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Post by Banker on Dec 11, 2012 6:49:07 GMT 7
I received this email this morning. It seems interesting enough to put here for all to read and comment.
Hi, A quick contact. I'm in a horrible situation, about to return to Brisbane for the third time to try to secure the age pension. The problem is S1220. I have an Indonesian wife and family and of course we wish to live in Indonesia.
I have identified a key problem in S7(3). For whatever purposes and scenarios in the mind of the draftsman, "residence" turns on an intention to "remain permanently in Australia". The meaning of "remain" is clear enough.
Thus, all applicants for age must have such intent on the day of application. There is no suggestion of any contract binding the applicant at future times. It is law that, in most cases, the age pensioner may depart overseas and never return - having been granted the pension on the basis that he intends to remain permanently in Australia. That's some sort of paradox in law. It is absurd. It leads to gross unfairness. Why should people approaching pension age have to engage in the obvious camouflages that you mention on your website? What about the person with lesser means who cannot afford to maintain a "home" in Australia or frequently return to keep up appearances? I am presently in the AAT. The ARO review clearly is a dishonest Centrelink strategy, not a genuine review. The SSAT was worse - just unbelievable. I am contemplating a legal action in the Federal Court seeking a declaratory judgment constraining the "secretary" in the application of S7(3). It is absurd, and it must be a fatal conflict in law that an age pensioner may get the pension and go to live overseas - but if he does or says anything before or at the time of applying (in my case also AFTER applying) that suggests that he intends to claim portability, WHAMMO!
Then there is the gross, unfair and potentially unlawfully discrimination involved in parting the age-overseas set: agreement countries versus non-agreement.
Is there anything here that triggers your interest? Has any such action been undertaken? Any other person currently experiencing the same problem? Any resources, or possibility of class action?
Sincerely
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Post by Banjo on Dec 11, 2012 7:46:46 GMT 7
Here's what the Act says. SOCIAL SECURITY ACT 1991 - SECT 43Qualification for age pension (1) A person is qualified for an age pension if the person has reached pension age and any of the following applies: (a) the person has 10 years qualifying Australian residence; (b) the person has a qualifying residence exemption for an age pension; You can't get plainer than that, (b) is about genuine refugees etc and is nothing to do with us. Once again, the correspondent is bogged down in the wretched "Guide to Social Security Law". 7.1.4 Requirements for Former Residents of Australia Receiving a Portable PensionSummary - for Age, DSP, WP, WidB, BVA
A person arriving in or returning to Australia (1.1.A.320) must satisfy the Act's definition of Australian resident (section 7(2)) in order to lodge a proper claim for a pension. A former resident who returns to Australia and is granted a pension (Age, DSP, WP, WidB, BVA), or who transferred under SS(Admin)Act section 12 to Age CANNOT take that pension outside Australia if they leave again within 24 months after having again become an Australian resident. The purpose of this legislation is to discourage people from coming to Australia just to get an Australian pension to take back overseas.
Exception: The 24 month former resident waiting period does not apply if the person is eligible for financial assistance under the Medical Treatment Overseas Program in respect of their absence from Australia or needs to accompany such a person.
S7 (3) guidesacts.fahcsia.gov.au/guides_acts/ssg/SSG_SECX/SSAct/1-100/7%283%29.htmlis the rock on which they break us at the lower levels of the system.
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Post by Banjo on Dec 11, 2012 7:51:34 GMT 7
My personal situation is currently this, I turn 65 next year and am not going to risk my residency before I'm eligible for the OAP. What people like the correspondent need to do is make sure they are a resident BEFORE they apply for the OAP, we need a publicity campaign to make people aware of this but like all good little expats it's hard to get their attention. Just like we were about 3 years ago, secure in our unlimited 13 week portability.
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Post by baranghope on Dec 11, 2012 8:16:49 GMT 7
The Fed wants your welfare money to stay in this economy. Simple, and ties in nicely with appeasing taxpaying voters. It is now all about residency controls. Soon you won't be able just to medivac yourself back for free hospital care (and really, why should someone living say for years in another country get to come back to Oz just to charge up half a mill in medical costs?). As far as chasing the OAPers who depart permanently, well don't be surprised if they close even that off in the future. But I doubt that will happen because it would not be popular . . . as in all pensioners want to be free, right?
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Post by Banjo on Dec 11, 2012 8:22:41 GMT 7
The response that we must keep repeating is that overseas pension money comes into Australia at a rate of about 2-3 dollars for every dollar in Aussie pensions that goes out. An occasional reminder that one of the first things Hitler's government did when it came to power was stop the state pensions of all German's living overseas should help as well.
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Post by Banjo on Dec 11, 2012 11:10:33 GMT 7
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Post by janreinier on Dec 12, 2012 15:57:04 GMT 7
Banjo, what's the source for claiming that more overseas pension money comes in to Australia than $AUS that go out? I'd like to be able to use that.
We don't need a publicity campaign. That's Centrelink's responsibility. 90% of Australians (taking a guess here!) who intend to live in Australia wriggle around trying to arrange their CV to get a few more dollars out of Canberra. But this S1220 thing and all of its traps is criminal. So, one who has lived overseas and wishes to retire overseas has to put up appearances of being Australian resident. Well! some ageing australians haven't been able to get work for years and found living overseas on scraps cheaper than living in Oz on the dole. At the lower end of the means scale, one cannot afford to keep up appearances. The poorer aged person is thus discriminated against - he can't afford to flit back and forth to Oz pretending to live there.
