Updating residence screens (CLK) 106-06020000

All Australian social security payments and concession cards have specific residence requirements. To qualify for a payment or concession card, a customer must satisfy the residence rules that apply to the payment or concession card they are claiming. See Australian residence requirements for payments for links to payment specific residence assessment procedures.

To qualify and/or claim most payments and concession cards a person must be an Australian resident. To be an Australian resident, a person has to have both the legal authority to remain in Australia (e.g. Australian citizen or permanent visa holder) and be residing in Australia. In addition, the countries the customer has been residing in since birth need to be recorded to correctly assess if a customer is residentially qualified and payable.

For certain payments and concession cards, it is also necessary to establish if a customer's partner, children and/or care receiver satisfy the relevant residence criteria.

Most payments and concession cards require a customer to be a current resident of Australia, and to have been an Australian resident and present in Australia for a specific period before they are qualified. Unless claiming under an international agreement, a customer must also be a resident of Australia to lodge a valid claim for a payment.

Some payments can be made to customers who are not Australian residents such as family assistance payments and parental leave payments. Therefore, all residence information must be accurately recorded to allow the system to assess eligibility for all payment types.

Where a datalink can be established the Department of Home Affairs provides information from 1 September 1994 onwards regarding a customer's visa, movement information and grants of Australian citizenship where available. Where information has been provided by the immigration datalink, this residence information will take precedence over any conflicting information provided by the customer.

The decision about whether a customer is or was residing in Australia needs to be manually assessed and recorded by the Service Officer. This information is not provided by the datalink.

A customer's residence details are to be recorded or updated:

• for new grants of all social security payments, parental leave payments, family assistance and concession cards
• if the Portability Script - Departures and Returns asks for it to be coded
• whenever a person who is paid Age Pension or Disability Support Pension (DSP) goes overseas (and is payable) for more than 26 weeks
• if a customer has notified that they are leaving Australia to live overseas (permanent absence)
• if a customer returns to live in Australia
• if a customer's legal status changes
• when approving payment outside Australia for an allowable reason or to extend a customer's maximum portability period (CIS only)

Residence information is used to determine:

• a customer's residence qualification for all social security payments, paid parental leave payments, family assistance and concession cards
• if the customer is subject to a Newly Arrived Resident's Waiting Period and, if so, when it will end
• if a qualifying residence exemption applies to the customer
• a customer's entitlement to a pension from a country other than Australia
• if former resident provisions apply to a customer departing Australia
• the proportional rate payable to a customer after 26 weeks absence from Australia or if an exemption from the proportional rate provisions applies
• qualification for and rate of payment under an international agreement
• if a customer can transfer between an agreement pension and an autonomous assessment.