House of Representatives

Explanatory Memorandum

(Circulated by the authority of the Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Hon Mal Brough MP)

Schedule 3 - Crisis payments for humanitarian entrants

Summary

This measure establishes a further ground of qualification for crisis payment. Crisis payment will be payable to certain people who have entered Australia for the first time on a qualifying humanitarian visa on or after 1 January 2008. Crisis payment is being extended to this group of people to help reduce the significant financial burden faced by humanitarian entrants during the initial settlement period.

Background

Crisis payment was introduced in November 1999 to assist eligible people suffering severe financial hardship. Currently, Division 1 of Part 2.23A of the Social Security Act makes provision for people who have been released from gaol or from psychiatric confinement, people who have been forced to leave their home and establish a new home due to an extreme circumstance such as a natural disaster or domestic violence, and people who have been subjected to domestic or family violence and who choose to remain in the home after removal of a family member due to domestic or family violence, to claim crisis payment.

Schedule 3 gives effect to a measure announced in the 2007 Budget and extends crisis payment to certain people who have entered Australia for the first time on a qualifying humanitarian visa on or after 1 January 2008. Crisis payment is being extended to this group of people to help reduce the significant financial burden faced by humanitarian entrants during the initial settlement period.

Explanation of the changes

One of the qualification criteria for crisis payment requires the person to be in severe financial hardship on the day the person claims crisis payment as defined in section 19D of the Social Security Act. Item 1 amends subsection 19D(1) consequential to item 2 . This amendment ensures that the definition of severe financial hardship applies to the new section 1061JI. (New section 1061JI contains the qualification criteria applicable to humanitarian entrants to Australia.)

Item 2 adds a new section 1061JI, which contains the qualification criteria applicable to a humanitarian entrant to Australia.

New subsection 1061JI(1) provides that a person is qualified for a crisis payment on this basis if:

(a)

the person arrives in Australia; and

(b)

the arrival referred to in paragraph 1061JI(1)(a) is the first time the person has arrived in Australia as the holder of a qualifying humanitarian visa; and

(c)

the person makes a claim for a crisis payment within seven days of that arrival; and

(d)

on the day on which the claim is made, the person is in severe financial hardship as defined in section 19D, the person has made a claim for a social security pension or benefit, and the person is qualified for the pension or benefit.

Paragraphs 1061JI(1)(b) and (c) limit claims for crisis payment under new section 1061JI to within seven days of the person's first arrival into Australia on a qualifying humanitarian visa. This means that crisis payment is not payable, for example, in circumstances where a person has entered Australia on a qualifying humanitarian visa and then departs Australia again on that humanitarian visa for a holiday and then claims crisis payment when they return to Australia after the holiday.

New subsection 1061JI(2) enables the Minister, by legislative instrument, to specify visas that are qualifying humanitarian visas for the purposes of paragraph 1061JI(1)(b).

Item 3 sets out the application provision for the amendments made by Schedule 3. These amendments apply in relation to a person who arrives in Australia as the holder of a qualifying humanitarian visa on or after 1 January 2008.