Explanatory Memorandum
Jenny Macklin Mp (Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs)Schedule 4 - Administrative scheme for household stimulus payments
Summary
This Schedule contains provisions to enable administrative schemes to be established. In broad terms, the purpose of each administrative scheme will be to provide payments in circumstances where the statutory regime of household stimulus package payments provided for in Schedules 1, 2, and 3 does not necessarily produce an appropriate result in relation to circumstances that occur in the 2008-09 income year. The relevant Minister is able to determine the details of the scheme by legislative instrument.
Background
Administrative payment schemes are common features of Acts providing for lump-sum and one-off welfare-related payments. Their purpose is to enable payments that are similar in purpose to those provided for in the Act to people who have missed out on the Act payments due to unforeseen circumstances or unintentional limits in the operation of the Act.
This Schedule enables an administrative scheme to be established alongside the statutory regime providing for household stimulus package payments.
The amendments made by this Schedule commence on Royal Assent.
Explanation of the changes
Item 1 provides for the establishment of an administrative scheme by a relevant Minister administering the Family Assistance Act, the Social Security Act, the Farm Household Support Act or the Veterans' Entitlements Act, under which household stimulus payments can be made to people who would not otherwise qualify for such a payment in specified circumstances. The purpose of the scheme is to provide payments in circumstances where the statutory regime of household stimulus package payments does not necessarily produce an appropriate result in relation to circumstances that occur in the 2008-09 income year.
The details of the administrative scheme (including such matters as qualification, amount of the payment and administrative matters) would be set out in a legislative instrument, which would be subject to the ordinary Parliamentary scrutiny and disallowance processes for such instruments.
Payments under the administrative scheme would be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and the bill provides a standing appropriation (in accordance with subitem 1(5 )).
The administrative scheme provisions in this bill are substantially the same as those used for 'one-off payments' in previous years and the economic security strategy payments, including the legislative instrument basis, and the appropriation arrangements, for the scheme.
A scheme would be made only to cover unusual situations that come within the spirit of the household stimulus package payment measures but are not strictly covered by the primary legislation. It would be impractical to include such situations in primary legislation. For example, the administrative scheme may be used to make the training and learning bonus available to recipients of FTB Part A with dependent children aged 19 and 20, for whom there are no study details available. In these cases, recipients would need to provide evidence that the dependent child is undertaking qualifying full-time study in order to qualify for the bonus before payment eligibility could be determined.
The special (standing) appropriation mechanism is appropriate to fund any such payments, consistent with the appropriation mechanism for household stimulus package payments under the primary legislation and for payments generally under the social security law, the family assistance law and the Veterans' Entitlements Act.