit debt for that parent that's calculated on the assumption that the additional child support was received. Let me repeat that. A parent can end up owing the government money based on child support they never actually received, and this can happen through no fault of their own. That is simply not fair.

This bill creates a 13-week pause in the recovery, which gives parents time to understand what has happened, seek advice and decide how to respond. They can pursue the outstanding child support privately, seek an exemption or waiver or move to agency collect and ask Services Australia to recover the child support owed to them. This will allow the family tax benefit debt to be recalculated to zero, and future adjustments will reflect the additional child support actually received. This is a much fairer way to treat parents who have already been left financially disadvantaged by someone else's failure to pay.

The third schedule addresses access to child support for children living overseas. Australia currently has reciprocal child support arrangements with 99 overseas jurisdictions, but parents in some of these countries face unnecessary barriers when seeking an Australian child support assessment. They may need to apply through an overseas authority, even when dealing directly with Services Australia would be simpler. These arrangements can cause delay and confusion. This bill will allow eligible parents in specified overseas jurisdictions to apply directly to Services Australia. Existing eligibility requirements will remain in place, and safeguards will prevent overlapping child support liabilities.

I want to finish by thanking my electorate office staff and, in particular, Ash, who regularly helps families work through child support matters that are complicated, painful and deeply personal. I am grateful to the constituents who have trusted us with their experiences and trusted us to act to support them. Many constituents have spent years trying to get the support their children deserve. They have persevered through missed payments, repeated applications and processes that have sometimes left them feeling powerless. Their stories deserve to be heard, and they deserve a serious response.

After nearly four decades, we have an opportunity to make substantial changes to the child support scheme. This bill is the first legislative step in one of the most significant reform programs since the scheme began in 1988. And, with further reforms to come, we are working towards a system that better protects families and holds parents accountable for their responsibilities. I want every parent who comes to my office seeking help to know that their government is listening. I want them to have the confidence that the system will protect their safety, treat them fairly and help them secure the support they and their children deserve. Above all, I want every child to have the financial support they are entitled to receive. Child support exists for children. It should never become another means of controlling or punishing the parent who cares for them.

I rise today to speak in support of the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026. It is indeed a privilege to contribute following the member for Griffith, who explained why this legislation is before the House of Representatives with such empathy and kindness. In Australia, child support exists to ensure both parents make a fair contribution to their child or children's financial needs. It may be required to be paid to a biological parent or to a non-parent caregiver, such as a grandparent or other family member or legal guardian if they're taking on caregiving roles to support the child, as so many people do. Everyone—married, divorced, separated, de facto, single or share house—understands the value of financial stability in the home. Then, when it comes to children, when essential expenses are covered, caregivers can better focus on supporting and raising a child.

This is why the government mandates that both parents cover child-rearing costs after a divorce or separation, with the aim that the child's basic needs be met and that they experience a balanced living standard in both households. The principle that underlies this, regardless of the change to a relationship status between parents, is that both parents still have a financial responsibility to their children. The government mandates this because governments have a duty to set legal and ethical boundaries. Governments work to create laws that minimise or prevent things like exploitation, discrimination, abuse, modern slavery, bribery and corruption, and they work to create laws that minimise harm and protect the rights and freedoms of Australians, including children.

Typically, child support is made by one parent to another, although this can change over time according to the individual financial position of each parent and the number of hours that they spend as primary caregiver. In some cases, the primary caregiver will not be a biological parent but will be a non-parent caregiver, like a legal guardian or a family member, like a grandparent who assumes full-time responsibilities for the child. What does child support cover? When you hear the list, it's astonishing that people elect not to pay it. Child support covers financial support for things like food; housing; rent or mortgage payments; utilities and maintenance; clothing and footwear; education, including school fees and supplies like uniform and stationery; and then routine medical costs, including basic dental care, prescription medications, vaccinations and necessary medical treatments.

It does seem to me that contributions of this nature should be second nature. Divorced or separated, whatever the situation is, if you have children, you should provide for them, and you should want to provide for them. You should want to make sure your child doesn't suffer financially, miss out on health care, on education or on opportunities. You may not be on good terms with your former partner. It happens. But you should want to support whoever the primary caregiver is or the eligible recipient of child support for the good of your children. You should want to ensure that your children live in an environment of economic security and stability, where they're not wondering how the next meal is going to be paid for, not wondering whether they can go to the dentist or get a run-of-the-mill script for antibiotics. You should understand that one million children in Australia depend on child support and that children in single-parent households face a much higher risk of falling into poverty and that single-parent households are most likely to be headed up by women. You should easily be able to understand and comprehend that when child support is paid and paid in full and paid on time, your children get essential items like food, housing, education, healthcare and participation in community activities. You should understand that child support makes a real difference to your children.

