Widow Allowance (WA) 099-09000000

WA was originally intended to provide income support to woman born on or before 1 July 1955, that were widowed, divorced or separated since turning 40 and had no recent workforce experience.

WA payments ceased on 1 January 2022. Any customers that were current on WA on this date were transferred to Age Pension.

As a part of the Working Age Payments Reform measure announced in the 2017-18 Federal Budget, WA was closed to new claims on 1 July 2018.

From 1 July 2018, claimants who would have qualified for WA must claim either:

• JobSeeker Payment (JSP) if they are under Age Pension age, or
• Special Benefit (SpB) if they are over Age Pension age and not residentially qualified for Age Pension

The Sunset Widow Allowance exemption was a mutual obligation requirement exemption that applied to claimants granted JobSeeker Payment (JSP) after 1 July 2018 who would have qualified for WA. It was also applied to women who were partnered at the time they claimed JSP, but then later separated and met all of the WA eligibility criteria.

WA ceased on 1 January 2022. All recipients were of Age Pension age on or before this date.

Customers that had not claimed/transferred to Age Pension and were current on payment on 1 January 2022 were automatically transferred to Age Pension on this date.

WA customers that were not residentially qualified for Age Pension on 1 January 2022 had a residence exemption applied to the Additional Residence Details (ARD) screen to facilitate transfer to Age Pension on this date.

When a WA customer notified multiple events within 14 days and the first notifiable event resulted in an adverse decision and the second notifiable event resulted in a favourable decision which nullified the earlier event, WA should not have been cancelled.

For customers who lost entitlement after being absent from Australia for more than the maximum allowable portability period, WA was stopped. If the customer returned to Australia within 13 weeks of the loss of entitlement date their payment may have been restored. However, if they did not return within 13 weeks, their WA was cancelled and the payment could not be regranted as WA has not been able to be granted since 1 July 2018.