Non-partisan advocacy · Australia

Australia's child support system is in crisis — and reform can't wait.

We research what is broken in the child support scheme and engage with federal Parliament to bring it back into balance — for both parents, and above all for children.

Read the case for reform Who we are

The scale of the problem

A scheme that touches more than a million Australian children

Australia's child support scheme was built on a sound idea: that both parents should contribute to the cost of raising their children after a relationship ends. Few people would argue with that principle. Yet more than three decades after the scheme began, the way it is administered has drifted far from the fair, predictable outcome that families need and that the original reformers intended.

Hundreds of thousands of separated families interact with the child support system every year, and well over a million children depend on it working properly. For many of those families it does not. Paying parents describe assessments that bear little relation to their real circumstances; receiving parents describe payments that arrive late, fall short, or never arrive at all. Both sides too often feel the system is working against them rather than for their children — and the children are the ones who carry the cost.

The Child Support Crisis Group exists because these failures are not isolated complaints. They are structural. When a formula is too rigid to cope with the way Australians actually earn, work and parent in the twenty-first century, the result is predictable: conflict, hardship, and an erosion of trust in a scheme that is supposed to put children first.

1M+Australian children supported by the scheme

35+ yrssince the scheme began — and overdue for reform

2 sidespaying and receiving parents both deserve fairness

Our mission

Legislative reform, achieved the right way

We are a think tank and advocacy group, not a service provider. Our objective is straightforward: to see the laws that govern child support brought into a fairer balance through the proper democratic process — by persuading the people who can change them.

Research the failures

We gather evidence on where the current scheme breaks down — the formula, the treatment of income, the dispute process — so that the case for change rests on facts, not anecdote.

Engage Parliament

We aim to engage respectfully with members of the federal Parliament across all parties, presenting practical reform options that a government of any colour could adopt.

Champion children

Every proposal we put forward is measured against one test: does it leave Australian children better off? That is the standard we campaign to.

What we stand for

Fairness to both parents — first to the child

A child support scheme cannot be fair to children if it is unfair to either of their parents. When the system penalises one side, it inevitably harms the other, and the child is caught in the middle of a dispute that the rules themselves have created. We reject the idea that this is a contest between mothers and fathers. It is a question of good policy.

That is why our work is deliberately non-partisan. We do not represent paying parents against receiving parents, or one political tradition against another. We represent the case for a scheme that is accurate, responsive and trusted — one that calculates support on the basis of real circumstances, adjusts when those circumstances change, and resolves disputes quickly and humanely.

Accuracy. Assessments should reflect what parents genuinely earn and the care they genuinely provide.
Responsiveness. When income or care arrangements change, the system should keep pace — not lag months or years behind.
Fairness to the self-employed. Variable and self-employed income should be handled sensibly, not penalised or exploited.
Proportionate process. Disputes should be resolved without driving families into prolonged conflict and cost.
Children at the centre. Every reform is judged by whether it improves the lives of the children it exists to support.

Our work is informed by people who understand the child support system from the inside. Among them is child support specialist Simon Bacon, who has spent more than thirty-five years working through the realities of child support in Australia — experience that helps ground our reform proposals in what actually happens to families, not just what the legislation says should happen.

It is common for people in the middle of a child support dispute to begin by searching online for a "child support lawyer". Often what they are really looking for is not litigation at all, but genuine, specialist understanding of how the scheme works and how to deal with it. The depth of expertise that Simon Bacon brings to the child support field is exactly the kind of practical knowledge that the group draws on when it frames the case for reform. You can read more about his three decades of experience in child support on his dedicated page.

About Simon Bacon The case for reform

A clear path forward

Why this matters — and how change happens

Reform of the child support scheme will not come from frustration alone. It comes from careful evidence, sensible proposals, and patient engagement with the people who write and amend the law. That is the path we have chosen. We aim to put well-researched options in front of parliamentarians, to explain the human cost of inaction, and to make the case that a fairer scheme is achievable without dismantling the principle at its heart.

The stakes are too high for anything less. Every year the system goes unreformed is another year of avoidable hardship for separated families and the children who depend on them. We believe Australia can do better — and we intend to keep making that case until it does.

Stand with the campaign for fairer child support

Learn how the scheme is failing families — and what sensible, achievable reform looks like.

Explore the reforms