Many people do. They pay, they pay in full and they pay on time because they are decent human beings. Despite the things that have happened in their lives, to their family, to their relationships, the children are not at fault and the children deserve to have their basic needs met. This seems like an uncontroversial thing, but it's not. Loopholes exist in the child support system, and people take advantage of them. Former partners are harassed. Debts are run up—sometimes huge debts—in the name of former partners. Personal information is taken, wrongly, and then weaponised. Income is deliberately hidden so that payment determinations are lower. Sometimes payments are just not made.

The figures are shocking. They're actually quite sad and they're unacceptable. Other speakers on this bill have referred to them, but you cannot refer to them too many times, because the problem needs to be highlighted again and again and again so it's understood and so there's collective support to take meaningful and prompt action. Currently, the backlog of unpaid child support is $2 billion. There are 200 individual child support debts of over $150,000. One parent's debt to their children is more than $2 million. So the claim by the member for Farrer that parents are willing to pay child support is not always true. That is why we are bringing this legislation to this place. The child support system needs to change to ensure that all parents who are required to pay pay. The system needs to change in a way that reflects the feedback of those with lived experience, who work in the child support sector, who have been affected by the weaponisation of the system and who have been left in a desperate situation because of the failure of a former partner to pay.

There are three key objectives in this bill. Firstly, it addresses processes in the system that people have been able to use to cause harm and suffering to former partners and to their children. Secondly, it expands access to the Australian child support scheme for children overseas with one parent in Australia. Thirdly, importantly, it creates new protections for child support recipients against family payment debts that are racked up by former partners.

This third objective is particularly critical and is covered by schedule 2. Child support payments and the family tax benefit are linked to ensure that, where a parent is able to receive child support from their former partner for the benefit of their child and it is safe to do so, they seek that child support, and any government income support is adjusted to account for that income. This link can be and has been weaponised. When a paying parent does not submit tax returns for an extended period, the child support liability must be based on provisional income. If that parent then submits multiple years of tax returns, the child support liability may be retrospectively recalculated, and this often results in the parent owing more child support than they actually paid. In these cases, the receiving parent's family tax benefit entitlement may then also be retrospectively assessed, resulting in a family tax benefit debt for the receiving parent through no fault of their own.

For parents in private arrangements, of which there are many, the government has no visibility of when that additional child support is paid to the receiving parent, meaning the family tax benefit debt against the receiving parent remains whether or not the paying parent actually pays the additional child support they owe. This means a receiving parent in private arrangements may be punished by having a family tax benefit debt raised, but with no extra child support actually paid. By virtue of this bill, the government will implement new processes that ensure parents entering the system are given more information about the advantages and risks of choosing private arrangements as opposed to agency collection arrangements, including the protections that are available against family tax benefit debts if they choose the latter option. The changes proposed by the bill prescribe that those parents who are owed money can choose to pursue the extra child support debt from the paying parent themselves.

Importantly, for parents who continue to choose private arrangements, this bill pauses the collection of family tax benefit debts for three months after those debts are raised, giving parents the opportunity to consider their options and take appropriate action. This could include pursuing the extra support from the paying parent or applying for an exemption or special circumstances debt waiver, which would extinguish the family tax benefit debt. The receiving parent could also elect to transition to an agency collection service and to ask to have the outstanding child support recovered by the government. If they were to do this, it would cause the family tax benefit debt to be reassessed against the child support arrears that had been received—assumed to be zero—which would also extinguish the family tax benefit debt.

Now, really critically, the onus is shifting, pursuant to this bill, with respect to circumstances in which parents elect to move from private arrangements to agency collection arrangements. Currently, the government assumes that the extra child support that was due was paid. This assumption will be reversed by this bill, in that the government will assume that the extra child support that is due has not been paid, such that the family tax benefit debt will be recalculated as zero.

In 2025, the Commonwealth Ombudsman released a report called Weaponising child support: when the system fails families. This report, alongside the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services inquiry into financial abuse, and the Taxation Ombudsman's report Identification and management of financial abuse within the tax system, identified an urgent need to address the weaponisation of child support to protect parents at risk of family and domestic violence and financial abuse.

In response, this bill introduces measures to make the Child Support Scheme safer and to reduce the ability of people to weaponise the system. It provides the registrar with the discretion to refuse applications and dismiss objections. It allows the registrar the discretion to determine how relevant information should be shared, including by written or verbal summary or the exchange of documents, which may be redacted. It provides for the enforcement of arrears and overpayment amounts that were the result of a retrospective variation to the registrable maintenance liability during a period of private collection. It allows paying parents to choose agency collection arrangements, and it allows parents living in prescribed reciprocating jurisdictions to make child support applications directly to Services Australia. In short, it closes the loopholes.

