Coding cruise travel 106-23053114

A datalink exists between the Department of Home Affairs and Centrelink. This gives customer visa and movement information from 1 September 1994 onwards, and grants of Australian citizenship where available.

Updates through the Immigration Datalink are normally applied automatically to Centrelink customer's records in near real time. However, there are some situations where this is not the case and manual intervention is needed.

The Department of Home Affairs do not always record travel movements for customers who travel outside Australia on a cruise. However, Centrelink requires the details to be recorded on the customer's record as the customer has left Australia and portability rules must be applied under Social Security Law.

The Portability Script must be run when a customer calls to advise of their overseas cruise travel. Cruise movements are sent to Centrelink International Services (CIS) for manual coding of the:

• departure date - the date the cruise leaves the last Australian port
• return date - the arrival date back to the first Australian port

For naval personnel who fly out to their vessels, they will only have their departure date recorded by the Department of Home Affairs. Their movements need to be coded manually by CIS staff.

Do not refer requests to the Department of Home Affairs for cruise movements to be added to a person’s Department of Home Affairs record. A request can be sent if you are unsure whether the movement was a naval vessel.

Do not tell customers that the Department of Home Affairs does not:

• record cruise information, or
• know if you go overseas on a cruise and this is why you need to tell us

The Department of Home Affairs is aware when a customer leaves Australia on an overseas cruise as passengers must present their passports.

Round-trip cruise movements are not received through the Immigration Datalink. This is why they are coded manually.