RTZT and Secretary, Department of Social Services (Social security second review)

[2025] ARTA 1498

RTZT and Secretary, Department of Social Services (Social security second review) [2025] ARTA 1498 (15 August 2025)

Applicant/s: RTZT

Respondent:  Secretary, Department of Social Services

Tribunal Number:                2024/10683

Tribunal:Senior Member M Kennedy

Place:Adelaide

Date:15 August 2025

Decision:The decision under review is affirmed

Statement made on 15 August 2025 at 4:01pm

Names used in all published decisions are pseudonyms. Any references appearing in square brackets indicate that information has been removed from this decision and replaced with generic information so as not to identify involved individuals as required by subsections 201(1A) - 201(1B) of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999

Catchwords

SOCIAL SECURITY – start date – claim commenced but not lodged – no deemed earlier lodgement date identifiable – ordinary waiting period applied – decision affirmed

Legislation
Social Security (Administration) Act 1999

Statement of Reasons

1. Ms RTZT was granted jobseeker payment from 19 October 2023. Ms RTZT is aggrieved with this decision because she considers she should have been paid from an earlier date, as she believed she had lodged her claim earlier than was found by Centrelink.

2. Ms RTZT requested review, but Centrelink affirmed its decision on 30 April 2024.  Ms RTZT then applied for review in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) on 25 July 2024.

3. On 14 October 2024, the AAT was abolished and the Administrative Review Tribunal commenced operations. Under the transitional provisions in the Administrative Review Tribunal (Consequential and Transitional Provisions No. 1) Act 2024 (the Transitional Act), applications for review that were not finalised by the AAT before 14 October 2024 were taken to be applications for review to the Administrative Review Tribunal (hereafter the Tribunal). The Transitional Act gave the Tribunal the authority to continue and finalise any aspect of the review not already completed.

4. On 4 November 2024 the Tribunal also affirmed Centrelink’s decision, finding that Ms RTZT had in fact lodged her claim on 12 October 2023, and had only commenced but not completed and lodged a claim in May 2023.  The AAT accepted that Ms RTZT had attended a Centrelink office for assistance at about that time, and it was regrettable that no one appeared to have checked Centrelink’s computer system to see that the claim had not been lodged at the time of her enquiry.  However, the AAT concluded that the correct start date had been identified after applying the ordinary waiting period.

5. Ms RTZT applied for social services second review of the decision on 12 November 2024.

6. The documentary evidence for this second review of the decision consists of the Tribunal papers.

   CONSIDERATION

7. The start date for payment of a social security payment is regulated by social security law.

8. Section 11 of the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 (the Administration Act) states that for a person to receive a social security payment they must lodge a claim, and section 16 of that Act specifies the method by which a claim is lodged. In the ordinary course of events, if otherwise qualified, the start day for the payment will be the day on which the claim is made: subclause 3(1) of Schedule 2 to the Administration Act.

9. There are provisions that operate as a limited practical modification to this general rule. For example, section 13 of the Administration Act allows for a claim to be ‘deemed’ to be made when a person first contacts Services Australia about making a claim, provided the completed claim is lodged within either 14 days or 13 weeks, depending on the circumstances. These provisions will apply where a person falls within a class of persons specified in a legislative instrument: the Social Security (Administration) (Class of Persons – Intent to Claim) Determination 2018.

10. The making of the claim, including online claims, is more than the mere commencement of the claim process.  The claim process must be completed with the relevant concluding declarations made, akin to the signing and lodgement of a paper claim form.

11. Ms RTZT explained that she had claimed social security payments before, and was familiar with the need to complete the claim process.  She explained that contrary to what the authorised review officer understood her argument to be, she was not arguing that she did not consider it necessary to lodge her claim.  Ms RTZT’s case was that in the case of the claim she commenced on or about 6 May 2023, she believed she had in fact completed the claim and lodged it.  Ms RTZT described encountering some difficulties regarding the system requiring her to lodge material about shares.  She recalled being aware of this difficulty, and decided to attend the Centrelink office at Nundah for assistance.  She did not understand the claim had not in fact been lodged at all.

