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Legislation and Policy Changes for this Election?

Filed under: Child Support,Domestic Violence,General,Law & Courts,Sex Abuse / CYF — MurrayBacon @ 8:13 am Wed 7th May 2014

Work Required to Change to Open Marketplace for Parenting Plan Certification Services

Below is a list of areas of legislation needing to be changed. This has been taken from my Submission to Review of Family Court.
Please add points left out into comments.
Where suggestions I have made are unrealistic or unfair to women or childless persons, please make appropriate comments.
If you wish to make suggestions or discussions confidentially, please contact me privately.
This list is presently only aimed at familycaught$ and child protection. We need to consider men’s physical and mental health too.

Social Security Act
Abatement rates are too high.
Government benefits should only be made available to people after they have shown that they have the skills and resources to parent successfully, in the situation they are entering. Benefits should not be made available, just to break up existing marriages, without a strong and proven justification. If someone wants to break their marriage, then usually they should make their arrangements without relying on Government benefits. Provision of DPB on demand, allows many children to leave the relative safety of their home, for a more dangerous solo parented existence.
shared parenting, parents tax credits sharing
DPB access should be based on showing that there was a need for independent accommodation, rather than “I want”, that is marital and family accommodation options were not available. Benefit level based on history of market earning potential, to make it less attractive to women without moderate earning capability.

Family Court Rules
Generally very satisfactory, as is. They would benefit from simplification. As far as possible, should be identical to District Court Rules, as they used to be.

Care of Children Act
Generally very satisfactory, as is. They would benefit from some simplification.
Prohibition on removing children from marital home, without agreed and approved Parenting Plan.

Relationship Property Act
This act creates large perverse incentives and is also urgently in need of clarification and simplification. This act provides too strong incentives to break up relationships, due to big payouts, after relatively short time in the relationship. The act rewards people for sharing less in the relationship and tends to rewards people who keep most of their funds separate.

Child Support Act
Child support should be based only on basic food, clothing, incidentals such as travel, school and everyday cultural needs of children, ie not accommodation. private school fees, international holidays.
Before CS demand should be accepted, the other parent should have first right of refusal to take care of the children, without demanding payment of child support. This leads more naturally to the parents sharing the care of the children, thus protecting the children’s right to have a working relationship with both parents. This arrangement gives the children the best protection from parents with poor parenting skills or mental health.
Child support should be based on total household income, to prevent manipulation by deciding to stay at home to care for children, rather than work for taxable income.
Child support should be based on actual care of the children, thus adjusted each year end, if the care was different from plan.
The most important change required in practice, is in attitudes within IRD CS towards accepting information from fathers.

Legal Services Act
Change eligibility rules for parental disputes, to restrict total cost per year.
Remove the protections for LSA supported litigants, with respect to costs rules, so that they are fully accountable for wasted costs and baseless applications.

DV Act
Remove acceptance of evidence-less applications. Risk management to be based on consideration of damage by emotional neglect and loss of relationships.

14 Comments »

  1. I particularly like your first point of Joint custody and shared cost being the norm. Just because the relationship fails dose not mean the children should be stolen from the father as well and used against him as an extortion and bartering tool.

    Also Agree that if a women decides she wants to leave her marriage she should make suitable arrangements of employment rather then her previous role as mother only. I don’t see why its societies obligation to sponsor her new family arrangement.

    Comment by Ritche — Wed 7th May 2014 @ 10:43 am

  2. Clean The Shit-hole Up Act
    Allow for and encourage the prosecution of those who submit clearly dishonest sworn or affirmed affidavits to the Family Court with Trying To Pervert The Course Of Justice (for the children).

    Comment by soMENi — Wed 7th May 2014 @ 11:38 am

  3. Dear soMENi, if you look at the full submission, submitting false affidavits should be picked up the the Parenting Plan approvers, who would reject it and invoice for their charge. Without an approved parenting plan, nothing would affect the children. Dishonesty does not reflect well on parenting skills and would result that that parent would be restricted to spending less time with the children and paying more child support. Generally, this level of incentive is more likely to do the job, than prosecuting in a criminal court, where it may be difficult to prove intent. In the end, no actual incentive at all.

    One of the most important issues, is to detect issues left out of the list above and draw it to everyone’s attention.

    Thanks, MurrayBacon.

