Swanson and Swanson (Child support)

The case of *Swanson and Swanson (Child support)* concerned an appeal to the Full Court of the Family Court of Australia regarding a child support assessment. The appellant, the father, sought to appeal a decision made by Deputy Registrar Walsh, which had affirmed an earlier assessment of child support payable by him to the respondent, the mother. The core of the dispute revolved around the father's income, specifically the inclusion of certain lump sum payments in his assessable income for child support purposes.

The primary legal issue before the Full Court was whether the Deputy Registrar had erred in law by including two lump sum payments received by the father in his assessable income for the purposes of the child support assessment. The father contended that these payments were not regular or periodic income but rather capital in nature, and therefore should not have been included under the *Child Support (Assessment) Act 1989* (Cth).

Deputy J Walsh P, delivering the judgment of the Full Court, considered the nature of the payments and the relevant provisions of the *Child Support (Assessment) Act*. The Court affirmed the principle that the characterisation of a payment for income tax purposes is not determinative for child support assessment. Instead, the Court focused on whether the payments were received by the father in a way that represented a resource available for the payment of child support. The Court found that the Deputy Registrar had correctly applied the law in determining that the lump sum payments were to be treated as income for child support purposes, as they represented a financial resource available to the father during the assessment period. The appeal was therefore dismissed.