Abstract

This study seeks to obtain a contemporary snapshot of public attitudes to child support. Samples from the general population of Australian adults (including independent samples of separated mothers and fathers with a child support case) were drawn from two online panels: the Life in Australia^TM (LinA) panel, and the Online Research Unit (ORU) panel. Data were collected over a two-week period in 2024. Key findings included the following: (a) separated fathers generally felt the system was unfair to paying parents, while many separated mothers believed it was unfair to both parents; (b) most respondents believed child support should be paid even if the paying parent has little contact with the child, is on a low income, only receives government assistance and/or has never lived with the other parent; (c) there was solid support across all groups for the use of penalties for non-compliance, and for the idea that child support should increase if there are more than three children; (d) majority care mothers strongly supported financial help for young adult children if young adults were unemployed, had a disability, or were studying full-time; (e) medical, dental, and school books were the most likely items to be seen as intended to be covered by child support, apart from the obvious necessities of food, housing and children’s clothes; (f) parents should be required to apply for child support to receive government benefits (such as Family Tax Benefit), especially if parents had never lived together; and (g) Services Australia should check on compliance in Private Collect. Although many of the issues raised by participants have dogged the system since it first began, the issues of privacy, family violence, and shared costs in the context of shared care, represented newer concerns.

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