Who is eligible for a pension bonus?
In order to receive a pension bonus from DVA, a person must:
- have been eligible prior to 20 September 2009,
- be registered for the scheme prior to 1 July 2014,
- be eligible for, and defers claiming a designated pension, and
- satisfy all relevant statutory criteria for the scheme.
The target group includes people who:
- meet the age criteria -
- veterans with qualifying service who are of veteran pension age,
- persons of pension age who are eligible for partner service pension and,
- war widows/widowers of qualifying age who are eligible for income support supplement,
- have not received an excluded payment since special date of eligibility (except carer payment, carer service pension or carer income support supplement), and
- remain in the workforce beyond pension age, or qualifying age, beyond their special date of eligibility, or who have a partner who remains in the workforce and meets the other eligibility criteria.
Who can register for the scheme?
From 1 July 2014 the Pension Bonus Scheme was closed to new registrations.
Designated pension and residency
To register for the scheme, a person must have been eligible to receive a designated pension. A person must have:
- satisfied the requirements for the respective pension, and
- have met Australian residency requirements.
Note: Proof of Identity was not required at time of registration for the scheme, but the delegate must have had sufficient information to determine the person's eligibility for the designated pension.
VEA designated pension
There are three different types of designated pensions that could have been deferred by a member of the pension bonus scheme under the VEA. These were:
- age service pension,
- income support supplement payable to a person of qualifying age, and
- partner service pension payable to a person of pension age
Social Security designated pension
The age pension is a designated pension for the Centrelink scheme.
Income support restrictions
To receive a pension bonus a person must not have received the following at any time after the person's special date of eligibility:
- a social security pension (other than a carer payment),
- a social security benefit,
- a service pension (other than a carer service pension), or
- an income support supplement (other than an income support supplement paid to a carer).
The person cannot have received another pension bonus paid under the VEA or the social security law.
Exceptional circumstances relief payment (ECRP) is not an excluded payment. It is paid by Centrelink on behalf of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and does not come under the SSA.
Note: Some DFISA recipients may have been receiving a nil rate of social security payment, but are still taken to have been receiving that payment. DFISA was removed 1 January 2022 and there was an increase in the social security payment because adjusted disability pension became exempt under the Social Security Act 1991.
Impact of DFISA on pension bonus eligibility
A person cannot receive a pension bonus if they received DFISA after their special date of eligibility. However, this does not apply if the primary payment of the person was a carer payment.