Australia Yearbook - 2001

Chapter 7—Income and welfare 265
financial hardship. To qualify, a person must be in
Australia and an Australian resident, or have a
qualifying residence exemption, or hold a
specified visa sub-class. The rate at which Special
Benefit is payable is discretionary, but cannot
exceed the applicable Newstart or Youth
Allowance, Family Allowance or Austudy rate.
Payment of Special Benefit is subject to an
income test, an assets test and an available funds
test. The assets test is the same as that applying
to Newstart Allowance customers, but both the
income test and the available funds test are
specific to Special Benefit.
Ancillary payments
Ancillary payments provide targeted financial
assistance to income support recipients to help
them meet expenses associated with a range of
specific circumstances. These circumstances
include residence in remote areas, having a
telephone connected, purchase of
pharmaceutical prescriptions, and financial
adjustment following the death of a partner,
child or care recipient.
Each of the ancillary payments has a different set
of qualifications attached. A person’s eligibility for
any of the ancillary payments depends upon their
prior eligibility for income support. Eligibility for
these payments is assessed as part of claiming
income support.
Concessions
Centrelink issues concession cards on behalf of
FaCS to people who receive a means tested
income support payment or who qualify for an
income tested card. These cards are the
Pensioner Concession Card, the Health Care Card
and the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card.
The Commonwealth’s primary purpose in issuing
a concession card is to assist the cardholder and
the cardholder’s family with the cost of
prescription medicines. State and local
governments may provide cardholders with a
reduction in household rates, energy bills, public
transport fares, motor vehicle registration and a
range of other health, educational and
recreational concessions. Some private
organisations also provide concessions on various
goods and services to holders of Commonwealth
concession cards.
International agreements and payment of
pensions abroad
Under Australia’s social security law, pensions for
old age, severe disability and widowhood
pensions payable to widowed persons can usually
be permanently paid abroad. Pensions for some
other contingencies can be paid outside Australia
for periods of up to 6 months (the period was
changed from 12 months to 6 months on
20 September 2000), except in New Zealand
where the recipient will normally have to apply to
the New Zealand Government for a payment. At
July 2000, Australia was paying more than 55,000
pensions to residents and former residents who
were absent from Australia for more than
12 months. At August 1999, other countries’
social security systems were making over 300,000
similar payments to Australian pensioners.
Australia has social security agreements with
Austria, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Ireland, Italy,
Malta, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, the
Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Australia
has given the United Kingdom notice that it will be
terminating the agreement on 28 February 2001.
A social security agreement with Germany is
expected to be signed in mid-September 2000, to
come into force in July 2002.
Negotiations to extend Australia’s social security
agreement network are also under way with
Chile, Croatia, Norway, Finland, Slovenia,
Switzerland and the USA. Australia has also had
preliminary discussions with Greece and Turkey.
The agreements that have been made form part
of Australia’s social security law. They enhance
people’s access to social security benefits from
partners to the agreements and guarantee the
payment of those benefits when people move
between countries.
Apart from New Zealand and the United Kingdom
with which Australia has older style host country
agreements, Australia negotiates social security
agreements based on a principle of shared
responsibility, so that countries in which
individuals may have lived and worked,
contribute towards social security payments for
those individuals.
Some agreements will eventually also contain
provisions to avoid double coverage. For
example, non-resident employees and their
employers can be exempted from the
requirement to make superannuation guarantee
contributions in Australia in return for similar
exemptions in the other country.