Compensation for household services is only payable for those domestic tasks that a veteran used to undertake but is now unable to perform as a direct result of an injury or disease for which liability has been accepted.
When determining whether household services are reasonably required, a delegate must therefore be satisfied that:
- a specific task is in scope for the household services program; and
- the veteran actually undertook the specific household service task prior to their service-related injury or disease.
When considering the type and level of service that may be considered, each case must be considered on its own merits, with reference to:
- the impact of the veteran’s accepted conditions on their ability to manage specific domestic tasks in scope for the household services program;
- evidence provided to support the claim (which may include evidence from the household services claim form, the Activities of Daily Living assessment report or from a suitably qualified health professional who understands the client’s needs); and
- evidence that the veteran actually undertook a specific task within the scope of the household services program before they were injured or became unwell during their ADF service.
The Explanatory Memorandum to the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Bill 2003 explained this issue as follows (the extract below is from Clause 215):
"Whether or not the injured or ill person provided these services before the injury or disease, and the degree to which the condition for which liability has been accepted, restricts the person’s ability to continue providing the services are considerations. Household services are normally only provided if those services were personally undertaken before the injury or disease. For example, if the person paid a lawn mowing contractor to do the lawns before the injury or illness then the person would not be eligible for supply of lawn mowing services regardless of the capacity to mow the lawn after the illness or injury."
This means, for example:
pool cleaning cannot be approved as a household service unless the veteran was living in a house with a pool prior to the date of their service-related injury or disease, and was always responsible for cleaning the pool; and
if the veteran’s partner has always been responsible for cleaning their shared home, and doing all the washing and ironing, then house cleaning and laundry services are not reasonably required to compensate the veteran for tasks they used to, but can no longer, do.