baby bonus

Hey everyone,

i just thought of a centrelink question. Might sound silly, but most of my questions do. haha

In regards to the baby bonus ($5000). What do i need to organise for this? Do i go into Centrelink and fill out paper work now? Do i do it at the hospital after bub is born (im at a public hospital)? I really have no idea and was thinking you ladies may be able to help. And when does the government give you the money? is there a waiting period?

Im a queeslander (dont know if that makes any difference)

Oh also, does anyone know much about family tax benefit a (might be b, my memory has been terrible lately). Do i need to organise that now, or do i do this after bubs arrival?

very boring questions i know, hopefully im not the only clueless one here and someone else has been thinking the same things!hehe

-telly tubby
(30 weeks today!! yay!) :dance:

Firstly the baby bonus is only $4,133. It will be indexed this month and will be slightly more, but I don't know if it is indexed at the start or the end of the month.

When bubs is born they will give you the necessary paperwork to fill in as they need to put a label on the back stating that the baby was born at xyz hospital, the midwife and Dr attending and date etc. They will also give you a form from Births, Death's and Marriages to register the birth and one for medicare as well. You then send the forms into all the necessary departments with the correct paper work. If this is your first time claiming from Centrelink, you will need to provide a fair amount of information but on the guide book for the form it will tell you what you need.

ditto to the above, but I would just like to add that you can check out the family assistance website and get an approximation of what you will be paid, as well as all the proceedures.

You can actually fill out some of the info online, I'd advise you to take a look at the centrelink website or call the call centre, they will be able to help you in more detail.

Hi ladys

I actually have a ? re this as well - it's been 8 years since the last time I did this! I seem to remember it used to be the case with equivalent of the parenting payment ages ago, that the Govt. withheld some of it until you'd had your baby immunised.

Is that still the case? Or do they just pay it all up front these days?

Beka

you get all of it, but after your child had its 18 month immunisations (which i think is now just the chicken pox one) you get an extra $220 or something similar... it automatically goes into your account once the immunisation is registered with the immnisation register.

HTH

Tellytubby

Have a look at this link to centerlink it's actually quite helpfull. There is no waiting period for the maternity bonus, and as i have discovered it's tax exempt and no qualifications just having a baby ( i thought i didn't qualify ,what a nice surprise i got) just go through the index and you'll find what info you need.

hope it helps :)

Beka - There is now a separate immunisation payment that you get after bubs has their 18 month shots (as Kat said). However, my understanding was that you had to actually submit some kind of claim for it - not that it got paid automatically. You have to claim it befor your baby turns 2. I could be wrong but thought I read that on the centrelink site...

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it automatically goes into your account once the immunisation is registered with the immnisation register.

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Not always. If they don't have an account on record for you or the one they have is no longer valid you will not get it automatically. We found out the hard way!! We had to go to the medicare office & make the claim in person, showing them Zander's blue book as proof. If you leave after they turn two you will miss out as well, we were lucky in that we realised two weeks before his birthday!

with the maternity immunisation allowance, you make your initial claim when you claim for your baby bonus (the $4133 - which goes up to $4187 after September 20) - you can ask them at that time to link your medicare number to your childs file and it will then automatically be paid when bubs is around 19-20 months old (provided you're up to date) - it used to be all injections up to 18months, but seeing chicken pox is no longer compulsory, it just checks once your baby is 18 months old that you've had all needles up to and including the 12 month one - if it isn't paid by your childs second birthday you may not receive it - but if you apply for it now (which is automatic for all new claims these days) centrelink will make sure it happens

for the baby bonus - you can register your claim online or over the phone - it's pretty simple - all the intructions will be on the form you get at the hospital when bubs is born. the form you receive has babies proof of borth on the back, signed by the doctor/midwife, and is the claim for baby bonus, family tax benefit, maternity immunisation allowance AND medicare. you also HAVE to apply to register babies birth with births/deaths/marriages otherwise your bonus wont be paid

hth's
BG

Aah yes that's what the problem was with us now you mention BG, when we registered Zander's birth we didn't have the medicare card updated yet so they didn't have his medicare details.

yep, I realised after DD had turned 2 that I missed out on the immunisation payment.

Nic

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Aah yes that's what the problem was with us now you mention BG, when we registered Zander's birth we didn't have the medicare card updated yet so they didn't have his medicare details.

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i think a lot of people had this issue Sarah so the claim is all done together now - the only way it's not linked up is if you say you're not happy for centrelink/fao to collect your medicare number and link the details... most people do the automatic option - soooooooo much easier!

Thanx everyone. That's good to know that they don't hold you to ransom over the immunisations for the baby bonus. There's a couple of them this time around that I'm undecided on consenting for - amazing how much changes in 8 years!

Sue, did you have that link? Oh, maybe it was removed on purpose I see.

We just did ours not long ago, basically we filled the form in online and then waited for Leilas birth certificate to arrive. Once it did we then took that into a medicare office along with the printed out form that we done online (which she didnt need anyway) - they processed everything there and a few weeks later we got the baby bonus. Its alot easier doing that way if your able to as everything is sorted with your medicare cards aswell.

Beka- FYI
The baby bonus is not linked to the immunisation payment. You can lodge a form as a conscientious objector to having your chn immunised and still get the immunisation payment, as they cannot discriminate against people who do not have medical procedures that the government demands. You have to visit your GP, listen to the pros and cons of immunisation and then get him/her to sign the form. Then you lodge it as normal for your payment.

thanks for all of your replies,
everything seems a lot clearer.
I might give centrelink a call just to confirm everything and make sure all is organised.

thanks again
-telly tubby

With the family benefit tax they said that Dad2be would get $140 extra money a fortnight back in tax and if I worked I'd get a max of $120 back if we didn't go over about $45k a yr combined income. Do you see that each week or do u claim it back at the end of the yr? what happens?

the family tax benefit can be claimed either fortnightly or at the end of the tax year as a lump sum.