Latest news with #ServicesAustralia
News.com.au
2 hours ago
- Business
- News.com.au
‘End up homeless': Child support weaponised against single mums
Australian child support frameworks are in urgent need of reform as a new report reveals the number of parents, especially women, financially abused through the system. The Commonwealth ombudsman into the 'weaponisation' of the child support program has revealed the dark underbelly of the financial abuse rife throughout the system, with more than 153,000 parents having a combined $1.9bn in unpaid child support. Parents lying about their income, deliberately reducing their earnings, lying about how much they care for the children, or just straight up refusing to pay have all been identified as evidence the system is failing families, especially women and children. 'The legislation needs reform to address systemic problems and help Services Australia ensure children are not deprived of the financial support they need,' Commonwealth Ombudsman Iain Anderson said. In a survey of more than 500 separated mothers, four in five said their former partner had used the program to commit financial abuse. The system is meant to support more than 1.2 million separated parents and 1.1 million affected children. About 84 per cent of parents receiving child support payments to be women. The report condemned Services Australia as being 'unfair and unreasonable' by failing to use its powers to enforce payments. 'This passive approach is unfair,' the report said. 'It allows some paying parents to manipulate the system to avoid their financial responsibility in raising their children, largely without consequences.' It is reported that the Services Australia lacked the frameworks to proactively respond to cases of abuse. 'I am a single mum trying to look after my children. One has a disability. Services Australia is taking $500 from me a week and I simply cannot afford this,' one woman wrote in a complaint to the Ombudsman. 'My rent alone is $580. I am going to end up homeless with my kids and Services Australia is not understanding at all.' Under the current system, when a child support payer lodges their tax return, the government assumes any outstanding child support has been paid, which raises an overpayment of the Family Tax Benefit Part A. Services Australia then recovers the 'overpaid' FTB A, whether or not the child support has actually been paid. 'This kind of financial abuse is something our member centres see all the time, so we are very pleased to have it recognised in this morning's report from the Commonwealth Ombudsman,' Economic Justice Australia chief executive Kate Allingham said. 'However, what the scope of this report makes clear is that there is something broken at the heart of the social security system. 'It's mind-blowing that it is so easy for a perpetrator to inflict such profound financial harm on another individual; that they are so easily able to create a debt for a former partner which Services Australia is then required to pursue.' The ombudsman made eight recommendations to Services Australia, including developing a publicly available strategy on addressing financial abuse through child support, more effectively enforcing payments, and training staff to better understand financial abuse. All recommendations were approved. 'We thank the Ombudsman for the thorough investigation into this important issue. Financial abuse and all forms of family and domestic violence are serious and damaging issues affecting many of our customers,' a Services Australia spokesman said. 'Services Australia accepts all eight recommendations, and work has already begun to implement these fully. 'We'll implement many of the recommendations by December 2025 and the remainder by June 2026. 'We know financial abuse is a complex issue, and we're working closely with the Department of Social Services, the Australian Taxation Office, and the Office for Women to address this. 'While legislation limits some of the improvements we can make, we acknowledge there's work we can do within the existing policy to better support parents who are child Support customers and their children.' The Department of Social Services also accepted all conditions, except for introducing a Bill to amend the law to address legal limitations for the current system outlined in the report. 'Today's Ombudsman's report confirms child support is being weaponised against single mothers and that government systems have failed to recognise or respond to this. These failures mean the systems themselves have enabled financial abuse,' Single Mother Families Australia chief executive Teresa Edwards said, 'The concerns we have raised on behalf of single mothers over many years have been vindicated.'