These measures address matters that were raised by people with lived experience of the child support system. They will address issues arising from family and domestic violence, including addressing concerns about financial abuse—just so commonly crystallised. It will reduce opportunities for the weaponisation of the Child Support Scheme, ensure that the scheme operates in a manner that is consistent with administrative practice and policy intention, and provide better pathways for family assistance and child support to complement each other and work more efficiently. Most importantly, it closes loopholes that have allowed people required to pay child support to get away with not paying or paying less. How disappointing that we must legislate for this—but we must.

To those who participated in the consultation: we hear you and we will take steps to protect you. To those who are required to pay child support but who selfishly and cruelly seek to get out of it by exploiting loopholes: stop it. Stop causing harm. Stop causing suffering. Just pay what you owe. Be a decent human being and support your children. I commend the bill to the House.

I rise today to speak in support of the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026. This is the next step in our government's ongoing fight to end the scourge of family violence. We know and I think everybody in this parliament knows that family violence is all too common in Australia. We know the statistics. A woman is killed every 11 days by an intimate partner, and a man is killed every 26 days by an intimate partner. These are not acceptable numbers. These are most serious consequences of the family and domestic violence epidemic. It's just the tip of the iceberg. We know that there's far more violence that occurs in a home that might not result in a fatality but could result still in serious injury and lifelong trauma. We know too that children exposed to family violence can have issues throughout their lives and are more likely to enter into a relationship where they might suffer family violence. It causes intergenerational trauma. We know as well that physical violence is not the only form of family violence. There's also coercive control and financial abuse and systems abuse, and that's what this bill seeks to address.

The Prime Minister has shown leadership in this area and has shown a deep commitment to addressing family violence and systems abuse and financial abuse. The Minister for Social Services and the Assistant Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence have also led this really important work. It's shared by every member of this government, and I know it's shared by almost every member of this parliament, knowing, as we do, that in our electorate offices we and our staff deal regularly with people who are suffering family violence and a range of issues that that raises. They are issues that our offices and that our staff work really hard to help them overcome—legal issues, issues with their property, financial issues and issues with government services. This bill would ensure that we're closing some of the loopholes. My friend the member for Sturt put it so eloquently. We're closing some of those loopholes that are exploited by abusers and also exploited by people who seek to avoid their responsibility towards their children.

Financial abuse is controlling or limiting access to household money. It can be your own or it can be somebody else's money, but it is making sure that, perhaps, your partner isn't able to access their bank account to do the weekly shopping or to get things that they need for themselves or for the kids. It's more controlling behaviour and, we know, part of that pattern of coercive control that can be an indicator for more serious forms of family violence. It is also, in and of itself, a form of family violence. It doesn't require that somebody is financially dependent on their partner. It can also be a risk if you're financially independent. For example, you can force or coerce someone to take out loans in your name or to form a business in your name. In the case of formal relationships, it can also take the form of refusing to pay child support.

The systems abuse aspect is the manipulation of government services or legal systems to exert control and to threaten or harass a partner. It could be using the courts. I've worked in the courts and have seen regularly that abusers might make multiple appeals against, say, family violence orders to make sure that their partners are continually dragged back into the legal system and that they're able to exert control over them in that way. They're able to continue to cause them stress and they're able to continue to cause them pain by forcing them to go through vexatious legal proceedings. It can also be through the abuse of Centrelink, and it can be through the abuse of the child support system. That is what this bill seeks to address.

The child support system exists to ensure that both parents contribute appropriate levels of financial support to raising their own child. It's like an independent facilitator. When a relationship has broken down, or perhaps when a relationship didn't exist in the first place, both parents still have a responsibility to their child. It supports around one million Australian children and it ensures that the significant cost of raising a child is shared appropriately by both parents. As the members for Sturt and Griffith have covered, it's essentials like food and clothes, school uniforms, school costs, health care—things that no parent should deny their child.

The child support system should make sure that any disagreement or animosity between separated parents doesn't mean that their children miss out, and the child support system should also be never used to perpetrate systems abuse. Nonetheless, we know from the hearings and the inquiries that have been held that this is happening. We thank those that have contributed to those inquiries so that we can move this bill today and end the loophole in these laws.

Evidence provided to the financial abuse inquiry, to the Commonwealth Ombudsman and to a range of family organisations has highlighted the circumstances where the Child Support Scheme has been manipulated to cause harm. As I said, this is something that people in our office hear about regularly. People contact us about child support debts that have been raised, about Centrelink debts that have been raised, and our staff very skilfully, very kindly and very empathically help them.

