Bills Digest No. 97 2001-02
Student Assistance Amendment Bill 2002
WARNING:
This Digest was prepared for debate. It reflects the legislation as
introduced and does not canvass subsequent amendments. This Digest
does not have any official legal status. Other sources should be
consulted to determine the subsequent official status of the
Bill.
CONTENTS
Passage History
Purpose
Background
Main Provisions
Endnotes
Contact Officer & Copyright Details
Passage History
Date Introduced: 14 February 2002
House: House of Representatives
Portfolio: Education, Science and Training
Commencement: On Royal Assent
Purpose
The Bill is
intended to ensure greater consistency in arrangements between the
Student Assistance Act and the Social Security Act in the area of
the recovery of overpayments and notification periods for Abstudy
and Assistance for Isolated Children (AIC).
From 1 January 2000, changes to Abstudy were
introduced which were intended to:
-
- Increase the targeting of Abstudy to those students most in
need of assistance
-
- Make available benefits under Youth Allowance (YA) not then
available under Abstudy, and
-
- Retain Abstudy as a separate scheme.
The main changes to Abstudy were:
-
- Living Allowance payments were aligned with those payable under
YA for 16-20 year old students
-
- Abstudy students aged 21 years and over became eligible for the
higher Newstart rate
-
- Abstudy students aged over 21 years became subject to a more
generous partner income test than is applied for Newstart
recipients
-
- The Pensioner Education Supplement was aligned with that
payable under the Social Security Act 1991, and
-
- eligible Abstudy students were given access to Rent Assistance,
Remote Area Allowance and Pharmaceutical Allowance.
ABSTUDY recipients remained eligible for a range
of supplementary benefits targeted to address particular
disadvantages faced by Indigenous students that were not available
to recipients of YA or Austudy payment.
The present Bill provides for some further minor
adjustments to the Student Assistance Act 1973 to
facilitate greater consistency between that Act and the Social
Security Act in the area of overpayment recovery and notification
periods. These changes mainly affect Abstudy but also apply to the
Assistance for Isolated Children Scheme.
Items 4 to 8 and 10 of
Schedule 1 change the length of notification
periods for students to advise that certain prescribed events have
occurred from 7 days to 14 days. This brings them into line with
other notification periods in the Act and in other programs
administered by Centrelink.
Item 9 of Schedule
1 deals with debt recovery. Proposed Section
39AA allows the recovery of overpayments of Social
Security payments from entitlements to special educational
assistance schemes, such as Abstudy or the Assistance for Isolated
Children Scheme.
Dale Daniels
11 March 2002
Bills Digest Service
Information and Research Services
This paper has been prepared for general distribution to
Senators and Members of the Australian Parliament. While great care
is taken to ensure that the paper is accurate and balanced, the
paper is written using information publicly available at the time
of production. The views expressed are those of the author and
should not be attributed to the Information and Research Services
(IRS). Advice on legislation or legal policy issues contained in
this paper is provided for use in parliamentary debate and for
related parliamentary purposes. This paper is not professional
legal opinion. Readers are reminded that the paper is not an
official parliamentary or Australian government document.
IRS staff are available to discuss the paper's
contents with Senators and Members and their staff but not with
members of the public.
ISSN 1328-8091
© Commonwealth of Australia 2002
Except to the extent of the uses permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
information storage and retrieval systems, without the prior
written consent of the Parliamentary Library, other than by Members
of the Australian Parliament in the course of their official
duties.
Published by the Department of the Parliamentary Library,
2002.
Back to top