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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:13 pm Post subject: Australia: Child support payments given back to duped 'dads' |
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Child support payments given back to duped 'dads'
November 11, 2008 12:00am
MOTHERS are being forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars to men who paid child support over decades but were wrongly named as fathers.
The payouts follow a contentious reform of child-support laws. In the biggest case, Queensland man Ken Rodgers obtained orders for the repayment of $60,000 after making child-support contributions for a decade to a woman who refused to send him even a photograph of his alleged child.
The Courier-Mail can reveal that 18 men, cleared of fatherhood by DNA testing, have attempted to reclaim funds already paid to the mothers through the Child Support Agency.
Divorce laws: Shared parenting harmful
Documents obtained under Freedom of Information show orders for the return of funds totalling $171,567 have been made against mothers. The money is being garnished from mothers' incomes in the same way that payments are taken from fathers. In each case, the men were able to use DNA tests to prove in court they were not the father.
The new law, Section 143 of the Child Support (Assessment) Act, requires the Family Court to consider issuing orders for repayment whenever paternity is successfully challenged. It came into effect on January 1 last year.
But not every man who successfully disproves paternity is getting his money back, documents show. Since July 1, 2006 and October 13, 2008, 344 men have obtained orders cancelling Child Support Agency declarations following DNA tests that proved they were not the fathers of the children in question.
The move to make mothers pay has been attacked by women's groups.
Sole Parents Union president Kathleen Swinbourne said forcing mothers to return child support would hurt the child, both financially and emotionally. "The money has already been spent on rearing the child," Ms Swinbourne said. "If the mother is forced to pay back these funds, it's hard to imagine the child won't be disadvantaged.
"Men should raise their doubts about paternity when they are first told they are a father. If they raise it later, someone should tell them it's too late," she said.
Solo Mums Australia for Family Equity spokeswoman, Elspeth McInnes, doubted whether women took "a deliberate course" of setting up the wrong man for child support. "I doubt whether making the mothers pay it all back is going to help," she said.
But Men's Rights Agency director Sue Price said men wrongly named as fathers were entitled to justice.
She said all child-support payments made by a man should be refunded by the Child Support Agency, where paternity was successfully challenged, and then recouped from the woman. "A woman knows who she's been with in a particular month," she said.
"They must know if there is any doubt about whether the man they are pointing their finger at ... is actually the father."
Ms Price said there should be mandatory DNA testing either at birth or before Child Support Agency orders were made.
Lone Fathers Association Barry Williams said women who identify the wrong man for child support should be held accountable.
The repayments are being made despite a landmark 2006 High Court ruling that stripped a $70,000 compensation payment for pain and suffering to duped father Liam Magill. In 2000, Mr Magill learned through DNA tests that he was not the father of two of the three children born during his four-year marriage.
But the High Court ruled there was no legal obligation for husbands and wives who cheated on each other to disclose their infidelity. The court decided disclosure "should be left to the morality of spouses".
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24632911-952,00.html |
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yawarakaijin
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 7:52 pm Post subject: |
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Quite simple if you ask me. Who is it that should be the more knowledgeable in regards to the fatherhood of a child? The asnwer is simple, the mother.
If a man is to find out if he is really the father a DNA test is required, perhaps the hiring of a private eye to determine if the woman could be/could have been seeing another man.
All the woman needs to know is whether or not she was having sex with more than one man when the child was conceived.
I hate to give cornfed any ammunition, as I'm sure he will be along shortly, but this clearly falls withing the realm of responsibility of women. If you are going to ask for child support, be goddamned sure who the father of your child actually is. |
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Manner of Speaking
Joined: 09 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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| As mentioned in the article, the Mens Rights Agency have a good idea when they suggested there should be mandatory DNA testing before any child support orders are issued. Use a technical requirement to eliminate a possible social problem. |
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bacasper
Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 6:20 am Post subject: |
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Score one for the men.
I love this defense:
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| "The money has already been spent." |
I'm going to pull a really big swindle, and then use that after they catch me.
"Try to get me a little faster next time," I'll advise.
Soemone posted awhile back an article about how about 10% of children being raised in families with fathers are not their biological offspring although the fathers believe that. If that is any indication, the child support swindle is pretty big. |
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Cornfed
Joined: 14 Mar 2008
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| Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 5:04 pm Post subject: |
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| While it's great that the lying, thieving scum will have to pay back the money they've stolen, what is more problematic is the idea underpinning their crime - that children should be raised by their low-life mother and whichever dirtbag she happens to be shacked up with for her sexual convenience and that fathers are simply walking wallets to be looted by them. If we can get past this Soviet-originated idea then we might make some progress. |
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