Minister, the Greens amendments seek to protect a woman's right to be financially independent from her partner and to prevent ex-partners from weaponising the child support system. Currently, the New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999 requires Services Australia to assume that a parent who uses private collect has been paid the full amount of child support that they are owed, regardless of whether or not the child support has actually been received. In practice, this legislative assumption artificially inflates the receiving parent's income, resulting in a family tax benefit debt. Because of this legislative presumption, women are doubly squeezed. Ex-partners withhold the child support that women are owed, and Services Australia simultaneously raises and recoups family tax benefit debts against women.

We know that there is widespread manipulation and weaponization of child support, often as an extension of abuse that happened within a relationship. Mothers and children are hurt the most by this abuse. One in five children are in the child support scheme and all of them deserve the financial support required to have fulfilling childhoods, yet two-thirds of single mothers are owed child support and many of those same mothers also face enormous tax bills, because their ex-partner has been able to use the system against them. The government chasing women for debts when child support is still owed is outrageous and unfair. It puts women and children at financial risk and it amplifies the impact of their exes' financial abuse.

Since our amendment was circulated, the government has introduced their first 'ending financial abuse in the child support scheme' bill, and one of the provisions in this bill makes a small change to family tax benefit debts for women privately managing child support. While the announcement is a step in the right direction in making these systems safer, it still puts the burden overwhelmingly on the shoulders of women. Unlike the Greens's amendment to this current bill, the government's proposal just puts more responsibility at women's feet.

Instead of preventing unfair family tax benefit debts in the first place, the government has only suggested holding off on recouping family tax benefit debts for three months. During those three months, women are expected to contact the other parent to chase down the child support that they're owed. This reinforces the burden mainly on single mothers for the financial irresponsibility of other parents and ignores the reality of women who are victim-survivors of coercive control and economic abuse. Exemptions that require self-reporting just mean that women who are in dangerous situations are punished by our social security system, rather than supported.

Minister, will your government support the Greens's amendment to this bill, which essentially just requires Services Australia to do their homework and use every measure possible to verify whether child support has actually been paid before raising a family tax benefit debt?