Parental Leave Pay (PPL) for children born or entered care after 1 July 2020 and before 1 July 2023 007-09020010

A primary claimant could receive up to 18 weeks of PPL. Any unused PPL may have been payable to an eligible secondary/tertiary claimant (see Resources for the definition), for example, their partner.

PPL could have been taken before, after or at the same time as:

• employer-provided paid or unpaid maternity or parental leave, or
• other leave entitlements (such as annual leave or long service leave)

PPL was made up a PPL period of up to 18 weeks (90 payable days), and consisted of:

• a PPL period of up to 12 weeks (60 payable days), plus
• 30 Flexible PPL days

Primary claimants were usually the birth mother, or initial primary carer of an adopted or surrogate child. If exceptional circumstances exist (for example, the parents of the child are incapacitated and the grandparents become the primary carer of the child), someone else may have been eligible for PPL under the exceptional circumstances criteria.

Customers who did not meet all of the eligibility to be paid PPL under the exceptional circumstances provisions may still have been eligible for PPL as a secondary claimant under exceptional circumstances. For example, the grandparent was the primary carer of the child but did not meet the work test. They may have been able to claim the remainder of the PPL that was not paid to the initial primary claimant.

In some instances, PPL may have been payable to a new primary claimant after the birth mother/primary carer had received PPL payments.

Where a customer has met the PPL exceptional circumstances eligibility and another person has previously been paid PPL for the child, a manual override code of APC-Additional Primary Claimant needed to be coded by a families override officer to enable payment.

Families override officers referred to Recording overrides for Paid Parental Leave scheme claims for details about the override coding.

To receive PPL as a primary claimant, a person needed to:

• be the primary carer of a Parental Leave Pay (PPL) child. Exception: This does not apply:
• after a child has died or was stillborn, or
• if care of the child was lost without legal authority
• have a child born or entered care before 1 July 2023
• meet the PPL work test
• meet the PPL income test. For the PPL income test threshold, see Paid Parental Leave - income limits
• notify that they had applied to register the child's birth. Exception: This did not apply if the child was:
• adopted
• stillborn
• born outside Australia, or
• entrusted to care as part of a surrogacy arrangement
• meet Australian residence requirements

Additionally, the primary claimant must:

• not have returned to work since becoming the primary carer of the child to be eligible for the PPL period
• not be working on days that they want to claim Flexible PPL Exceptions apply in some circumstances.

PPL was not payable for children in a customer’s care as part of a formal foster care or kinship care arrangement.

PPL could have been payable:

• for formal foster carers who have had the child come into their care as part of the adoption process, where the placement is for the purpose of the adoption
• in an informal foster care relationship where the child has entered care in exceptional circumstances

PPL could be taken before, after or at the same time as employer-provided paid or unpaid maternity or parental leave, or other leave entitlements (such as annual leave or long service leave).

If the customer had returned to work since becoming the primary carer of the child, they:

• would not be eligible for the PPL period after the return to work date, but may have been able to transfer some or all of their PPL period to a secondary claimant
• may have been eligible for 30 Flexible PPL days, if the child’s birth or adoption was on or after 1 July 2020 and before 1 July 2023
• may have been eligible for some or all of the PPL period if they met the PPL extended work test and the nominated start date was before their return to work date

Note: customers could participate in up to 10 'keeping in touch' days prior to returning to work, but not within 14 days after the day the child was born.

If a customer returned to work before the end of their PPL period:

• the PPL period was no longer payable from the return to work date. It cancelled (reason: RTW) at the component level
• any connected Flexible PPL days after the return to work date were rejected or withdrawn. They were returned to the customer’s balance of unclaimed days for the customer to claim on alternative dates
• any not connected Flexible PPL days scheduled after the return to work did not automatically reject or withdraw when the return to work was recorded. Those days were to be checked and rejected or withdrawn if the customer was no longer eligible

If the customer had already been paid PPL period or connected Flexible PPL for any days after the return to work, or if payments had already been sent to their employer, an overpayment may have been raised.

If the customer returned to work before the end of their PPL period, any unused part of the PPL period could be transferred to a secondary or tertiary claimant. Birth mothers who no longer provided care of a child in a surrogacy case or when the child was being adopted or removed by legal authority, could not return to work and continue to receive PPL or transfer entitlement to a secondary/tertiary claimant.

Return to work exceptions applied in some circumstances, including bereavement. See allowable exception reasons definition on the Resources page.