12. Ms RTZT’s recollection of that visit, which was approximate to the time of her claim, was that the staff were helpful, but very busy.  She was assured that someone would contact her if there was a problem with her claim, and the claims processing area was also very busy.  Ms RTZT recalls that no one asked for her Customer Reference Number and no one accessed the computer system to confirm that the claim her enquiry related to was in fact in the system.

13. Centrelink’s records[1] do establish that an ‘unfinalised claim’ was available from 6 May 2023, but there is no record consistent with its completion and lodgement.  Indeed the records that are available demonstrate it was not lodged.  A record refers to ‘push’ correspondence being sent on that date, which I suspect refers to a push notification, perhaps on the Centrelink or MyGov app and this push correspondence refers to it as an unfinalised claim.  The same record shows that on 13 May 2023 an ‘EML’ (email) was sent entitled ‘Claim on Hold Notification’.  Ms RTZT was unable to recall the email, and there is no copy of the actual email before me.  It suggests however that an email was sent to Ms RTZT to remind her she had an unfinished claim requiring action.

    [1] Folio 53 of the Tribunal papers

14. The process commenced in May 2023 lapsed, and upon discovering that had occurred, Ms RTZT lodged another claim.[2]  In due course the claim was granted with the start date identified to be 19 October 2023, after the expiry of the ordinary waiting period required by section 620 of the Act.

    [2] Folio 20

15. I am not satisfied that the claim commenced on or about 6 May 2023 was lodged. I am satisfied that it was commenced but not lodged.  As mentioned above, the social security law requires that a claim be lodged rather than merely commenced before the start date can be identified. It is indeed unfortunate that when Ms RTZT went to Centrelink for assistance, staff did not check the computer system that would have established that the claim had not been lodged.  In this regard, I note Ms RTZT confirmed she was aware of the availability of the scheme for compensation for detriment caused by defective administration (CDDA).

16. The claim that was lodged is recorded to have been lodged on 12 October 2023[3]. Ms RTZT does not rely on any circumstances that may be covered by section 13 of the Administration Act, and there is no evidence to indicate she would fall within the class of persons specified in the Determination in that regard. There is also no evidence of contact with the Department in the 13 weeks prior to the actual lodgement of the claim. For completeness, I also note that no issue arises in relation to an incorrect claim being lodged for the purposes of considering section 15 of the Administration Act, nor any question of Ms RTZT becoming eligible for jobseeker payment upon ceasing to be eligible for another income support payment for the purposes of considering section 12 of the Administration Act.

    [3] Folio 20

17. As I have found that Ms RTZT did not lodge a claim in relation to the process commenced in May 2023, and cannot be taken to have lodged a claim under any of the applicable provisions prior to when she actually lodged her claim on 12 October 2023, Ms RTZT’s start date is to be identified by reference to that date of lodgement.

18. No issue was raised with the application of the ordinary waiting period, which the Secretary contends was the only applicable waiting period at that time.  I am satisfied that the correct start date for Ms RTZT provided for by the social security law has been identified.

19. Finally, I note in her written submissions Ms RTZT advanced an argument that perhaps her attendance at the Centrelink office might be viewed as a request for review which she had made within 13 weeks of the commencement of her claim.  On further discussion on this point Ms RTZT appears to be using the term ‘review’ in the sense of an enquiry or looking into her file or circumstances at large.  The legislative provisions Ms RTZT refers to in this aspect of her argument however use the term ‘review’ in a different sense, being the sense of a reconsideration of a decision, and specifically a reviewable decision.  At the time of her visit to the Centrelink office, Centrelink had not made any decision as there had been no claim to consider (from Centrelink’s perspective, and as I have found, in accordance with the social security law), and there was no decision to review in the sense that the term is used in those provisions of the legislation.

    DECISION

    The decision under review is affirmed.