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Transcript

7 December 2009

Interview with Terri Begley, ABC Brisbane

E&OE PROOF ONLY

SUBJECTS: Child Support Departure Prohibition Orders (DPOs).

TERRI BEGLEY: Now, if you’re heading overseas for your Christmas holiday this year but haven’t paid some of your child support in a while, you might be in for a rude shock at the airport. You could be sent packing all the way home because the Child Support Agency is able to issue travel bans on parents who owe it money.

Chris Bowen is the Federal Minister for Human Services. Good morning.
                                                                                                                
CHRIS BOWEN: Good morning, Terri.

BEGLEY: Is this the first time people could be banned from travel if they owe child support payments?

BOWEN: No it’s not, but we do find a lot of people travelling around Christmas and it’s always a good opportunity to remind people that this could come into play. So if you owe an amount of child support – it would have to be a substantial amount – but if you owe an amount of child support and you have not been fulfilling your obligations, we will contact you if we are intending to put a DPO in place, a Departure Prohibition Order in place, which will prohibit you from leaving the country until you pay your child support.

If we can’t get in contact with you, because many people in this situation are actively trying to avoid the Child Support Agency, the DPO still applies. So you might find you get to the airport ready for your nice trip overseas and a nice official lets you know that you’re not going anywhere and you need to contact the Child Support Agency. It’s a drastic measure but one that is appropriate to make sure that people are fulfilling their obligations.

BEGLEY: Minister, what is the threshold figure for you to owe for this to swing into place?

BOWEN: It’s not a threshold figure, there’s no exact threshold figure. It’s where the Child Support Agency takes the view that this will be necessary to make you pay your child support. It’s not something we do lightly, it’s not something we rush to. Nobody likes to do these sorts of things, but we have, as you imagine Terri, some very difficult cases where people are actively avoiding their obligations. This is one of many measures we use to make people consider their obligations to their family.

Take one example: there was an individual who owed the Child Support Agency $40,000 roughly. He’d moved overseas some years ago, which makes it very difficult for the Child Support Agency to deal with him, but he would make periodic trips back to Australia and when he went to leave Australia he’d found that the Child Support Agency had put a DPO on him and he wasn’t able to return to his offshore residence. He paid that $40,000 very quickly.

BEGLEY: Okay. Well, we can say you have been warned now. Thank you for your time this morning.

BOWEN: Great pleasure.

BEGLEY: Federal Human Services Minister Chris Bowen talking about some of the measures the Child Support Agency can now put in place if you haven’t made child support payments and you’re intending to leave the country this Christmas.

Ends