i know what you mean ali. is there a reason why they are changing it anyway? and dont they usually change these things per financial year, not calendar year! its a bit of a bugger.
Maybe it's to stop people 'having babies for the money' which the MAJORITY don't, but it's always the minority who ruin it for people?
Also maybe to encourage mums to stay home for the first 6 months with a 'wage' type payment?
Really have no idea but those are the 2 reason that come to mind.
there are more than just the change to method of payment- from january one it will also be income tested (if you and partner earn more than 75k in first 6 months post birth, you don't qualify)
the reason being (and there has been a huge thread on this somewhere) - it will no longer be an automatic payment - it is being moved to another "welfare" payment for low and middle income families. the government decided at budget time that the "plasma bonus" as it had been labelled by the owner of harvey norman, was no longer appropriate. in a lump sum, it was rarely helping to support families on the birth of their child
this payment is supposed to be the start of a move towards having a degree of paid maternity leave for parents. it's a small step, but it's a start. in most circumstances, people will have everything for baby in advance - and what they don't have, they will most likely be paying off (car seat or cot if you have a bassinette already) - as it is at the moment, it can take up to 3 weeks after claim is lodged to get your payment, so it's not an automatic "baby here, money here, lets get everything" situation. part of it has come about by the information getting to the government that wages need to be stable (or income coming in) to try for a breast feeding relationship for that first six months
personally, i can see both sides to the argument - most people have been responsible and used it to budget over time, but some haven't. it's better spent, in the eyes of the goverment, to supplement a wage of sorts over a period of time. there are very few people that were pregnant at the time of the announcement that will be impacted by this change, hence the reason it changed January 1 2009 instead of July 1 2008.
I can understand why it has been done the way that it has but I would prefer the lump sum as there are a number of instances where it would be better off as a lump sum. For example DD was an unplanned c/s and jaundiced so when I got home from hospital I had additional specialist costs that hadn't been budgeted for initially so it was handy to be able to use the bonus to pay for that.
Also I would much prefer to have the lump sum to use to pay my mortgage while I am on maternity leave - the pittance you get on a fortnightly basis goes nowhere near paying a mortgage repayment. It just means more money shuffling between accounts for us
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