We know that there is almost $2 billion in unpaid child support across Australia, and that more than 100,000 parents and carers in the child support system are recorded as having experienced or are at risk of experiencing family and domestic violence. That is why we are acting. In the 2026 2027 budget, our government announced a $182.6 million investment to make sure the child support system is safer, fairer and more effective. This bill represents the first stage of these reforms. It delivers on our election commitments to address financial abuse in Commonwealth systems, because child support should never be weaponised. It should be used as support and never to facilitate harm.

In the 2020 627 budget, the government announced the most significant reforms in the Child Support Scheme in many decades. The bill contains three measures: the first will better protect parents in the systems from harm; the second will remove harms that can arise from the link between child support and the family tax benefit; and the third is to improve support for children overseas born to an Australian parent.

The first schedule of this bill reduces the harmful use of the Child Support Scheme. One of the more concerning findings from the recent reviews is that some individuals are using processes within the scheme to harass or intimidate an intimate partner. It might occur when one partner uses repeated or vexatious applications or objections which the other partner is forced to respond to, making them go through more stressful bureaucratic processes. Imagine you've left a violent relationship, you've broken off contact with your partner or you're limiting contact with your partner, and they use the child support system to send you repeated messages and drag you through repeated bureaucratic processes just to continue to exert control upon you. This bill provides Services Australia with the power to refuse an application where there's evidence that it's being abused. Where an objection has no or little reasonable prospect of success or would only have a marginal impact on the outcome of a case, it may be dismissed without unnecessarily involving the other parent.

This schedule also addresses concerns about the sharing of sensitive information. Currently, parents, when they are seeking a change of assessment, require that detailed personal documents like financial records—Imagine your bank records, which would show all of your transactions, personal information or contact details—must be exchanged between the parties. For some individuals, particularly victim-survivors of family violence, I'm sure you can understand that those personal contact details can create real safety concerns. Under this bill, Services Australia will be able to redact or summarise documents to prevent that sensitive information being released. Disclosure can occur in ways that not only protect privacy but also maintain procedural fairness.

The second schedule strengthens child support collection arrangements. It addresses a problem that many Australians would consider to be fundamentally unfair. Under current arrangements, when a paying parent fails to lodge tax returns for multiple years and subsequently lodges them all at once, child support liabilities can be recalculated retrospectively. This might reveal significant underpayments in child support, but it also means that family tax benefit entitlements can be reassessed. As a result, a receiving parent might accumulate a family tax benefit debt not through any fault of their own but because their former partner or the parent of their child has failed to lodge their tax returns in a timely way. For families under financial pressure, having a debt arise suddenly can be devastating. So this bill introduces a three-month pause on the recovery of certain family tax benefit debts that arise in these circumstances and gives families time to consider their options and pursue outstanding supports in a manner of their choosing.

The third schedule improves access to child support across international borders. It recognises that families can span countries and continents, especially in our increasingly multicultural society where people can be from different countries and where relationships can be across borders. Parents who live in Australia might have a child overseas or might have had a relationship break down where the parents are from different countries of origin, or maybe they've had a holiday romance or another situation arise where there's a child as a result of that. This ensures that that Australian parent is meeting their responsibilities to provide child support and to provide for essentials a child needs, like food and clothing and medical care. These reforms will also be supported through practical assistance for vulnerable families, including single mothers in the Philippines who are seeking child support from Australian fathers who have failed to meet their responsibilities.

These are just part of wider actions taken by the Albanese Labor government on family violence. We've invested more than $4.4 billion in addressing this. We know that there's still more to do, but it demonstrates our real commitment to ending the scourge of family and domestic violence and ending harm against women and children within a generation. One of our first acts in government was legislating 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave for every worker, including casuals. People shouldn't have to choose between having to give up their job or annual leave—especially for single-parent families, where they might have to do things like cover school holidays—and escaping a violent relationship or seeking a better, safer situation for their families. We've also got the $5,000 leaving violence payment. That's been made permanent, and it means that people will receive that assistance to set up a new household and that there are not going to be financial barriers stopping somebody from leaving a violent situation with their children. We also know that the biggest reason that women and children may stay in a violent relationship or stay in a violent home is that they have nowhere safe to go. That's why we've also invested $100 million in crisis and transitional accommodation, funding 42 projects across the country, including in my community in Menzies. There are also a further $1 billion through the National Housing Infrastructure Facility and $300 million announced to expand the Housing Australia Future Fund to make sure that people who want to leave a violent relationship have somewhere to go.

I'd like to acknowledge some of the workers in the family and domestic violence space. As the Minister for Social Services has said, they're some of the best people in our society. We had a delegation from the Australian Services Union visit my office recently, through their 'Skilled, Respected, Equal' campaign. We know that people who work in the social and community sector are often on the front line of the family violence epidemic. We spoke with financial counsellors and people who worked at community legal centres and disability support workers. We know that they love their jobs. They're passionate about their jobs, but the pay they receive doesn't always reflect the complexity or the difficulty of the work that they do. So we're supporting them with an investment of $630 million to deliver a fairer pay, and we will continue to work with them to make sure that they get fairer pay.