Perth Now
2 hours ago
- Business
- Perth Now
‘Broken': Single mums financially abused
Australian child support frameworks are in urgent need of reform as a new report reveals the number of parents, especially women, financially abused through the system. The Commonwealth ombudsman into the 'weaponisation' of the child support program has revealed the dark underbelly of the financial abuse rife throughout the system, with more than 153,000 parents having a combined $1.9bn in unpaid child support. Parents lying about their income, deliberately reducing their earnings, lying about how much they care for the children, or just straight up refusing to pay have all been identified as evidence the system is failing families, especially women and children. 'The legislation needs reform to address systemic problems and help Services Australia ensure children are not deprived of the financial support they need,' Commonwealth Ombudsman Iain Anderson said. In a survey of more than 500 separated mothers, four in five said their former partner had used the program to commit financial abuse. The system is meant to support more than 1.2 million separated parents and 1.1 million affected children. About 84 per cent of parents receiving child support payments to be women. The report has revealed the plethora of ways child abuse can be used as a form of financial abuse. Commonwealth Ombudsman Credit: Supplied The report condemned Services Australia as being 'unfair and unreasonable' by failing to use its powers to enforce payments. 'This passive approach is unfair,' the report said. 'It allows some paying parents to manipulate the system to avoid their financial responsibility in raising their children, largely without consequences.' It is reported that the Services Australia lacked the frameworks to proactively respond to cases of abuse. 'I am a single mum trying to look after my children. One has a disability. Services Australia is taking $500 from me a week and I simply cannot afford this,' one woman wrote in a complaint to the Ombudsman. 'My rent alone is $580. I am going to end up homeless with my kids and Services Australia is not understanding at all.' Under the current system, when a child support payer lodges their tax return, the government assumes any outstanding child support has been paid, which raises an overpayment of the Family Tax Benefit Part A. Services Australia then recovers the 'overpaid' FTB A, whether or not the child support has actually been paid. 'I'm going to end up homeless,' the current system is allowing parents to manipulate the child support system, report says. istock image Credit: istock 'This kind of financial abuse is something our member centres see all the time, so we are very pleased to have it recognised in this morning's report from the Commonwealth Ombudsman,' Economic Justice Australia chief executive Kate Allingham said. 'However, what the scope of this report makes clear is that there is something broken at the heart of the social security system. 'It's mind-blowing that it is so easy for a perpetrator to inflict such profound financial harm on another individual; that they are so easily able to create a debt for a former partner which Services Australia is then required to pursue.' The ombudsman made eight recommendations to Services Australia, including developing a publicly available strategy on addressing financial abuse through child support, more effectively enforcing payments, and training staff to better understand financial abuse. All recommendations were approved. Services Australia is implementing all recommendations within a year's time. Credit: Supplied 'We thank the Ombudsman for the thorough investigation into this important issue. Financial abuse and all forms of family and domestic violence are serious and damaging issues affecting many of our customers,' a Services Australia spokesman said. 'Services Australia accepts all eight recommendations, and work has already begun to implement these fully. 'We'll implement many of the recommendations by December 2025 and the remainder by June 2026. 'We know financial abuse is a complex issue, and we're working closely with the Department of Social Services, the Australian Taxation Office, and the Office for Women to address this. 'While legislation limits some of the improvements we can make, we acknowledge there's work we can do within the existing policy to better support parents who are child Support customers and their children.' The Department of Social Services accepted all recommendations except for one. iStock Credit: istock The Department of Social Services also accepted all conditions, except for introducing a Bill to amend the law to address legal limitations for the current system outlined in the report. 'Today's Ombudsman's report confirms child support is being weaponised against single mothers and that government systems have failed to recognise or respond to this. These failures mean the systems themselves have enabled financial abuse,' Single Mother Families Australia chief executive Teresa Edwards said, 'The concerns we have raised on behalf of single mothers over many years have been vindicated.'
West Australian
2 hours ago
- Politics
- West Australian
‘End up homeless': Child support weaponised against single mums
