It may be the case that a person is held not to be wholly dependent for economic support on an employee if that person is also, in addition to that employee's support, in receipt of:

• a form of State or Commonwealth income support by way of unemployment benefit or job search allowance or education allowance etc.
• Centrelink sickness or invalidity payments
• State or Commonwealth workers compensation payments for incapacity for work, and/or
• any other Government or charity income replacement scheme.

This would be the case if that person was at least partly relying on that payment for their economic support.

However, as indicated in 1.16, the receipt by the person of such a payment does not of itself preclude a determination that the person was wholly dependent for economic support on the deceased.  Further, some Government benefits are excluded by the Act – or by Defence Determination – from consideration when a delegate is determining the state of economic dependency (on the employee) of a particular dependant.

Subsection 4(7) of the SRCA says:

In ascertaining, for the purposes of this Act, other than Subsection 17(5), whether a child is or was dependent upon an employee, any amount of:

a)family tax benefit calculated under Part 2 or 3 of Schedule 1 to the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999 (an individual's Part A rate), and

b)carer allowance under that Act, and

c)double orphan pension under that Act,

shall not be taken into account.

A similar limitation on taking account of Government benefits is in the Defence Determination.