Baby bonus backdated?

I put in a claim for PPP several weeks ago, and also a baby bonus claim.

My PPP claim hit a system error with no ETA on when it will be resolved, and apparently this is holding up my FTA and baby bonus claims, which both SHOULD have been processed by now. And because I'm not on any payments my FTA/B has been cut down to $250pf. So for the meantime, $250pf for me and 3 kids is all I get which is really screwing with our budget.

Will I get backpaid the missing FTA/B/baby bonus? We wanted to use it for a house deposit and the longer we get screwed around with no income the longer it will take to get that house. And of course my CC is almost maxed now paying for regular expenses while I have no income.

Yep, you will.

What a PITA several times over though - ggrrrrrrrrrrr

Good to know, they've been telling me it starts when it starts so if it is delayed by a month ... no backpay :(

They have no idea what is wrong. Just "computer says no".

Providing you've started the claim within the time frame, then they will pay the baby bonus from the bubs date of birth. Which you have. Very frustrating that you've got to wait, hopefully the system errors are fixed soon for you.

I'm currently on hold with a nice but confused customer service guy. They had my local office set to Blacktown. Sydney. I'm in SA!

Oh dear! Good luck with that lol

your ftba will be backdated
baby bonus probably won't - it's paid in 13 equal installments starting on the date of first processing. it doesn't get backdated or paid in lumps sums like other payments.


ETA - sorry Jodi - with the changes that started everyone being paid baby bonus in installments, it all changed - it's no longer backdated.

So if the processing was stuffed by a system error it would be too bad??? EW!

i don't think it would go back lulu - there may be a way around it but given that the payments will still get made in the installments for an equal period, i don't believe it does.

it sucks that it doesn't go back, but the person doesn't miss out on anything - it just gets paid for 13 installments from now.
ftb and ppp will get back paid - it's just the baby bonus
you can't even change the day you get paid baby bonus to meet budgeting needs - it gets paid when it gets paid... not exactly a well thought out situation

major bummer!
rumpledElf - how'd you go on the phone this afternoon, get anything sorted?

aah, yeah I get it.

Of course not well thought out - doesn't it drive you nuts when they roll out something new and you can pick 5 holes in it from the start?? :rolleyes:

only 5?? lol

i have read about a quarter of the info re the new paid parental leave and the holes in it are horrid. it's going to be nasty to implement, people are going to lose out in ways they don't realise. as much as it's a theoretical step forward for Australia, the way the policy is written, it really isn't going to help as many people as they make out. even the examples they've put on FAO website i can pick holes in - they haven't outlined the numbers equally for the BB vs PPL examples! it's very obvious that the people making the policies don't actually NEED these payments to survive cos they have no idea how they impact on REAL people.

I have an appointment today at my local branch (ie, not Sydney!) with instructions to 'just bring everything you can think of' and they'll allegedly sort out as much backpay as possible and get an emergency payment.

Not that it matters now, partner has his first full DSP payment today and I've just got the last two weeks rent so me not being paid isn't so critical for emergency payments, but no less annoying that I've got $250 from them in the last 3 weeks. I'm not working at the moment so my usual other source of income is completely missing. Going to be nice being able to go on a major shopping spree today - food!

The guy said I shouldn't have been cut off newstart until the new payment was processed. They cut me off it cold turkey, paid me a few days worth of it the next day, cut my FTA down and haven't sent me a cent since.

Still doesn't help we had several of the regular bills bounce because I was getting paid less than expected and we had to engage damage control, and my CC is almost maxed so I'm paying 20% interest instead of being able to use Real Money.

This screwup has put us a month behind in saving for the new house too. So much for getting the deposit together for Christmas. We need a savings record for the bank too ... so just one month longer with a baby in our bedroom thanks to Centrelink. He'd better still fit in the bassinet at 7 months. Blah.

Well I got the PPP sorted today - $800 backpay owing for 3 weeks O_o

Considering I only get paid $150 a week that does not compute. Some of the backpay was newstart. I think they are working things out differently now my partner is on a pension - the backpay extended well before my new claim. They are paying me much more than they were before my partner's pension claim went in. Bizarre.

Amazing what you can do after 2 hours on hold and an hour in the Centrelink office. And it was so slow we missed the bank opening hours (why do banks close at 4pm?) even though my appt was at 2:45 so now it'll be another two weeks before we can go back to the bank in business hours ... that's a whole other story.

if your partners dsp was backdated, the impact of your earnings on your newstart prior to the claim being granted would be more
and if you had a kidlet a few weeks ago, you would have no income, so your back pay would be around 410 per fn for full rate ppp

He got a few $hundred backpay a couple of weeks ago, they took close to 3 months to process his claim. I wonder if having backpay owing for my old payment and the new one was the 'system error' that screwed up my claim? I wasn't on newstart very long, I think I was on about 8 weeks when my pregnancy exemption got processed so I ended up with two completely different copies of a couple of forms. Very confusing. The job network people I got set up with pretty much brushed me off when I had my first appt as it was sorta obvious I wouldn't be on longterm.

Actually they're giving me $390 so apparently not the full rate (I have rental income that obviously isn't affected by me not working), but that's still a lot more than I was getting before, and I got the guy to check my income details and they were all there ok. Last time I got PPP $390 *was* the full rate!

Last thing I needed was to get overpaid and owe them so good to see its above board and I'm not going insane :)

I don't trust the FTA/B to magically fix itself but I'll give it a few days of feverishly checking the self-service website before I call again lol

full rate PPP is around 410 or 417 depending on whether you are deemed to need pharmaceutical allowance

Still waiting ... they told me they allow 21 days after recieving the baby bonus paperwork before they do your FTA/baby bonus but it might still take longer. They told me when the 21 days runs out - August 3rd. And there seems to be no way to speed the process up.

If there's no backpay coming, then the baby bonus/FTA clearly isn't set up to be a maternity leave substitute payment if it takes a month from sending the forms in to getting paid - longer if they just add it to your regular payment.

That's very slow - I've had the birth certificate for weeks now, it arrived a few days after we posted it in.

Ah, I see now why it isn't backdated - a google for 'how long does it take to get the baby bonus' gets answers ranging from 'a few days' to 'about a week' after you post the forms. I had the baby a month ago and sent the forms in within a day or two and I'm missing FTA from over a month ago.

Starting to get really annoyed that this is taking SO DAMN LONG and the idiot woman I spoke to on the phone last week says they won't even do anything until it has been waiting in their queue for 21 days. So how does everyone else except me get it so fast? :angry:

I guess I was just expected to happily divide the $252 they were giving me out between 3 kids for a couple of months until someone noticed the system error on their own and actually told me, or they found me starving in a corner or something cos that plus the rent I get minus rental expenses does NOT cover food/bills/nappies.

As you can see this is starting to really annoy me.

You must be so frustrated! I can't believe it's still processing. Mine has already been processed and paid and DD3 is only a week old. Hopefully not too much longer for you now. :pray:

Another phone call this morning and FIXED - I got about $700 backpay for this, and $800 backpay for the original system error. Its going to be nice getting more than $250 a fortnight again.

Any later and I would have been quite livid, the electricity meter reading woman came on Friday and that always means a very large bill, so its just as well I'm finally being paid again. We've had a couple of direct debits bounce in the last couple of weeks because I have been getting paid so much less than I normally do, let alone the missing extra money for the new baby.

*does happy dance that it is finally over*