    Comment by MurrayBacon — Wed 7th May 2014 @ 12:20 pm

  4. When I asked the IRD for how they justify taking 18%.. All they send is a tiny booklet telling me what i have to pay. NO why and how they decide my child costs this much. Yes I agree that there should be a set amount that govt/society agrees a child costs. But why is the cap set at the first 130k of your income? The cap should be much lower if the percentage is 18%. That would mean you give the child more than what an adult gets on the benefit to live.. How does a child cost that much? Also, what about the mothers 50% contribution.

    then there is the double standard for people on welfare, they get an addition amount for every child they have. This doesn’t even come close to the 18% we get hammered with for a single child.

    This is extortion. I’ve been told by the case officer that if i don’t like it I can leave NZ. IRD employees are complicit. If someone goes crazy over this and carries out retribution on IRD employees. I will be clapping.

    How enraged do we have to become to force change?

    Comment by ENOUGH — Thu 15th May 2014 @ 6:50 pm

  5. No point in getting annoyed about current formula. It all changes from 1 April 2015 (assuming IRD can cope which I am assured they can).
    Under the new changes they use statistics to determine the costs of raising children.
    Their propoganda says;
    Two methods were used to measure the costs of raising children in New Zealand.

    Data from Statistics New Zealand’s Household Economic Survey was used to compare the expenditure of a couple-only household with that of a two-parent household with one child. Expenditure for a second child is determined by comparing the two-parent/one child household expenditure with that of a two-parent/two children household and so on.
    The basket of goods approach. This involved pricing a “basket” of over 700 goods and services considered necessary for raising children at a given standard of living.
    The results showed that the average expenditure for raising children in New Zealand varied according to the age of the child, household income, and the number of children in the household. From these results, we developed the child expenditure table to use in the new formula calculation to work out how much child support should be paid.

    Comment by Allan Harvey — Thu 15th May 2014 @ 8:18 pm

  6. Child expenditure table

    The income ranges are based on the average weekly earnings for the June quarter of the previous child support year. We get the average weekly earnings from Statistics New Zealand, and annualise them.

    The tables below are based on the June 2012 average weekly earnings. Once we have the figures for 2013 (which will be used for the 2014 child support year) we will publish an up-to-date table.

    http://www.ird.govt.nz/childsupport-changes/changes/cs-formula/cs-expenditure.html

    Comment by Allan Harvey — Thu 15th May 2014 @ 8:23 pm

  7. Allan Harvey says:
    Under the new changes they use statistics to determine the costs of raising children.

    The question is; Will the NCP be responsible for his or her half of the apparent true cost of raising his or her child or will I.R.D. expect the NCP to contribute 100% of that value to the custodial parent?

    Comment by soMENi — Thu 15th May 2014 @ 8:59 pm

  8. under the new formula both parents contribute but each according to their income.
    It is quite a complecated formula.
    Based on age of child, income of both parents, proportion of care each parent has (between 28-72%).

    Comment by Allan Harvey — Thu 15th May 2014 @ 9:46 pm

  9. #4 Enough, good question, good answers, but the answer doesn’t actually answer the question that you asked, I believe. You asked not just how to calculate the figure, but what is the justification for the figures?

    Sure, the answer Allan gave might be a logical method to calculate such values, but it runs into severe problems when the range of liable parent’s incomes are taken into account. It just won’t fit together in practice, like squeezing a balloon in your fingers.

    The answers that Allan quoted, are used in setting extra monies paid to beneficiaries for each additional child in their care, eg the DPB now renamed and I cannot tell you the new name for the benefit. Having done the calculations, someone waves their hand in the air, gets you to look in a different direction for a tenth of a second and a new value is found, usually just a little less than the calculated value. In this case, there is no consideration of payer income.

    NZ copied its child [and spousal] support from Australian legislation, with very minor changes to the % rates taken. If this is correct, then our calculations are based on how the Australians calculated their child support %. The preparation of the NZ calculation method has never been published, other than that it was copied from Australia. I think the % values were slightly increased, but I have never seen any explanation for these increases. To me this is surprising, as we pay for medical and education costs in tax slightly more so than in Australia, so a small reduction would have seemed more appropriate.