When a relationship ends, caring for a child does not. A child still needs breakfast before school. They still need shoes that fit. They need a secure roof over their head. Those needs don't disappear just because a relationship ends, and a child should never become the bargaining chip in an argument between adults. That's the principle behind child support, and that's why we have introduced this important legislation.

The purpose of the bill is pretty straightforward. It makes it harder to use the child support system to control another person and, importantly, it helps children receive the support that they need. Financial security gives families choices. It lets a parent plan for next week's groceries, keep the car running, buy that textbook that's needed and make decisions without having to seek the advice of an ex-partner. And for somebody rebuilding their life after an abusive relationship, those ordinary choices can mean freedom.

When we discuss domestic violence, we must understand that leaving a relationship doesn't necessarily end the abuse. Control can continue through money, and it can continue through threats to withhold payments, demands for contact or deliberate creation of uncertainty. A separated parent knows the rent's due on Friday and child support is due on Wednesday, but the payment doesn't arrive. They send a message. There's no answer. They send another message. This time there is, but there are conditions attached. Perhaps they have to agree to something completely unrelated to the childcare payment. Perhaps they're insulted. Perhaps they're reminded that another person still has the power to make their week fall apart. The amount involved might seem modest to someone on a comfortable income, but, to that household, it could determine whether there is enough money for food and for rent.

When someone deliberately uses that vulnerability to exert control, we should recognise that behaviour for what it is and, as a government, we should not allow rules in our system to give that behaviour room to operate. Labor's response is to examine those rules and to change them. The government reported almost $2 billion in unpaid child support and almost 100,000 parents and carers within the same scheme who have experienced or are experiencing family and domestic violence. Those figures demand attention. Behind them are people and families and households.

There are people like Naomi, who made a decision to divorce her partner due to coercive control. She didn't have the energy or funds to fight it all in the courts to keep the house that they bought together. She's now forced to live in an unstable rental market while trying to provide for her two children. Her ex-partner uses the current system to avoid paying child support by only working six months in the year and moving his money around to reduce his overall yearly income. These are cruel tactics, and they are often used to punish women and children who are just trying to make it through—and ultimately it does punish the children. We owe those families a system that can take their circumstances seriously. The tactic of wage withholding has been identified and will be considered in further planned legislation, but this example highlights that individuals are using the child support system to control another person.

One of the bill's most significant measures addresses the misuse of administrative processes. It would allow Services Australia to refuse certain harmful assessment applications and dismiss objections with little prospect of success or no material effect on the case. Refusal decisions would be reviewable. And that matters, because paperwork carries a human cost. Imagine another situation: a parent repeatedly facing unsupported claims that their circumstances have changed. Every new claim means another letter. It means another deadline. It means searching for documents, time away from work and time spent in the evening gathering documents together and not helping with homework. There's also the anxiety of wondering what will come next. A process that seems routine from an office can feel relentless to the person at the other end. Of course, parents must be able to change an incorrect assessment. People lose jobs, incomes change, care arrangements change and decisions, of course, can be wrong. A fair system must respond to those realities. The challenge is to exercise these new powers carefully, with evidence, clear reasons and meaningful review. We should expect that standard from any government. Supporting this bill means supporting both its protective purposes and proper accountability in how it operates.

A second important measure concerns personal information. The bill will replace the current mandatory document exchange in assessment-change and objection processes with something a little safer. This will allow relevant information to be shared through redacted documents or summaries. The principle here deserves broad support. An assessment might require information about income. It doesn't follow that the former partner needs every personal detail contained in the supporting paperwork. For someone who's experienced, say, stalking or intimidation, information about their workplace, their daily routine and where they go may carry serious consequences.

Think about the effort involved in rebuilding safety. A person may have moved house, changed their job and established new routines while maybe even carefully limiting those who know who they are et cetera. Seeking the financial support their child needs should not undermine that work. We should be able to design an assessment process that gives each party a fair opportunity to respond while protecting information that is unnecessary to the decision. It's a practical responsibility of government. Privacy in this setting is about a person's ability to go to work, to collect their children and live without fear of unwanted intrusion, and it's about confidence. If people believe that seeking a fair assessment could expose them to harm, then some will feel that they have little real choice. A right that someone is afraid to exercise is a right that requires stronger protection.

