Who should pay child support?

At last, the Howard Government has announced its intention to reform the Family Law Act, the first significant change to family law since no-fault divorce was introduced in 1976.

Some of the reforms on the table should be welcomed. In particular, the legislation calls for the Family Court to consider giving equal parenting time to couples who divorce rather than automatically awarding custody to one parent (almost always the mother).

This change should be in the interests of children (who need to maintain contact with both parents after a divorce) as well as fathers. It may also reduce the number of divorce petitions, most of which are instituted by mothers who are fairly confident that they will keep the children when they split from their husbands. In the US , there has been a reduction in the number of divorce petitions in states that routinely award joint custody.

The proposed changes also will tighten standards of evidence in cases where one spouse claims the other has been violent. Some fathers have been denied access to their children as a result of spurious claims made by their estranged partner. This now should be less common.

Another important change concerns child support payments. Under existing arrangements, non-custodial parents are required to pay child support calculated according to how much they earn, without regard to the financial circumstances of the custodial parent.

This is clearly unfair; child support in future will take account of the circumstances of both parents.

Additionally, where a non-custodial parent cares for the children for a day or more each week, this will be taken into account in the amount of child support they have to pay. At the moment, a father may have his children stay with him every weekend, yet he still has to pay full child support to the mother, even though he is taking on more than one-quarter of the caring time. Fathers groups have been arguing, rightly, about the unfairness of this arrangement and it seems the Government has accepted their arguments.

In July last year, the Government commissioned a ministerial taskforce, led by Patrick Parkinson of the University of Sydney , to conduct an inquiry into child custody arrangements in the event of family separation. The taskforce reported in May. It found the system was unfair to non-custodial parents. It suggested child support should be determined by taking into account the incomes of both parents and the proportion of time spent by the child with each parent at their respective residences. The new legislation accepts these recommendations.

But not everybody is happy. If non-custodial parents are to be allowed to reduce their payments to reflect the amount of time they care for their children, it follows that custodial parents will get less. It is estimated that some parents (usually mothers) could be $50 worse off per week. Not surprisingly, women’s lobby groups have been complaining.

Having placated vociferous fathers, the Government is faced with roused angry mothers. Its response has been all too predictable. Last week it was reported that the Government is proposing to offer $1billion in compensation to custodial parents to make up for the money they no longer will be getting from their former partners. In other words, the grievances of the fathers groups will be met by dipping into the taxpayers’ pockets.

This solution should be resisted. If non-custodial parents are meeting some of the costs of raising their children by looking after them for a day or two each week, it must follow that the custodial parents are having to pay out less.

There is no reason to compensate them courtesy of the taxpayer.

The changes being proposed are reasonable and fair. What is unreasonable and unfair is for custodial parents to expect to receive full child support when their former partner is sharing the parenting. Pushing the shortfall on to the taxpayer is the easy way of keeping everyone happy, but it is not the right solution.

Arti Sharma is a researcher at The Centre for Independent Studies.