S1220 is a minefield full of booby traps. So just how do you make SURE that you are still Australian resident? Centrelink won't tell you. Why can't one contact CL and ask: what's my credit rating 12 months before I turn 65? Centrelink is guilty of shockingly defective administration in this area.
Welfare Rights Centre? I tried that lot. They're worn out, no longer serious, not worth talking to.
In a week or so I'll post up some interesting facts....
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Post by Banjo on Dec 12, 2012 17:19:47 GMT 7
I originally saw it on Wikipedia in Centrelink's entry but it's disappeared. It's been on other sites though, I'll google around and see what I can find. We've used it before.
The residency question is certainly a minefield, there's no "tables" for this, they just pull it out of their hat, look at the way some people on the DSP have had back to back portablities for more than a decade right up to 6 week death knock and others have been reassessed after two or three years.
Go figure it, I can't.
I'm sorry you feel that way about WRG but unfortunately you have some reason. I think they're under the hammer with the NewStart JCA business and now the DSP becoming harder to get. We're a definite minority group, and, lets face it, hardly an attractive one. Did you see the attack in the Murdoch press that kicked off this forum? "JetSet Pensioners!!!!"
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Post by zorro1 on Dec 12, 2012 17:54:05 GMT 7
" look at the way some people on the DSP have had back to back portablities for more than a decade right up to 6 week death knock and others have been reassessed after two or three years."
I got the tap at 1.5 years. I would like to see how that stands up in appeal
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Post by bundyrum on Dec 13, 2012 3:50:58 GMT 7
C/L do what they want..I was going o/s too much for cheaper medical help...they said that's enough to say I wasn't a resident...Iv'e paid enough taxes..but they and the ARO..AND SSAT. didn't care..BASICALLY THEY ARE SAYING i'M NOT AN AUSSIE.But Gillard can get a $116,000 pay rise..what a bunch of thieves we have running the joint..but that's what Lawyers are.. Australia is becomming a shithole..The refuggees will run the country 1 day anyway,,OMG..
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Post by Denis-NFA on Dec 16, 2012 0:24:42 GMT 7
@janreiner RE: source for claiming that more overseas pension money comes in to Australia than $AUS that go out FaHCSIA (I think that's pronounced "farks-ya" ;D) have published figures up to August 2005 at www.fahcsia.gov.au/about-fahcsia/international/policy/portability-of-australian-income-support-payments#1The broad numbers then were $416 million going out as opposed to $1,161 million coming in, so for every $1 going out there was $2.79 coming in. Interestingly these figures are only for Pensioners living permanently overseas and totaled 62,270 recipients of which 13.5%, 8409, were in receipt of DSP therefore it does not include recipients of DSP who were holidaying or visiting relatives overseas at that point in time. In relation to the number of DSP recipients who were taking extended holidays overseas a C/L representative nominated a figure somewhere around 170 (?) in a submission to a Parliamentary inquiry regarding the tightening of Residency and portability. I do not know of a source for more recent figures.
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Post by Denis-NFA on Dec 16, 2012 2:42:10 GMT 7
Further to my last post I think it would be interesting to do a FOI request to find out how many recipients of DSP were permanently living overseas as at 30/06/2012, their ages and the basis on which they were granted Unlimited Portability AND from 01/07/2009 to 30/06/2012 (3 years) annual numbers of individual DSP recipients who went on holiday overseas.
The reason I raise this is because there has been that much misinformation spread in the media that we need some real data to correct it.
The Australian Press Council would be one place we could use.
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Post by anotherdsp on Dec 17, 2012 8:02:03 GMT 7
the money in an money out for pensions has reversed i think,now more goes out then comes in,and that was when all of this started,like a famous person i know it is alll about the money!!!lol
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Post by Denis-NFA on Dec 17, 2012 8:42:53 GMT 7
anotherdspfair comment. but I want to know the truth. what are the real numbers?
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Post by baranghope on Dec 17, 2012 9:17:21 GMT 7
There are so many variables in the DSP balance of payments with Agreement countries, trying to figure it out is almost irrelevant. Australia generally has a social security array of expenditure second only to Denmark's. But that means this. First, as other countries have a much higher population, and Oz used to be an "easy" place to live, well big expat numbers in Oz account for the balance of payments. Greece probably drained more Canberra money than any place on earth. A Melbourne con. The second point is that Australia, especially now that it uses a Lichtenstein dollar, worth far more than a greenback, found itself paying its offshore expats more money per person than any country of earth. Far and away. Thus the clinical "residency" changes of the goalposts. All this is just murderous economic rationalism. No one with a brain is going to do "elective surgery" on their lives by choosing to undergo a Med Review and JCA in hopes that the Fed will pay for you to repatriate like a rich man. The Canadian DSP payment rate is almost half the Australian rate. A no brainer. You see it was one thing for a country to have the world's second highest rate of welfare payments; quite another when the same country's dollar became the new Kroner. And of course, media-wise, they knew the images of suddenly wealthy overseas DSPers cavorting in say Thailand would not wash with the taxpayers. Anyway, just an uber explanation.
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