Student Assistance Act 1973

Part 6 - Overpayments arising under this Act and certain administrative schemes  

Division 3 - Non-recovery of debts  

SECTION 43B   WAIVER OF DEBT ARISING FROM ERROR  

43B(1)   Administrative error  

Subject to subsection (2), the Secretary must waive the right to recover the proportion of a debt that is attributable solely to an administrative error made by the Commonwealth if the debtor received in good faith the payment or payments that gave rise to that proportion of the debt.

Note:

Subsection (1) does not allow waiver of part of a debt that was caused partly by administrative error and partly by one or more other factors (such as error by the debtor).

43B(2)   Circumstances under which subsection (1) applies  

Subsection (1) only applies if:

(a) the debt is not raised within a period of 6 weeks from the first payment that caused the debt; or

(b) if the debt arose because a person has complied with an obligation to provide information or documents to the Department under this Act, the debt is not raised within a period of 6 weeks from the end of the period within which the person was required to comply with that obligation;

whichever is the later.

43B(3)   Underestimating value of property  

If:

(a) a debt arose because the debtor, the debtor's partner, or the debtor's parent or parents underestimated the value of particular property; and

(b) the estimate was made in good faith; and

(c) the value of the property was not able to be easily determined when the estimate was made;

the Secretary must waive the right to recover the proportion of the debt attributable to the underestimate.

43B(4)   Proportion of a debt  

For the purposes of this section, a proportion of a debt may be 100% of the debt.

43B(5)    

In this section:

child
: without limiting who is a child of a person for the purposes of this section, someone is the child of a person if he or she is a child of the person within the meaning of the Family Law Act 1975 .

parent
, in relation to a person, means:

(a) if the person is not an adopted child - a natural parent of the person or someone of whom the person is a child because of the definition of child in this section; or

(b) if the person is an adopted child - an adoptive parent of the person.

partner
has the same meaning as in the Social Security Act 1991 .