Mr PRICE (11:37 AM) —I acknowledge and thank the member for McPherson for her thoughtful contribution on the Child Support Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2000. It was always disappointing to me that the then Labor government did not change any of the policy on child support but only picked up on some of the administrative changes recommended in the report. When speaking in this place I have never failed to acknowledge the fact that the government has in its way picked up some of the policy issues in the report, although I confess that it still remains largely unimplemented—but that is life, I guess.

Before I turn to the provisions of the bill, there are a couple of things I want to put on the public record. I notice that, in earlier contributions, some people talked about the strength of different men's groups around the country—I have had the pleasure of speaking to most—but it is the case that there is not a proper national organisation. It is one of the tasks I have set for myself—to try to facilitate a proper national men's group, basically, because, although some say diversity gives strength, in the case of lobbying for change, diversity can be confusing. United under a common achievable agenda a lot more can be accomplished. It is also easier to have dialogues with other groups who are stakeholders in this area. Whether we are looking at people representing resident parents or people representing nonresident parents, there is a lot in common. In different ways both can be disadvantaged under the current system. I certainly hope to get out again in 2001 to talk to different people across the country. The federal parliamentary party has gagged me on section 121—well, I will be out there in voter land talking about section 121. If I am currently embarrassed by that condition, then others in the caucus may, in the long run, be embarrassed by the position that caucus has adopted on section 121.

I will start my contribution by acknowledging the efforts of our shadow minister. It is nice to be able to talk about a bill whose principles, by and large, we agree with and whose measures we are either adopting, or adopting in principle. Frankly, this has been a sea change for us—both in the latter period of Labor in government and certainly in opposition. A lot of the credit is owed to his considerable efforts. It is nice to get into caucus meetings where we can, perhaps through compromises on both sides, have an intelligent and informed discussion about what are essentially quite difficult and often emotional issues. So I congratulate our shadow minister.

To start I will talk about a measure we are opposing, the reduction in the cap. As I have said before—and by the way, I support the position put by the shadow minister; I want to make that quite clear—the reduction from $101,153 to $78,378 is a proposition that does have a rationale behind it. Firstly, the formula was originally fixed at 2.5 times average weekly earnings. The 0.5 per cent was there to reflect the cost to resident parents of seeking a departure in the Family Court. Whether you agree with it being set at that level, that was the decision that was taken. Once a departure mechanism was introduced into the agency—and I have always sought to acknowledge the work of Con Sciacca in that regard when he had responsibility for it—the rationale for that 0.5 per cent was no longer there, and no government has sought to address that issue until this particular measure we are discussing today.

The other point is this: perhaps there are inadequate studies into the measure, but you do reach a point in the quantum of child support payments where it can no longer be claimed that the amount of money is actually going to meet the needs of children. For the Labor Party it would have been more acceptable had there been other measures associated with these bills that looked at the bottom end of the families. We could have then, I suppose, more readily accepted that change. We are opposing it in this measure and I do not resile from that.

The other measure I would like to comment on is the acknowledgment of the nonresident parent's costs when contact is between 10 and 30 per cent. At the moment it is at 30 per cent. One is very much aware of the trench effect that establishes—there is a great deal of contact up to 30 per cent but it falls away dramatically because of the financial implications once you reach 30 per cent.

Do I think this breakthrough in acknowledging the costs of nonresident parents in having contact with their children is a good thing? Yes, I think it is an exceptionally good measure. It is the case that, whenever you change the balance points in the formula, you engage in winners and losers. It is not possible to make a change without there being a loser. One can argue about whether the loss is significant, but that is a different argument. I commend the shadow minister, the member for Lilley, for applying his mind to the idea that perhaps, in the principle of recognising additional costs, we ought to ameliorate any losses by the resident parent. I think the idea of a targeted contact payment is not a bad one. But he might want to look at the exempt income of a nonresident parent. You could actually make a provision for a flat amount that could also operate that way, but, again, if you did it by way of an adjustment, you would still have a loss by the resident parent. I think it is important that we look at the principles underlying the bill, and all sides agree that this is a good principle, and that is the case. I think it is also appropriate for us to have a decent debate about the best method of implementing it and how we can do it in a way that there are not winners and losers. It is really easy to rack up the equity and the fairness in the scheme if you are prepared to expend quite a few Commonwealth dollars. One of my great criticisms of the Child Support Scheme—there are many benefits and I have enumerated those often enough—is that, by and large, the primary objective is the clawback of Centrelink payments. To remove that as the primary objective, as I say, requires a great deal of money. The important thing is that there has not been an outright rejection of the proposal. In principle it is supported; there is an argument about methodology.

The other issue that I want to comment on is that of second families, particularly in relation to second job and overtime. This is an area where I regret that that report of so many years ago was not a lot stronger. There is a great deal of evidence around that there is a lot of pressure on second families, and we need to do something about it. In the report we resisted the temptation to exempt second income or overtime, which was something that was pushed upon us. I congratulate the Minister for Community Services for bringing this measure forward. There are some very stringent guidelines associated with the measure to ensure that there is no abuse of it. I know that there was no intention on the part of either the agency or the minister that there could be I think this measure goes some way; it is a good start. I think we ought to develop the principle further. I was toying with a proposal in the last parliament that we should have a departure based on discrimination against a child. The essence of that was that you should actually look at the household income—not the formula income—of the two families, and, if it became apparent that there was significantly more capacity to support a child or children in one family vis-a-vis the second or the other family, we ought to allow departure on that basis. I do not think that that is an unreasonable basis.

I am not going to speak about other measures; they have been covered very well. I want to pose a question which I think is of greatest interest to me, and I hope other honourable members might be interested as well. The Child Support Scheme was a radical and revolutionary scheme. It replaced a disgraceful situation. I think, of all the achievements of the Child Support Scheme, the one that we cannot comment on enough is the fact that, wherever you go in Australia, you actually do not have a debate about parents being responsible for their children. You might get a debate about the degree of financial responsibility or the burden of responsibility in the Child Support Scheme, but not that the parents should not be responsible. This has been a huge sea change in community attitudes. If there is any benchmark for success, I think this is a very useful benchmark.

Where do we want the scheme to be in five years time? Where do we want the scheme to be in the year 2000? I think we need to start reflecting on all that has been achieved under the scheme and the next most important iteration of it, rather than going back to a report that is now a bit of ancient history. Having complimented everyone about the scheme and the change of community attitudes, it is still a point of great disappointment to me that the scheme is not universal and that the many loopholes that were identified so long ago still exist, to the extent that if you are self-employed or a professional it is still the case today that you can drive a horse and buggy through it—notwithstanding some, but not all, of the measures recommended to address it. So I am really pleased to be standing here in this debate supporting the position put by the shadow minister. As I started perhaps I could finish: I congratulate him for all that he has achieved with this measure.