CSA and me
General Fraud Information
The Child Support Agency (CSA) is part of the Department of Human Services and is a national, highly professional organisation responsible for administering the Child Support Scheme on behalf of the Australian Government. CSA was established in 1988 to help ensure that children of separated parents receive the financial support that both parents are responsible for providing.
To achieve its goals, the CSA relies on parents to provide information to enable the CSA to correctly calculate and collect child support payable by parents for their children. Most parents provide accurate and helpful information that allows the CSA to do its job. However, a small number of parents occasionally provide false or misleading information with the intention of getting more child support or paying less child support than required.
What is fraud?
When CSA uses the term 'fraud' it means "dishonestly obtaining a child support benefit by deception or other means". Some examples include:
- providing forged or falsified documents;
- providing incorrect or false information on forms;
- child support customers who are living in a 'marriage-like relationship' but claim to be separated;
- parents claiming to be unemployed when they have a job;
- child support customers who no longer have the child/ren living with them but continue to request collection of maintenance on their child support case.
Put simply, fraud is where a parent deliberately misleads the CSA by providing false or misleading information, or does not provide any information at all when they are required to do so, and the result is that they gain some advantage in relation to paying or receiving child support.
How does CSA detect fraud?
The CSA detects fraud in a variety of ways including:
- Information from the public:
- Information obtained from third parties, such as employers and banks; and
- Obtaining information from other Commonwealth Agencies.
The CSA has a large and growing network of information sources where it can cross-check information provided by parents. Where there is a discrepancy between what the CSA is told by parents and the other information CSA has, CSA investigates why the information is different.
What is CSA doing about fraud?
In fairness to the majority of people who meet their obligations, and to ensure that community confidence in the child support scheme is maintained, we are strongly committed to deterring, detecting and dealing with fraud.
We tackle non compliance and fraud by:
- gathering and analysing information;
- investigating suspected fraud with a view to prosecution, often jointly with law enforcement agencies; and
- sharing information across partner agencies to achieve a whole of government approach in tackling criminal offences and fraud.
How can you help stop fraud
If you wish to provide information about suspected child support fraud, you can contact the CSA on 131 272.
If you have information or evidence that any person is behaving fraudulently in relation to any other Commonwealth department (eg Centrelink, Medicare), contact the Commonwealth Fraud 'tip off' line on 131 524.
The 'tip off' information provided to the CSA is followed up accordingly. The person providing the information to the CSA is not required to provide their name and can 'tip off' anonymously. The CSA will not release the outcome of the investigation to the person who has made the 'tip off'.
Alternatively you can report fraud by filling in the 'tip off' online form.