The bill also addresses a particularly troubling interconnection between child support and the family tax benefit. In private collection arrangements, late tax returns can retrospectively increase a payer's child support liability and trigger a family tax benefit debt for the receiving parent, even where that extra child support may not have been received. Let's stop and consider how that would feel. You've got a couple of kids, you're on your own and you've arranged your household around the money available to you, then a decision about your former partner's past income changes at calculation, and suddenly you're facing a government debt that's connected to money that never reached your account. A parent in that position could reasonably ask, 'How am I supposed to repay money I never had?' Technical rules make sense when applied to real lives.

The bill proposes a three-month pause and recovery of these debts and pathways to address them, including moving to agency collect. It would also expand recovery of newly raised child support arrears when parents make that move. These provisions may sound administrative, but their significance really is deeply practical. They recognise that a receiving parent should not simply be expected to absorb the consequences of another person's delayed reporting. They also recognise that a family may need government assistance to pursue money owed to them. We should judge these changes by whether parents can understand and use those pathways. A letter full of unfamiliar terms really doesn't cut it. People need clear explanations, timely assistance and decisions they can follow. The burden of navigating the remedy must not become another obstacle for the family already carrying the problem.

Another reform would allow a paying parent as well as a receiving parent to request agency collect arrangements, and the bill would also enable direct applications from parents in reciprocating overseas jurisdictions, which would be subject to the usual eligibility rules. Both changes reflect principles that should guide this debate. First, we must assess safety by looking at conduct and circumstances, and we should never assume that the person making payments cannot also experience abuse. Government collection can provide a useful boundary where direct financial dealings create opportunities for pressure or unwanted contact. Second, responsibility to a child should not evaporate at an international border, and geography should not become an excuse for abandoning responsibility.

That brings me to the Labor values underlying this reform. Labor believes public institutions should help people live with dignity, and that requires more than establishing a scheme and assuming that its existence guarantees fairness. We have to look at how it works, who can navigate it, who feels safe using it, who bears the consequences when another person exploits it and what happens when the rules produce an outcome that ordinary Australians would recognise as unjust and unfair. Those questions belong at the centre of government.

We also need an honest discussion about payment difficulties. Some parents do face genuine hardship. Someone may become seriously ill, lose employment and have an unexpected reduction in income. An effective child support system needs accurate assessments, accessible processes and a reasonable response to genuine changes in personal circumstances. But it also needs to distinguish those situations from deliberate evasion or coercion. That distinction matters to families, and it matters to parents who meet their responsibilities despite difficult circumstances. A parent who pays reliably is contributing to their child's security, and that contribution deserves recognition. And a parent managing the daily costs deserves to receive what is owed without having to navigate or negotiate away their dignity or safety.

We should also be precise about what this legislation can achieve. A bill with the words 'ending financial abuse' in its title cannot by itself eliminate every form of financial abuse. But it can close particular opportunities for harm. It can create stronger protections. Those are worthwhile advances, but they must be followed by competent administration. Staff need training and time to recognise patterns of coercion, information handling needs care, parents need accessible services, complaints need proper investigation, and debts that can lawfully be recovered need sustained attention.

The government has described this bill as the first stage of a broader reform package, and the minister has identified further planned legislation concerning wage withholding and automatic travel restrictions for certain child support debts. A child support system cannot repair every hurt caused by a separation. It cannot restore trust between adults. But it can establish dependable boundaries. It can say that a child's needs can continue. It can say that financial obligations carry weight. It can say that seeking support should not expose a parent to unnecessary danger or harm. And it can ensure that government processes do not become convenient instruments of coercive control.

That's why this reform is so important. A parent should be able to seek assistance and find a system that listens, explains, acts and helps. A child should be able to grow up with greater stability without adult conflict determining whether their basic needs are met. And a person leaving abuse should have a fair chance to rebuild their lives. Our task is to turn those principles into rules that work and then ensure that those rules deliver. I support this bill as a meaningful step towards that goal—for safer processes, for fairer treatment, for responsibility that continues after separation and, above all, for the children whose needs deserve to come first.

Picture a parent sitting at a kitchen table after the kids have gone to bed. There are school expenses to pay, groceries to buy and another electricity bill on the way. Then they open an email: another objection, another demand for paperwork, another round of explaining themselves. For some separated parents, the relationship has ended, but the pressure hasn't. And a government system that was meant to help their children has become another way for an ex-partner to make life harder. That should concern every person in this chamber. Child support should help pay for school shoes and put food on the table. It should never be used as a weapon to punish an ex.

That's why the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026 matters so much. Across the Hunter, people work hard to look after their kids. Plenty of separated parents are doing the right thing. They pay what they owe, share the responsibility and make arrangements work, sometimes under very difficult circumstances. Separation is rarely easy. Most parents understand that children still need both adults to act responsibly. Unfortunately, some people use the system to punish the other parent. They withhold money, drag out disputes and use paperwork to keep a fight going long after the relationship has ended. The person left dealing with it has bills to pay and kids to look after. They can't put the weekly groceries on hold while someone decides whether they meet their responsibilities. That's why this legislation is needed.