Flexible PPL could be paid after the customer had returned to work. However, it could not be paid on a day that the customer was performing paid work unless an exception applies.

If a customer advised they performed work including if they had returned to work on a day they claimed Flexible PPL it was:

• rejected (reason: RTW), and
• returned to their balance of unclaimed Flexible PPL days

If the customer had already been paid PPL for any days after they returned to work, or if payments had already been sent to their employer, an overpayment was raised.

A secondary claimant could lodge their claim after returning to work and still be assessed for payment from the first day of their PPL period to the day they returned to work. If assessed as eligible a secondary claimant’s PPL period ceased to be payable on the date they returned to work.

Full transfer of the PPL period

If the primary claimant was transferring their full PPL period to a secondary claimant, the primary claimant needed to meet the PPL eligibility criteria from the child’s date of birth/adoption until the day before primary care of the child was transferred to the secondary claimant.

If the transfer of primary care date was:

• the child’s date of birth/adoption, the primary claimant was only required to meet the limited PPL eligibility criteria. The secondary claimant must have met the full eligibility criteria from the child’s date of birth/adoption to the end of the PPL period
• after the child was born (or entered care), the primary claimant needed to meet the full PPL eligibility criteria for each day from the date the child was born (or entered care) until the day before primary care was transferred to the secondary claimant. The secondary claimant must have satisfied the full PPL eligibility criteria for each day from the date primary care was transferred to them until the end of the PPL period.

Where the birth mother or initial primary claimant met the limited eligibility criteria (for example had returned to work before submitting their PPL claim), the primary claimants claim must not have been assessed until both the primary and secondary claimants had:

• submitted a claim for PPL
• claims ‘STArted’ or ‘ASS-PCB’
• not had a payability determination made for PPL (i.e. rejected/assessed or granted claim) for the child

This process was required to ensure the primary and secondary claimant’s PPL periods lined up.

Partial transfer of PPL period

For a partial transfer, the primary claimant’s period and secondary claimant’s period must have been a continuous period with no break in eligibility.

Primary claimants transferring some (but not all) of their PPL period to a secondary claimant must have met the full PPL eligibility criteria from the child’s date of birth/adoption to the end of their PPL period (transfer date). The secondary claimant must have satisfied the full PPL eligibility criteria for each day from the date primary care of the child was transferred to them until the end of their PPL period.

Flexible PPL days

The primary claimant could choose to give permission for another person (secondary claimant) to claim some or all of their Flexible PPL days.

The secondary claimant was required to lodge their own PPL claim to nominate these days. A secondary claimant’s claim for Flexible PPL days could be lodged up to 2 years after the child’s birth or adoption. However, PPL claims that included a full or partial transfer of the PPL period needed to be lodged within one year of the child’s birth or adoption and there were Time limits for claiming the maximum PPL period.

The primary claimant could remove permission:

• at any time during the pre-birth phase (pre-birth claims only), or
• before a secondary claimant has claimed the Flexible PPL day

Multiple secondary claimants could claim Flexible PPL days for a child (for example, the partner of the primary claimant and the child's other parent) up to the maximum number of days that the primary claimant had given permission to be claimed. If multiple secondary claimants were linked to the child's record, the primary claimant could not specify whom they were granting permission.

Customers were encouraged to lodge an early claim for family assistance and Parental Leave Pay (PPL). It was important they were aware of the Time limits for claiming the maximum PPL period.

For all primary claimants, PPL claims must have been lodged before the:

• child's first birthday, or
• first anniversary of the day:
• the primary claimant became the primary carer for exceptional circumstances
• the child became entrusted to the customer's care for adoptions, or
• the child entered care for a surrogacy arrangement

The PPL period was only payable for days before:

• the child’s first birthday, or
• the first anniversary of the child’s entry to care in the case of adoption
• first anniversary of the child's entry into care for a surrogacy arrangement

Flexible PPL was only paid on days after the end of the PPL period and before the child's:

• second birthday, or
• second anniversary of the day the child was entrusted into care for adoption/a surrogacy arrangement

Note: if a customer indicated they were claiming PPL because someone was transferring PPL to them, they were assessed as a secondary claimant. The primary claimant needed to be located and the claims matched up to ensure the correct PPL period dates could be determined. If the primary claim had not already been assessed, or if the secondary claimant was claiming the full entitlement, the claims needed to be assessed together.

