By Kay Cook, Adrienne Byrt, Terese Edwards, Ashlea Coen

This report draws on the experiences of 675 single mothers who have engaged with the Australian child support system. It reveals how violence is the backdrop to women’s engagement within each stage of the child support process and the compounding impact of violence and poverty. The report makes four recommendations that would reduce the capacity of the child support system to be weaponised. Child support, despite its straightforward and important aim of transferring payments between separated households, is regarded as a complex area of policy and a ‘black box’ in which there is a lack of data on how the system operates. The system’s opacity means that parents’ experiences are largely unknown – particularly for half of the caseload who transfer payments privately. Policy and service blind spots and loopholes allow harmful behaviour perpetrated through the child support system to go undetected and unaccounted for. The lack of evidence on the harms that the system enables in turn perpetuates the myth that child support is a benign administrative process. The recommendations in this report are a direct result of the survey findings and are intended to: bring about meaningful improvements;empower women with autonomy and choice that is directed by what they want and require for their family; andcreate a system that is safe for women to engage in.

Recommendations

Delink family payments from child support by eliminating the Maintenance Income Test.Co-design family violence processes within the child support system to recognise the high rates of violence experienced by system users.Move all child support collections back into the Australian Tax Office.Make all payment debts owed to and enforced by the Commonwealth.

Hawthorn, VIC: Swinburne University of Technology, 2024. 97p.

By Olivia Chollet, Jack Thrower, Alice Grundy

Traffic fines in Australia hit low-income earners disproportionally hard. One potential solution to this problem is traffic fines that are proportional to the income of the offender. This discussion paper outlines one way of applying this model – drawn from Finland – to Australia, including a breakdown for states. With cost of living already pushing many Australians into financial difficulties, traffic fines can force low-income people into choosing between essential spending and paying fines. By contrast, traffic fines are a minor annoyance for Australia’s high-income earners. This paper outlines a more equitable model for speeding fines based on a Finnish proportional fine system.

Key points

Finland has a minimum fine amount but otherwise calculates a fine based on a driver’s income and whether they have dependentsThis is better for equality, and sometimes catches headlines when really big fines are issued to billionairesAustralian states are already moving in this direction: in NSW there is already a Centrelink discount.

Canberra: The Australia Institute, 2024. 22p.

By Max Travers, Emma Colvin, Isabelle Bartkowiak Théron, Rick Sarre, Andrew Day, Christine Bond

In this paper we seek to review the rapid rise in remand in custody rates in Australia. In particular, and in response, we ask and discuss three specific questions:

1. To what extent do defendants applying for bail have vulnerabilities?

2. To what extent can risk analysis tools that seek to predict breach of bail terms be relied upon?

3. To what extent can the emerging pre-trial services programs in Australia reduce remand in custody populations?

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 610. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2020. 13p.