Australian child support frameworks are in urgent need of reform as a new report reveals the number of parents, especially women, financially abused through the system. The Commonwealth ombudsman into the 'weaponisation' of the child support program has revealed the dark underbelly of the financial abuse rife throughout the system, with more than 153,000 parents having a combined $1.9bn in unpaid child support. Parents lying about their income, deliberately reducing their earnings, lying about how much they care for the children, or just straight up refusing to pay have all been identified as evidence the system is failing families, especially women and children. 'The legislation needs reform to address systemic problems and help Services Australia ensure children are not deprived of the financial support they need,' Commonwealth Ombudsman Iain Anderson said. In a survey of more than 500 separated mothers, four in five said their former partner had used the program to commit financial abuse. The system is meant to support more than 1.2 million separated parents and 1.1 million affected children. About 84 per cent of parents receiving child support payments to be women. The report condemned Services Australia as being 'unfair and unreasonable' by failing to use its powers to enforce payments. 'This passive approach is unfair,' the report said. 'It allows some paying parents to manipulate the system to avoid their financial responsibility in raising their children, largely without consequences.' It is reported that the Services Australia lacked the frameworks to proactively respond to cases of abuse. 'I am a single mum trying to look after my children. One has a disability. Services Australia is taking $500 from me a week and I simply cannot afford this,' one woman wrote in a complaint to the Ombudsman. 'My rent alone is $580. I am going to end up homeless with my kids and Services Australia is not understanding at all.' Under the current system, when a child support payer lodges their tax return, the government assumes any outstanding child support has been paid, which raises an overpayment of the Family Tax Benefit Part A. Services Australia then recovers the 'overpaid' FTB A, whether or not the child support has actually been paid. 'This kind of financial abuse is something our member centres see all the time, so we are very pleased to have it recognised in this morning's report from the Commonwealth Ombudsman,' Economic Justice Australia chief executive Kate Allingham said. 'However, what the scope of this report makes clear is that there is something broken at the heart of the social security system. 'It's mind-blowing that it is so easy for a perpetrator to inflict such profound financial harm on another individual; that they are so easily able to create a debt for a former partner which Services Australia is then required to pursue.' The ombudsman made eight recommendations to Services Australia, including developing a publicly available strategy on addressing financial abuse through child support, more effectively enforcing payments, and training staff to better understand financial abuse. All recommendations were approved. 'We thank the Ombudsman for the thorough investigation into this important issue. Financial abuse and all forms of family and domestic violence are serious and damaging issues affecting many of our customers,' a Services Australia spokesman said. 'Services Australia accepts all eight recommendations, and work has already begun to implement these fully. 'We'll implement many of the recommendations by December 2025 and the remainder by June 2026. 'We know financial abuse is a complex issue, and we're working closely with the Department of Social Services, the Australian Taxation Office, and the Office for Women to address this. 'While legislation limits some of the improvements we can make, we acknowledge there's work we can do within the existing policy to better support parents who are child Support customers and their children.' The Department of Social Services also accepted all conditions, except for introducing a Bill to amend the law to address legal limitations for the current system outlined in the report. 'Today's Ombudsman's report confirms child support is being weaponised against single mothers and that government systems have failed to recognise or respond to this. These failures mean the systems themselves have enabled financial abuse,' Single Mother Families Australia chief executive Teresa Edwards said, 'The concerns we have raised on behalf of single mothers over many years have been vindicated.'
The Advertiser
9 hours ago
- Business
- The Advertiser
Child support 'weaponised' against parents: report
Parents experiencing financial abuse feel abandoned and let down through the child support program, as Labor is urged to change laws to make it easier to enforce rules on perpetrators. A report released by the Commonwealth Ombudsman on Tuesday found not enough is being done to identify and stop financial abuse through child support. Services Australia's actions were found to be unfair or unreasonable in responding to "widespread manipulation and weaponisation" of financial payments. The agency lacked policies, strategies and training to be able to proactively identify, monitor and respond to cases of abuse, the report found. The ombudsman recommended the federal government introduce legislation to address limitations that impede Services Australia enforcement. Information sharing and a requirement of abuse survivors to disclose sensitive details with their former partner should also restrained. In Australia, there are about 1.1 million kids supported by the child support program. Women are the main recipients of child support, which is usually paid for by men. In a survey of more than 500 separated mothers, four in five said their former partner had used the program to commit financial abuse. "We are being told of cases where former partners are ... deliberately not making payments or not lodging tax returns, lying to reduce their income, lying about care arrangements and being abusive or violent to stop the impacted parent from asking for help," the report reads. Services Australia distributed $1.967 billion in payments in the 2023/24 financial year. The investigation found as of December 2024 there was $1.9 billion in Child Support Collect debt and 153,694 paying parents had a debt. Commonwealth Ombudsman Iain Anderson said affected parents "keep telling us they feel abandoned and let down by Services Australia when they seek help for financial abuse in their child support cases". Services Australia accepted all of the eight recommendations, while the social services department accepted all but one. Lifeline 13 11 14 beyondblue 1300 22 4636 Parents experiencing financial abuse feel abandoned and let down through the child support program, as Labor is urged to change laws to make it easier to enforce rules on perpetrators. A report released by the Commonwealth Ombudsman on Tuesday found not enough is being done