At the last election, the government committed to closing loopholes that enable financial abuse within Commonwealth systems. In this year's budget, we announced an additional $182.6 million to make the child support system safer and more effective. This bill delivers the first stage of that reform. It tackles harmful applications and objections, improves protection of personal information, strengthens collection arrangements and improves access for families in certain overseas jurisdictions. These might sound like administrative changes. For someone living with abuse or relentless conflict, they can make a real difference in their lives.

I want to spend some time on an issue men have raised with me both as the member for Hunter and as the Special Envoy for Men's Health. Blokes have spoken to me about feeling worn down. They believe repeated claims, constant objections and processes are being used to cause them harm. Some describe spending more time answering paperwork than getting their lives back on track. They talk about the pressures on their finances, their work and their mental health. They talk about feeling that nobody is listening because they are men. To those blokes I want to say clearly: you are being heard. I can't determine the facts of someone's case from a conversation or an email, but I can listen, take their concerns seriously and support changes that address genuine misuse of the system.

There are men out there who are behaving badly. There are women out there who are behaving badly as well. There are also good mums and good dads doing their best in very difficult situations. We know women experience a disproportionate share of family and domestic violence, and protecting women and children must remain a priority. We also need to listen to men who experience abuse, take their concerns seriously and make sure they can get the help they need. Everybody deserves to be safe. We can recognise the serious harm experienced by women and children while also recognising that men can experience abuse. Listening to one doesn't require us to shut the other out. That is the approach I want to see in practice—people treated fairly, concerns properly assessed and children kept at the centre.

We also need to be clear about what a vexatious application means. A claim isn't vexatious simply because the other parent disagrees with it. An unsuccessful claim isn't automatically a dishonest claim. People must be able to raise genuine concerns and challenge an assessment they believe is wrong. Someone experiencing abuse must be able to seek help without the fear that speaking up will be used against them. But a legitimate process can be misused. Repeated applications and objections can become a way to harass someone, force ongoing contact and keep them tied up in responding to matters with little substance.

Schedule 1 gives Services Australia greater discretion to deal with the harmful use of the scheme. It allows certain applications to be refused where proceeding would cause harm. It also allows objections to be dismissed without involving the other parent where they have little or no prospect of success or would have no more than a marginal impact on the case. These powers need sound judgement. Decisions should be based on the circumstances and evidence, with proper attention to fairness and safety. A person raising a genuine issue deserves a fair hearing. These provisions concern child support applications and objections. They don't settle every disputed allegation in a separation or replace the role for courts in parenting matters, but they are a start. They're a first step on problems that have been left unresolved under previous governments. We're listening and taking action. To the blokes who've raised this with me: this doesn't answer every concern, but your experiences matter, and this is a process.

Schedule 1 also changes how personal information is shared. Currently, parents can be required to exchange entire copies of documents provided during relevant processes. These documents may contain sensitive personal and financial information. For someone trying to rebuild their life safely, this can be very frightening. People shouldn't have to choose between seeking a fair assessment and exposing information that could put them at risk. The bill allows a more careful approach, including redacting documents or providing written or verbal summaries of relevant information. Decision-makers can provide what's needed to address the matter while protecting sensitive details. That's a sensible change right there. Fairness requires access to relevant information. It also requires thought about the harm that unnecessary disclosure could cause that person. This is also why we have a Special Envoy for Men's Health. The role is about listening to blokes, including those who feel they've been overlooked, and bringing their concerns into the decisions we make.

Men's health reaches beyond the doctor's surgery. It includes the pressures that people face every single day in life and whether they feel anyone is listening. Separation, financial pressures and ongoing conflict can take a serious toll. A bloke may still turn up to work, still coach the kids' footy team and still tell his mate he's fine while struggling badly underneath. Sometimes the first sign is that he stops answering his messages. Sometimes he pulls away from people. Sometimes he tells himself that asking for help will make him look weak. We need to keep challenging this. Talking to a mate, seeing a GP or getting professional support is a sensible thing to do when life is getting on top of you. You don't wait until the engine has seized before checking what's wrong with the ute, do you? We need to give our own wellbeing a little bit of attention too. But we can't tell people to seek help and then ignore avoidable pressures being created by government systems.

Better support also means making those systems work fairly and safely. A fairer child support system can reduce conflict and uncertainty. It can give parents more room to focus on their children and their own wellbeing. Supporting a man's mental health also means being straight with him about what his responsibilities are. Being angry with the next partner doesn't make it acceptable to withhold support from your child. The same applies to every single parent. Your relationship may have ended, but your responsibility to your child or children hasn't.

