Maternity Immunisation Allowance is also payable for children adopted outside Australia who arrive in Australia before the age of 16 years and who are immunised to an appropriate level by their fifth birthday or within two years of their arrival, whichever is later.
In , it is expected that , families will receive the payment. The first annual indexation of Maternity Immunisation Allowance will occur on 1 July Table 1: Children registered with appropriate immunisation coverage at 30 June.
Between and , childhood immunisation rates in Australia increased substantially. This measure is similar to a measure introduced in under which payment of the Part A Supplement for a child turning four in a particular income year was made conditional on the child having received a basic health assessment.
The immunisation measure works in a similar way. That is, under item 2 of Schedule 1 of the Bill which inserts new section 61B into the FA Act , the section of the FA Act under which the Part A Supplement is paid clause 38A is to be disregarded unless the immunisation requirements are satisfied. While Maternity Immunisation Allowance is paid when children meet the 18 month and four year old immunisation requirements, the new Part A Supplement incentive is to be paid when the child of a Family Tax Benefit Part A recipient has met immunisation requirements and has turned one, two or five in the income year new paragraphs 61B 1 a , 61B 2 a 61B 3 a.
Under the definition provided in Part 3 of the FA Act, in order to have met the immunisation requirements, the child must have been immunised in accordance with:. This will need to be updated to include the new vaccines outlined above. These amendments remove an existing non means tested incentive for people to fully immunise their children and replace it with an additional condition for access to an existing payment available only to those eligible for Family Tax Benefit Part A.
It therefore targets its immunisation incentive directly at those on lower incomes. At the same time, it does not provide an additional incentive in the form of a greater financial benefit. Rather, the incentive comes in the form of avoiding loss of a financial benefit for which those affected would have already been eligible.
Nevertheless, in order to avoid what is effectively a sanction, people need only either meet the immunisation requirements or register as conscientious objectors. The Australian Government is making changes to the Baby Bonus that maintains support for new parents, while ensuring the family payments system is sustainable into the future.
Indexation of the Baby bonus will be paused from 1 July until 1 July The effective date of indexation is 1 July each year. The indexation is based on the CPI increase in the 12 months to the previous December. The table below provides information on expenditure on and numbers of recipients of Baby Bonus from Table 2: Baby Bonus, Expenditure and Recipients, —02 to Note: Recipients are shown as individuals taxpayers between and to reflect the payment of Baby Bonus as a tax refund by the Australian Tax Office.
As shall be explained below, Baby Bonus has undergone numerous changes including changes of name since its introduction in —from First Child Tax Refund —04 to Maternity Payment —07 to Baby Bonus from As can be seen from the table, in —11 Baby Bonus was paid to families. Of these, families were paid Baby Bonus between 1 July and 31 December , and 88 families were paid Baby Bonus between 1 January and 30 June The lower number of Baby Bonus claims in the second half of —11 was due to the introduction of the Paid Parental Leave scheme.
Baby Bonus in its original form was introduced by the Howard Government in Baby Bonus is not taxable income. Paid Parental Leave was introduced by the Rudd-Gillard Government in and is paid to working parents of children born or adopted from 1 January Paid Parental Leave is taxable income. Rather, they must choose one or the other depending on which best suits their financial circumstances.
It is widely thought that Baby Bonus was primarily introduced as an incentive to increase Australia's birth rate. However, this is at best a small part of the story. It is more likely that Baby Bonus was introduced in response to growing demands for paid maternity leave but in a way that would allow non-working mothers to access it. In other words, the First Child Tax Refund Baby Bonus I was to some extent similar to a paid parental leave scheme in that it sought to compensate families for the absence of one parent from the workforce, though not expressed as a workplace entitlement.
On the other hand, it also sought to ensure that primary carers not in the paid workforce would also benefit, though to a lesser extent.
This change was to address lower than expected take-up of the measure due to having to claim as a tax rebate at the end of the financial year, rather than a payment when it was needed.
No means test applied. The objective of increasing the population appears to have played little part in the Government's public rationale for the policy. Additional Child Care Subsidy This payment provides additional financial help to pay child care fees that are higher than the Child Care Subsidy rate.
If you meet the age, study and living requirements for this scheme, you can get government assistance. Carer Adjustment Payment This is a once-off payment for full-time carers of children under seven years who have either a severe illness, severe medical condition or major disability.
The carer must be getting the Carer Allowance but no other income support. This payment is for families experiencing significant financial hardship. This payment is not income tested and not assets tested, except for the Additional Boarding Allowance. Carer Allowance This payment is for people who care for someone with a disability or serious illness, or for someone who is elderly and needs care and support.
This payment is income tested but not assets tested. Approved exemptions include:. Immunisation requirements have been attached to family assistance payments since The plan included financial incentives for GPs to obtain high immunisation levels for children attending their practice, immunisation targets, education and research initiatives. Then Minister for Health, Michael Wooldridge, stated :. What we are proposing here is not some two-week media campaign of feelgood messages, but a total change in the way the community looks at vaccine preventable illnesses and takes responsibility for doing something about it.
The Maternity Allowance, a supplement paid for the birth of a child, was first introduced in and was a precursor to the payment that became known as the Baby Bonus pp. The immunisation requirements for Child Care Assistance and the Child Care Cash Rebate required children to meet the relevant age-specific immunisation schedule or be exempt.
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