to identify and stop financial abuse through child support. Services Australia's actions were found to be unfair or unreasonable in responding to "widespread manipulation and weaponisation" of financial payments. The agency lacked policies, strategies and training to be able to proactively identify, monitor and respond to cases of abuse, the report found. The ombudsman recommended the federal government introduce legislation to address limitations that impede Services Australia enforcement. Information sharing and a requirement of abuse survivors to disclose sensitive details with their former partner should also restrained. In Australia, there are about 1.1 million kids supported by the child support program. Women are the main recipients of child support, which is usually paid for by men. In a survey of more than 500 separated mothers, four in five said their former partner had used the program to commit financial abuse. "We are being told of cases where former partners are ... deliberately not making payments or not lodging tax returns, lying to reduce their income, lying about care arrangements and being abusive or violent to stop the impacted parent from asking for help," the report reads. Services Australia distributed $1.967 billion in payments in the 2023/24 financial year. The investigation found as of December 2024 there was $1.9 billion in Child Support Collect debt and 153,694 paying parents had a debt. Commonwealth Ombudsman Iain Anderson said affected parents "keep telling us they feel abandoned and let down by Services Australia when they seek help for financial abuse in their child support cases". Services Australia accepted all of the eight recommendations, while the social services department accepted all but one. Lifeline 13 11 14 beyondblue 1300 22 4636 Parents experiencing financial abuse feel abandoned and let down through the child support program, as Labor is urged to change laws to make it easier to enforce rules on perpetrators. A report released by the Commonwealth Ombudsman on Tuesday found not enough is being done to identify and stop financial abuse through child support. Services Australia's actions were found to be unfair or unreasonable in responding to "widespread manipulation and weaponisation" of financial payments. The agency lacked policies, strategies and training to be able to proactively identify, monitor and respond to cases of abuse, the report found. The ombudsman recommended the federal government introduce legislation to address limitations that impede Services Australia enforcement. Information sharing and a requirement of abuse survivors to disclose sensitive details with their former partner should also restrained. In Australia, there are about 1.1 million kids supported by the child support program. Women are the main recipients of child support, which is usually paid for by men. In a survey of more than 500 separated mothers, four in five said their former partner had used the program to commit financial abuse. "We are being told of cases where former partners are ... deliberately not making payments or not lodging tax returns, lying to reduce their income, lying about care arrangements and being abusive or violent to stop the impacted parent from asking for help," the report reads. Services Australia distributed $1.967 billion in payments in the 2023/24 financial year. The investigation found as of December 2024 there was $1.9 billion in Child Support Collect debt and 153,694 paying parents had a debt. Commonwealth Ombudsman Iain Anderson said affected parents "keep telling us they feel abandoned and let down by Services Australia when they seek help for financial abuse in their child support cases". Services Australia accepted all of the eight recommendations, while the social services department accepted all but one. Lifeline 13 11 14 beyondblue 1300 22 4636 Parents experiencing financial abuse feel abandoned and let down through the child support program, as Labor is urged to change laws to make it easier to enforce rules on perpetrators. A report released by the Commonwealth Ombudsman on Tuesday found not enough is being done to identify and stop financial abuse through child support. Services Australia's actions were found to be unfair or unreasonable in responding to "widespread manipulation and weaponisation" of financial payments. The agency lacked policies, strategies and training to be able to proactively identify, monitor and respond to cases of abuse, the report found. The ombudsman recommended the federal government introduce legislation to address limitations that impede Services Australia enforcement. Information sharing and a requirement of abuse survivors to disclose sensitive details with their former partner should also restrained. In Australia, there are about 1.1 million kids supported by the child support program. Women are the main recipients of child support, which is usually paid for by men. In a survey of more than 500 separated mothers, four in five said their former partner had used the program to commit financial abuse. "We are being told of cases where former partners are ... deliberately not making payments or not lodging tax returns, lying to reduce their income, lying about care arrangements and being abusive or violent to stop the impacted parent from asking for help," the report reads. Services Australia distributed $1.967 billion in payments in the 2023/24 financial year. The investigation found as of December 2024 there was $1.9 billion in Child Support Collect debt and 153,694 paying parents had a debt. Commonwealth Ombudsman Iain Anderson said affected parents "keep telling us they feel abandoned and let down by Services Australia when they seek help for financial abuse in their child support cases". Services Australia accepted all of the eight recommendations, while the social services department accepted all but one. Lifeline 13 11 14 beyondblue 1300 22 4636
ABC News
14 hours ago
- Business
- ABC News
Parents able to 'manipulate' child support system free of consequences: ombudsman report
