Bill
Social Services Legislation Amendment (Simplifying Student Payments) Bill 2017
passed, as at 2017-04-04. Social Services portfolio.
- Sponsor
- Not recorded
- Portfolio
- Social Services
Recorded stages
- introduced — 2016-09-14
- second reading — 2016-09-14
- second reading — 2017-03-21
- second reading — 2017-03-21
- committee — 2017-03-21
- third reading — 2017-03-21
- introduced — 2017-03-23
- second reading — 2017-03-23
- second reading — 2017-03-27
- second reading — 2017-03-27
- third reading — 2017-03-27
- passed — 2017-03-27
- royal assent — 2017-04-04
Divisions
No divisions recorded. Most questions are decided on the voices; this does not establish that a bill was unopposed.
Plain-language summary
Written by a model from the explanatory memorandum; not the record, as at 2016-09-14.
This bill would simplify how student payments are assessed and managed.
It would change the tests for assets, income, and family support used to calculate student payments, and would give all student income support recipients an automatic health care card from 2019.
Rules for updating the remoteness classification used to decide eligibility would be automated, and the work period for independence from 18 months would be reduced to 14 months for regional students.
- Remove the exemption from the assets test for partnered youth allowance and austudy recipients.
- Apply trust and company means test rules to independent youth allowance and austudy recipients.
- Treat gift payments from immediate family members under the benefit income test the same as for pensions.
- Include tax-free pensions and benefits in the parental income test for family tax benefit.
- Automatically issue a health care card to all student income support recipients from 1 January 2019.
- Reduce the workforce independence period from 18 months to 14 months for remote or regional students.
Students receiving youth allowance, austudy, and family tax benefit, and the Department of Social Services.
Sources
em
em supp
em revised
billhome
frl act