Contents
Advance Payment of Benefit : Contents

Hardship obligations

All clients and their partners who apply for Special Needs Grants, Advance Payments of Benefit, and Recoverable Assistance Payments, may have the following hardship obligations:

  • a reasonable steps obligation and/or
  • a budgeting activity obligation

Generally, clients must meet any hardship obligations that have been applied to them before they can get additional hardship assistance.

These obligations do not apply to:

Note you must make sure the client is getting their correct entitlement at every interaction with them.

Newborns

When a client is the principal caregiver of a child 12 months of age or younger, you must consider the presence of the newborn when deciding whether or not to apply hardship obligations. This includes a principal temporary caregiver of a child for whom Orphans Benefit or Unsupported Childs Benefit is paid.

Multiple obligations

Depending on the client’s circumstances at the time, they may have none, one or both of the hardship obligations applied to them.

For more information see:

Legislation

  • Advance payment of instalments of benefit section 347 Social Security Act 2018
  • Requirement for beneficiary, spouse or partner, or both, to undertake budgeting activity section 348 Social Security Act 2018
  • Advance payment of benefits regulations 201-204 Social Security Regulations 2018
  • Exercise of Discretion clause 6.4 Direction on Advance Payments of Instalments of Benefit
Top

For Orphans Benefit or Unsupported Childs Benefit, the principal temporary caregiver is the person who has the primary responsibility for the day-to-day care of the child for a short-term, unknown, or uncertain period, and is not the natural or adoptive parent of the child.