Australia's child support system has been weaponised for financial abuse that is "amplified" by Services Australia, according to a Commonwealth Ombudsman's investigation. That abuse included parents not making payments, not filing tax returns to disguise income, lying to reduce income and being abusive or violent to stop a parent seeking help. This abuse was amplified by a tax system that calculated income assuming all support payments were made — even if they weren't — and by procedures at Services Australia that could disclose sensitive information to ex-partners, the report found. "This is really important because child support is all about children — vulnerable children — who need to be financially supported while they're growing up," Ombudsman Iain Anderson said. In Australia more than 1.2 million separated parents have an arrangement that sees one parent pay the other to assist with the costs of raising an estimated one million children. Services Australia is responsible for about half of those arrangements through the Child Support program, with the rest in what is called Private Collect, where one parent directly pays the other. The Ombudsman's report, released exclusively to ABC News, concluded that Services Australia was acting in an "unfair and unreasonable manner" in not using available powers to stop widespread financial abuse. "This passive approach is unfair. It allows some paying parents to manipulate the system to avoid their financial responsibility in raising their children, largely without consequences," the report concluded. The amount of money some parents are avoiding paying is big. Mr Anderson said 153,000 parents had a combined $1.9 billion in outstanding child support debts in December last year. The report showed outstanding payments disproportionately impacted mothers — with 84 per cent of those receiving payments being female. The Ombudsman's report made eight recommendations, including having Services Australia track financial abuse and use its enforcement powers to claw back the $1.9 billion in unpaid child support. Current Services Australia processes can require a parent to tell their non-paying ex-partner their location or workplace, which can be abused by non-paying parents and re-traumatise parents who have experienced domestic violence, the Ombudsman said. "They have and go through these very burdensome processes, so that in itself can exacerbate previous abuse," Mr Anderson said. "We've certainly had complainants who said to them that this made them feel very unsafe and they in fact withdrew from processes and rather than seeking to pursue unpaid child support." Do you have a story to share? Email Jane (not her real name), a single mother of three from Canberra, said she has gone through experiences like that. "That's the way I felt and again the scrutiny was on myself and what I had submitted. The focus was not on the needs of the children." Jane said she almost walked away from seeking extra support for her youngest child, who has significant medical needs, because the demands for documentation were so onerous. "The forgotten party in all of this is actually the children. I think that's a really important point," she said. The Ombudsman's report called for a legislative fix to force Services Australia to make the system fairer. Currently, Services Australia is required to assume all child support has been paid when assessing eligibility for tax concessions for parents like Family Tax Benefit A. This can result in parents having a tax debt for child support they are owed but did not receive, a process the Ombudsman said "absolutely" victimised parents. "This is unfair and places those parents at a double disadvantage — in effect amplifying the impact of the financial abuse they are suffering through the actions of their former partner," the report concluded. Services Australia currently has a restriction, allowing it to collect just three months of unpaid child support if a parent changed from private collection to the government system. The report recommended legislation that would also lift that restriction. Legislative fixes were also required to allow debts to be recovered from bank accounts held in joint names, allow better information sharing between agencies and track domestic violence, the report said. In a statement, a Services Australia spokesperson said it fully accepted the recommendations and would be working to implement them between December 2025 and June 2026. "Financial abuse and all forms of family and domestic violence are serious and damaging issues affecting many of our customers," the spokesperson said. "While legislation limits some of the improvements we can make, we acknowledge there's work we can do within the existing policy to better support parents who are Child Support customers and their children." In a statement on behalf of the Social Services and Government Services ministers Tanya Plibersek and Katy Gallagher, a spokesperson acknowledged child support was being used to "exploit and traumatise women" and that the government was acting. "We are currently undertaking a number of reviews across the Child Support Scheme, looking closely at compliance, with a focus on income accuracy, collection and enforcement," the spokesperson said. "This work will be finalised in the coming months and will help inform future reforms to ensure that the Child Support Scheme cannot be misused as a vehicle for ongoing financial control or abuse after separation." Terese Edwards, CEO of Single Mother Families Australia, has long lobbied for change and said several inquiries over the decades have identified similar flaws. "The child support system has been a problem for decades. That's witnessed in the $1.9 billion debt owed to children," Ms Edwards said. The organisation said it was optimistic there was growing momentum for major changes to child support following a recent inquiry into the Australian Tax Office and a parliamentary one into financial abuse. "The [payment] levels are so unrealistically low and unreliable, to the point that banking institutions don't use that income when they're looking at income coming in," Ms Edwards said. "Also, real estate agencies don't take it into account when they're looking at rental properties."
