Identifying if a customer who is a migrant, refugee or visitor is eligible for financial assistance 005-01010000

Services Australia, the Department of Health and Aged Care and the Department of Home Affairs offer a range of payments and services to assist support the needs of migrants, refugees and visitors in the areas of human services, education and health for those entrants settling into life in Australia.

The agency seeks to help people settling in Australia, helping them overcome any barriers to participation and giving them access to government services. This includes access to Centrelink payments and other entitlements if they are eligible.

Service Officers must ensure that customers are aware of their entitlements and obligations, the types of assistance and choices available to them, and referrals that can help them.

If a customer who has recently moved to Australia to settle, or is from a culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) background makes contact with Services Australia to see what assistance is available to them, it is the responsibility of Services Australia to provide the right package of services to the customer in order to meet their needs.

Offer customers seeking help in languages other than English to access a wide range of information products in a variety of languages. This includes multilingual fact sheets and forms on the Services Australia website and at service centres, the agency's interpreting services and the Multilingual Phone Service (MPS).

See First Contact Service Offer (FCSO) workflow.

The Humanitarian Program has 2 components:

• Offshore component offers resettlement for people outside Australia who are in need of humanitarian assistance, Visa subclasses 200, 201, 202, 203 and 204
• Onshore component offers protection to people in Australia who meet the refugee definition in the United Nations Refugees Convention. Specific visa subclass is protection visa (subclass 866)

Holders of the above visa subclasses are eligible for all Centrelink payments upon entry to Australia (offshore) or grant of the visa (onshore).

On arrival to Australia, humanitarian entrants (offshore visa holders) are supported by service providers through the Humanitarian Settlement Program (HSP) or a Community Refugee Integration and Settlement Pilot (CRISP) representative.

HSP service providers and CRISP community representatives are contracted by the Department of Home Affairs in each state and territory to provide settlement support.

Refugee servicing networks work with HSP service providers and CRISP community representatives to deliver the Refugee and humanitarian service offer (RSO).

From 1 July 2018, eligible customers will receive payments or concession cards from the date they actually submit a complete claim with all relevant supporting documentation.

Note: different processes apply for customers in vulnerable circumstances. See Intent to claim and vulnerable customers.

Refugees or holders of specific humanitarian visas often face significant issues when first settling into Australia.

Often they come from countries where they may have:

• suffered torture or witnessed the torture of someone close to them
• experienced trauma by being forced to flee their homes or countries
• undergone victimisation due to membership of political, ethnic or religious groups
• experienced war, political upheaval and fear for their lives

For many refugees, the effects of torture and trauma are ongoing and severely hamper their ability to communicate verbally and in writing, learn a new language, find suitable housing and adjust to a new way of life in their host country.

An individual or a person on behalf of an organisation may approach the agency to be an assurer for a person applying for a visa to migrate to Australia (an assuree). An AoS arrangement must be established before the visa application can be finalised. In agreeing to provide an AoS, the assurer(s) is making a legal commitment to support the assuree so that the assuree should not require access to social security income support.

For the assurer the agency is responsible for:

• assessing a person's ability to enter into an AoS arrangement, and
• ensuring that anyone entering into such an arrangement is able to provide the support required

An assuree is able to claim an income support payment during the AoS period. This is subject to meeting the eligibility criteria for the payment being claimed. If an assuree receives a social security payment that is an AoS recoverable payment from Services Australia during the AoS period, those payments are raised as a debt to the assurer(s). Debts are raised for recovery approximately 12 months from the date of grant of the AoS recoverable payment.

When assessing a customer's eligibility to receive an income support payment or concession card, Service Officers must ask a series of questions to understand their circumstances. They must check response against the qualification criteria of each payment and entitlement type, or by running tools such as First Contact Service Offer (FCSO) to assess a customer's eligibility for assistance.

Once a customer's eligibility for payment and other assistance is established, customers will be advised of the eligibility criteria and the claims process for payments, as well as the types of specialist services that are offered by both internal and external specialists. The advice will be offered in a variety of languages via multilingual fact sheets and forms, through Translating and Interpreter Services (TIS) and the Multilingual Phone Service (MPS).

To qualify for a social security benefit or pension, a person must be an Australian citizen, a permanent resident or a protected Special Category visa holder.

A small group of non-permanent residents who are temporary visa holders (for example, Temporary Protection or Partner) qualify for Special Benefit and ancillary payments such as Family Tax Benefit (FTB).

The type of visa held by a customer indicates their residence status within Australia.

Migrants, refugees and visitors must meet the Services Australia Identity confirmation and refugees requirements for new claims.

Although it may be difficult for these customers to provide the required identity documents at the initial time of completing their claim, where a customer genuinely cannot provide, or be supported to obtain their identity documents, they may be able to use the Alternative Identity process to satisfy the identity requirements.

New Australian residents with permanent residency are generally subject to the Newly Arrived Resident's Waiting Period (NARWP) and Qualifying Residence Period before they can access the various payments and services delivered by Services Australia.

The waiting period a customer must serve is determined by the grant date of their first permanent visa, qualifying residence visa or specified visa subclass that allows eligibility for the payment/concession they are claiming.

Certain temporary or newly arrived residents may be exempt from NARWP for Special Benefit. For example:

• Temporary Protection visa subclass 060, 070, 449, 785, 786 and 790 are exempt from NARWP for Special Benefit. They may qualify for Special Benefit if in financial hardship
• Provisional Partner visa subclass 309 and 820 and newly arrived permanent visa holder may qualify for Special Benefit if they are in financial hardship due to a substantial change in circumstances beyond their control. They must provide evidence to substantiate their claim
• Non-resident parent or guardian caring for an Australian citizen or permanent resident child may claim Special Benefit for the Australian citizen child if they are in financial hardship and have no means of support

For more information, see Residence assessment for customers claiming Special Benefit (SpB).

A visa will be issued to non-Australian citizens to allow the holder to:

• travel to and enter Australia, and/or
• remain in Australia

The Department of Home Affairs issues visas. Visas issued to people before they arrive in Australia are are known as 'offshore visas', and those issued on arrival are 'onshore visas'.

Australian visas are issued / recorded electronically and are linked to visa holders' passports or ImmiCards. All visa records are stored in a central database, which enables digital checking of visa details and conditions.