The abrogation of child support by absent or wayward non-custodial parents at first glance looks like another national scandal.
The child-support debt has soared to almost $2 billion.
Ultimately, it is yet another debt on the taxpayer who, by circuitous means, will end up footing the bill for much of the welfare shortfall occasioned by the debt.
By the end of June, the actual amount of unpaid child support was $578 million with the remainder of the $1.94 billion made up of penalties.
While there will be a majority of such non-custodial parents, still predominantly fathers, who routinely meet the support requirements, a minority will repeatedly shirk their responsibilities, and avoid payment.
They will do so because of lax enforcement and recovery processes - in other words, because they can - or, in some cases, because of a genuine disconnect between the design of child support and the defaulters who come under its ambit.
The greater the levels of confidence any compulsory levy enjoys, the higher degree of compliance it will attain.
For a proportion of the shirkers charged with making pecuniary contributions towards the costs of raising their offspring, no system will meet approval.
For these people the idea of "taking responsibility" has always been, and most likely will continue to be, an unfamiliar concept; the blank-faced reprobates who turn to their foreign-language dictionary when the word "consequences" is raised.
However, there is some substance to the claims that the New Zealand child-support system, having been implemented in 1992, is now out of date: society has evolved, and in particular, modes of parenting - or shared parenting if the relationship has dissolved - have moved on.
Work practices, too, have changed with many more women, and therefore mothers, routinely in the workforce or pursuing careers.
Thus, the discussion paper, "Supporting Children", released last Thursday by Minister of Revenue Peter Dunne, is a timely intervention.
The main proposals of the paper, on which feedback is sought, are: consideration of both parents' income when calculating child-support payments; a more exact examination of the degree of care provided by a parent in calculating payments; basing calculations on new research showing that children subsequent to the first-born cost less to raise, but that the cost for all rise as they get older; compulsory deductions of child-support payments from salary and wages; and a cap on penalties for missing child-support payments.
In as much as there is both carrot and stick in the proposals, they hold out hope for a system that, if not entirely broken, is creaking perilously.
Should they find their way into new legislation, they might well contribute towards a fairer system.
And the element of compulsion involved in deducting support at source of earnings should help to diminish the perennial deficits - as long as a suitable design can be achieved, one that also takes account of self-employed non-custodial parents with the wherewithal to employ creative accountants.
There are other potential fish-hooks, particularly towards the bottom of the wealth pile.
Will single mothers, for instance, who have struggled to find work and get off the DPB, find that any financial advantage delivered by their newly-employed circumstance is cancelled out by an effective reduction in child support? Equally, on the other side of the coin, how will any new system address the common situation whereby non-custodial parents are constrained from getting on with their lives and new partners by the sometimes hefty financial support burdens they carry? If the custodial partner has formed a new, "permanent" relationship, should not the new partner's income also be considered?These are far from simple matters.
In an ideal world, when people's relationships come adrift and there are children, both parents will work towards a mutually agreed private arrangement that is focused on the wellbeing and care of those children.
All too often, however, grief, bitterness and recrimination scuttle the best of intentions, and the State must intervene.
There is evidence crude or outdated instruments of state-levied child support discourage compliance.
Any new system needs to be carefully thought through, and incorporate as much flexibility and scope for adjustment, according to individual circumstances, as is possible.
But then it must be policed vigorously and creatively.
Child support is one additional debt burden this society can do without.
