The best decisions about the care, welfare and support of children are those made by their parents. However, the Child Support Agency has decided that it should take over this role.

As a result, I know plenty of non-custodial fathers (and one mother) who not only have no intention of ever paying child support, but also do everything they possibly can to avoid it. I’m one of them.

What do you make of such people?

The general consensus in the community is that we are low-life derelict scum who need to be forced to meet our responsibilities to our children, and punished if we don’t.

This attitude was reflected in the report from the parliamentary inquiry into shared parenting and child support (Dec 2003), which recommended that the Child Support Agency (CSA) be given additional enforcement authority. It was proposed that their powers include accessing joint accounts and seizing assets and superannuation benefits.

Any submission, opinion or evidence that challenged their prevailing attitudes and predetermined outcomes was given short shrift and strongly resisted. ‘Rubbish’ and ‘crap’ was how one parliamentary committee member responded to a dissenting opinion (mine) at one of their public hearings. (Hansard. Reference: Child Custody Inquiry, 1 Sept 2003, p. 23)

The parliamentary inquiry, irrespective of how many different opinions they listened to, were incapable of thinking in any other way. This is because they viewed everything from the same ideological perspective as the CSA: that is that, from the moment of separation, one parent becomes suddenly incapable of supporting their children unless they are compelled to do so. That parent is easy to identify: they are always the non-custodial parent.

I have a very different perspective. I know that I want to provide for my children. I know that their care and support is my highest priority.

The reason why I refuse to pay child support is because the CSA’s concept of child support has absolutely nothing to do with supporting children. The CSA prevents the very activity it claims to promote. It actually robs me of the ability to support my children. The CSA is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It is Satan disguised as an angel of righteousness. Past attempts to reform it have done no more than provide it with additional layers of deception.

It makes no sense to isolate and demonise separated parents who choose to make their own decisions about the support of their children. They are not delinquent dads. The real delinquents are those parents who (through ignorance or neglect) willingly accept the state directive that the payment of ‘child support’ fulfils their responsibilities as parents. The CSA idea of child support is a perversion of what it really means to support a child.

Being an effective and responsible parent cannot be achieved by a tacit response to a plundering bureaucratic hand in your open wallet.

No responsible parent should be paying child support. In fact, the degree of a separated parent’s delinquency is in direct proportion to their willingness to pay Child Support.

All responsible parents should refuse to pay child support and should do everything they can to avoid it. They should also do whatever they can to undermine and destroy the Child Support Agency. To do anything less is to acquiesce in the separation of children from their parents.

Removing the authority and responsibility of parents and handing it over to anonymous career-focused bureaucrats achieves nothing and damages everything. Children should be raised by parents, not bureaucrats. CSA formulas and controls are a hindrance, not a help.

[Photo by Andre Taissin from Pexels]