Entitlements as a Permanent Resident?

[JoRed4]

Finding the whole process of benefits quite tricky; we never received any in England; however the cost of living in Oz means that we have looked into anything which we may be entitled to The one or two people that we have spoken to in the Centrelink offices have been lovely & friendly however because it's a system they are born into or at the very least know an awful lot about they talk to you like you should know what they're talking about.

My OH has accepted a job & will be earning $55K; we have an 8 month old baby. Is it possible to qualify for Family Tax Benefit Part A & B? Our daughter has had her immunisations as per the UK schedule & we also paid for her to have Hep B vaccines as we knew this was on the schedule here; so with the first chunk of her immunisations happening in the UK will we qualify for the Maternity Immunisation Allowance? In the leaflet we were given in talks about a Baby Bonus, which apparently applies regardless of whether or not your child was born in Australia so long as you are a Permanent Resident which we are?

I was told by the lady at Centrelink to simply log onto the website www.humanservices.gov.au & make a claim, but I would like to know as much as possible before I do that.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Royd]

There is so much information available online that it can be somewhat overwhelming. There is an actual paper brochure (shock!) which is available. It's entitled "A guide to Australian Government payments". The current edition is from 20 March to 30 June 2012. It is available from Centrelink and other places, eg Community Houses. It covers, among other things, Family Tax Benefits (Part A and B), Paid Parental Leave, Baby Bonus, Maternity Immunisation Allowance, Health Care Card (Family Tax Benefit), Child Care Benefit, Child Care Rebate, Jobs Education and Training Child Care Free assistance, Parenting Payment, Double Orphan Pension, Age Pension, Pension Bonus Scheme, Wife Pension, Widow B Pension, Bereavement Allowance, Disability Support Pension, Sickness Allowance, Mobility Allowance, Carer Payment....I think I'd better stop there for a moment.

 

It is very comprehensive. I don't know if it's available online but it is a very handy paper document. Anyway I had a look and got this out of it:

 

My OH has accepted a job & will be earning $55K; we have an 8 month old baby. Is it possible to qualify for Family Tax Benefit Part A & B?

If your income is more than $46,355 a year,your payment will reduce by 20 cents for each dollar above $46,355 until your payment reaches the base rate of Family Tax Benefit Part A,

Maximum rates of Family Tax Benefit A

For each child aged under 13 years $164.64 per fortnight $5,018.75 per year

Will we qualify for the Maternity Immunisation Allowance?

From 1 January 2009 Maternity Immunisation Allowance is generally paid as two separate amounts.

 

The first amount will be paid if your child is fully immunised between 18-24 months of age.

Baby Bonus

It looks as though you are eligible - it’s a big messy paragraph of conditions but it says if you have PR you get the BB. It appears that a child does not have to be born in Australia for parents to receive the BB.

 

This is only from my reading of the document, so please be advised to take caution in reading this. If I can find a link to the pdf of the document I'll post it.

[Royd]

Yay! Found it!

 

http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/publications/co029.htm

 

http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/filestores/co029_1203/$file/co029_1203en.pdf -

 

direct link but it might be useful to go to the link I first sent you and have a read of all the other stuff, then you can simply download the pdf.

 

I hope it gives you all the info you need.

[JoRed4]

Hi me again! Can you tell me do I need an "australia.gov.au account to be able to make a claim online? If I'm making claims such as Maternity Immunisation allowance & Baby Bonus do I need to register for CSA online?

Thank you again for all your help

[Royd]

I'm sorry I have no idea about that one. I do know that I was nudged (by the website) to get such an account when I was fiddling with my Medicare details. It might pay to actually get one if you can, I think it may end up being the sort of internal passport for online services we will need in future.