Single parents in Australia are owed $3.7bn in child support. Anne says no leader has been ‘brave enough’ to fix it

Research shows that the rate of poverty in single parent households is more than three times that of coupled parents. Photograph: Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/Getty Images

For 17 years, Anne* lived in poverty as she tried to raise her two young sons alone.

Their father left when the children were seven and one, and cut all contact. Anne tried every tool available to her but her former partner refused to pay child support and she was plunged into poverty trying to make ends meet.