Media Release Parents for Children.

28 January 2007

Dunne Urged To Stop Tinkering and Address the Root Cause of the Child Support Debt Trap.

"Having just pushed through a major amendment to the Child Support Act 1991, United Future Leader, Peter Dunne is back to tinkering with this fundamentally flawed legislation.

His latest brilliant proposal: pass more information between Government departments on parents who, it is alleged, owe child support and penalty payments.

This is a precursor to a law preventing these parents leaving the country. Still tinkering and not addressing the cause of the problem, while knowing that such a measure is unlikely to decrease the level of alleged debt." Observed Mark Shipman, of Parents for Children, when asked to comment on the changes promoted by Peter Dunne.

"The alleged debt is mostly made up of late payment penalties, and money "owed" to the government for benefit recovery, money that will never be seen by kiwi kids. With TVNZ reporting that about 75% of paying parents are experiencing debt problems there need to be some serious questions asked.

One would think that this out of control debt spiral is a pretty good indicator of some serious problems with the Act and Inland Revenues administration of it. It's pretty obvious that once a parent is assessed by Inland Revenue with an alleged child support debt they are caught is a debt trap that never stops growing. This is one of the fundamental flaws of the legislation, it creates the debt" Commented Mark when asked to comment on the cause of the alleged 1.1 Billion Dollar debt.

"It's a Tui Ad solution. Peter Dunne's latest tinkering will fix the problem? Yeah Right" Concluded Mark.

ENDS

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