Portability Denied When Family Crisis Cited

[Banjo]

This is not about the DSP, the guy actually left the country on NewStart.

INTRODUCTION

This is an application for a review of a decision to suspend the payment of Newstart allowance to Mr Duncan Brady (“the applicant”) during the period that he was absent from Australia commencing on 3 November 2015.

BACKGROUND

On 26 October 2011, the applicant was granted Newstart allowance. On 3 November 2015, the Department of Social Services suspended the applicant’s Newstart allowance because he was not in Australia.[1]
On 18 November 2015, the applicant sought review of the suspension decision. The reason for the request was recorded as:[2]

CUS department Australia to attend the funeral of the 5yo daughter of a close friend.

The Rules say:

The Table prescribes the prerequisites for portability that attach to the specified social security pensions. Table item 15 provides that a temporary absence of up to six weeks may be considered an allowable absence if the recipient of Newstart allowance is absent for any of the following purposes:

(a) to seek eligible medical treatment;
(b) to attend to an acute family crisis;
(c) for a humanitarian purpose.

CONSIDERATION

The applicant was absent from Australia because he was attending the funeral of Ms Gabon’s child to provide support to Ms Gabon. Section 1212A(c) provides that a person's absence is for the purpose of attending to an acute family crisis at a particular time if that absence was for a purpose relating to the death of a family member.

CONCLUSION

From 3 November 2013 to 6 December 2016 the applicant was temporarily absent from Australia. The applicant’s Newstart allowance was to be suspended during this period unless the absence was an allowable absence within the meaning of s 1217 of the Act.
There is no evidence that the applicant was absent because he was seeking eligible medical treatment. Nor is there any evidence that he was absent for a humanitarian purpose.
I am satisfied that the applicant was absent for a purpose relating to a death, namely, that of Ms Gabon’s child. I am not satisfied that the applicant and Ms Gabon were members of a couple within the meaning of s 4 of the Act. They were not in a de facto relationship because they were living separately and apart on a permanent basis.
I am not satisfied that Ms Gabon’s child was a family member of the applicant. There is no evidence that the applicant was the biological father of Ms Gabon’s child nor that had he adopted the child. Moreover, the applicant never actually met Ms Gabon’s child in person. For this reason I cannot exercise the discretion set out under s 23(14)(c) of the Act to find that Ms Gabon’s child should be treated as a family member of the applicant.

DECISION

I affirm the decision under review.

.......................................................................................

Hard

www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/AATA/2016/848.html

[Banjo]

And here we have a refusal where the guy has genuinely gone overseas for surgery related to his condition.

INTRODUCTION

The applicant, Mr David York has received the disability support pension since 2010.
On 2 October 2015, Mr York departed Australia for India. Mr York had surgery for ‘limb lengthening and correction’ to ‘his left and right femurs’ at the Ashwinii Accident Hospital and Polyclinic in Mumbai, India on 14 October 2015.

www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/AATA/2016/802.html

[mikey]

It seems the Australian has started posting AAT decisions, starting to feel like a conspiracy. They named and shamed the tribunal judge last week when he granted UP on final appeal.

This references The Newstart case above.
 
Dole rejected for online ‘father’ travelling to Philippines

An unemployed man who used video calls to date a woman from The Philippines has lost his fight to have the dole paid while he travelled overseas for more than a month to attend the funeral of her daughter, whom he had not met.

Duncan Brady was granted the $530-a-fortnight Newstart Allowance in October 2011 after a failed bid to access the more generous Disability Support Pension, and began an online relationship with Christina Gabon, a resident of The Philippines, in 2013.

Ms Gabon described the relationship as being one “bound by love” in a letter to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and, in his evidence, Mr Brady said that “Ms Gabon’s daughter considered him to be her father although she is not his biological daughter”.

When the five-year-old daughter died, Mr Brady travelled to The Philippines from November 3 last year to December 6 to provide support for Ms Gabon.

“This was the first time that it appears the applicant and Ms Gabon had been in the same physical location together,” tribunal deputy president Peter McDermott said in his decision last month.

Mr Brady’s dole was suspended on November 3 because, under the legislation, a person can be paid Newstart outside of the country only if they are travelling for approved medical treatment, an acute family crisis or for a “humanitarian” purpose, such as overseas adoption.

Dr McDermott said there was no evidence to support the pair were in a serious relationship.

He found the Department of Human Services acted appropriately in suspending Mr Brady’s allowance.

[Banjo]

They would have been disappointed in the result, could have really made a hue and cry over it.

[mikey]

They've got the Social affairs editor now dropping telegraph style stories. The Murdoch press had always spread the "welfare character assassination" stories among a few state rags, but now in the Australian regularly, they are going all out to swing the electorate back to the "tougher than trump, tougher than pauline" liberals.