In a roundabout way blogging can be quite fruitful. Sometimes I turn a post into a letter-to-the-editor and sometimes there are prizes for the best letter. The week before last I won some Paco Rabanne (?) (don't know how to spell it because it hasn't turned up yet) from the Listener and I just arrived home from cricket to find a very nice Cross pen in the letterbox. It's from the Herald on Sunday for last week's best letter based on this post.
I notice that there is a further comment from "anonymous" which I had missed;
Anonymous said...
Lindsay, you are counting the number of maintenance orders made in a single year, and comparing them to a number that is an accumulation of orders made in each of many years. That greatly exaggerates the change over time.
Also, part of the reason for the large number of defaulters today is that the current child support regime is less coercive than the old court-ordered maintenance system, under which a maintenance defaulter's wages could be docked by court order, or he could be imprisoned for not paying. You are so determined to blame everything on the DPB that you are missing the full picture.
Well, not everything. I don't blame global warming on the DPB. Anon's complaint is, I compared the number of maintenance orders made in 1971 (1,233) to the number of liable parents paying child support today (at least 140,000).
I cannot establish how many maintenance orders had accumulated in 1971 so let's go at it a different way. Each year around 15-16,000 NEW applications are lodged for the DPB. Most of these would require the applicant to apply for child support. Given there were more births and marriages in 1971 than today, the contrast in the number of fathers (and sometimes mothers) not living with and directly supporting their children is striking.
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If you research the history of the period carefully you may find it’s more plausible to argue that the DPB was the product of fathers not paying maintenance than the other way around. The Royal Commission on Social Security decided that we could not have it both ways – unreliable or inadequate maintenance from fathers who could not or would not pay, and no state support – without impoverishing children. A newly separated mother couldn't get an emergency benefit until she had taken maintenance proceedings through the courts.
After the statutory DPB was introduced, applicants continued to be required to take maintenance proceedings before they were entitled to the full benefit. Responsibility for enforcing maintenance didn’t shift from the courts to the state until 1981, with the introduction of the Liable Parent Contribution Scheme, and then only in respect of children of beneficiaries. It’s only since 1991 that the state has been solely responsible for assessing, collecting and enforcing maintenance for children of separated parents, not all of whom have a parent on a benefit.
So your prize-winning letter was based more on rhetoric than fact. Perhaps, as John Banks says of his statements on talk back radio, it has entertainment value but should not be taken all that seriously.
All anonymous comments are merely entertainment...
Doubtless the DPB was introduced because some fathers would not support their kids but it exacerbated rather than mitigated the problem.
The Royal Commission on Social Security gambled that we COULD have it both ways. A single parent could be paid a benefit regardless of the reason for their single parenthood and that it would not undermine the prevalent and largely successful family structure. Some speakers in the debate leading up to the DPB legislation made this point. For instance,"...step by step we are moving to a situation where financial provisions, quite rightly, are being based on the economic requirements of people who are being supported by our pension schemes of one form or another; but unless there is very close supervision we will see economic considerations gradually producing economic pressures to alter the social structure of our community, particularly in the family sphere. We see this overseas, particularly in Sweden, where some very drastic and far reaching changes occurred in the pattern of family life, and when one looks at the processes by which these developed one finds they are largely due to step-by-step increases in benefits along the path we are now treading."
I reiterate the state, regardless of how it endeavoured to recoup welfare payments, has effectively replaced thousands of fathers.
Finally, I have a pretty good idea who you are but it would be courteous and creditable if you had the courage of your convictions and posted under your name.
Consider it a compliment that someone takes you seriously enough to engage with your arguments. :)
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