Albaugh & Child Support Registrar

FEDERAL MAGISTRATES COURT OF AUSTRALIA

ALBAUGH & CHILD SUPPORT REGISTRAR [2007] FMCAfam 1106

CHILD SUPPORT – Appeal from a Departure Prohibition Order – dismissed.

Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988
Taxation Administration Act 1953

Jones v Child Support Registrar [2007] FCA 1732
Poletti v Deputy Commissioner of Taxation (1994) 124 ALR 373

Applicant: MR ALBAUGH

Respondent: CHILD SUPPORT REGISTRAR

File number: SYM 5105 of 2006

Judgment of: Sexton FM

Hearing date: 11 December 2007

Date of last submission: 11 December 2007

Delivered at: Sydney

Delivered on: 13 December 2007

REPRESENTATION

Applicant: Self represented

Solicitor for the Respondent: Australian Government Solicitors

ORDERS

1. The father’s appeal in relation to the Departure Prohibition Order be dismissed.

2. The Respondent’s costs application in relation to the appeal be adjourned to 20 March 2008 at 9.30a.m.

IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment under the pseudonym Albaugh & Child Support Registrar is approved pursuant to s.121(9)(g) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth).

FEDERAL MAGISTRATES
COURT OF AUSTRALIA AT
SYDNEY

SYM 5105 of 2006

MR ALBAUGH

Applicant

And

CHILD SUPPORT REGISTRAR

Respondent

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

Introduction

1. These reasons were delivered orally.

2. This matter is an appeal by the applicant father of a child [X], aged almost 5 years, from a decision of the Child Support Registrar to issue a Departure Prohibition Order. The Registrar issued the order on

   
   15 August 2007

   (though the father says 29 August 2007 in his notice of appeal). The father filed the notice of appeal from the Registrar's decision on 25 September 2007. In his notice of appeal the father sought an order that the Departure Prohibition Order be permanently stayed. At hearing the father sought an order that the Departure Prohibition Order be set aside pending determination of his application for departure from his child support assessments during periods dating from 1 August 2006. The father wants to travel to Nigeria next week and annexes his itinerary to his affidavit which includes a departure date of Monday, 17 December 2007, and a return date of Wednesday, 23 January 2008. He says he has travelled to Nigeria annually since his child support liability first arose. He says his father has a terminal illness. He says the Departure Prohibition Order amounts to a false imprisonment.

3. The father represented himself. The Child Support Registrar was represented by Ms Hawkins, Solicitor. The father relies on his own affidavit filed 2 November 2007, sworn on the same date, and on his financial statement sworn 2 October 2007 in support of the appeal.

4. As already noted, there was some confusion at the outset of the hearing as to precisely what the applicant was seeking. In his notice of appeal he asked that the Departure Prohibition Order be permanently stayed and for an Order (at No 8 of the orders sought) “that the operation of the aforesaid assessment of child support, be stayed until further notice.” I clarified with the applicant at the commencement of the hearing precisely what he was asking the Court to…