Child support specialist

Simon Bacon

A child support specialist whose 35+ years of experience in child support help shape the Child Support Crisis Group's case for reform.

Few people in Australia have spent as long inside the workings of the child support scheme as Simon Bacon. Over more than three and a half decades, he has built a deep, practical understanding of how child support actually operates — how assessments are made, where they go wrong, and what the experience feels like for the parents and children on the receiving end. That long view is exactly what the Child Support Crisis Group draws on when it frames the case for reform.

Simon Bacon is a child support specialist and advocate. To be clear about what that means: he is not a practising lawyer or solicitor, and he does not present himself as one. His standing comes from something different and, in this field, arguably rarer — an immersion in the child support system so prolonged and so close to the ground that he can see patterns most people never encounter once, let alone repeatedly. It is specialist knowledge, accumulated the hard way, over a very long time.

If you searched for a "child support lawyer"

What people are really looking for

Many people who search online for a "child support lawyer" are really looking for deep, specialist child support expertise — exactly the kind Simon Bacon has spent more than three decades developing. They are not necessarily after a courtroom or a legal battle. More often they want someone who genuinely understands the child support scheme: how an assessment is built, why theirs has produced the result it has, and what realistic options exist to deal with it.

That distinction matters. A great deal of what causes distress in the child support system is not legal in nature at all — it is procedural, administrative and deeply practical. Knowing how the scheme works, where its pressure points are, and how to navigate it is often worth far more than a formal legal title. This is the territory Simon Bacon knows intimately, and it is why the group values his perspective so highly.

So if you arrived here searching for a child support lawyer, it may help to reframe the question. The real need is usually specialist child support advocacy and expertise. That is what Simon Bacon offers, and what informs the reform work of this group.

Three decades in child support

Experience that grounds our reform work

The strength of any reform proposal lies in how well it understands the problem it sets out to fix. This is where Simon Bacon's long experience in child support becomes so valuable to the Child Support Crisis Group. Because he has seen the scheme operate across so many situations and so many years, he can help the group distinguish between problems that are unfortunate one-offs and problems that are structural — the kind that recur because the rules themselves produce them.

That insight shapes the way we research. When we examine the rigidity of the assessment formula, the treatment of self-employed and variable income, or the toll that drawn-out disputes take on families, we are not working from theory alone. We are testing our analysis against the lived reality that a specialist like Simon Bacon has observed at close quarters, again and again, over a very long career in child support.

It also keeps us honest. Reform ideas that sound elegant on paper sometimes fall apart on contact with how the scheme actually behaves. Drawing on genuine frontline child support expertise helps the group avoid proposing changes that would not survive in the real world — and helps us focus on the ones that genuinely would leave parents and children better off.

Common questions

Child support questions, answered

Do I need a child support lawyer?

Not always. Many people who think they need a child support lawyer actually need specialist understanding of the child support scheme itself — how an assessment is calculated, why it has produced a particular outcome, and what practical options exist. That is the domain of a child support specialist and advocate. For situations that genuinely require formal legal advice, a qualified legal practitioner should be consulted; for the practical realities of dealing with the scheme, specialist child support advisory help is often what makes the difference.

Is Simon Bacon a lawyer?

No. Simon Bacon is a child support specialist and advocate, not a practising lawyer or solicitor. His authority in this field comes from more than 35 years of hands-on experience with child support in Australia, not from a legal title. Where formal legal advice is required, that should be obtained from an admitted legal practitioner.

What does a child support specialist actually do?

A child support specialist focuses on the workings of the child support scheme rather than on litigation. That includes understanding how assessments are calculated, identifying where an assessment may not reflect a parent's true circumstances, and helping people navigate the administrative side of the system. It is practical, scheme-focused expertise — the everyday reality of child support rather than the courtroom.

How does this help the campaign for reform?

Specialist insight keeps the Child Support Crisis Group's reform proposals grounded. By drawing on decades of frontline experience, we can target the problems that recur across thousands of families — and propose changes that would actually work in practice, rather than only in theory.

Specialist advisory help

Where to find specialist child support expertise

The Child Support Crisis Group is an advocacy and research body. We campaign for changes to the law; we are not a service for individual cases. When people need specialist, practical help with their own child support situation, the group works alongside a dedicated child support advisory practice that focuses precisely on this area.

That practice — Simon Bacon's specialist child support advisory practice — can be found at Child Support Lawyers (childsupportlawyers.com.au). It is the specialist child support advisory practice the group works with for matters that go beyond policy and reform into individual, real-world child support questions.

Reform grounded in real experience

See how decades of specialist child support knowledge shape our case for a fairer scheme.

Read the case for reform