    Australia copied its child [and spousal] support from Canadian legislation, with very minor changes to the % rates taken. If this is correct, then Australian calculations are based on how the Canadians calculated their child support %. The preparation of the Australian calculation method has never been published, other than that it was copied from Canada. I think the % values were slightly increased, but I have never seen any explanation for these increases. To me this is surprising, as Australians pay for medical and education costs in tax slightly more so than in Canada, so a small reduction would have seemed more appropriate.

    Canada copied its child [and spousal] support from Wisconsin legislation, with minor increase to the % rates taken. If this is correct, then Canadian calculations are based on how the Wisconsins calculated their child support %. The preparation of the Canadian calculation method has never been officially published, other than that it was copied from Wisconsin. I think the % values were increased, but I have never seen any explanation that explained for these increases. To me this is surprising, as Canadians pay for medical and education costs in tax much more so than in Wisconsin, so a significant reduction would have seemed more appropriate.

    Shared Care adjustment, only in Quebec

    There are formula-based adjustments for shared care only in Québec. Where payers have more than 40% care, each parent’s calculated basic liability is multiplied by the time the child spends with the other parent and liabilities are offset, then additional costs (music lessons, childcare, etc) are divided according to the income ratio. Payers with contact of 20-40% have their basic liability reduced by the percentage of care they have above 20%, for example a payer with 32% care has his or her liability reduced by 12%. In other provinces, arrangements for shared care usually only apply where each parent has at least 40% of care and are by court discretion; rulings range from leaving the table amount stand, if the “resident” parent’s costs are not signicantly reduced and the other parent’s costs not greatly increased, to establishing a much higher cost and dividing that. About 6% of cases involve shared care, which is similar to the Australian situation. In cases of split custody, each parent’s liability towards their non-resident child(ren) is calculated and the liabilities are offset.

    Having a second family does not automatically reduce the liability. Either parent can apply for a departure on the grounds of “undue hardship”, and the support of other children is a basis on which this may be claimed.

    Canada, Australia and NZ allow for child [and spousal] support payments to increase with increases in income and sometimes allow for a decrease when income has decreased. In a sense, this manages income risk. USA Child support increases with increase in income, but procedures for reducing child [and spousal] support when incomes goes down, are aimed to crush and destroy the payer=liable parent. The resulting suicide rates make NZ look like a holiday camp, as you would expect for a capitalist country that provides the best child development and child protection research in the world, but mangles, neglects and destroys children and imprisons them as they grow older, at the highest rate in the world.

    Although the preparation of the Canadian calculations were announced to be available, when the Canadian Parliament debated the Child [and spousal] Support Act, it wasn’t actually made available. As time passed after the passing of the Act, the release date for the calculation document disappeared into the way off future and was never seen again for the sad curvature of space/time. Canada is usually quite open with official documents and has a policy of proactive release on Government websites, to avoid people even having to ask for such reports.

    See page 67 or search for Alar Soever inside the following document:
    IDEOLOGY AND DYSFUNCTION IN FAMILY LAW HOW COURTS DISENFRANCHISE FATHERS

    Alar Soever’s document [Canadian] Federal Child Support Guidelines a breakdown of democratic process doesn’t appear to still be available. Contact me if you would like a copy.

    Wisconsin

    In Wisconsin, liability is based on percentage of gross payer income. Some social security benefits, including food stamps, do not count towards income. The following percentages applied to the payer’s income: 17% for one child, 25% for two children, 29% for three, 31% for four, and 34% for five or more. There is no self-support component, and the payee’s income is not usually considered. Courts generally use discretion for payer incomes below $950/month (though it should be noted that they largely still make much higher awards than in similar cases in Australia) and for very high incomes.

    Where both parents have shared care of at least 25% of the time, each parent’s liability to the other is calculated. The relevant percentage is applied to each parent’s income. These amounts are multiplied by 150%, to take account of the fact that it costs significantly more to care for a child in two households than in one. Each parent’s resulting amount is multiplied by the percentage of time that the other parent cares for the child, giving their liability. The amounts are offset and any balance is payable. If the resulting payer is also classified as a low-income payer, the liability may be the lower amount resulting from this calculation or from the standard (non-shared care) calculation.

    Where a payer has legal obligations to children in different families, the children are put in order by dates of obligation, which are the children’s birthdays for marital children or dates of court orders for non-marital children. The amount of support due to children in the first family is calculated as normal. This amount is subtracted from the payer’s assessed income for the purposes of calculating support due to the children in the second family. The process is repeated for any subsequent families. These rules apply to all children for whom the payer has a legal obligation, that is, it includes biological children in a new intact family. However, because of the ordering process, there will effectively be a reduction for these children only where another parent has applied for support for a non-marital child after the birth of the new children.

