I've received a couple of emails from CSA this week informing me that I have messages, to get to them seemed to involve creating an account with the australian government website and having a current CSA reference number. The reference number was not included in the emails and I had a little bit of time during the day today so worked through the process of registering then grabbed an empty meeting room and rang CSA to get my login sorted.

I actually got someone who was good to deal with (still no changes to what is a fundamentally unjust system though).

The good news, I'd been told some years ago that CSA stayed until the child turned 18 or finished full time study including tertiary study - whichever was the later. It turn out the tertiary part was false, it's secondary so this ends in a 3 to 3 1/2 half years. All other things being equal I may get the sponges out of my pay and get some ytears to try and get my finances in order for retirement, not a lot but better than it was looking.

The bad news, CSA takes no responsibility for failing to make the arrangements with my employer that were discussed in the initial call in march nor do they take any responsibility for a known problem that some "clients" including me had not been receiving emails. I'd not received any communications from them following the initial call in march until last thursday and had hoped that the whole thing had gone away (that my ex's partner had developed a conscience).

I will/may be subject to a fine for late payment despite CSA agreeing to arrange to have the money taken from my pay. Another sign of a corrupt organisation acting without ethics.

In true CSA respect for privacy the assessment messages included both my and my ex's taxable income. I made it clear in march that I objected to that information being shared with my ex, it's not her business  nor is her income my business. I'm in no position to know if her claimed income is real nor is she in a position to know the validity of my income. Should only be an issue if there is reason to think one party is cheating on declaring income and the tax department is in a far better position to review claimed income than an ex who you have not been with for years.

CSA won't send me the details in emails to protect my privacy but share financial details with one of the few people in the world I have some personal reasons to detest. Another of those really silly policies from an organisation lacking accountability.

It does turn out that my choice not to have sought child support from my ex was a hollow gesture, she has managed to keep her income low enough that I would have got little or nothing anyway. I knew it would be low but not how low.

I don't think that particularly influenced my decision, I was able to support my son and myself without any great pain. Some things had been left on hold in the expectation that as he got older my costs were reducing but the lack of tension over finances was a great thing not to have. Unfortunately I'm now facing a doubling of costs to support my son rather than a reduction.

Also interesting that we both get a deducted amount for self support, an identical amount with no relationship to our living arrangements.  The same amount is allowed for someone who has remarried and sharing a home as is allowed for a single maintaining a home themselves - not quite the same rules the government uses for itself when providing support. Probably irrelevant in our circumstances, a difference would not impact on what I pay but yet another of those poor policies in CSA rules.

It's been a mixed day, it's a big help to know that this is only 3 1/2 years but that 3 1/2 years is a long time to keep stuff on hold. A long time to have my ability to do something with my partner impacted by sponges using me son for supplemental income, a long time not to have the spare money to fix a shower with bulging tiles and make some other repairs that can't be done cheaply.

I actually had a discussion with a CSA employee that did not leave me with a sick feeling in the stomach. CSA policies were shown to be even more arbitrary and symptomatic of a lack of accountability than I'd previously realised.

I strongly believe that most of those CSA manage to get money from are people who would willingly support their kids anyway. CSA may be able to over inflate the amounts transferred but I doubt that they get many payers to pay who would be unwilling to support kids under a more responsible and fair set of rules. They introduce such an unfair element to the whole system that they create and motivate conflict between parents which need not to be there. If kids welfare is an issue the government should be seeking to minimise causes of conflict, not running an organisation structured to create it.