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Speaker 1: So trouble in the area of child support. Of the

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Speaker 1: ninety one thousand or so who paid child supports, sixty

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Speaker 1: six thousand are in default. How many have ended up

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Speaker 1: in court thirty six that's in the past twelve months,

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Speaker 1: which is about half of one percent. And that figure,

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Speaker 1: by the way, from my ida is in fact an increase.

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Speaker 1: Family law barrister Sharon Chandras wire there, Sharon, morning to.

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Speaker 2: You, Good morning, Mark.

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Speaker 1: This has been a mess forever. Is that fair?

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Speaker 2: Well? It seems that they have not had a policy

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Speaker 2: in place, and that is the problem here, because what

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Speaker 2: they've said is that they assess each case on its

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Speaker 2: own merits, on a case by case basis, without any

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Speaker 2: general policy or Thchriish holds in place to take enforcement action,

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Speaker 2: and therein lies the problem.

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Speaker 1: Is there a problem that can be fixed because this literally,

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Speaker 1: in my experience, has been going on for decades. I

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Speaker 1: don't know how many interviews I've done about there's people default,

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Speaker 1: no one gets chased up, there's acrimony and angst all

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Speaker 1: over the place, and it's been a problem forever.

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Speaker 2: Well. I think I think the reason that they've attributed

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Speaker 2: through their life back of enforcement action. First they said

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Speaker 2: it's because of COVID and also a change in government priority.

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Speaker 2: So it may very well be a resourcing issue because

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Speaker 2: it's not that they don't have the power to take action.

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Speaker 2: The legislation does give them powers to obtain warrants to

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Speaker 2: seed and charging orders and the light. It just seems

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Speaker 2: that they don't actually take steps and use the options

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Speaker 2: that are available to them.

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Speaker 1: Those are big number, sixty six thousand people in default.

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Speaker 1: What do you need to do to be in default?

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Speaker 1: If you missed one month that you.

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Speaker 2: In default, you would be I expect that that number

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Speaker 2: would bundle up all the different balances of debts, regardless

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Speaker 2: of what the debt balance is. But I think the

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Speaker 2: number does increase exponentially because of the interest and penalty.

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Speaker 2: So the numbers can look a bit secured in terms

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Speaker 2: of debt balances when it includes interesting exactly.

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Speaker 1: What I wanted to raise, because once you're in default,

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Speaker 1: you're in default default, the fault and interest. If you've

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Speaker 1: scarped to Australia and you're never going to pay that

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Speaker 1: just builds and builds, doesn't it.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely that's right, And that's what that six hundred and

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Speaker 2: sixty three million number includes. All of those interests and

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Speaker 2: penalties on top of the principal balance.

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Speaker 1: How many clients do you sit across the desk from

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Speaker 1: Sharon and simply go, look, it is the way it is.

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I don't know what to do well, because

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Speaker 2: I do a lot of relationship property. What I try

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Speaker 2: to do was bundle up the child support within any

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Speaker 2: settlement around the division of relationship property. It's not a

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Speaker 2: full proof way of dealing with it, but at least

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Speaker 2: if you can incorporate it into the settlement and get

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Speaker 2: some kind of voluntary agreement in places part of the

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Speaker 2: overall property division, then I find that that tends to

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Speaker 2: Amelia to be issues that we're.

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Speaker 1: Talking about, because how much of a problem is anger

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Speaker 1: and fury and frustration the family court and no one

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Speaker 1: wins and everyone's a loser, etc. And hence there's the

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Speaker 1: start of the problem.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think child support seems to be one of

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Speaker 2: those one of those sensitive topics for the majority of parents,

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Speaker 2: and I think it must stem from them. I mean,

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Speaker 2: you're dealing with children here, and that's usually the most

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Speaker 2: important thing in most parents' lives, and so it's a

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Speaker 2: very sensitive topic. And when you've got a system that's

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Speaker 2: not completely broken, but well on its way to being broken.

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Speaker 2: Then a dozen, Maxwell.

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Speaker 1: Sharon, appreciate your time verty much, Sharon Chandra ongoing problem,

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Speaker 1: of course, ninety one thousand people pay child support, sixty

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Speaker 1: six thousand are in defult. For more from The Mic

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