While The Minister for Child Tax, Peter Dunne, plays an elf in the Johnsonville Christmas Parade I wonder what his Christmas present for those afflicted by Child Tax will be?

Consider this; if the changes the oligarchy of officials proposes for tinkering with the current Child Tax legislation are to be implemented in 2010 Dunne has to act by the 22 of December. Assuming Dunne wants to implement the officials latest attempt to patch the flaws in the Child Tax Act 1991, by the next financial year, he will need to have everything in place by 31 March. To achieve the tinkering for the next financial year he has to move by 22 December.

Of course my prediction could be wrong, but the tinkering means changing the code that runs the programs that produce the assessments and that all takes time. The patches would have to be in place for the financial year end, it would be an administrative nightmare to implement at any other time as assessments would change and under and over payment would be rife.

It would not surprise me if the changes were released just before Christmas as the “feel good” news of the Christmas period will drown out the news that a major piece of the matrix of Family Law is being tinkered with yet again. You can’t fix this legislation it’s fundamentally flawed!