    International history of child support

    As the amount paid is based crudely on the number of children and mainly on the ability to pay and the maximum payment is set far beyond the actual cost of children, it is really just a tax. The maximum payment is set so far beyond the reasonable costs of children, in a futile attempt to recover DPB payments from the few fathers with extremely high incomes. The payments are made the same for DPB or mothers otherwise supported, for an illusion of “fairness”.

    If you can follow the logic above, to understand where the NZ child [and spousal] support figures came from, you can get a job as a psychopath.. dealing death for non-custodial parents.

    Love and kisses, MurrayBacon – axe murderer.

    Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 15th May 2014 @ 10:02 pm

  10. Allen (#5): People tried to read and understand Peter Dunne’s commissioned ‘research’ that compared the expenditure of no-child vs one-child and more-children households. The basic figures were statistically modified in a complicated way that magically increased them hugely. The statistical manipulation was not well explained but appeared to be based on various assumptions that did not seem realistic. In addition, the assumption made in the first place that the difference between the household expenditure was necessarily due to costs necessary for children.

    The conclusion of this goobledegook ‘research’ was that astronomical figures, many hundreds of thousands of dollars, was required to raise each child. Ridiculous, given that a high proportion of kiwi kids have been raised on parental incomes that in their entirety were much lower than those figures.

    Another conclusion from that ‘research’ was that children cost more as they get older. That seems reasonable in principle but again the ‘research’ estimated those differences at astronomical levels.

    Unfortunately, if this ‘research’ has been used as any basis of so-called ‘child support’ calculations, paying fathers are in for a very hard time.

    Comment by Ministry of Men's Affairs — Fri 16th May 2014 @ 9:41 am

  11. I seem to recall that when the revised calculations first came out, I was going to be paying about $100 month LESS for my now 2 year old.
    Now all of a sudden, the new calculations say that I’m going to be paying MORE.
    If my child was 12, then I’d be paying $3000 a YEAR more!

    WHAT THE FUCK?

    Comment by fuktheird — Fri 16th May 2014 @ 3:21 pm

  12. Almost $900 a month for a 2 year old. FFS.What 2 year old costs that much? No wonder my bitch of an ex fought so hard to stop me getting overnight access.
    Why bother with a career at all?

    Comment by fuktheird — Fri 16th May 2014 @ 3:23 pm

  13. Dear fuktheird,

    you are far too kind to ird-cs, maybe there is something wrong with you? I would do far worse and slower, given the slightest opportunity. Like prosecute for manslaughter for all of the suicides due to deliberately delayed documents.

    Spousal support is expensive! Funny how even after an ex-wife forms a new relationship, the spousal support component just keeps on going?

    User pays would suggest that you would be far better off to take the child back, care for it for 50% of the time and pay no child [and spousal] support?

    For most situations, relatively equally shared care shows the best outcomes for children.

    User pays says that the person paying gets to make the choices. This is the best way to maximise welfare.

    Why stop at 50%? Would you be able to care for the child 100%, even if the deadbeat mother paid nothing but tears and raspberries toward the care of your child? I hope that you value the care that the mother gives, according to its value for the child?

    Cheers, MurrayBacon – axe murderer.

    Comment by MurrayBacon — Sat 17th May 2014 @ 8:22 am

  14. Yes Murray, it is obvious to anyone with half a brain, like me that the system is purposely designed to sound fair but to allow the corrupt and evil Lawyer/Judges in the Femily Court to rule in favour of the ‘mother’ in order to create conflict and disenfranchise men and to strip men of $ and assets through attrition or suicide.

    Neither the mothers, Lawyers, or Judges or cops or pollutitions in power – National Party, Labour Party, Green Party, Winston Peters, ACT Party or any of them have spoke out against this or more importantly done anything to prevent this DAD & CHILD ABUSE as far as i know.

    Therefore as they have shown not one shred of empathy, they are all by definition Psychopaths, and the only difference between them and the psychopaths who get jailed for murder is that they are too clever and change laws to make it all ‘legal’.

    Comment by Phil Watts — Sat 17th May 2014 @ 10:21 am

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