Lau and Secretary, Department of Social Services (Social services second review)

This matter concerned an application for review of a decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) concerning the payment of Youth Allowance. The applicant, Ms Lau, had made an initial claim for Youth Allowance on 7 February 2015, which was subsequently rejected on multiple occasions. A further claim was lodged on 10 March 2016, which was eventually granted with payments commencing from that date. The dispute centred on whether the payments should have been backdated to the date of the first claim in February 2015.

The primary legal issue before the court was whether the applicant was entitled to have her Youth Allowance payments backdated to the date of her initial claim in February 2015, notwithstanding that her second claim, lodged in March 2016, was the one that was ultimately successful. This involved an examination of the legislative provisions governing the commencement date of social security payments.

The court reasoned that the decision in respect of the applicant's first claim was final and could not be reviewed. Regarding the second claim, the court noted the applicant's assertion that she was advised by a Centrelink staff member that lodging a new claim as a dependent would result in backdated payments to her original claim date. However, the court found that the relevant legislation, specifically Clause 3 of Schedule 2 of the Administration Act, established a general rule that the commencement date for payment is the day on which the claim is made. As the second claim was made on 10 March 2016, this was determined to be the correct start date for payments. The court concluded that there was no legislative basis to backdate the payments to a date prior to the lodgement of the successful claim.

Consequently, the application for review was unsuccessful, and the decision of the AAT, which affirmed the commencement date of 10 March 2016, was upheld.