Madan and Madan (Child support)

[2019] AATA 5949

Madan and Madan (Child support) [2019] AATA 5949 (2 December 2019)

DIVISION:Social Services & Child Support Division

REVIEW NUMBER:  2019/BC017092

APPLICANT:  Ms Madan

OTHER PARTIES:  Child Support Registrar

Mr Madan

TRIBUNAL:Member S Letch

DECISION DATE:  2 December 2019

DECISION:

The Tribunal sets aside the decision under review and, in substitution, decides that Ms Madan made an application for a child support assessment for [Child 1] and [Child 2] on 21 February 2019.

CATCHWORDS

CHILD SUPPORT – particulars of the administrative assessment – date of effect of an application for an administrative assessment – whether the application was lodged on an earlier date – the application was lodged online on an earlier date – decision under review set aside and substituted

Names used in all published decisions are pseudonyms. Any references appearing in square brackets indicate that information has been removed from this decision and replaced with generic information so as not to identify involved individuals as required by subsections 16(2AB)-16(2AC) of the Child Support (Registration and Collection) Act 1988.

REASONS FOR DECISION

1. This case is about when Ms Madan made an application for child support. She says she did so online in February 2019; the Child Support Agency (CSA), relying on its computer records, says an application was first made on 16 April 2019.

2. On 22 July 2019, an objections officer disallowed Ms Madan’s objection to the original decision made on 26 April 2019. Ms Madan applied for further review by the Tribunal on 6 August 2019. Ms Madan and Mr Madan participated in the Tribunal’s hearing by conference telephone. 

3. Ms Madan told the Tribunal that first telephoned CSA in October 2018; she was told she was “exempt” from being required to apply for child support, and said she was “weighing her options”. She rang CSA again in early February 2019 and she decided to go forward with a child support application. She recalled she visited a website; she recalled that she had to “go through it twice” to get to the end of the application. She was given an “ID number” which she wrote down ([number specified]). Thereafter, she called CSA a couple of times to be told that the CSA was dealing with many applications, and that it “probably just hadn’t been processed yet”. During her third call on 16 April 2019, the CSA officer identified there must have been a problem, and as a result, Ms Madan was transferred to an operator to make her application over the telephone (which she said took a couple of hours). She told the Tribunal she has been led to understand that the information submitted online is “phase one” and is transferred to an area within CSA to register and move the application to the “next phase”.

4. In short, Mr Madan indicated he accepted the objection decision; he takes the not unreasonable position that ultimately it is a case of “he said she said”, and urges the CSA records should be accepted.

5. It is trite, but ultimately it is a question of fact to be determined, the date Ms Madan first made her application. The Tribunal found Ms Madan a credible and reliable witness. Her representations to the CSA and the Tribunal have been materially consistent.

6. If Ms Madan’s evidence is accepted, it follows that the CSA computer records failed to properly register her online application in February 2019. It is also trite, but in the Tribunal’s experience, the CSA computer systems and records are not infallible.

7. The Tribunal finds particularly compelling Ms Madan’s record of her application number. That number, as the Tribunal understands it, is in the correct form (although the objections officer says there is no record of that particular number). It seems to the Tribunal that it would be a very elaborate deception by Ms Madan to manufacture a number and misrepresent her completion of the online application. Her evidence, which the Tribunal accepts, of the events that followed is entirely consistent with the submission of the online application in February 2019.

8. It seems to the Tribunal a very important piece of evidence has perhaps been overlooked by the CSA. At folio 67 of the CSA materials, there is a computer screen printout from CSA’s “Pluto system” (from which information is transferred to “CUBA” (the main CSA database)). For [her specified ID number], there appears an entry under “Change Date and Time” on 21 February 2019. It seems to the Tribunal this evidence clearly corroborates Ms Madan’s account of events.

9. In her evidence to the Tribunal, Ms Madan recalled she had made her online application in early February 2019; on the basis of the CSA Pluto record referred to above, and the balance of the evidence before it, the Tribunal considers it more likely than not that her application was first made on 21 February 2019.

10. As the Tribunal has reached a different conclusion to the objections officer, the decision under review will be set aside.

DECISION

The Tribunal sets aside the decision under review and, in substitution, decides that Ms Madan made an application for a child support assessment for [Child 1] and [Child 2] on 21 February 2019.