The Child Support Scheme information for Centrelink 277-51020000

The Child Support Scheme ensures that:

• parents share in the cost of supporting their children, according to their capacity
• adequate support is available for all children not living with both parents
• commonwealth involvement and expenditure is limited to the minimum necessary to ensure children's needs are met
• incentives for both parents to participate in the labour force are not impaired
• the overall arrangements are simple, flexible and efficient.

The Child Support Scheme was developed in 2 stages, to coincide with the different action to obtain child support requirements for a Stage 1 child and a Stage 2 child.

The Child Support (Collection and Registration) Act 1988 commenced on 1 June 1988.

For a Stage 1 child, a person caring for the child can:

• seek a court order or register an agreement for child support with the Family Court if unable to make a private arrangement with the child's parent
• ask Child Support to collect child support payments if they are unable to privately collect the full amount of a court order or court registered agreement for child support.

The Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989 commenced on 1 October 1989. It covers parents who separated on or after 1 October 1989 or who have at least 1 child born on or after that date. Instead of each case being a matter for the courts, Child Support is determined administratively according to a predetermined formula applied to the income of both parents and the care they have of the child/ren.

For a Stage 2 child, a person caring for the child can:

• apply for a child support assessment
• register a child support agreement with Child Support
• ask Child Support to collect child support payments if they are unable to privately collect their full child support entitlement
• appeal to the Family Court if not satisfied with a review of child support assessment by Child Support.

Reforms were implemented in 3 stages between July 2006 and July 2008. Under the new Scheme:

• child support payments are calculated based on the actual costs of raising children
• combined income of both parents is used to calculate child support payments, treating the incomes of both parents in the same way
• recognition of the contributions of both parents to the cost of their children through care and contact
• children of first and second families are treated more equally.

While Child Support has the main role in the administration of the Child Support Scheme, the Family Law Court of Australia and Centrelink also play an important role.

Centrelink administers the Maintenance Action Test (MAT) which ensures that FTB customers claiming more than base rate FTB Part A for a child from a previous relationship do what they can to obtain child support for the child.