Australia’s child support system is being used to abuse women and children – and the abuse is being facilitated by the very organisation meant to support them.
A scathing new report from the Commonwealth Ombudsman has found that men are ‘gaming’ flawed Services Australia regulations to inflict harm on women and children.
The investigation found that some parents are exploiting loopholes to avoid making child support payments – by not lodging tax returns, falsifying income, or using intimidation to discourage the other parent from pursuing entitlements – and that in many cases, Services Australia’s policies and processes are compounding the harm.
“These payments are meant to support vulnerable children,” said Ombudsman Iain Anderson told the ABC. “But the current system unfairly allows some to dodge that responsibility with little consequence.”
The abuse is widespread. At the end of 2023, over 150,000 parents collectively owed $1.9 billion in unpaid support. Women, who make up 84 per cent of child support recipients, and their children, are disproportionately affected.
One of the most damaging flaws is that Services Australia assumes payments have been made when calculating eligibility for government benefits — even if no payment was actually received. This can leave single parents with tax debts based on money they never got.
These processes can also put women and children in danger, finding that some procedures require parents to share their location or employment details with abusive ex-partners.
“Some parents withdraw from the process entirely because it feels unsafe or too traumatic to continue,” Anderson said.
One single mother told the ABC that the bureaucratic burden nearly forced her to abandon support claims for her medically vulnerable child. “It felt like I was on trial,” she said. “The needs of the children seemed forgotten.”
In his report, the Ombudsman made eight recommendations, including lifting collection limits, improving data sharing between agencies, and empowering Services Australia to recover debt from joint accounts.
In response, the government has pledged to implement the changes between late 2025 and mid-2026. Ministers Tanya Plibersek and Katy Gallagher acknowledged the system has been used to “exploit and traumatise” women and promised broader reforms are underway.
“We are reviewing compliance, enforcement, and income reporting processes to prevent the misuse of child support as a tool of financial control,” a joint statement said.
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