When claiming PPL, primary claimants nominated a start date for their PPL period.

The PPL period start date:

• could not be earlier than the child’s date of birth or the date the child entered care
• was determined once the customer provided the child's proof of birth or proof of entry into care
• could be backdated to the child’s date of birth/adoption if:
• the customer claimed and provided proof of birth within 28 days of the child’s birth/adoption, or
• if they met the PPL extended work test due to coronavirus (COVID-19)

See Paid Parental Leave scheme Work Test.

A customer's nominated start date or PPL period start date was not the date that the customer received their first payment. However, the customer's first PPL period instalment was backdated to their PPL period start date.

Note: for customers who were not eligible for the PPL period, their PPL started on the first Flexible PPL day.

Multiple birth

For a multiple birth, PPL was only paid for one child and the higher rate of NBS/NBU may have been paid for the other children. However, if there was a significant delay between the births of the children from the same pregnancy, for example twins delivered 5+ days apart, the births may have been considered separate birthing events and not part of a multiple birth. If approved these cases may have qualified for PPL to be payable for each child. Cases with evidence of multiple birth with significant delay were forwarded to the Families level 2 helpdesk for assessment.

Where multiple children were adopted as part of the same adoption process, PPL was only payable for one child.

Assessable income

Parental Leave Pay Scheme payments were:

• taxable income and included in a customer's adjusted taxable income for family assistance payments
• treated as ordinary income for calculating the rate of payment for income support payments (ISP)

Note: Service Officers did not code the PPL income on the customer’s record for ISP. It was automatically included for assessment when the PPL claim was actioned.

PPL payments were considered as income for customers claiming or renewing a Low Income Health Care Card.

Eligibility for other payments

Customers (and/or their partner) could not receive Family Tax Benefit (FTB) Part B at the same time as PPL.

Customers could not receive:

• JobKeeper Payment for the same period they received PPL
• PPL and NBS/NBU for the same child. However, customers could change their claim choice and claim PPL after NBS/NBU had been paid. Any NBS/NBU paid to the customer would have to be repaid

After a stillbirth, customers not eligible for PPL could claim Stillborn Baby Payment (SBP).

PPL and DAP interaction

One customer could receive PPL and DAP for the same child, however:

• the PPL and DAP periods must have been taken at different times, and
• a maximum of 18 weeks could be paid to the one person

Note: usually only the secondary claimant could claim PPL and DAP, as the primary claimant was generally not eligible for DAP.

A family could receive a maximum of 20 weeks PPL and DAP combined for the same child. For example, the primary claimant received 18 weeks of PPL and their partner received 2 weeks of DAP.

A customer could receive PPL for one child and DAP for another child at the same time.

Child support deductions (for example, payments of child support to another person) could have been made from PPL. Flexible PPL days that were not connected to the PPL period or were paid as arrears were not subject to child support payer deductions.

Withholdings for debt recovery could be made from PPL (including Flexible PPL days). The standard withholding rate was 100%.

PPL arrears, including Flexible PPL days could be used to offset PPL and some income support payment (ISP) overpayments that occurred in the same activity.

If a standard withholding arrangement was in place, it ended after the PPL period and any connected Flexible PPL days. Customers could request a non-standard withholding arrangement for any Flexible PPL days that were not connected to their PPL period.

For customers with a NARWP exemption due to receiving a social security benefit, social security pension or Farm Household Allowance (FHA), the exemption was assessed using their payment status on the day before:

• their PPL period start date, for their PPL period and any connected Flexible PPL days
• the claimed Flexible PPL day or block of days, for any Flexible PPL days that were not connected to the PPL period

If the customer was not in receipt of a social security benefit, social security pension or Farm Household Allowance (FHA) on that day, they wouldn’t be eligible for a NARWP exemption for the applicable component of PPL.

It was recommended that customers with a NARWP exemption due to receiving an eligible payment connect all of their Flexible PPL days to the end of their PPL period. This prevented them from losing eligibility if their exemption ended before they had claimed all of their Flexible PPL days.

Customers needed to receive an income support payment for each day from the child's date of birth or entry into care until the day immediately before their PPL period start date for this exemption to have applied.

If there was a retrospective change to the customer's income support entitlement, that is between the child's date of birth and before the PPL period start date, the customer may have:

• lost entitlement to PPL, and
• an overpayment may occur, or
• their PPL period could be rejected