Schedule 2 tackles another serious problem: the way child support and the family tax benefit interact. Consider a parent who has a private collection arrangement. They're budgeting around the child support that they actually receive and the family assistance available to them. The paying parent hasn't lodged tax returns for several years. When those returns are finally lodged, their child support liability is recalculated. It turns out more child support should have been paid. The receiving parent's family tax benefit can then be reassessed as well, leaving them with a debt linked to additional child support they haven't actually received.

Think about that in terms of the kitchen table. You've been stretching the budget to cover the kids' needs. Then the debt arrives because someone else lodged their tax returns late. The extra child support is owed to you, but it's not in your bank account. The school expenses and electricity bills are still there. That's a real problem, and this bill takes practical steps to address it. For parents who remain on private arrangements, collection of those family tax benefit debts will be paused for three months after they're raised. That gives them time to consider their options and take the right action. They may pause the additional child support, move to agency collect or seek an application exemption or special circumstance waiver.

This bill allows parents who are moving to agency collect to ask Services Australia to pursue child support debts raised in the previous three months, including newly raised debts relating to older periods. That distinction really matters. A debt may have been raised recently because of late tax returns, even though the underpayments happened years ago. These changes create a pathway for government to help recover it. The three-month pause is breathing room. It doesn't mean every debt automatically disappears. Parents need clear information about what options are available to them and what happens next.

Schedule 2 also allows paying parents to choose agency collect. They can provide a more structured arrangement, clearer payment records and less need for direct negotiation between former partners. Private arrangements can work well when both parents cooperate. When an arrangement is being used to exert pressure, people need a practical way to change that.

Schedule 3 improves access to the Australian child support system for parents in certain overseas jurisdictions, allowing direct applications. A child doesn't stop needing support just because they live overseas. An Australian parent shouldn't be able to treat distance as an excuse to walk away from their responsibilities. These changes make access easier for eligible families and reinforce the straightforward principle that children deserve support from their parents.

This bill is the first stage. A second bill will bring further measures aimed at improving on-time payments, strengthening debt collection and enforcement, and supporting better information-sharing. There's more work to do. Families will judge these reforms by what happens when they contact Services Australia, lodge an application or need help recovering the money their children are owed. Implementation matters. Staff need the guidance and support to recognise misuse, protect sensitive information and explain decisions clearly. Parents need to understand their options without needing to become experts in legislation. For families in the Hunter, success will mean less time caught in unnecessary conflict and more certainty about meeting children's needs.

To the mums carrying the bills while payments don't arrive: your concerns matter. To the dads who feel worn down by the misuse of the system: your concerns matter, too. To every parent doing the right thing: these reforms should help build confidence that responsibility and fairness really do mean something. I'm the father of two beautiful girls. Like parents across this chamber and across the Hunter, I want children to grow up safe, supported and able to enjoy their childhood. They deserve adults who put them first. They deserve a system that helps those adults meet their responsibilities and steps in when someone uses it to cause harm.

This legislation is much needed. It responds to people who've spoken up, including the blokes who've raised concerns directly with me. It takes practical steps towards a safer and fairer child support system. Remember, these kids are loved. They need to be loved. They need our support. They need our help. They need help from both parents. They need to be cared for. And they need to feel that they're being listened to. I know there are some parents out there who have gone through some unfortunate steps and have ended up not being together anymore. Remember, you once loved each other. Remember that, and remember that for your kids, because what's really important is making sure the kids are first and foremost so they have the best chance at life. I commend this bill to the House.

As the member for Dunkley, I see the consequences of the systems we create here in this parliament in the lives of people in my community. I have met parents who are doing everything they can to provide stability for their children after separation. I have spoken with people who are trying to rebuild their lives after family and domestic violence. I have listened to local organisations that work with families at some of their most difficult moments, like the Brotherhood of St Laurence, Family Life, Frankston City Council and Good Shepherd, not to mention Women's Health in the South East. Those discussions have shaped how I approach this legislation, the Child Support and Family Assistance Legislation Amendment (Ending Financial Abuse in the Child Support Scheme No. 1) Bill 2026.

The child support scheme is supposed to ensure that children continue to receive financial support after their parents separate. That principle is straightforward. But, for too many families, navigating the system is anything but straightforward. There is almost $2 billion in unpaid child support in Australia. Just over 100,000 parents and carers in the child support system are recorded as having experienced or being at risk of experiencing domestic and family violence. This government is investing an additional $182 million in this financial year to make that system safer and fairer and to help ensure that children receive the support they are owed. Child support is part of the economic security of those families. When it is paid in full and on time, it helps children have a more stable childhood and gives their carers greater capacity to meet the everyday costs of raising them.

This debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour, and the member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.