Clients with dependent children - 50% protection

Sanctions are applied differently for:

• sole parent clients who fail their obligations
• couples with dependent children who both fail their obligations

Clients and partners in these situations do not have their whole benefit sanctioned. Instead, a maximum sanction of 50% of the total benefit may be imposed. The balance payable is known as 50% protection.

For more information, including treatment of supplementary assistance, see:

• Sanctions for sole parents
• Sanctions for a couple with dependent children - both fail their obligations

The 50% protection also applies to these two groups if they are subject to a 13 week non-entitlement period for voluntarily leaving employment without a good and sufficient reason, dismissal due to misconduct, or refusing to accept any offer of suitable employment.

Note if a client has more than one obligation failure initiated on the same day, only 1 sanction can be imposed on the client. For the sanction to be lifted, the client must dispute or recomply with all the obligation failures.

For more information see:

• Recompliance