Transcript - Interview Frank Quinlan on ABC Radio (Breakfast With Adam Spencer) - Child Support Changes

ADAM SPENCER: Now in a bid to recover what is now verging on a $1 billion bill in unpaid child support, the Federal Government yesterday announced a crackdown that will force parents with child support obligations to lodge tax returns at a trial using private detectives to monitor the activities of those to be considered the worst of the offenders. Frank Quinlan is the executive director of Catholic Social Services Australia. He joins us now.
Good morning, Frank, how are you?

FRANK QUINLAN: Good morning Adam, I'm well.

ADAM SPENCER: One billion dollars in total in unpaid child support payments, that's not a good figure is it?

FRANK QUINLAN: No, it's not a good figure Adam and it goes with some other poor figures. I know you're a bit of a numbers man...

ADAM SPENCER: Mmm, give them to me.

FRANK QUINLAN: The - less than half of the payers who are meant to be paying their obligations in 2003 and 4 met their full obligations.

ADAM SPENCER: Less than half met their full obligations?

FRANK QUINLAN: In the last four years, more did not pay than did pay.

ADAM SPENCER: Are a significant number of those people going pretty close and falling just a bit short or are you talking there is widespread, significant default going on?

FRANK QUINLAN: Look I think what we see is that there's the full range of default if you like. So I think there are certainly some people who are probably a bit close to the wire and sort of perhaps in a bit of dispute and there'd be a bit of arguments about what's being paid.

But there are some people who are clearly just avoiding their debts and some of these debts go back, as I understand it, more than 20 years in some cases.

ADAM SPENCER: One of the articles in the paper today is talking about a gentleman who was found trying to transfer ownership of his company. At that time he owed $25,000 in child support payments.

FRANK QUINLAN: That's right. The other arrangement that people have used sometimes is to use salary sacrificing arrangements, so that they artificially decrease their sort of formal salary, taxable income, with a view to minimising the payment that they need to make to their children. And I guess from our perspective, and I'm sure the perspective of many of your listeners, the fundamental thing here is the children and the welfare of children.

ADAM SPENCER: So Frank, would you support private detectives being used, even on a trial basis to try and police this whole regime a bit more effectively?

FRANK QUINLAN: Look, I'd be a bit cautious about that, because I think that there is a whole raft of measures that are deployed and need to be deployed beforehand. But in cases where there're quite clear grounds for suspecting that people, as I understand it, have committed offences under the act, then I think we need to ensure that the department and the appropriate authorities have the powers to act on those cases.

I understand this is announced as trial and it's announced in those terms, so that gives us a chance to compare the effectiveness of the measure and to - sorry Adam - and just to compare it to some of the other measures that will still be in place where much more conciliatory means are used to try and give people an opportunity to meet their obligations.

ADAM SPENCER: Because whatever possible conciliations is the way to go forward with this isn't it?

The measure comes into effect a week before a new child support formula which is expected to cut single mother's payments by between $10 and $100 a week in a lot of cases. Fifty to sixty per cent of single mothers will be worse off under this new regime.

FRANK QUINLAN: Look there are a number of tax changes coming up Adam. In the last week, we've had discussions about a range of them. And I think we need to be really mindful, that particularly for some people who are dependent on some of these payments, the impact of some of these changes can be really quite devastating. So we're alert to these changes and I think we need to ensure that any new changes like this are monitored very closely because the implications are often complicated and there can be unintended consequences in all of this for people who are doing the right thing.

ADAM SPENCER: Okay, great to speak to you Frank. Thanks for you time.

FRANK QUINLAN: Thanks Adam.

ADAM SPENCER: Frank Quinlan there is the executive director of Catholic Social Services Australia.

24 June 2008

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